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Commons Chamber

Volume 732: debated on Wednesday 10 May 2023

House of Commons

Wednesday 10 May 2023

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Northern Ireland

The Secretary of State was asked—

Power Sharing

First, let me say that it was fantastic to see all those from across the political spectrum come together to celebrate the coronation of His Majesty the King at the weekend. I would like to put on record my thanks to the staff at the royal palaces and Hillsborough Castle, who helped to make the weekend such a success. More than 5,000 people attended different events in the gardens, which were opened to the public by Mo Mowlam, a previous incumbent of my role.

The Government are working tirelessly towards the return of devolved government. The Windsor framework delivers stability for the people of Northern Ireland and protects its place in the Union. I remain in close contact with all the political parties and will continue to do everything I can to facilitate the restoration of the Executive.

I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s comments about the coronation. May I pay tribute the staff of the House who were working that day for their professionalism and for making everything so wonderful for those of us who watched the coronation from the House of Commons with our families?

I wonder whether the Secretary of State has had the opportunity to look at the recent Northern Ireland Fiscal Council report entitled “Updated estimate of the relative need for public spending in Northern Ireland”. If he has, will he be acting on it? What are his views on parity across the UK?

Yes, I have and I met the chair of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council, Sir Robert Chote, last week to go through the report’s findings, and I will have further such meetings. The whole debate about funding and the Barnett formula is ongoing. It is almost part of the ongoing local elections, so I shall steer clear of giving a specific answer today, but I have read the report and met its authors.

Last month, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, but there is currently no fully functional Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive. Given that large areas of policy are devolved to Northern Ireland, including health and social care, education, culture, transport and local government, that is a matter of immense concern. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the lack of a power sharing Executive in Stormont on the day-to-day lives of the people of Northern Ireland?

The hon. Lady is right to intimate that there is a great effect on the delivery of public services in Northern Ireland, which is ongoing. That is why everyone is working hard to try to get the Executive restored and the Assembly sitting; it is so that Stormont can work and so that decisions about public services across the piece in Northern Ireland can be made by people elected by the people those public services affect.

Given the hugely advantageous position Northern Ireland now finds itself in, as was outlined by the Prime Minister when the Windsor accord was announced, is it not time that power sharing was restored and that the Secretary of State perhaps considered a deadline for the restoration of power sharing?

The hon. Gentleman speaks many a wise word. However, the one thing I have learned in my role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is that deadlines are deadly and it is pointless setting timelines on things. The right thing to do is to get the job done properly so that when the Executive come back, they can be there for a very long time, and that is what everyone is working towards.

It has been 15 months since we had an Executive at Stormont. Our health service has basically collapsed, and our economy is not taking up the opportunity provided by the Windsor framework and the protocol. Surely now it is time for the Secretary of State to look at a greater role for the Irish Government in the affairs of Northern Ireland.

As I say, all my efforts at this point in time are going into getting the Executive restored. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point of view and the principles he stands by. I respect those, but the right thing to do now is to work hard with all the political parties, including his, to get the Executive restored.

May I join in the congratulations about the coronation and say to you, Mr Speaker, that we all thought you represented us very well? Given the concerns that have been expressed about changes in EU law about the movement of goods, does the Secretary of State agree that it is important to get the Assembly up and running so that the Stormont brake can be used if necessary?

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his question and thank him again for the work that he does as co-chair of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, which is one of the forums in which we will be able to discuss these matters and start to solve any issues that arise in future. I want to get the Assembly up and running, and I believe—truly—that the Windsor framework strengthens Northern Ireland’s place within our Union and delivers extra checks and balances for Stormont, but the only way that we can see whether those actually work is if Stormont is sitting.

Power sharing has collapsed several times since its introduction. In addition to my right hon. Friend’s efforts to restore power sharing, what work is being done to ensure that devolved government in Northern Ireland is based on a more stable foundation?

I thank my hon. Friend for his interest in this space. When power sharing is working in Northern Ireland, it is proven to work very well. Indeed, it has brought huge benefits across the piece, from the delivery of public services to the economy and elsewhere. As a previous questioner intimated, there is now a massive opportunity for Northern Ireland as we move forward, but we do need the Executive to be formed. In a speech that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave at the events to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, he said that the first thing we need to do is to get the Executive up and running, and I agree with him entirely. Further conversations can happen after that.

We have recently been reminded of some of the lessons from the Good Friday agreement. One such is the importance of structures to delivering successful negotiations. The Windsor framework is a policy success, but it has not yet delivered political progress. From the outside, it is hard to see any formal discussions or negotiations that are under way with the Northern Irish parties or leaders. Will the Secretary of State set out what he is doing to restore power sharing?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I would say a couple of things on that. First, he could have watched the great BBC or UTV coverage last week when the political parties were leaving Hillsborough after the latest series of talks that we had there, because there is an ongoing pattern of formal talks with the parties. However, the one thing that I learned from the negotiations to get the Windsor framework over the line is that some of these things are best done on a confidential basis, because otherwise other people get to pull the threads of the negotiations and the whole thing falls apart.

The Government’s analysis of why power sharing collapsed is that, under the Good Friday agreement, the rights and aspirations of some parts of the community were being undermined. By that understanding, however, the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill goes even further in undermining the agreement. It is opposed by all communities in Northern Ireland; the Irish Government, who were the other signatories of the agreement; and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which was created by it. Is now not the time for a total rethink on legacy?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his pivot to legacy, as it is something that I hope to talk about a great deal in the coming weeks. As I have said from this Dispatch Box a number of times, we have been on a journey to improve the legacy Bill dramatically. It has its final Committee sitting in the House of Lords tomorrow and we will be tabling a range of quite big—game-changing, I would like to think—amendments over the next couple of weeks before Report stage. We will also have some other announcements that I am sure he will welcome.

The Secretary of State will know that the political institutions in Northern Ireland operate effectively when there is cross-community consensus. A continuing concern of the Unionist community is the ongoing application of EU law for all manufactured goods in Northern Ireland and that, over time, the divergence from UK law will inhibit our ability to trade with the rest of the United Kingdom. That is what we need the Government to address and resolve.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point, which he has made to me in no uncertain terms on a number of occasions. I thank him for his frankness in those discussions, because if we do not identify exactly what the issues are, we could skate around them for ages and not get anywhere. As he well knows, there are things that I think we can do as a Government that can exemplify and amplify how we can solve the problem behind his question, and I look forward to having further engagement with him on these matters.

I, too, look forward to that engagement, because if we are to get Stormont restored on a stable foundation, which is what we want, we must resolve those issues. People in Northern Ireland, and Unionists in particular, need to know that their place in the United Kingdom, which was enshrined and protected in article 1 of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, will be equally enshrined and protected in UK law as a result of any arrangements that are put in place.

I can give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance from this Dispatch Box, but I know from the engagement we have had that he would like to see that in other terms as well. That is why I look forward to our continuing conversations, so that we can work out exactly what the ask is and I can try to deliver on that.

School Funding

2. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of reductions in funding for education in Northern Ireland on schools. (904785)

The Northern Ireland Department of Education has been allocated £2.6 billion of resource, which represents a 1.8% reduction from 2022-23. Education is a devolved matter and, in the absence of an Executive or Assembly, the assessments of any potential impacts of those decisions are matters for the Northern Ireland Department of Education.

The Children’s Law Centre has warned that cuts to Northern Ireland’s budget could be in breach of the commitments made to children in the Good Friday agreement, with services for disadvantaged children the primary target. How will the Secretary of State ensure that budget cuts do not cause active harm to the most vulnerable children in Northern Ireland’s schools?

We share the hon. Lady’s concern; that is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met the Children’s Law Centre last week. I would say to her, as gently as I can, that, according to Ulster University, the current structural division in Northern Ireland’s education system is inefficient and maintaining it comes at a cost of £226 million a year, or about £600,000 every day. I think we all have to ask ourselves very serious questions about how that money can best be spent, and she gives us some illustrations.

My hon. Friend rightly points to the benefits of integration in Northern Ireland’s education system, but he must recognise that it is a matter of great concern that as the Government seek to increase education spending in real terms, it is declining in absolute terms in Northern Ireland over the coming years. Is that not a reason to get an Executive in place as soon as possible that can address the long-term issues of reform that education and businesses are calling out for?

I agree fully with my hon. Friend; he is right that it is absolutely necessary to get on with structural reform and it is a matter of concern that we are in this position. Reform is necessary across a broad range of public services to make the public finances sustainable.

On his visit to Belfast last month, the Prime Minister expressed the view that integrated education should be

“the norm, rather than the exception”.

However, the current strategy for growing integrated education has no targets for student numbers and does not specify how much money will be spent. Will the Minister outline how the Government will ensure that integrated education becomes the norm?

As the hon. Lady knows, that policy is a matter for a restored Executive. The first thing we need to do is to encourage all parties to get back into the Executive and bring forward that strategy. I am grateful for this indication that she and I will be united in pressing this forward and saying that we should have integrated education as the norm. I have heard people’s concerns on the other side of the argument, and of course I am in favour of faith schools and freedom of religion, but we need to make sure that never again does a Minister go to Northern Ireland and hear a young person say that they were 16 or 18 before they met their first Unionist or their first Catholic. That is something I have experienced, and I am not at all happy about it.

Cost of Living

3. What steps his Department is taking to help support people in Northern Ireland with rises in the cost of living. (904786)

10. What steps his Department is taking to help support people in Northern Ireland with rises in the cost of living. (904795)

13. What steps his Department is taking to help support people in Northern Ireland with rises in the cost of living. (904798)

The UK Government are committed to supporting Northern Ireland through the recent increase in the cost of living. That is why we are taking steps such as lowering the cost of energy; targeting support at the most vulnerable through a £900 cost of living payment in 2023-24 for households on means-tested benefits; delivering £600 energy payments to businesses and households; the £300 cost of living payment for pensioners; and an additional £150 disability cost of living payment for individuals entitled to disability benefits.

Last week, the permanent secretary to the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee:

“We are rapidly if not already at the point at which the funding per head is not at the level of measured need.”

The truth is that the Barnett consequential funding model has not kept up with the cost of living crisis. What exactly does the Minister have to say to the people who have to make their money stretch further and further while their bills continue to skyrocket?

This Government, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Lord Caine and I are all absolutely seized of the imperative to put the finances on a sustainable basis and to have public sector reform to ensure that the money is well spent. There are a number of opportunities in health and education that have been not only articulated today but identified in public in the past. We do need to consider revenue raising, and I hope that the hon. Lady will return to that when we get on to the Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Bill later today. Absolutely, we need to say to people that it is time to put Northern Ireland’s finances on a sustainable basis and have reforms so that they get the public services they deserve. Of course, the route to that is to have a restored Executive.

This Government are creating more red tape for businesses, with new labelling requirements for food products across the UK after the Windsor framework. Will the Government look again at having a veterinary agreement with the EU, which would eliminate those costs?

Forgive me, Mr Speaker, but I only partially heard the hon. Gentleman’s question. We will, of course, continue to talk to the European Union about these matters. We want the smoothest flow of trade not only with the European Union but with all our international trading partners. Certainly, we will consider things, but we are determined that, as we have left the European Union, we will not follow its rules as handed down.

The Chancellor has failed to bring in a proper windfall tax, while oil and gas giants are raking in record profits. Does the Minister agree that there are still huge holes in the Government’s levy, meaning that households in Northern Ireland will lose out on billions of pounds that could be used to address the cost of living burden?

I note that the hon. Gentleman said “a proper windfall tax”, which indicates, of course, that what a windfall tax should be is a contested matter. Really, if I may say so, his question is rather out of scope for the Northern Ireland Office. Many of those matters are devolved; others are reserved to the Treasury.

My hon. Friend will know that many groups in Northern Ireland provide advice to people to help with the cost of living and other challenges. Many of those organisations receive funding from the shared prosperity fund. That notwith-standing, may I urge the Minister to talk to Ministers in the relevant Department to ensure that there is a bespoke definition and that the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland are taken into account when making funding determinations under the shared prosperity fund?

My hon. Friend makes a good point. May I encourage him to meet me to discuss exactly what should be in that definition? I would be grateful if he did.

Just as in Newcastle-under-Lyme, I welcome the Government’s support for households and businesses in Northern Ireland with energy costs. However, is it not the case that some of those schemes could have been delivered more efficiently had there been a functioning Executive in Northern Ireland?

One hundred per cent—that is absolutely right. I experienced for myself, as did the Secretary of State, the difficulties that followed. I am very grateful to the Ministers and officials of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for making the delivery of those schemes possible, but my hon. Friend is 100% correct.

The Government have demonstrated a swiftness of foot in responding through the pandemic and the energy crisis to support businesses and residents. The previous question notwith-standing, can my hon. Friend reassure the House that residents and businesses in Northern Ireland will continue to receive Government support with energy bills over the coming months?

We will, of course, continue to be seized of the situation in Northern Ireland. I can tell my hon. Friend that we will keep the situation under review.

Shipment of Goods: Great Britain to Northern Ireland

4. What steps he has taken with Cabinet colleagues to provide guidance to businesses on shipping goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. (904787)

The Government are engaging extensively with businesses to explain what has been agreed under the framework, and we will be providing detailed guidance over the summer on how the green lane will operate.

The Windsor framework alleviates some significant problems, but it does not remove all frictions on trade, it does not restore Northern Ireland’s control of its own laws, and it has not restored power sharing, so when will the Government review the framework, and will that be part of the trade and co-operation agreement review taking place over the next two years?

I recognise that keeping in place the 3% of EU law that is necessary to have an infrastructure-free border is an extremely difficult compromise, not only for Unionism but for Eurosceptics such as my right hon. Friend and me. We need to implement the framework that we have agreed, and of course we will keep it under constant review. I am grateful that she raises the TCA review. One great benefit of the Windsor framework that has been largely unexplored is that, now that we have a much more positive relationship with both Ireland and our European Union partners, it is possible that we could achieve great things in that TCA review. I would be very grateful for her collaboration to that end.

The oversell of the Windsor framework indicated to businesses that the green lane would operate without any restrictions whatsoever. That is untrue—they will still be required to make customs declarations. When will we have the freedom to trade within our own United Kingdom without the requirement for additional paperwork?

It is not the case that there will be customs declarations on the green channel. What will be shared is ordinary commercial data. The data required to go to Northern Ireland on the green lane will be no more than that required to ship within Great Britain—across, say, to Isle of Wight.

In a statement last month, the British Potato Trade Association described the Windsor framework as representing a step closer to achieving the ultimate aim of reopening seed potato trade with the European Union. What further guidance will be issued to exporters? What is being done to enable domestic Northern Irish consumers to access high-quality seed potato exports from Scotland? And what will the Secretary of State’s team be doing to try to replicate this hard-won market access in Northern Ireland right across the far more lucrative EU market?

I will be absolutely delighted if Scottish seed potatoes are sent to all of Europe. I see no practical reason why that should not happen. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) mentioned the TCA review. I would love to be able to deliver seed potatoes to all of Europe way before that, and I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman will support us as we seek to do so.

Women Affected by State Pension Age Changes: Cost of Living

5. What steps his Department is taking to help support women in Northern Ireland affected by changes to the state pension age with rises in the cost of living. (904788)

It is a busy day again, Mr Speaker. Social security and state pensions are transferred matters in Northern Ireland and are therefore the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Executive. We have taken decisive action to help UK households tackle increases in the cost of living. Women across Northern Ireland are benefiting from energy bill support and support for the most vulnerable, including an additional £900 cost of living payment in 2023-24 for households on means-tested benefits.

WASPI women in Northern Ireland, like those in Newport West and the rest of the UK, want to see fairness and equality once and for all. What specific discussions has the Minister had with the Northern Ireland civil service and the political parties in Northern Ireland about the rising cost of living and its impact on WASPI women in Northern Ireland?

As I have said, this is a transferred matter under the devolution settlement. We all know that this has been a very sensitive matter—that has certainly been the case throughout my time in Parliament—and I have met many of my constituents who are concerned about it. However, if any Opposition Members think that the issue of pensions is going to go away in our lifetime, I encourage them to look at the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal sustainability report and at other reports from the Government Actuary’s Department.

Women’s Services

6. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of resources for women’s services in Northern Ireland. (904789)

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The Government recognise the importance of support services for women. I will continue to engage with women’s groups and organisations supporting women and girls across Northern Ireland. It is vital that the Executive is restored as soon as possible to deliver on the issues that matter most to the people of Northern Ireland, including vital support services such as those that the hon. Lady has championed through her all-party parliamentary group.

I know that the Secretary of State understands the issues facing menopausal women. With no legislation currently in Stormont, there are no plans for a women’s health strategy and nor is there any proactive work taking place to address the issues, so will he agree to meet representatives of the Menopause Support Group Northern Ireland, hear their concerns and support their campaign for improved menopause services? [Interruption.]

As the House has demonstrated, that is a very popular question, so I can do nothing other than say yes, I will happily meet the hon. Lady.

UK Internal Market Access

8. What steps his Department is taking to ensure Northern Irish businesses have full access to the UK internal market. (904791)

The Government legislated under the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to provide for unfettered access to the UK internal market for Northern Ireland goods. The Windsor framework further guarantees unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the UK market on a permanent basis.

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the Windsor framework potentially gives the people of Northern Ireland the opportunity to trade with the Republic, as well as the rest of the United Kingdom?

I do agree, Mr Speaker. The Windsor framework represents an extraordinary opportunity for Northern Ireland for the long term. Not only will Northern Ireland have privileged access to the EU and UK markets but it will be under UK services regulation and will have access to our free trade agreements, such as our accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. That is an extraordinary opportunity—we should make the most of it.

The GB border operating model that has been recently published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs indicates that by October this year, there will be border checkpoints at Cairnryan, Liverpool and Holyhead. How is the Minister able to claim that there will be frictionless trade between Northern Ireland and GB when the Government are actively proposing to put border control posts on our trade routes into our most important market?

My right hon. Friend and I share many views in common, but I say to him as gently as possible that I think he is really referring to the red lane there. If we had moved forward with the protocol Bill, that would have implemented a red and a green lane, and the red lane would have required checkpoints. We have to engage seriously with the legitimate interests of Ireland and the European Union, and that means a solution of the form we have taken with the Windsor framework. I am proud that the Prime Minister did a deal that people said could not be done and got progress from both sides.

Prime Minister

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

Two years ago, I raised the case of a Norwich Army veteran who was in such agony that he was forced to pull out 18 of his own teeth because he could not get access to a dentist. The grim fact is that despite repeated promises from the Prime Minister, Norwich and Norfolk remain dental deserts. Dentists excel at extracting rotten teeth, so does the Prime Minister agree that the only way my constituents will see results is when this rotten Government are extracted from office and replaced with a Labour one?

I am very sorry to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. The hon. Gentleman will know that there are record sums going into dentistry and indeed 500 more NHS dentists working today. Because of the contract reforms that we have put in place, 10% more activity can happen, and the Department of Health and Social Care is currently talking about reforming the dentistry contract with dental practices to increase activity further.

My constituent Gordon has, unfortunately, been receiving cancer treatment at Mount Vernon Hospital, which will soon fall within Sadiq Khan’s new ultra low emission zone boundaries. As Gordon continues his daily treatment, he will now be expected to pay a £12.50 charge or buy a new, compliant vehicle. Does the Prime Minister agree that the British people already have enough on without Labour’s London Mayor stretching household budgets further, just so that he can cover his mismanagement of Transport for London’s finances?

I am sorry to hear of my hon. Friend’s constituent Gordon, and I send him my best wishes. He will now that transport in London is devolved to the Labour Mayor, who is expanding the zone against the overwhelming views of residents and businesses. What is more, his plan to raise costs for hard-working families is totally backed by the Leader of the Opposition. Perhaps he can now tell us why.

I do not think he is responsible for answering the questions.

We come to the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank all those who took part in the coronation celebrations over the weekend, and I also take this chance to wish all the very best to my brilliant and talented constituent Mae Muller, who is representing the UK at Eurovision in Liverpool this weekend. The whole country is behind you, Mae.

This time last week, the Prime Minister had to correct the record on misleading claims he made about employment numbers. Can he provide a further update now that he has cost 1,000 Tory councillors their jobs?

Let me pass on my best wishes to Mae as well for this weekend’s Eurovision. With regard to the local elections, perhaps I can offer the right hon. and learned Gentleman a tiny bit of advice from one of his predecessors, Tony Blair. I was reading what he said the other day. He said:

“The right hon. Gentleman can be as cocky as he likes about the local elections; come a general election, policy counts.”—[Official Report, 9 May 2007; Vol. 460, c. 152.]

We know that the problem for the right hon. and learned Gentleman is that he does not have any.

The Prime Minister said he was going to lose a thousand seats, and then he managed it. After 13 years, a Tory promise they have actually not broken! This is the Prime Minister who has had to fight for only two things in his life. Last year, he lost a Tory beauty contest to the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who then lost to a lettuce. Last week, when he finally came into contact with voters, he lost everywhere. No matter who the electorate are, the Prime Minister keeps entering a two-horse race and somehow finishing third. Given his track record, who does he think he has actually got a mandate from?

It is a bit rich to hear about mandates from the person who has broken every single promise he was elected on. Going through the list, we have nationalisations, NHS outsourcing, universal credit and now tuition fees—the right hon. and learned Gentleman was for them all before he was against them. He is not just Sir Softie; he is Sir Flaky, too.

I can understand why the Prime Minister is trying to wish away his terrible results, but peddling nonsense just does not work. Up and down the country, people want the Government to focus on the cost of living, but he has got no answers. Is he planning to carry on as if nothing happened, and ignore the message he was sent last week, or will he do what a Labour Government would do and announce an immediate freeze in council tax bills?

I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has rightly asked his Labour councillors to focus on the cost of living. Perhaps they could start by reducing council tax to the level in Conservative-run areas. We are getting on with halving people’s energy bills and freezing fuel duty to help them with the cost of living. What is stopping him from having a plan is that unfortunately his shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), recently said that she has discovered that she has a problem: she realised that she actually—shock horror!—has to say where the money is going to come from. With a £90 billion black hole in her plans, she has a lot of work to do.

There is only one party that broke the economy, and they are sitting right there. To quote one of the Prime Minister’s more electorally successful predecessors, “nothing has changed”. He is still blaming other people, still refusing to take the necessary action and still not listening to the country. On council tax, it is quite simple: a Labour Government would give every council the grant they need to freeze those bills, fully paid for by ending the handouts he is giving to oil and gas giants. I ask him again: now that his plan has been utterly rejected, why will he not do the same?

Just a quick history lesson for the right hon. and learned Gentleman: while he was busy softening sentences 13 years ago, we inherited from Labour the largest deficit in the G7, higher unemployment and coffers that were totally empty. It did not stop there: after that, Labour Members wanted a longer lockdown, and now they will not even oppose the picketers and the protesters. Even in opposition, they are damaging the economy.

The Prime Minister is just not listening, is he? Even after the entire country, from the Peak District to the garden of England, rejected his Government last week, he still thinks that protecting oil and gas profits is more important than freezing bills. I am sure that the Prime Minister must finally have met some working people in recent weeks, but did any of them understand why he insists on protecting his precious non-dom tax status, rather than scrapping it and using the money to train thousands of doctors and nurses?

The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that this money would fund the NHS workforce, but that plan was looked at by one of his colleagues recently, who said that it would

“discourage…doctors and nurses…from coming”—[Official Report, 9 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 171]

here, and that there was a “£2 billion” shortfall in his sums. Who said that? It was Alistair Darling. He might remember those days—it is when Labour bankrupted the economy.

That is the definition of nonsense. This is the price of having a tired, worn-out Government, fronted by a Prime Minister who boasts he has never had a working-class friend. He is smiling his way through the cost of living crisis, gloating about success while waiting lists grow. He is pretending that crime, house building, schools are all just doing fine, while handing the country 24 tax rises, all with his name on them. How does he think the Tories can possibly provide the answers that Britain needs when the whole country has already told him that they are the problem, not the solution?

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right: we all do say some silly things when we are younger; I was a teenager. He will know what I am talking about, because I think in his 40s he was still talking about abolishing the monarchy.

It is the same old guff from him every week—all politics and no action. We are getting on with halving people’s energy bills, freezing fuel duty, cutting the costs of childcare and boosting pay. While he is busy plotting coalitions, we are getting on and delivering for the British people.

Q10.   This Saturday is Surrey Day, which is a chance for locals and visitors to celebrate everything wonderful about our county, including our beautiful, historic High Street in Guildford with its independent shops. However, empty shops are frequently raised with me. High rents with high business rates make it difficult for independent retailers to compete with national chains. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government must do everything they can to support our high streets as part of our plan to boost economic growth? (904808)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of high streets for local communities—not just in Surrey, but around the country. That is why we are abolishing business rates for hundreds of thousands of eligible businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector, and investing billions of pounds through the high streets fund and our towns fund to support local communities up and down the country.

If the Prime Minister was to go to the boot of his Land Rover and pull out some placards, which said, “Save our Non-Doms”, would he expect to be arrested by the police?

May I first put on record my thanks to the police for all their hard work over the weekend, ensuring that the coronation was a success?

On this issue, we believe the police should have powers to make sure that they can protect the public from unnecessary and serious disruption. I respectfully recognise that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with our position. I guess the question for both of us is: what does the Leader of the Opposition think about this, because it is quite hard to keep up?

Order. Can I just remind the Prime Minister that this is Prime Minister’s questions? It is for him to answer, not for asking what the Opposition are doing.

What we are talking about here is that nurses strike, doctors strike, firefighters strike—or protest—and of course republicans protest as well. They do so because it is a fundamental right within our democracy to be able to protest. So is the Prime Minister seriously saying that, moving forward, you can have your rights, but only on his terms?

It is also the right of the British public to be able to go about their ordinary day-to-day lives without undue serious disruption. That is why it is right that the police have extra powers. I respect that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with that, but we think it is right. Every day on TV, people see lives being disrupted, people not being able to get to school, to hospital appointments and to work. They should be able to do that, and the police should have powers to stop those who are preventing that.

Q12. It was an honour to welcome the Australian Prime Minister last week so that he could meet some of our fantastic apprentices, see the submarine programme and reaffirm his commitment to the AUKUS programme, which will deliver thousands of jobs in my constituency and keep our nation safe. What was a national endeavour is now an international one, and it is going to require a whole-of-Government approach to get it over the line and deliver it well. With that in mind, may I invite my right hon. Friend to Barrow to see the programme for himself and meet me to see how we can best leverage these opportunities for the people of Barrow for generations to come? (904810)

My hon. Friend is a fantastic advocate for his local industry and community. He is right: the SSN-AUKUS submarines will be built in Barrow, the home of the British submarine industry. It will create thousands of new jobs not just in Barrow but across the UK. That is why the Government are investing billions to modernise the enterprise, and I look forward to taking him up on his invitation.

Last week, many lifelong Conservative voters turned to the Liberal Democrats to be their strong local champions. They delivered their verdict on the Government’s failure to hold water companies to account for dumping raw sewage into our rivers and on to our beaches. Last year, water bosses were paid £15 million in bonuses—rewarded for destroying our precious natural environment. Three of those executives have now turned down their bonuses, but they should never have been entitled to them in the first place. Will the Prime Minister ban these sewage bonuses so that the dumping actually stops?

I struggled to hear the full question. [Interruption.] In one sense, that does not really matter, because we all know that the Liberal Democrats say one thing here and another thing locally anyway. No wonder he is attracted to the Labour leader these days. Political opportunism and a broken promise on tuition fees—it must be like looking in the mirror.

Q13.   May I take the opportunity to highlight some success, with Mansfield District Council having more Conservative councillors than at any point in my lifetime after last week’s local elections? I am very proud of our local team, but one thing we heard on the doorstep was a frustrated expectation that the Government need to deliver on key pledges. There has been a commitment that our part of the world will be given the clout and investment to catch up with other regions which historically have had more than we have had, so will the Prime Minister take the opportunity to reiterate his commitment and reassure my constituents that he will support growth and investment in the east midlands? (904811)

My hon. Friend is a tireless advocate for the east midlands. In particular, I welcome the devolution deal agreed among the four local authorities in the region, which I know he has campaigned for. Like him, I look forward to those new devolved institutions being established as soon as possible to drive economic growth in his community.

Q2. The Prime Minister has previously declared “my…daughter…is the climate change champion in our house.”I wonder if he has asked her what she thinks about Rosebank, the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North sea, which would blow climate targets, create more emissions than 28 of the world’s poorest countries combined, involve the obscene transfer of £4 billion of taxpayers’ money to a Norwegian energy firm—Equinor—and do nothing for energy security since the vast majority of the oil will be exported. If he gives Rosebank the green light, will he be able to look his daughter in the eye and honestly say that he has done everything in his power to give her and all other young people a liveable future? (904800)

As the independent Climate Change Committee has acknowledged, we will need fossil fuels for the next few decades as we transition to a greener future. During that period, it makes absolutely no sense not to invest in the resources that we have here at home and not to create jobs here but to import foreign fossil fuels at twice the carbon emissions of our local resources. It is an economically illiterate policy—but that is what we would expect from the Green party.

Last June, the Government committed to bringing forward a horticulture strategy to identify ways to expand British production of horticulture. The importance of that was underlined by some of the supply-chain challenges that we saw earlier this spring, but in the past week there has been speculation that the Government might be abandoning that strategy. Can the Prime Minister give us any reassurance that the Government remain committed to expanding this important British industry?

I thank my right hon. Friend for all his work championing this area. We are delivering for the horticulture sector, which will benefit from the £168 million investment to drive innovation and support food production. That is also why we passed the new Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, taking advantage of our Brexit opportunities to unlock the potential of new technologies. I look forward to discussing that and other ideas at our new upcoming food summit.

Q3. Has the Prime Minister or any of his Ministers given commitments to BP, Equinor or any other company about contracts at the Teesworks site? (904801)

Our farmers provide our food and our countryside’s future, but there is concern among some Oxfordshire farmers that the new schemes under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ agricultural transition plan are not ready for farmers to access and make up the shortfall from the basic payment scheme. Will my right hon. Friend push his colleagues in DEFRA to roll out the rest of the sustainable farming incentives standards as soon as possible, and consider double-stacking SFI and countryside stewardship payments to ensure that Oxfordshire’s farmers get the support they need?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course, we want to make sure we continue to support farmers to produce healthy nutritious food. We are pressing ahead with the environmental land management scheme, fine tuning it to make sure it works even better for farmers. We want to make sure there is enough flexibility in the sustainable farming incentives. That is why DEFRA designed the schemes with farmers in mind, enabling them to do more and ensure they can use countryside stewardship schemes on the same plots of land. I look forward to discussing that with him and other colleagues.

Q4. In Stirling, we have a potentially very exciting development at Forthside on former Ministry of Defence land. Sadly, the development has got a bit stuck over a dispute about the cost of the decontamination of that land. I will work with anybody to get a result for Stirling. Will the Prime Minister meet me and representatives of Stirling Council to get the development unblocked and make the progress we all want to see? (904802)

We have invested in Stirling previously to unlock investment and drive growth. I will ensure the hon. Gentleman gets the meeting he needs with the relevant Minister to make progress.

The Prime Minister and I share a profound optimism about the power of technology. In particular, AI—artificial intelligence—has the power to revolutionise public services and our private sector as well. But does he agree that it comes with risks and that, while there are unrealistic calls to pause research into it altogether, it is crucial for us to work with our allies around the world so that the global norms that emerge in this important area reflect our values?

My hon. Friend speaks with experience and knowledge on this issue and I absolutely agree with the thrust of his question. It would be implausible and wrong to halt the development of this technology, but it is right that we ensure appropriate guard rails are in place as we look to exploit the opportunities. Those are the conversations we are having, not just with the companies involved but with our allies around the world. He can expect further progress in the coming weeks and months.

Q6. Following on from the Prime Minister’s earlier answer, as he knows, an eat out to help out scheme was introduced in August 2020. It increased demand for eating in restaurants by some 216% compared with 2019. With figures now showing that over 17,500 retail chain stores closed in 2020 alone, affecting nearly 35,000 employees, has the Prime Minister considered a similar scheme for bricks and mortar retail—bricks versus clicks, if you like—as part of a wider plan to regenerate local high streets and town centres? (904804)

The way we are supporting high streets and town centres is through making sure we cut business rates in England—obviously, the Scottish Government will receive Barnett consequentials from those actions—and now hundreds of thousands of local businesses on our high streets do not pay any business rates at all. On top of that, through the levelling-up fund, towns fund and others, we are investing directly in local communities, including the hon. Gentleman’s own, where council leaders described our investment of £90 million as very welcome and a real boost for economic recovery.

My right hon. Friend recently scored a very rare own goal by backing Stockton Town football club in a northern premier league east play-off final, which eventually saw Long Eaton United win on penalties. In the interests of good sportsmanship, will he congratulate Ian Deakin and his team on their resounding victory, wish Long Eaton United luck and every success in the league for next season, and join me at Grange Park to cheer them on?

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating her local football team and all involved in their stunning success. I am not sure if I will be able to join her in the immediate future, but I look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength, much as the fortunes of my own team, sadly, are not in the place I would like them to be.

Q7.   The Prime Minister may well have seen the astonishing sight of a former Scottish Government Minister standing up in the Scottish Parliament Chamber and tearing up—literally, ripping into pieces—the Scottish Government’s highly protected marine area proposal. The proposal is deeply controversial all over Scotland, and has even been compared with the second highland clearances. Is now not the time for the UK Government to step in and work with the devolved—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, I will not be silenced, because this matters deeply to my constituents. Is it not time for the UK Government to step in and work with the devolved Administrations, to come up with a conservation scheme that works and is acceptable to our fishing communities all around the UK? (904805)

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point and is a passionate champion, as he should be, for his local fishing communities. He is right to highlight the concerns that have been raised not just by them but by members of the SNP about the potentially damaging impact of plans to introduce the highly protected marine areas in the way that they are. I would encourage the SNP Government to continue working with the Scottish fishing industry and coastal communities to understand their concerns. As we have seen them recently U-turn on other poorly thought-out decisions, hopefully they can re-look at this one, too.

The United Kingdom has a strong, deep, multidimensional relationship with Pakistan. There are over 1.5 million British Pakistanis here and many of them are dual nationals, as am I. The Prime Minister will have seen the scenes coming from Pakistan—the civil unrest where people have lost their lives due to the detention of Prime Minister Imran Khan. There are real concerns about the circumstances of his detention and the right to a fair trial. In the past, the United Kingdom has sent observers to hearings around the world to ensure that natural justice is done. Has the Prime Minister considered that? If not, will he consider it?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The UK of course has a long-standing and close relationship with Pakistan—this weekend especially, as Commonwealth partners. The arrest of the former Prime Minister is an internal matter for Pakistan. We support peaceful, democratic processes and adherence to the rule of law, and we are monitoring the situation carefully.

Q8. A little boy has gone to school today in shoes that do not fit him, because his parents cannot afford new ones. A little girl had water on her cornflakes because her mum had no money for milk. Those are real stories from Faith in Families, a charity in my constituency that deals with poverty every day. Poverty that is causing prolonged shame and leading to a mental health crisis. Faith in Families is worried about these kids. I am worried about these kids. If the Prime Minister is worried about these kids, what is he going to do about it? (904806)

We do not want any child to grow up in poverty. That is why I am proud that there are 1.7 million fewer people living in poverty today than in 2010, because of the actions of this and previous Conservative Governments. That includes hundreds of thousands of children. We are providing incredible support to the most vulnerable in our society as we speak. Just last week, the first of our cost of living payments went out—£900 to help the most vulnerable families in our society. Those are our values. We will keep supporting them as inflation remains high.

Earlier, the Leader of the Opposition sought to draw attention to council tax rates and increases, offering some crocodile tears in the process. I draw to the Prime Minister’s attention that, whereas we have seen a 43% increase in council tax rates since 2010 in England, the increase in Wales has been a staggering 67%. Therefore, is it not the case that we should be looking at what Labour does rather than what Labour says?

My right hon. Friend has made an excellent point. The Leader of the Opposition is very fond of telling us that Labour in Wales is the blueprint for how he would like to run the country, but, as we have seen, all that it means is higher bills for hard-working British families.

Q9. Over the last two years, the Drax power station in Yorkshire has burned an average of nearly 20,000 tonnes of trees every single day, releasing an equivalent amount of carbon into the atmosphere. During that time, while our constituents have struggled with their heating bills, the private company running Drax has received £1.5 million of subsidy through the Government’s energy policy every single day. That is set to continue until 2027. Will the Prime Minister step in and review this grotesque distortion of energy policy, which incentivises deforestation while making no contribution to tackling the climate emergency? (904807)

While I cannot comment on the contract details of one particular company, what I can comment on is our record on this issue. Since the benchmark was established, emissions in this country have fallen by nearly 50%, and we have also grown the economy by two thirds—although I know the SNP Government are not as focused on that as we are. At the same time, because of the way in which we regulate new and renewable energies, we have seen the price of renewables such as offshore wind decline from £140 an hour to about £40. That shows a regulatory system that is working in delivering lower-cost, renewable energy to British families.

Plastic pollution is a scourge of modern-day society. My Microplastic Filters (Washing Machines) Bill—a ten-minute rule Bill—seeks to ensure that microfibre, microplastic filters are fitted in all commercial and domestic washing machines, and France, among other countries, has already passed such legislation. Will the Prime Minister, who has already done an enormous amount to tackle plastic pollution, organise a meeting between me and the stakeholders—particularly washing machine manufacturers —and the Secretary of State to discuss this very important issue?

We want to tackle microplastic pollution wherever possible, which is why we introduced a microbeads ban and a tax on plastic bags. I am aware that my hon. Friend has campaigned for filters in washing machines, but, as he will know, they can be costly to install. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has outlined plans for the use of more filters, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets the meeting he needs with the relevant Minister to discuss this important matter further.

Q11. The ditching of the Government’s pledge to recruit 6,000 more GPs is yet another example of the Tories’ overpromising and underdelivering. With teacher recruitment targets missed and housing pledges shelved, why does the Prime Minister think that the only target he has actually met was the loss of 1,000 Tory councillors last week? (904809)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell us which of the many promises that the Leader of the Opposition made to him when he was campaigning he is happiest that he has U-turned on.

It is through Lincolnshire’s roads that foodstuffs grown in our fine county are transported across the nation, but the highways authority struggles to fund the roads because of the skewed funding formula devised by a previous Labour Government. So many of our public services suffer in the same way, policing included. Will the Prime Minister agree to review the local government and police funding formulas as a matter of urgency so that Lincolnshire can have a fair deal?

My right hon. Friend is entirely right to stand up for the particular needs of his rural community. Like him, I recognise that the costs of providing services are often higher in rural areas, and it is right for us to reflect that in funding formulas where we can do so, but I will ensure that he, too, gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss this important matter further.

Q14. A total of 13,450 prepayment meter vouchers with a value of over more than £887,000 have gone unclaimed in my constituency, while £16.5 million is unclaimed across Scotland. The Prime Minister’s energy bills support scheme is failing if money that could be helping our vulnerable constituents is resting in his Government’s account. I recall that he is not very familiar with the way in which prepayment meters work, but what will he do to ensure that every single penny goes out of the Government’s coffers and into the meters of those who really need it? (904812)

I am grateful that the hon. Lady, for a change, acknowledged the support that the Government are providing to families up and down the country. In designing those schemes, particular attention was given to how to get support to people with prepayment meters. Ministers are always engaged with stakeholders to make sure that there is awareness of those schemes, and I will make sure that we keep up those efforts so that people get the help that they need and deserve.

It is very interesting that the Leader of the Opposition talks about keeping council tax low, when the Labour party voted to increase Morecambe Town Council expenditure from £200,000 historically to £2 million. On that basis, I would like to meet the Prime Minister to see if we can find Government time to discuss a cap on parish councils to stop them from this sort of abhorrent behaviour.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that council tax in Labour areas is higher than that in Conservative areas, which is not right at a time when there are pressures on the cost of living. I look forward to meeting him to discuss his plans to keep British families’ household bills as low as they can be.

Q15. Dozens of Sudanese doctors, who have been working in the NHS, were stranded and not allowed to return here. Last week, the Minister for Development and Africa, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), told us here that the Prime Minister took the decision to get them back. Why had such a straightforward decision not been made much earlier by the Home Secretary or the Foreign Secretary? Is it because the Prime Minister is an obsessive micromanager? Or is it that his Ministers are just not up to the job? Which one is it, Prime Minister? (904813)

The right hon. Gentleman is completely wrong to describe as straightforward a complex and dangerous evacuation in a war zone. Actually, everyone involved deserves enormous credit for conducting what was the longest and largest evacuation from Sudan by any western country. During that process, it was right that we moved deliberately and carefully, to ensure the security of everyone involved and to prioritise British nationals and their dependants. Now that the operation is complete, we can look back and thank everyone for what was an incredibly successful operation.

Since 2010, violent crime has dropped by 38% and neighbourhood crime has dropped by over 50%, but one crime that has gone up is fraud. Many of us have dealt with constituents who have struggled with fraud. What is the Prime Minister going to do about it?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some 40% of all crime is now fraud. It is damaging for people’s wellbeing as well as harming their finances. That is why the Home Secretary and I recently launched a new plan to combat fraud, with significant new investment, hundreds of new officers to tackle it and action on social media companies to empower people to take action and stop fraud happening in the first place. It represents the most comprehensive plan to tackle this issue and it will make a big difference to families everywhere.

On Friday, a young man with brilliant potential, Renell Charles, who was 16, was brutally murdered on his way out of school in Walthamstow, in my constituency. Yesterday, a 16-year-old boy was charged with his murder. Renell’s family are heartbroken—

Children are terrified to go to school, their parents are frightened to let them and the teachers are at their wits’ end. They have asked me to come here today, Prime Minister, to beg you to make the epidemic of youth crime in our country a national priority. Will the Prime Minister meet me and representatives from my local community to talk about how we can get the mental health and mentoring support these young people need, so that every young person in our country has the future they deserve?

I know the whole House will join me in expressing our sympathies and condolences to Renell’s family for what happened. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we should do everything we can to tackle violence and the murder of young people, in particular. I am pleased that knife crime has fallen by almost 10% and serious youth violence has fallen by 24% in the last few years. That is because we are giving the police the powers they need, whether that is stop and search, increasing jail terms or confiscating around 90,000 weapons. Of course, we will always look to do more to make sure that our streets are safe for our young people.

Post Office Executives: Bonuses

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade if he will make a statement on the awarding of bonuses to Post Office executives.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for tabling this urgent question; I was very keen to come to the House to make a statement on this matter had he not done so and am keen to answer his question here today.

The situation is extremely concerning and deeply regrettable and the Post Office is right to apologise. This is a very serious issue, particularly as it comes at a time when it is essential that the public have confidence that the culture and processes at the Post Office have been improved.

Since becoming aware of this incident, I have acted swiftly, calling for an immediate explanation from the Post Office as to how this mistake occurred and asking what steps the Post Office board is taking in response. I met officials in my Department and UK Government Investments yesterday to discuss what further action is needed.

The Post Office has rightly apologised to the inquiry and issued a clarification on its website. The Post Office chief executive officer and chief finance officer have returned the remuneration associated with the sub-metric relating to the Post Office’s support for the inquiry. The Post Office CEO has also apologised to Department for Business and Trade Ministers.

But more needs to be done. As a first step it is important that the facts are established. The Post Office has rightly announced that the incoming chair of its remuneration committee, Amanda Burton, will lead an immediate investigation into this incident. She was appointed non-executive director on the Post Office board at the end of last month and brings to the role experience and expertise from her time in the legal profession. The scope of the investigation is to ensure that the remuneration committee’s approach and processes on rewarding its executives in this case was consistent with corporate governance best practice. I expect this investigation to report back to me within two weeks with its findings and recommendations.

I can also announce that my Department is commissioning a wider independent review of the governance around Post Office decisions on remuneration. It should make recommendations about any further changes that are needed. This will run alongside the Post Office remuneration committee chair’s investigation of this specific incident. Further details will follow.

Finally, let me finish by reiterating that the Government remain steadfast in their commitment to ensure swift and fair compensation to postmasters who suffered as a result of the Horizon scandal and are grateful for Sir Wyn’s work leading the Horizon inquiry. We will keep the House updated on this issue.

First, I declare an interest: I am a member of the advisory board on the compensation scheme.

Two months ago I sat in the front room of a 78-year-old lady in Newcastle whose son had contacted me because she had not applied for compensation. That woman was traumatised: she was never spoken to about this for 20 years and was broken because of the shame involved in her prosecution. When this news broke on Friday night I thought about her and I was angry, but I am not as angry as many of the victims, who have been misled and lied to with a cover-up over the years.

Nick Read was brought in as a new broom, and he apologised to the victims on behalf of the Post Office. Well, that apology means absolutely nothing. This is a man who will get a bonus of over £400,000, which is based not on a mistake, as the Minister said, but on a deliberate lie. Added to that, two of the four people on the advisory board are Tom Cooper, who is his Government’s own representative on the board, and Ben Tidswell, who is chairing the review of historical compensation. How could those two people remain on the board? As the Minister knows, the victims of the Post Office have no confidence in it. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, but frankly it is rotten to the core still. It needs to change.

May I ask a couple of questions? First, when was the Minister made aware of this? What is the actual role of Tom Cooper, who is the Government’s representative? We have had this for many years, Minister: there were independent Government advisers on that board who oversaw the Post Office spending £100 million of taxpayers’ money to fight an unjustifiable court case against the postmasters. Will he publish who has got a bonus and who has given it back? If he says that the criteria were not clear or were misunderstood, will he publish them? When he does his inquiry, will he come back to the House to give a full explanation about what is going on?

Finally, may I say this to the Minister? Victims of compensation are waiting for their compensation. I know it has been a difficult task. They do not trust the Post Office, which is still dragging its heels in getting information out. Unless we get that, people are not going to get justice. The only thing that needs to happen is that the chief executive should resign or be sacked.

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s work on the advisory board, as he set out. I was keen to support the advisory board’s recommendation to widen the scope of the scheme to cover other elements of the compensation scheme, so I thank him again for the work that he does.

To respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s specific questions, I was made aware of this on 6 May, Saturday; the officials were made aware on 5 May. It is absolutely right that we should have been notified of this earlier. I met with Tom Cooper yesterday, together with other officials and UK Government Investments representatives. Tom has accepted that mistakes were made, including on his behalf. Tom Cooper was already due to leave his role as the shareholder representative, which is the UKGI role he plays, and is being replaced by Lorna Gratton.

The criteria for the bonus are published in the annual report, but I am happy to commit to come back to the House and report, by whatever means, on the findings of the remuneration committee and the independent expert external report that will look at these issues in the round. As I said in my remarks, I absolutely think that the Post Office needs to change its culture and its approach to these matters, and wider matters arising from the Post Office scandal. We are determined to make sure that people get fair compensation; I know that the right hon. Gentleman, too, is determined to make sure that happens, and he has been a doughty campaigner for that cause for many years.

Ever since being the Post Office Minister years ago, I have been very worried about the whole governance of the Post Office. I think, following this urgent question, that we need absolutely radical reform. Here we have a badly run nationalised industry, with people paying themselves huge salaries and bonuses, but all the work is done by the 11,000 sub-postmasters. They have been treated absolutely appallingly, and not just in the Horizon scandal but in their working conditions, pay and everything else. I have been arguing recently, in consultation with sub-postmasters and their leaders, that we should consider mutualisation. We should pass control of this body to the people on the frontline who do all the work. I hope the Minister will not dismiss that idea.

My right hon. Friend and I have discussed and corresponded on this matter at length. I am a big fan of mutuals, and I spoke in favour of them many times as a Back Bencher. I am happy to keep those conversations going, and mutualisation is certainly not something I would dismiss out of hand.

I, too, thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for his ongoing work, and for securing this urgent question.

Here we are again. Just when we thought we had reached a low in the ongoing saga that is the Post Office’s Horizon scandal, a new low is reached. The Minister is right that the situation is concerning, but it is much more than that: it is a disgrace. After years of fighting compensation claims against honest sub-postmasters, using every trick in the book to draw things out for as long as possible, the Post Office somehow found it appropriate to hand out bonuses for co-operating with Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry, which executives had a statutory obligation to do anyway. The Post Office even implied that the bonuses had effectively been approved by Sir Wyn, which he has denied, saying that the confirmation it received from him was misleading and inaccurate. This is, in no uncertain terms, completely unacceptable.

The Horizon scandal is one of the greatest injustices in modern British history, and these bonuses add further insult to injury. The Post Office has very serious questions to answer on corporate governance, not least in relation to the remuneration committee. I am glad to hear that an inquiry is being undertaken, but there are also questions about Government oversight if the Minister himself had been kept in the dark for weeks. I would be grateful if he could clarify what role Tom Cooper played as an adviser, what he knew and when he knew it. I think the Minister has made this commitment, but can he give a timescale for when he expects to publish Amanda Burton’s report?

The Post Office and the Government must now convince the British public that they understand not only the scale of what happened, but the priority and importance of urgently getting compensation to victims. Sub-postmasters have had their lives ruined, and they need more than repeated apologies and further delayed compensation. They must also be confident that lessons have been learned from these failures. Sadly, it seems the Post Office has failed to do that.

The Government must get a grip of what happened and how it was allowed to take place. Can the Minister confirm how and when the Government became aware of the bonus payments? He said it was last Friday and Saturday, but how did it happen? Will the Government confirm whether they asked for the bonuses to be repaid? Finally, will the Government now confirm that the interest on compensation paid to victims will be exempt from tax?

As I said earlier, I became aware of the matter on Saturday, and my officials became aware of it the previous day. I understand that the UKGI representative was made aware in the early part of April. We asked why we were not made aware at that point, and there are questions about information that is restricted to the inquiry. There are provisions around that, and we need to make sure it is disclosed to us appropriately and as quickly as possible. To my mind, the Post Office should have made us aware of this situation straightaway.

Clearly we have to follow due process, including good employment processes, in publishing any report by Amanda Burton. I cannot make a commitment on that, or on the repayment of bonuses, due to employment laws and regulations.

Finally, we are determined to resolve the tax problem that some people in the historical shortfall scheme have suffered. We are working on that at pace right now.

It is an absolute scandal that Post Office executives are being paid a bonus for co-operating with an inquiry into a scandal to which they all turned a blind eye. Another scandal is that Fujitsu, the author of the software, has never been held fully to account for its role. Why not? Can the Minister tell us why Fujitsu is still being given Government contracts, most recently the emergency alert? That is a huge kick in the teeth to those still seeking compensation and justice.

My hon. Friend and I discussed this yesterday, and he takes a great interest in such matters given his background, including as a former sub-postmaster. I understand his concerns about why such a metric was used in the first place. Some time ago, there was an attempt to move away from purely financial considerations in bonuses. I fully recognise that the conditions under which this bonus was authorised are questionable, to say the least. Holding to account Fujitsu and other people who are responsible for this scandal is clearly a role for the inquiry. We should follow due process and wait for the facts to be published before deciding what action to take against those responsible.

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices. I have no idea how I will cram everything into a minute, but I will try.

The Post Office was right to apologise, but it should not have had to apologise in the first place. The rotten core of what is still happening in Post Office Ltd needs to be exposed to daylight and be completely cleansed. I know the Minister is keen to do that, and I look forward to his inquiry—not an internal inquiry—into what went wrong. Surely to goodness, Post Office Ltd should not be awarding itself bonuses for co-operating with a Government inquiry into wrongdoing of the extent of the Horizon scandal. Furthermore, lying about the inquiry’s chair is beyond the pale. I have railed against this so many times in this House. Members will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to go on any longer, but this needs to be sorted.

I thank the hon. Lady for all the work she does as chair of the all-party parliamentary group and for engaging with me on many different issues, not least this one. I agree that this should never have happened, which makes it all the more concerning. The external independent review will do just that, and we are keen to ensure that it happens as soon as possible, to get under the skin of this and find out exactly what happened and who is responsible. I have great sympathy for her position that bonuses should be awarded for appropriate measures, and not for something the Post Office should be doing anyway.

The Post Office came to this place a few weeks ago to try to influence many of us to say how great it is. I met the chief executive, Nick Read, who is clearly a liar, because what he told me was untrue. I met Kenneth Pritchard, the head of public affairs, who is equally a liar because what he told me was untrue.

The Post Office is awarding enormous bonuses, or tried to award enormous bonuses, but the postmaster in Dorchester, the county town of Dorset, is so screwed down on transaction fees that he is now personally subsidising the county town’s post office in order to survive. That cannot be right, and I am hopeful that the Minister might be able to give me some reassurance that this sort of area will be properly considered and looked into, to make sure it is stopped.

I am not aware of the circumstances to which my hon. Friend refers, but I am happy to engage with him separately on the matter. Remuneration is clearly important to our postmasters, and we want to ensure that we have a sustainable network. Some improvements have been made this year, including a 20% increase in payments for bank deposit transaction. We need to make sure that the post office network is sustainable for the future, and that includes our postmasters being able to make a decent living.

Putting aside the cheating and lying, let us get back to the basic question of why on earth people were awarded bonuses for going to work and doing their job. Some sub-postmasters have lost their lives and others have lost their livelihoods or spent years in jail, yet some people are trying to clean up on this. Will the Minister commit to tackling the Post Office, which is wholly owned by this Government, and scuppering these bonuses? This has to stop. It is a stain on our history that it happened in the first place, and this is just adding insult to injury.

I am keen to deal with the matters I have referred to in my statement and in answers to questions. I understand the intent to move away from purely financial considerations, which were one thing that drove inappropriate behaviour in the Post Office before. However, the hon. Gentleman raises a good point, and I fully recognise that the conditions on which the bonuses were paid and authorised were questionable. I am keen to look at this in the round, to include the other matters we have discussed today, and to resolve these matters for good, so that we have an organisation fit for purpose in the future.

I popped into a leaving party last week, where a Post Office worker was taking early retirement because he had been, in effect, fitted with a tracker, having done a round for 25 years, and because after a two-week holiday he had come back to find that all of his mail had not been delivered. My constituents are also writing to me about mail that is not arriving. Does the Minister agree the Post Office executives must stop congratulating themselves with huge pay rises and bonuses, and just do the job for which they are paid?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and I certainly agree with that last point. People often confuse the Royal Mail’s activities with those of the Post Office, but there have been some issues with both organisations in recent months. We are keen to ensure that we do whatever we can to resolve those problems, and I am happy to talk to him at length about how we might do that.

Along with the victims of this miscarriage of justice, I am outraged at these bonuses. While the Post Office executives get these huge bonuses, dozens of post office branches around Cumbria are struggling to survive, with many facing closure as they cannot even break even. Given that the high street banks have largely abandoned our towns and villages, is it not time for the Government to ensure that those banks pay a much larger sum to our post office network, so that our much-valued post office branches can survive and thrive, and so that we give our sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses a pay rise, not the executives?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points. The Government’s position is that we are maintaining a network of 11,500 branches nationally and that 99% of the population will be within 3 miles of a post office. That will continue, and there are other criteria, which we will continue to maintain. He is right that we need to ensure there is a sustainable business model for a post office, and I am happy to discuss with him whether that involves the relationship with banking. Opportunities for banking hubs, for example, might make those businesses more sustainable, and I am keen to exploit such opportunities wherever we can.

This scandal upon a scandal highlights yet again that there is something fundamentally wrong with the governance of the Post Office. This is happening at a time when Fakenham, the largest town in my area, has not had a permanent post office for more than three years. So I have an idea: how about linking bonuses to actually providing the services we need on the ground?

My hon. Friend raises a number of good points and an interesting way of looking at how we can incentivise management to make sure we have a sustainable network of post offices in the future. I am happy to engage with him further on that.

It is difficult to know where to begin, but let me say that my constituent went to prison as a result of this scandal, as the Minister knows. Let us just consider the very idea that these people should be rewarding themselves with bonuses for co-operating with this inquiry and then letting the Minister know on 6 May, the day of the coronation. It does not take us long to work what was going on there; they were trying to hide this bad news. I know that the Minister takes this matter very seriously, and we have commended him for his actions on it on many occasions, but he really has to make sure that these bonuses do not stand. He has to question Mr Tom Cooper about when he knew about these bonuses and why did he not tell the Minister much sooner that they were going to be paid.

I spent much of the coronation day dealing with this matter, as the hon. Gentleman might imagine, although I had the TV on in the background. It is disappointing that this took so long; as I said earlier, Tom Cooper found out about this matter in early April and we should have been made aware earlier, either through the Post Office or by other means.

I am sorry about what has happened to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, and the hon. Gentleman and I have talked about it previously. We want all people who have suffered as a consequence of the Post Office scandal to come forward and make sure that they submit a claim for compensation. That is the most important thing now. We have set aside £1 billion to compensate postmasters for various different detriments that they have suffered, and our message to all postmasters affected by this scandal is: please come forward, you will be treated fairly. There is an independent processes to make sure that is the case, including the advisory board, of which the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) is a member.

This is a scandal from top to bottom. Yet again, we seem to be in a position where the Post Office is apologising only after the fact, when it has been found to have done something wrong. One of my local sub-postmistresses, Isabella Wall, died without having got the compensation she deserved; she lost her shop, her post office and the flat above it, and her family are still dealing with this injustice. I am glad that the Post Office is getting back the bonus payments it gave out, but would it not be more fitting if it were to put that money into a pot for the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who are still awaiting compensation, so that some of their legal fees could be covered by it?

I am sorry to hear the tragic case of my hon. Friend’s constituent; sadly, too many people have died waiting for justice and compensation. Of course, a claim for compensation can still be made and it would go to the family, and people will get reasonable legal fees paid as part of the compensation process. Again, if any Member has constituents who have suffered detriment and are looking for compensation, I am keen to engage with them to make sure that they submit the claim, so that it can be dealt with as quickly as possible.

I have listened to the Minister’s answers carefully. On Post Office executives’ pay and bonuses, can he confirm that he is looking at docking them even further, on the basis that these executives signed off false accounts?

That matter needs to be determined by the different inquiries that will be taking place. I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that we have to follow due process; there are employment processes and laws associated with this. I cannot stand up here and say now what I would do on the payment of bonuses, but he can be assured that we are looking at the situation carefully, and I am sure that what he sets out will be one of the considerations made as part of these investigations.

An apology and the repayment of bonuses that should never have been awarded in the first place is, frankly, the minimum we should expect. Will my hon. Friend ensure that all necessary steps are taken, including personnel changes, following the report he is due to receive?

As I say, we should wait for the outcome of the inquiry, but these are serious matters and we should take them seriously. I have great sympathy with my hon. Friend’s points. A lot of these matters are governed by employment law, and it is important that we respect due process. We would expect other organisations to do that and we should do it too, but I will take his comments on board, of course.

I understand that the chief executive’s full bonus is approximately half a million pounds and that he has offered to pay back just a few thousand. Does the Minister understand that members of the public watching this will be asking how come, if the Post Office is a Government-owned entity, the Minister cannot simply decide to suspend all bonuses for executives until the Horizon compensation claims are settled?

The sub-metric referred to here is an element of the bonus, and the total bonus of £400,000 does not relate to this particular sub-metric in its entirety—the hon. Gentleman is right to say that. I have sympathy with what he says. It would be wrong for me to stand here and comment on a matter that is clearly subject to employment law. I do not think that could be done in a normal commercial organisation—I have spent most of my life in such organisations—and it would be wrong for me to do that as a Minister; we in this place make the rules and we have to follow them as well. I take his point, of course, and we will be looking at these matters extremely seriously when we have the results of both reviews.

I question the competence and leadership qualities of any Post Office executive who thinks it is right to take a bonus at this time. Does the Minister agree that if there is any spare money or hundreds of thousands of pounds available at the moment, it should be going into the compensation fund for the victims of the Horizon scandal and it should also be used to support our fragile post office network, where our sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses are working so hard to preserve services for our local communities?

It is important that we have a remuneration package that attracts the right kind of person—many people will question whether that is the case today. On the compensation fund, the Government are prepared to fund compensation up to £1 billion, and that commitment has already been made. We want to make sure that everybody who has suffered as a consequence of the Post Office accounting scandal is returned to the position they were in before detriment was suffered and gets compensation in other areas, such as for non-pecuniary losses.

It is surely apparent that the culture within the Post Office that allowed people at the top to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to pursue an indefensible case has not changed. Although, of course, those who were victims of Horizon will be angry, so, too, will the thousands of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses across the country whose remuneration package is wholly inadequate. So here is an idea: why not set a cap on the maximum gap between the money paid to the sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress delivering the service on which our public rely and that paid to the chief executive?

By whatever means, I am very happy to have a further discussion with the right hon. Gentleman. We want to make sure that we have a sustainable network, which must mean that postmasters can run sustainable businesses. It is in the nature of things that, with the reduction in mail volumes and the frequency with which any of us visit post offices and use them for different reasons, it is more difficult to be a postmaster today than it was a decade ago, but we are keen to make sure that there is a sustainable future for the network and for the individual businesses that make up that network.

I recently spent a Saturday morning with Chris Borroughs, the sub-postmaster of a small post office in Latchford. It was very clear to me that the post office is the first port of call for many people who are vulnerable in society and is increasingly important because of the reduction in the number of banks on our high streets. It is also clear is that the economics of running a small sub-post office just do not work anymore. I was interested to hear the Minister say that he was looking to introduce a review of payments to executives. Will he consider extending that to look at how sub-postmasters are renumerated so that we do not lose any more post offices from the high street?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and Mr Borroughs for the work that he does for the community. My hon. Friend is right to say that post offices and postmasters are at the heart of our community—that is absolutely right. As I have said, they are needed now more than ever with the demise of many banks on our high streets. He was absolutely right to say that. However, it would be wrong of me to say from this Dispatch Box what incentives we are considering to make sure that we have the right network for the future, but, clearly, these matters are under review. The network itself is supported heavily by the taxpayer—about £2.5 billion over the past 10 years. We are balancing what we need to make sure that we have a sustainable network and sustainable businesses with the impact on, and asks of, our taxpayers. It is a difficult balance to strike. The best way forward is to make sure that we find more business opportunities for postmasters to make a living.

Like many Members, I speak for constituents who have faced more than a decade of stress and misery while seeing their personal finances and their standing in the community completely trashed by the Post Office. The Post Office is a long-standing national institution, and those sub-postmasters and the public deserve so much more than they are getting. Will the Minister be clear today that the Government accept responsibility for this situation, and outline exactly what steps will be taken to put this right? I am talking not just about this scandal but about our Post Office for the future.

We are trying to address a number of different things, including making sure that people are properly compensated and that we have a sustainable business going forward. It is a difficult balance to strike. As I said, the taxpayer supports the post office network to a significant degree—£2.5 billion over the past 10 years, so it is about striking that balance. If we talk to any postmaster, we will find that the principal challenge they face is finding more business—getting more people through the door to use their services. That is why we need to determine what the best future for post offices is to make sure that there is a sustainable business. Obviously, we encourage all our citizens and constituents to use their post office to make sure that those post offices have a sustainable future.

I pay tribute to the amazing postmasters and sub-postmasters in Gillingham and Rainham for all that they do. The Minister says that he is wating for the report to come forward before he takes the next steps. The question that he has not yet answered is what is the timeline for that report to come to him so that he can take those next steps, because people have waited so long to get justice in the first place. Linked to that, I support the comments made by my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew). At the very top end, we have people being given high, high compensation, while at the bottom end there are people who are doing a fantastic job, but who are not being given adequate resources and funding. If there is money at the top end, surely it needs to go to people on the frontline in these difficult and challenging economic times.

My hon. Friend raises a fair point. It is important that we pay the right package to get the right person for the job. People have had questions about that today, and I understand that. We do want to make sure that we have a sustainable future for our post offices. I pay tribute, as he does, to the postmasters in his area who do a tremendous job, but it is important that we find that sustainable future. I am very happy to engage with him and discuss our work in that regard to make sure that that is the case.

Leaving aside the scandal of the non-payment of compensation and the foot-dragging over the Horizon issue, Post Office executives surely cannot justify bonuses on the basis that the network is falling apart; nine post offices are closing every week, many of them being replaced by pay points and click and collect points; 70% of postmasters and postmistresses are living on the minimum wage; and the post office service itself is contracting in many rural areas. Can the Minister ensure that, at the very least, if there are criteria for giving bonuses, they are based on the level of service across the community and the viability of post offices for the future?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his points, and I agree with many of them. I, too, represent a rural area and have a number of post offices that have closed either temporarily or otherwise. Yes, we want that sustainable network. Yes, that is a key part of the conversation that I constantly have with the Post Office management and senior leadership. I accept his point that many of our postmasters are struggling to make a living. We must make sure that they have a sustainable future at a business and network level. The taxpayer makes significant contributions to ensure that that is the case today, and that is the balance that we need to strike. I am very keen to achieve the right hon. Gentleman’s objective, which is a sustainable future for our network.

May I put it to the Minister that if individuals’ bonuses were based on misleading information, there is the possibility that they could be guilty of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception under the Theft Act 1968? Will he consider referring this matter to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service for investigation?

I think the first step is to look at the evidence to find out what has actually happened and who is responsible, and then we can decide what action we need to take. We have two parallel inquiries and reviews: one by the remuneration committee and another by an independent external expert. I did not answer the earlier question about the speed of that inquiry. The remuneration committee will report back within two weeks. We have not set a timeline for the external review, but we will do so, and we will make Parliament aware of it as soon as possible. We should of course consider any action that results from that, but that must be within the context of due process.

I commend the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on bringing this urgent question to the House. His actions today have been a service not only to his constituents, but to all our constituents, and we thank him for it. The Minister understands only too well what the issues are; he understands the need for compassion and understanding, and I believe he has those. He will know that to constituents such as mine who lost their reputation in their local village due to this programme, news of bonuses paid to bosses is—I cannot emphasise this enough—grotesque and a slap in the face. I understand that the inquiry is ongoing, but what steps will the Minister take to ensure that there is accountability for those whose errors are exacerbating the stress of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses to such a level that it has affected their health?

I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for this urgent question and for all the work he has done for postmasters up and down the country. I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about reputation and that many will feel that this is another slap in the face. I completely understand his points. He mentions accountability, and he knows from the work we have done together that I agree with him: scrutiny and accountability are necessary, and we must ensure that the process of the reviews that we are undertaking is as transparent as possible and subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I am very happy to ensure that that is the case.

Climate and Ecology

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the United Kingdom to achieve climate and nature targets; to give the Secretary of State a duty to implement a strategy to achieve those targets; to establish a Climate and Nature Assembly to advise the Secretary of State in creating that strategy; to give duties to the Committee on Climate Change and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee regarding the strategy and targets; and for connected purposes.

It is a great honour to introduce the Climate and Ecology Bill. I pay tribute to the Bill’s current sponsor and former promoter, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who has long championed this Bill, as well as to Lord Redesdale, who did likewise in the other place. I am proud to lead this cross-party effort for the UK to embed in law the ambition and the action we need to tackle the environmental crisis.

The Bill has been drafted and is supported by many of Britain’s leading climate and ecology scientists. We must align our policies with the latest science and with what the UK has agreed internationally. This is not a matter of partisan politics; it is a matter of survival. It is about providing a sustainable way of life for our nation today and for generations to come. I urge all colleagues to join the growing all-party cohort of Members from both Houses who back this Bill, and I am especially grateful to the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for supporting it so enthusiastically.

This Bill is our chance to position the UK as a world leader on climate and environmental action. Our ability to prevent temperatures rising by more than 1.5°C is in the balance. Now is the time not to give up on that aim, but to redouble our efforts to meet it. As the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, told us in Glasgow, 1.5 is the only way to survive.

The double-headed climate and nature crisis is affecting people’s lives now, especially in the global south, but increasingly here in the UK as well. Just think of the climate change-triggered heatwaves in India and Pakistan, the floods we have seen worldwide and, of course, the floods and heatwaves of recent years here in the UK. There is no room for complacency and no time to waste.

Nature provides our best chance to mitigate climate change and its worst impacts, such as extreme flooding and drought. As Sir David Attenborough has shown us, nature is not a “nice to have”; it is all we have. As one of the world’s most nature-depleted nations, we must aim higher and we must do better.

We cannot solve the climate crisis without saving our key ecosystems, restoring habitats and protecting our much-loved species. The UK’s critical carbon sinks and stores, such as peatland, woodland, soils, wetlands and seas, are deteriorating, reducing their capacity to absorb carbon. In some cases, they have even become net carbon sources rather than sinks and stores. Protecting nature must take equal priority with cutting emissions.

Half of the world’s annual economic output, some $44 trillion, is being put at risk by the depletion of natural resources. Alongside that, up to 300 million people face an increased risk of floods and hurricanes due to the loss of buffering coastline habitats, and the loss of pollinators is already causing some 430,000 deaths every year by reducing the supply of healthy food. It is clear that we must act with all urgency, at home and abroad, and stand united for nature.

That is why the Bill is such an important piece of legislation. It is the only piece of proposed or existing legislation that would tackle the intertwined crises of climate and nature together to ensure a strong, integrated response. If enacted, it would create a joined-up plan to cut emissions in line with the 1.5°C target, while halting and reversing nature loss by 2030. By following the science and involving the British public, we can deliver the transition to a zero-carbon, nature-positive future, allowing us to live in harmony with nature. The ongoing Ukraine and energy crises remind us all too clearly of the need to transition fairly and rapidly away from fossil fuel dependency. We need to see action at home and abroad, and legislation is very much part of the solution.

The Bill centralises the importance of social justice and the fact that the UK cannot and must not offshore environmental destruction at the expense of the global south. That means we must take responsibility for our emissions footprint and our overseas footprint, and deal with the root causes of climate and ecological breakdown. The Bill also seeks to protect people by ensuring that no one is left behind via its fairness provisions and through the inclusion of a climate and nature assembly to incorporate public opinion in the unprecedented pace of change that is now required.

Clause 1 contains the Bill’s apex climate and nature targets. Having a net zero date is an important marker, but we need to understand the area below the curve—in other words, how much carbon we can emit into the atmosphere before we breach 1.5°C. The Bill would limit the UK’s total carbon emissions to no more than its proportionate share of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s remaining global carbon budget for a 67% chance of limiting heating to 1.5°C.

By transitioning to a renewable energy future, we would not only end our reliance on deadly fossil fuels, but create the jobs of the future and tackle the soaring cost of living crisis at source. Bridging the ambition gap between current emissions reductions and what is needed for 1.5°C is essential if we are serious about restoring the natural world, and it could not be more urgent.

We know that human activities have already altered 70% of the Earth’s land, degrading up to 40% of it, and 87% of its oceans. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has found that 1 million animal and plant species now face extinction and that mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish populations decreased globally by 68% between 1970 and 2016.

That is why the Bill’s nature target is to halt and reverse the UK’s overall contribution to the degradation and loss of nature in the UK and overseas. It is aligned with the international commitment to halt and reverse the destruction of nature by 2030, which the UK signed up to at the UN biodiversity conference, COP15, in 2022.

Current legislation contains a target to halt the decline in the abundance of species by 2030, as well as a longer-term target to increase species populations. However, the absence of any concrete plan to address the current rate of decline means that the state of nature is on course to worsen considerably by 2030, which risks pushing ecosystems beyond danger points from which they may not be able to recover.

The Bill’s holistic nature target would therefore see the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, habitats and ecosystems visibly and measurably on the path to recovery by 2030, measured against a baseline of 2020. That is what this moment requires: to follow the science, to invest in nature and to restore our once-wild isles.

Clause 2 is focused on the development of a climate and nature strategy. It states that the strategy must produce a just transition for all, by protecting vulnerable communities and providing financial support for workers transitioning from fossil fuel and ecosystem-intensive industries into the jobs of the future. The clause contains measures that must be met in achieving the Bill’s apex targets, including accounting for all of the UK’s imported emissions, as well as those that take place on UK soil, so that the UK is not offshoring our pollution; ending the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels by the UK as rapidly as possible; ensuring that all UK policies prioritise avoiding the loss of nature; and ensuring that the UK takes account of its entire ecological footprint and all the destruction to nature caused by the production, transportation and disposal of the goods and services we consume.

The transition to a zero-carbon, nature-positive UK will affect how we all live, travel and work, so we should all have a role in planning how we get there. The climate assembly set up by six Select Committees that reported in September 2020, as well as the citizens’ assemblies that have taken place on climate and biodiversity in Ireland and the many others around the world, demonstrate the value of including citizens in the difficult decisions that we will have to take.

From my work in Sheffield Hallam on the climate manifesto, which comprises ideas directly sourced from my constituents, I know the importance of democracy in the transition to net zero and in protecting nature. For that reason, clause 3 would provide for a representative sample of the UK population to consider expert advice and reports on recommendations for inclusion in the strategy as part of the temporary nature and climate assembly. Clause 4 contains duties on the Committee on Climate Change and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to evaluate, monitor and report on the implementation of the strategy. Clause 5 ensures that measures in areas of devolved competence would be agreed by the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) said so well during a debate on the principles last November:

“We know that climate action must be nature-positive action and that we must halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030 for the benefit of all people and the planet.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 150WH.]

This Bill brings that vital issue to the fore. I am delighted that so many members of local councils, including Councillor Georgia Gould, and local Mayors, including the Mayor of London, have recognised that and are backing the Bill. It is time that we got the action we need from the Government to ensure that we can survive.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Olivia Blake, Geraint Davies, Caroline Lucas, Colum Eastwood, Ed Davey, Wera Hobhouse, Liz Saville Roberts, Stephen Farry, Sir Peter Bottomley, Derek Thomas, Alan Brown and Brendan O’Hara present the Bill.

Olivia Blake accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 November, and to be printed (Bill 304).

Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Bill (Allocation of Time)

Ordered,

That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Bill:

Timetable

(1) (a) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be taken at today’s sitting in accordance with this Order.

(b) Proceedings on Second Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.

(c) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.

Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put

(2) When the Bill has been read a second time:

(a) it shall, despite Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills not subject to a programme order), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;

(b) the Speaker shall leave the chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.

(3) (a) On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the whole House, the Chair shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.

(b) If the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.

(4) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (1), the Chair or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply:

(a) any Question already proposed from the chair;

(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;

(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;

(d) the question on any amendment, new Clause or new Schedule selected by the Chair or Speaker for separate decision;

(e) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded; and shall not put any other questions, other than the question on any motion described in paragraph (15)(a) of this Order.

(5) On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chair or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.

(6) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (4)(c) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chair or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.

(7) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (4)(e) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chair shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause of or Schedule to the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.

Consideration of Lords Amendments

(8) (a) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.

(b) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.

(9) Paragraphs (2) to (7) of Standing Order No. 83F (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on consideration of Lords amendments) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (8) of this Order.

Subsequent stages

(10) (a) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.

(b) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.

(11) Paragraphs (2) to (5) of Standing Order No. 83G (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on further messages from the Lords) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (10) of this Order.

Reasons Committee

(12) Paragraphs (2) to (6) of Standing Order No. 83H (Programme orders: reasons committee) apply in relation to any committee to be appointed to draw up reasons after proceedings have been brought to a conclusion in accordance with this Order.

Miscellaneous

(13) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on the Bill.

(14) Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.

(15) (a) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken, to recommit the Bill or to vary or supplement the provisions of this Order.

(b) No notice shall be required of such a Motion.

(c) Such a Motion may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.

(d) The Question on such a Motion shall be put forthwith; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (c) shall thereupon be resumed.

(e) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on such a Motion.

(16) (a) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.

(b) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

(17) (a) The start of any debate under Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) to be held on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day shall be postponed until the conclusion of any proceedings on that day to which this Order applies.

(b) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings in respect of such a debate.

(18) Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

(19) (a) Any private business which has been set down for consideration at a time falling after the commencement of proceedings on this Order or on the Bill on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day shall, instead of being considered as provided by Standing Orders or by any Order of the House, be considered at the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill on that day.

(b) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business so far as necessary for the purpose of securing that the business may be considered for a period of three hours.—(Mr Steve Baker.)

Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Bill

Second Reading

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is, of course, with profound regret that I return to the Dispatch Box to bring forward legislation in the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members across the House will agree that this is not a position that any of us would want to be in. The Government remain committed to supporting the restoration of the Executive in Northern Ireland as soon as possible. Functioning governance for Northern Ireland by its elected representatives is the best outcome for citizens.

Last month, we all came together to reflect on the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and to mark the progress that Northern Ireland has made over the past quarter-century and the peace and prosperity that the agreement has brought. Of course, we also reflected on the work that remains to be done. The anniversary is an opportunity for us all to recommit to building an even brighter future for Northern Ireland. We need to see Northern Ireland’s political leaders come together and restore the devolved institutions established by the agreement, which is the surest way of delivering on the priorities of Northern Ireland’s peoples and of safeguarding our Union.

We have been very clear that to strengthen and protect the Union, we must persuade people and demonstrate that devolved government within the UK is what works best for Northern Ireland. It is in that spirit that we agreed the Windsor framework, seeking to restore the balance of the agreement and solve the issues posed by the Northern Ireland protocol. Now is the time for the parties to move forward together for what is the best possible future for Northern Ireland, and to deliver on the priorities of its people. That includes a more prosperous economy and better, more sustainable public services.

The Minister quite correctly draws attention to the fact that the best way for Northern Ireland to have success in the future is to get devolved government up and running within the United Kingdom. Does he agree that that can best be done when all main sections of the community in Northern Ireland buy into the process of governance by which they would be governed?

Yes, of course. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I agree that it must involve all sections of the community. I will be very frank with the hon. Gentleman: I recognise that the Windsor framework is a hard compromise for many sections of the Unionist community because it leaves in place some European Union law in order to have an infrastructure-free border. That is why it is also a hard compromise for Conservative Eurosceptics and for me. But I recognise that, of all the plausible futures for Northern Ireland before us, the one that is best for the people of Northern Ireland is to accept the Windsor framework, including the Stormont brake and the consent mechanism, to restore devolved government and move forward together.

As I said when I answered the final oral question earlier, Northern Ireland has an amazing opportunity. Northern Ireland Members will know better than me the incredible strength of the entrepreneurial private sector in Northern Ireland. What I see is a sector that could, with political stability, soar. With privileged access to the UK, to the EU, and to our free trade agreements under UK services law, we could achieve amazing things that will secure Northern Ireland’s prosperity, and, I believe, secure consent for Northern Ireland’s place in the Union. But I think that, for the moment, I had best leave unsaid what will happen if people continue to go without good-quality devolved government and where that will lead. If that is a topic that Members wish to pursue, perhaps we can have a different debate. I hope that is helpful to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell).

I want to be absolutely clear that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and I all wish to preserve Northern Ireland’s place in the Union, respecting the UK’s commitments under the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We are Unionists, although I am aware that there are some commentators for whom we can never be Unionist enough—but I am allowing myself to digress and I should get back on track.