To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of Kazakhstan’s bid to secure a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2017-18.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Group for Kazakhstan.

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government are committed to promoting a broad and deep bilateral relationship with Kazakhstan, working together to further boost our co-operation and take forward our dialogue on a wide range of issues. We will consider Kazakhstan’s candidacy for the United Nations Security Council on its merits.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. The pillars of Kazakhstan’s campaign to join the United Nations Security Council are nuclear security, water security, food security and energy security. It has played a pivotal role in the promotion of nuclear disarmament and in advancing the peace in several countries as well as responding to humanitarian emergencies. Does my noble friend recognise the importance of these issues and does he believe Kazakhstan’s commitment to them displays its suitability for a non-permanent seat on the council?

My Lords, I have no doubt of Kazakhstan’s commitment to water, food and energy security and its role in nuclear disarmament. I recognise that these are important issues. However, as I am sure the noble Lord appreciates, we have a long-standing policy of never revealing our voting intentions for Security Council elections.

My Lords, has there been any change in Kazakhstan’s human rights record since the United States Department of State reported on it in 2013, when it described the most significant human rights problems as severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their Government; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion and association; and the lack of an independent judiciary? It also talked about other reported abuses, including arbitrary and unlawful killings, military hazing that led to deaths, and detainee and prisoner torture. Is this the sort of country we wish to encourage to join the Security Council?

My Lords, the noble Lord makes some very important points from the 2013 report. There are still problems with freedom of expression. Kazakhstan’s legislation on NGOs is of concern and progress on human rights has not been quite as fast or comprehensive as we and others would wish in the 25 years since independence. Significant reforms are under way, however, and important progress has been made on social and women’s rights and prevention of torture.

My Lords, in addition to worrying about human rights violations, which include torture, does the noble Earl agree that the record on the promotion of democracy is also pretty awful? There have been five successive elections: in the most recent the President was elected yet again, but with 97% of the vote. All the outside agencies that have monitored these elections say that they have all been flawed.

My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Lord has said. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights noted that, while the elections were “efficiently organised”, there was still room for much improvement and there needs to be a “genuine political choice” and more media pluralism.

My Lords, we all recognise the importance of Kazakhstan and the other central Asian countries in the stability of Asia—in particular, given their Sunni Muslim populations, in the enormous overlapping problems between central Asia and the rest of the Middle East. Nevertheless, we recognise that there is a good deal of corruption in Kazakhstan. Has the noble Earl noted the number of Kazakhs who came into Britain in recent years under the tier 1 investor visa scheme? Have we checked whether the money they invested in Britain was lawfully acquired in Kazakhstan?

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, makes some very interesting points. I will ensure that we look—

Oh!

Noble Lords may jest, but it is quite right that these points should be examined. I assure the noble Lord that we will look at this and see whether there is any more information I can give him.

My Lords, sometimes, unfortunately, horse trading can take place at the United Nations and the issues that concern us most are put aside for other reasons. This week, we have seen the much more open and transparent process for the appointment of the UN Secretary-General. Half the declared nominees are women. What are the chances of a woman being elected Secretary-General in September?

My Lords, I would not try to second-guess the General Assembly, but the noble Lord was in his place during a debate last year when my noble friend Lady Anelay responded on behalf of the Government. She emphasised the importance of structure and transparency in the election of future UN Secretaries-General. While we want to encourage as many women candidates as possible, we want to see the best person for the job, no matter what gender.

Does the Minister accept that in Kazakhstan’s condition the thing we want to encourage more than anything else is an independent judiciary and rule of law?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Soley, makes a point that is worth repeating. Last May, President Nazarbayev launched far-reaching reforms for the legal system, the civil service, the economy and public accountability, known as the 100 concrete steps. I emphasise that the Prime Minister visited Kazakhstan in 2013 and President Nazarbayev visited the United Kingdom towards the end of last year. Human rights and trade were important points of discussion.

My Lords, while I in no way advocate Kazakhstan being a member of the Security Council of the United Nations, does my noble friend agree that if widespread corruption, and the other abuses that have been mentioned, disqualified a candidate for membership of the council, it would be significantly smaller than it is today?

I could not possibly comment on my noble friend Lord Lawson’s question, but he makes an interesting point.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government who will represent the United Kingdom at the United Nations World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May.

My Lords, the UK is committed to making the World Humanitarian Summit a success and we will send high-level representation to Istanbul. We are progressing a strong agenda for humanitarian reform, including a new approach to protracted crises. Last week we hosted a forum at Wilton Park on protracted displacement and at the end of this week we will co-host, with the World Bank, the third grand bargain Sherpa event in Washington DC.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed that this summit, the first of its kind in the 70-year history of the United Nations, has to deal with the urgency of these complex challenges and the scale of the suffering that we see around the globe. He has called on global leaders to,

“act decisively, with compassion and resolve”.

Given that the UK is one of the biggest donors of development aid to humanitarian crises around the world, and given that the British public have consistently shown a generosity that is unmatched in most of the world, will the Prime Minister take a lead and attend the summit? It might give him a slight distraction from some of his current troubles.

My Lords, as I have already mentioned, there will be high-level representation at the summit.

My Lords, UN member states have agreed that the summit in Istanbul must reinforce the outcomes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris agreement on climate change. Therefore, will the Government be ready at the summit to commit to action, subject to mutual parliamentary scrutiny and accountability, in what will be the first major opportunity to give meaning to the principle of “Leave no one behind”?

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. This is a very important summit. It will tackle a lot of issues, including the agreements that were reached at Sendai and Paris, to ensure that those strong linkages between the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation agendas continue. On the wider point, it is about making sure that the reforms that are required to ensure preparedness for future crises are also part of the bigger reform agenda. As I said, we also need to encourage other partners and donors and the private sector to step up to the mark.

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the British representative at the humanitarian summit will be able, by virtue of having met our commitment to the 0.7% GDP target, to give a lead to others, and that it is very important that we give that lead in May? Does she also agree that one of the projects that we should take on with our commitment of future resources is to increase the supply of expert humanitarian aid co-ordinators so that there is a corps in place not only for dealing with crises when they happen but of sufficient numbers that they can stay in place and help with the recovery from crises in some of the most desperate areas?

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for the points he has raised, particularly on the 0.7% commitment that we have managed to embed and deliver. He is also right that we need to prepare ourselves for future crises but also help build resilience in infrastructure in countries that really need it, particularly in their health systems. My noble friend is absolutely right that we need to make sure that we not only support people with the skills but prepare people locally to have those skills.

My Lords, in his pre-summit report, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, the United Nations Secretary-General urges world leaders not to underestimate or, worse, override the work of local organisations in dealing with humanitarian crises, because they are the best placed to shape programmes in culturally sensitive ways, as we saw in the Ebola crisis. Yet currently only 0.02% of humanitarian aid is passed through local organisations. Can the Minister reassure us that at the summit—whoever represents us—the Government will support the call made by leading NGOs to raise this to 20%? Will that be part of the new approach of which she speaks?

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right that we need to ensure that we do not miss out on the local support groups on the ground. We have a mixture of packages. There is some work that the multilaterals are better placed to do. Of course, as the right reverend Prelate said, it is also important that local-led community groups are properly supported. DfID support will be there to ensure that not only are we urging others to step up to the mark to support these local groups but we are doing that ourselves.

My Lords, when the Minister last referred to the Istanbul summit in this House, she mentioned that one of the themes on the agenda would be the protection of civilian populations. Would Her Majesty’s Government be willing to table an item on the agenda in Istanbul about the need to protect the civilian interpreters in conflict zones?

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a point that is well above my own pay grade but I will take that back to the department.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the summit is an opportunity to focus on making humanitarian action more effective and inclusive and, as Ban Ki-moon has said—I, too, quote him—“to transform the lives” of those who are most at risk and in danger of being “left behind”? Does she agree that it is a potential turning point in our ability to prevent and end crises, and to tackle vulnerability?

Yes, my Lords, the noble Baroness sums it up rather well. It is an opportunity, but one that we must all take. The UK has often been at the forefront of it all. We really need to push harder for other donors to step up to the mark, but also to involve the private sector and strengthen the civil society organisations on the ground.

My Lords, clearly the focus at the summit will be on the Middle East and Syria but there are of course unfolding crises throughout the world, particularly in the east of Africa. The Minister mentioned the Sendai framework. Can she tell us a bit more about how committed the UK Government are to ensuring that this framework is properly operated, and will she continue to support the European Union’s efforts to ensure that it is implemented?

My Lords, the noble Lord is right that we must not take our eye off any crises. As demonstrated by the department in which I have the privilege of being a Minister, we have shown that leadership. We have provided an extra £150 million to prepare for and mitigate the impact of some of the crises caused by the El Niño-related climate shocks in Africa. But, again, we cannot do things on our own; we really need to get others to support strongly the work that we in the UK Government are doing. I agree with the noble Lord, but we need others to be reminded constantly that they have a duty, too.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for the protection of the public over the last three years have been foreign national prisoners eligible, pursuant to Section 119 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, for removal from the United Kingdom at the end of their tariff terms without a direction from the Parole Board for their release, and what proportion of such prisoners have in the fact been removed without such a direction.

My Lords, from May 2012, when the tariff- expired removal scheme was commenced, up to 31 March of this year, 261 prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection have been removed under that scheme—that is, without a direction from the Parole Board. A further five such prisoners have been eligible for removal but officials decided that they did not meet the criteria, while 16 have been approved for removal but are awaiting the settling of their removal directions.

I am grateful to the Minister for those figures but I am sure that he will readily understand the sense of injustice and frustration, not to say anger, felt by UK domestic IPP prisoners at this preferential treatment which is accorded to foreign national prisoners. It is preferential because, of course, the foreign national prisoners do not have to satisfy the Parole Board that they can safely be released. Would the Minister agree to see the Lord Chancellor and try to persuade him that this is yet another reason for the Lord Chancellor to exercise his powers, also given under Section 128 of LASPO, to modify the test which the Parole Board applies in the case of the domestic IPP prisoners so that, hopefully, some of them, too, may gain the earlier release that at the moment is given only to these foreign prisoners?

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord is a champion of those who have been imprisoned under the IPP scheme brought in by the previous Labour Government. The position is that this Government are committed, as I think all Governments before them were, to removing foreign criminals to their own countries where possible. They must be punished but not at the expense of British taxpayers. Therefore they are removed when the relevant section permits their removal. Of course the Secretary of State actively considers the position that he has a power to change the release test but, at the moment, he is not satisfied that it is appropriate to do so.

My Lords, in view of the totally unsatisfactory ongoing position with regard to IPP prisoners, will the Minister convey to the Secretary of State that if the Secretary of State is not willing to take and use the powers at his disposal, he should consider appointing a senior judge to review the working of this system in order to get justice for people who are quite clearly not getting it at present?

We have reduced by 584 the number of IPP prisoners in the last year. There is an indeterminate sentence prisoners co-ordination group, run by NOMS, where close examination is taking place of all serving IPP prisoners. Efforts are made to accelerate their access to the appropriate courses, and we have removed backlogs from the Parole Board. We think that everything is being done to make sure that those who are safe to be released are being released when the Parole Board decides.

My Lords, today we have further evidence of prison overcrowding from another shocking inspection report of Wormwood Scrubs, which holds 35 indeterminate sentence prisoners. It makes the obvious recommendation that single cells should not be used for more than one prisoner. Will the Government now recognise that the injustice of keeping IPP prisoners beyond their tariffs serves only to add to the scandal of holding prisoners in overcrowded, squalid and understaffed prisons?

The noble Lord refers to the report on Wormwood Scrubs, which I entirely accept shows a distressing picture. As he and the House will know, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are determined to improve our prison system, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given £1.3 billion to enable that to happen. It will not happen overnight, but I am sure the House will accept the Government’s sincerity and determination to deal with some of the most unattractive aspects of our prison system.

My Lords, I fully accept that the Government have been trying to find a solution to the problem of these unfortunate prisoners, but the fact remains that it is now coming up to the fourth year since the power to impose IPP sentences was removed. That is far too long a period when, as was indicated at the time, these sentences put on a prisoner the impossible task of proving that he is not a danger. That is the real heart of the problem. Unless something is done to tackle that, does the Minister recognise that there will be a substantial further period before the last of these prisoners are released?

My Lords, the House of course greatly respects the noble and learned Lord for his experience in this area, but it is a matter for the equally experienced Parole Board to decide whether or not it is safe to release these prisoners. It must not be forgotten that, in each of the cases, the relevant judge sentenced the defendant in accordance with the then existing powers for the protection of the public. It therefore becomes incumbent upon the Parole Board to decide whether it is safe to release them, notwithstanding the fact that they may have a short-tariff sentence. It would be easy of course for the Government to wash their hands of this, but they have taken a responsible view to unravelling this unfortunate provision, which was brought in by the previous Labour Government.

My Lords, it is probably not the moment for me to confess that I was the Home Secretary who introduced the idea. The original intention, which I hope is understood, was that only those who posed a really serious risk to the population would be subject to such orders. That did not come about, and I regret that very strongly. But is it not a fact that what is lacking are the courses and therapy to allow the Parole Board to make the necessary decisions as quickly as possible. so that the overly prolonged incarceration of many of these prisoners can come to an end?

I entirely accept that the intention was to protect the public and that this provision caught in the net rather more prisoners than it was expected to catch. It must be remembered, of course, that these courses are important because they can provide evidence that a prisoner has grappled with a particular problem, whether it is sex offending, violence, drugs or whatever it might be. It is not a prerequisite for their release that they have to have attended these courses, although it may provide some evidence. Equally, the fact that you attend a course does not guarantee your release. We have increased the availability of courses to these prisoners. I am aware that a letter was written to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, by my noble friend Lady Evans when this matter was last raised. I will ensure that that letter is placed in the Library. It gives a list of all the various courses which are now available to those prisoners.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve the productivity of the United Kingdom economy in the light of the figures published by the Office for National Statistics on 7 April.

My Lords, productivity growth represents a serious challenge for all advanced economies, and the UK is no exception. The Government last year published our productivity plan, Fixing the Foundations. In last month’s Budget, we went further—for example, announcing additional reductions in corporation tax to incentivise investment, and giving the green light to infrastructure projects such as Crossrail 2 and High Speed 3.

Indeed, my Lords. Given that productivity levels in the UK are lower than when the previous Labour Government were in office, and given that in the G7 only Japan stands worse than us, would it not be a good idea if, with some enthusiasm and gusto, the Government actually pursued their plan of fixing the foundations and building homes, rebalancing the economy and taking timely decisions about our transport infrastructure? Indeed, can they apply the enthusiasm with which they quarrel among themselves about Europe to addressing the real problems of the United Kingdom?

My Lords, I am bursting with enthusiasm and full of energy to get things done. I cannot claim that this Government will not encounter some of the problems that previous Governments down the ages have encountered when implementing their plans, but I refer the noble Lord to chart 2.B in the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan, published a fortnight ago, which shows that, of the 602 projects that the plan sets out and are in the pipeline, 61% are in construction, 50% will have been completed by 2020-21 and a further 49% will by that point be either under construction or part of an active programme. So we are full of enthusiasm, full of energy and we are getting going.

Will my noble friend explain to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, that the Office for National Statistics figures which so worry him may not tell the full story by any means, because they take too little account of the huge output of data and information in the digital age, which now generates more economic value than the whole of global goods trade?

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. Sir Charles Bean recently completed a review of the UK’s economic statistics, and one of his findings was, as my noble friend said, that if the digital economy had been properly taken into account, economic growth would have been one-third to two-thirds of a percentage point higher over the past decade, with similar implications for productivity. However, I stress that that would not explain the UK’s recent poor performance in comparison with other countries, nor why productivity has worsened since the financial crisis, so we are not complacent.

My Lords, the UK’s poor performance on productivity will surely never improve until we get in place the infrastructure—housing, broadband, power and transport—that we need. Will the Government give up or curb their obsession with the budget surplus, borrow at the current zero-coupon rate available to them, stop faffing around with expensive and reluctant private sector and sovereign fund investors, and actually get spades in the ground on the major projects—Hinkley Point being one example—that are at present all suffering delays?

My Lords, we are getting going and cracking on with things. I dispute what the noble Baroness says about having a choice between ditching the projected surplus that my right honourable friend the Chancellor has set out and achieving what we are setting out. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, noble Lords might be interested to know that we have committed to the biggest investment in transport infrastructure in generations, increasing spending by 50% to £61 billion in this Parliament.

My Lords, the Minister cannot get away with those glib replies. Where has he been for the last six years? The fact is that our productivity levels are back to those of the recession year of 2008. Most of the projects that he mentions have been started in the past year or so. What about those projects which were meant to commence from 2010 onwards, which have in fact achieved very little? Does he accept that we will get nowhere until we successfully address the issue of training? Even the construction industry, which is clearly important to the development of economic growth and jobs, complains that it cannot get work people of sufficient skills to do the tasks it wants them to do.

My Lords, I apologise if I sound glib, but I am certainly not complacent. I quite agree that there is a lot of work to be done. That is why, for example, on the point about construction skills, we are launching the apprenticeship levy to fund more high-quality apprenticeships. On top of that, we are protecting the core schools budget; we have removed the HE student numbers cap; and we have cut corporation tax to 18%. I could go on and on—there are lots of things. This is not glib; this is work in progress, but we are not complacent.

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the latest figures for High Speed 2 put the overall cost at £80 billion. It will be 16 years before it begins to run at all, and then it will run at a loss. Meanwhile, in this country 90% of our economic activity is conducted by road. Would not it be more sensible—taking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison—to divert these enormous sums into something that would give more immediate productivity gains, have a less ambitious target and put that money into millions of small, economically beneficial and productivity beneficial developments that could be done through rail and road improvements?

I hear what the noble Lord says about HS2, but I would not say that these were mutually exclusive. As I have said, the UK will invest more than £100 billion in infrastructure over this Parliament. My noble friend wishes to see more investment in roads. The £15 billion of investment in the roads investment strategy will include resurfacing more than 80% of the strategic road network and delivering more than 1,300 miles of additional lanes. As I say, these are not mutually exclusive.

When the Minister replied to my noble friend Lord Harrison, he produced a long list of good intentions, but none of them has actually come into effect. In a subsequent answer, he went on to tell us about a number of measures that the Government have taken. Having taken all those measures, we now have the appalling productivity statement from our own department dealing with national statistics. I am not going to accuse the Minister of being complacent, but he really has to get a better story to tell.

I hear what the noble Lord says, but I think that we do have a good story to tell. I draw his attention to the national infrastructure plan that was published, which sets out very clearly what the Government are doing and how we are delivering it.

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 1. It is unusual, of course, to have a substantive amendment at Third Reading, and I suspect that it is more unusual for that amendment to amend an Act that is already on the statute book. However, noble Lords will be aware that the amendment would not be before us if it had not got past the eagle eyes of the Public Bill Office. The amendment would iron out what seems to be a contradiction about the position as between a letter from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, which came from the Home Office.

Your Lordships will recall that this Bill extends provisions regarding any tenant’s right to rent, but those who are caught up in this situation are, not entirely, but very often, immigrants. On Report, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised what she called the “Lord Avebury point”. I am very happy to take any opportunity to refer to my late friend Lord Avebury, whose record on these issues I strive to match but will never attain. The point, as she summarised it, is that asylum speakers whose presence is not illegal but who do not have documentary proof are unable to show landlords that they have a right to rent. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, said that he would write to the noble Baroness, and he did so, copying me. He wrote:

“It remains the case that migrants who do not understand whether they may qualify for permission to rent may contact the Home Office to establish whether this is the case”.

That was welcome, but earlier in the same month the Home Office, replying to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, said three times:

“there is no application route for permission to rent”.

It also said:

“It is not a question of a migrant making an application for permission to rent, but rather a status the Secretary of State may consider affording on a case by case basis”.

To explain the problem a little further, Home Office guidance envisages that permission to rent will be granted in cases such as: asylum seekers; refused asylum seekers; families co-operating with the Home Office’s family return processes; individuals on criminal or immigration bail; those within the Home Office voluntary departure process; victims of trafficking or slavery; and individuals with an outstanding out-of-time immigration application, in-country appeal or judicial review. It is also necessary to grant permission to rent where to fail to do so would violate an individual’s human rights.

However, the only way to seek confirmation that a discretionary right to rent has been granted is for the landlord, not the tenant, to request confirmation from the Home Office. During the passage of this Bill, we have debated the processes in place for that and the operation of the checking service. We have also debated the problems about the right-to-rent scheme, which include potential discrimination and landlords who, quite understandably, want to get on with renting their property and will let to those whose status is the most easily ascertained. A landlord may not tell a would-be tenant why he is refusing a tenancy, and the individual might not be aware that he has been denied permission to rent. There is no mechanism to allow an individual to clarify the position, correct any mistakes or give additional evidence. There is no obligation for landlords or agents to request a check from the Home Office. I am sure that almost all noble Lords know, if not personally, then through acquaintance with people who are seeking to rent property in a very difficult market, that the situation for every would-be tenant is emotional and a matter of considerable stress and anxiety and that many people have to go on looking without a good outcome.

The 2014 Act, which is the subject of the amendment, provides at Section 21(3) that a person,

“is to be treated as having a right to rent … if the Secretary of State has granted”,

him,

“permission for the purposes of this Chapter to occupy premises under a residential tenancy agreement”.

My amendment would allow an application for confirmation that the Secretary of State has granted or will grant permission in accordance with the subsection that I have just read out. This is not an academic matter, as I have said; I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, will share with your Lordships the case of a family with two young children, living in this country legally, who, through circumstances that I suspect are not at all unusual, found that they could not prove their right to rent and therefore found themselves homeless, with their possessions in store and the family in limbo.

My amendment does not seem to be inconsistent with the response to the FOI request because, although I would like to, I am not seeking an application for permission to rent, nor would it be an application that would imply the whole process of going through seeking permission. It would simply be an application to find out whether the individual himself had, or was due to have, permission. I hope that we can clear this up because a lot of people will be affected by it. I beg to move.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for tabling the amendment on behalf of us both. I was alerted to this issue by briefings at an earlier stage of the Bill from the JCWI and ILPA. As the noble Baroness said, the late and much missed Lord Avebury tried to resolve this issue during the passage of what became the 2014 Act, but to no avail. It falls to us to try to resolve it now.

I will not repeat the case in support of the amendment that has already been made so clearly by the noble Baroness. Instead, I draw your Lordships’ attention to a singular aspect of the permission-to-rent scheme that the amendment is designed to remedy. The UK has a strong tradition of upholding the rule of law. All of us can be sure in our interactions with the state that officials who make decisions that affect us are accountable to the law. Whether it is the person next door applying for planning permission, the imposition of a fine for speeding, the grant of a licence to serve alcoholic beverages or a local decision to cut council services, in every case the people affected are either directly notified of the decision or are able to access information about it that is available in the public domain. By informing people of the decisions that affect them, we ensure that government operates reasonably transparently. We ensure that power is exercised in a reasonably accountable way, and that any arbitrary or unlawful use of power is communicated directly to those that it affects. The system helps to ensure that Ministers and other public servants wield their considerable power within the law.

Here, though, we have a scheme under which the Home Secretary can decide whether or not a person—and, potentially, their entire family—is made homeless. I emphasise to noble Lords that this is no exaggeration. To take the example that the noble Baroness referred to, we have been made aware of the case of a man with a wife and two young children who have every right to be in this country and possess the right to rent but, because he does not have the paperwork to evidence that, he is unable to find housing for his family. They have come to the end of a tenancy and have now been forced, as a family of four, to live with relatives while the Home Office processes his paperwork.

The right-to-rent scheme has a huge impact on individuals who are caught up in it. But, despite the importance that the Home Secretary’s decision makes to an individual’s life in future, there is no right to be informed of that decision and of the grounds on which the decision was made.

The Government will tell my landlord whether or not I have permission to rent and therefore whether or not I might have a home to go to come tomorrow, but they will not tell me. This cannot be tenable in a country that operates under the transparent rule of law. People have a right to know whether they will be entitled to rent accommodation. Moreover, as the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe stated in his recent memorandum on the human rights of asylum seekers and immigrants in the UK, the right to adequate housing applies to everyone. Ensuring that right is essential to the inherent dignity of every person, irrespective of their legal or immigration status.

A simple administrative reform can resolve this issue, which, as I have said, has important human rights implications. I urge the Minister either to accept the recommendation or to make a clear commitment to sort this out once and for all.

I, too, have received a briefing on the issue that has been raised, and I certainly do not wish to reiterate the points that have been so ably put. There seems to be a strong argument for at least clarifying the situation—I think that that is what is being asked for—and ensuring that we do not end up with people being made homeless as a result. I very much hope that in his response the Minister will be able to provide that clarification—and an acceptable clarification as well.

My Lords, Amendment 1, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would, as she explained, provide that a person disqualified by virtue of their immigration status may apply to the Secretary of State for written confirmation that permission to rent has been or will be granted to them. The amendment would amend the Immigration Act 2014, which introduced the right-to-rent scheme. It would work in conjunction with the existing provision, which states that a person who is otherwise disqualified from renting premises as a result of their immigration status is to be treated as having a right to rent where the Secretary of State has granted them permission to occupy premises under a residential tenancy agreement.

I hope that I can persuade the noble Baroness that the amendment is unnecessary and potentially even a step backwards. The Secretary of State is already able to grant permission to rent to people who are otherwise disqualified from renting. This may include migrants without leave who have sought asylum, families with minor children who are in the family returns process or those who face a genuine obstacle to leaving the UK. A migrant may obtain confirmation that they will be afforded such permission by contacting the Home Office, and all a landlord need do then is to contact the Home Office landlords’ checking service with the migrant’s Home Office reference number to confirm that they may rent to that migrant. Following that process will give the landlord a statutory excuse from any civil penalty under the right-to-rent scheme.

Very importantly, this system allows for a swift process, without the need to require a migrant to make a formal application or for them to await written confirmation through the post that they may rent. Our experience since the right-to-rent scheme was introduced on 1 December 2014 is that this process works well. For those reasons, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Incidentally, there is no inconsistency between the FoI response and the letter from my noble friend Lord Bates. As I explained, a migrant may already contact the Home Office in order to establish whether they will be granted permission to rent. Existing arrangements are straightforward and work well. I should also mention that the Home Office is in the process of revising its published guidance in response to concerns raised during previous debates. I have no doubt that it will factor in the points made in this debate as well. Once that is done, the guidance will set out even more clearly how a migrant may contact the Home Office. But I suggest that requiring that they make a formal application and then have to await written confirmation may lead to unnecessary delays and in fact would serve no useful purpose.

My Lords, I wish that I were persuaded. The letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said that migrants,

“may contact the Home Office to establish whether this is the case”.

The clear implication there is that the migrant himself may establish the position, not ask the Home Office to make sure that, if and when a landlord inquires, the landlord is given that information.

Of course, I am aware of the landlord’s statutory excuse. I do not want to be too harsh, but I wonder whether the person in the Home Office who has been drafting this has had any recent experience of trying to rent a property. Not that long ago, on the question of the rollout of the 2014 Act, two or three Members of this House explained very clearly that as landlords they, and indeed most landlords, would want to get on with letting and not have gaps in that letting. The information that I and other noble Lords have received is not that the situation is working well—that is not the position. I am glad to hear that there has been some revision of procedures, but it seems to me that by denying that there is a problem, there is denial around looking at how to solve that problem.

It seems to me that this is not considered a big deal. Perhaps I can simply urge the Minister to urge the Home Office to take this as a very serious concern. If there is a different way of assisting tenants—and my goodness, this House is spending a lot of time talking about the housing crisis at the moment—and making the whole process that much easier, avoiding the concerns about discrimination that we have debated in this context at some length, then I urge him to do that. I am clearly not going to make any progress on this now, but I will not let it go: I will keep asking questions about it.

My Lords, I am happy to give the necessary undertaking to the noble Baroness. Indeed, I am sure she will have gathered from what I said that the whole purpose of the scheme we now have is to have a straightforward and rapid process for people to follow, rather than a more labyrinthine paper-based process. Clearly, the information she has received contradicts, at least in part, the information that I have had about how well the scheme works. I will of course ensure that Home Office officials look at any evidence she has which may cast into doubt the efficient working of the scheme.

My Lords, I think the first piece of evidence will be the case to which the noble Baroness and I have referred. I am grateful for that undertaking and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 2 and will speak to Amendments 3 to 5 inclusive. These amendments are technical in nature and are necessary to reflect a planned reorganisation of departmental functions in Northern Ireland. Clause 45 as drafted makes reference to the Department of the Environment, as this is the department responsible for issuing driving licences in Northern Ireland. However, this department is to be dissolved and its functions related to driving licences will be transferred to a new department: the Department for Infrastructure. These government amendments simply take account of this planned change.

My Lords, Amendment 6 would put into law the recommendation of the Shaw review into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons, commissioned by the Home Office, that the current presumptive exclusion from detention for pregnant women should be replaced with an absolute exclusion. On Report, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, twice stated that the Government would reflect on the matter by Third Reading. However, he also made it clear that the Government did not consider it appropriate for there to be an absolute rule and gave the example of an irregular migrant—I deliberately do not repeat the term “illegal”, in line with the recent recommendation of the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights—who arrives at an airport and can be returned almost immediately. Six days later, the noble and learned Lord sent a detailed letter to me and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in which, among other things, he addressed the specific questions that I had raised about the new guidance on the detention of pregnant women. I am grateful to him for that, in particular for his agreement to share a draft of the new operational guidance with detention-related organisations such as Women for Refugee Women, to which I pay tribute for its tireless work on behalf of women in detention.

However, on the underlying question of whether pregnant women should be detained at all, the noble and learned Lord in effect repeated what he said on Report, and I did not see any evidence of the promised further reflection. I had assumed that there would be a further statement giving the Government’s formal response to Shaw’s recommendation, but when none had appeared by yesterday, I realised that it was not to be and therefore thought it important that your Lordships should have the opportunity to consider this question, which inevitably got rather lost in the debates about the wider question of time limits. I apologise that, as a result, the amendment was tabled at the very last minute.

Stephen Shaw was clearly aware of the issue of pregnant women who might not otherwise be returned quickly to their country when appropriate to do so. Nevertheless, he concluded:

“I believe that the Home Office should acknowledge the fact that, in the vast majority of cases, the detention of pregnant women does not result in their removal. In practice, pregnant women are very rarely removed from the country, except voluntarily”.

He therefore recommended unequivocally that the presumptive exclusion from detention should be replaced with an absolute exclusion. In doing so, he cited evidence from the Royal College of Midwives, among others, which he said demonstrated the,

“incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children”.

In a witness statement to the High Court, the director for midwifery at the RCM spelled out the medical reasons why detention is completely inappropriate, particularly for a group of pregnant women with significant or complex health and psychosocial problems in need of higher levels of care than the general population. I here call on the Minister to arrange for a discussion of the issues raised by the detention of pregnant women with the RCM, Medical Justice—which has produced a damning research report on the issue, endorsed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—Women for Refugee Women and organisations working with those who have suffered torture.

Stephen Shaw stands by his recommendation; I heard him speak recently and eloquently in support of it. He spoke of detention’s “undoubted damage to mothers and unborn babies” at a meeting in Parliament hosted by Caroline Spelman MP, who together with me, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—who I do not believe is in his place—were members of the parliamentary inquiry into detention which recommended that pregnant women should never be detained for immigration purposes. That inquiry’s recommendations were endorsed by a Motion in the Commons last September. In his address, Mr Shaw drew attention to the Prime Minister’s prisons speech earlier this year, in which he expressed particular concern about the position of mothers and babies in prison.

The argument that the absolute exclusion recommended by Shaw would tie the Government’s hands inappropriately might appear reasonable. The problem is that, in effect, it means no real change from the status quo so roundly criticised by Shaw and others, including HM Inspectorate of Prisons, which told Shaw that there is little to suggest that pregnant women are being detained only in exceptional circumstances, as is supposed to be.

Current Home Office policy already states that the only exception to the general rule that pregnant women should not be detained is when removal is imminent and medical advice does not suggest that the woman concerned will go into labour before her removal date. In spite of this clear policy presumption against detention, in 2014, 99 pregnant women were detained and, in 2015, 69. Of the 99 pregnant women detained in Yarl’s Wood during 2014, 30—that is nearly one-third—were held for between one and three months; four for three to six months; and only nine were deported from the UK. I understand that there is a pregnant woman who has been there for just over two months at present.

I ask the noble and learned Lord to explain what additional safeguards the new approach brings. How can he reassure noble Lords that the new policy will mean that pregnant women are detained in only the most exceptional circumstances when the current policy is already supposed to ensure that? I know that the Home Office believes that the new gatekeeping team to be introduced as part of the adults-at-risk approach will introduce a degree of objectivity into detention decision-making and so protect against inappropriate use of detention. However, given that this team will still sit within the Home Office—albeit in a different management chain from those making the decisions—the oversight it provides will clearly fall short of the independent element for detention decision-making that the Shaw review recommended the Home Office should consider.

Returning to the example of the pregnant woman who arrived at the airport with no right of entry, it is the only example we have been given of where an absolute exclusion would cause a problem. So it should be, because it is the only exception that exists at present. I have not seen any evidence as to how often this occurs at present. The fact that nine out of 10 pregnant women held in detention in 2014 were subsequently released back into the community rather than deported suggests that it is rare. ILPA makes the point that if a pregnant woman claims asylum she cannot be returned until her claim is determined in any case.

As Women for Refugee Women argue, refusing to accept Shaw’s clear recommendation of an absolute exclusion from detention on the basis of what would appear to be a small number of cases each year where swift removal might be possible, and when there is clear evidence that allowing decision-makers discretion results in significant numbers of pregnant women being detained in circumstances that are far from exceptional—just one pregnant women being detained when she should not be is one too many—is not sensible, effective or humane policy-making. I hope that even at this late stage the noble and learned Lord will accept Stephen Shaw’s recommendation, which has support across the political spectrum and from a wide range of civil society groups, none of which have been convinced by the Government’s argument against doing so. I beg to move.

My Lords, I should like to support the amendment moved so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I raised this issue in Committee, and then my noble friend Lord Hylton and I took the trouble to go to Yarl’s Wood where we asked questions about the number of pregnant women who had been detained there in the past or might currently be detained. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who did such wonderful work on this Bill in its earlier stages. He commented on a Channel 4 investigation into Yarl’s Wood, which was shown in March 2015, where staff members called the women being held there “animals” and “beasties”. Having watched the programme, the noble Lord said to the House:

“I watched that documentary on Channel 4, and quite frankly I was sickened”.—[Official Report, 28/1/15; col. 103.]

Having been to Yarl’s Wood, I was able to say to the House that many of the staff we met had learned the lessons of that experience, and certainly my noble friend and I were impressed by many of the standards that we saw, but nevertheless we could not be convinced that it could ever be right, as the noble Baroness has just said, to have even one pregnant woman detained in those circumstances.

The Royal College of Midwives has said that:

“The detention of pregnant asylum seekers increases the likelihood of stress, which can risk the health of the unborn baby”.

In the review referred to by the noble Baroness, the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England, Stephen Shaw, says this:

“that detention has an incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children … I take … to be a statement of the obvious”.

Alongside that, of course, there are long-standing concerns about the conditions in Yarl’s Wood. The Chief Inspector of Prisons has called it a “place of national concern”. Although I have tried, I hope fairly, to say that conditions have undoubtedly improved, nevertheless it is not a place where pregnant women should be.

The briefing material referred to by the noble Baroness from the organisation Women for Refugee Women poses the question that the Government frequently ask in these circumstances:

“If the government said they were going to stop detaining pregnant women, wouldn’t women lie and say they were pregnant—or get pregnant deliberately—just to avoid detention? And wouldn’t women abscond if they weren’t detained?”.

I agree with the response:

“Establishing if a woman is pregnant or not is very straightforward: she simply needs to take a pregnancy test! The idea that women would get pregnant as a way of avoiding detention is unfounded and based on sexist stereotypes about women and the way they behave”.

To illustrate the strength of that argument, which I agree with, it is perhaps worth mentioning to noble Lords the story of one woman, Priya:

“Priya was trafficked to the UK and forced into prostitution. She has been detained in Yarl’s Wood twice; the second time she was locked up, she was 20 weeks pregnant, and was held in Yarl’s Wood for seven weeks before being released back into the community”.

Picking up her story, she says this:

“I was released after three months in detention, and fell pregnant by my partner, but then I was detained again. Although I had a written report from an expert, the Home Office did not believe that I was trafficked, so my claim was refused and I found myself back in detention. This time around I was in Yarl’s Wood for about seven weeks, and I was 20 weeks pregnant when I arrived.

I only had one hospital appointment while I was there, for my 20 week scan, and even then I was escorted by officers who took me 40 minutes late for my appointment. I felt frustrated that I wasn’t able to speak to the midwife after my scan because there was no time. The officers just took me straight back to Yarl’s Wood instead”.

I will not read the entire testimony to the House, but let me pull out two more sentences:

“The first time I was detained in Yarl’s Wood, I was on medication for sleeping and depression, and I took an overdose because I felt so hopeless … I couldn’t eat the food in the canteen; that made me sick too. A lot of the time I could only really manage milk. It was too far for my partner to visit and, as an asylum seeker as well, he couldn’t afford the travel, but we spoke on the phone every day. I’ve been released now but I still feel depressed”.

Levels of depression in Yarl’s Wood and incidents of self-harm have been very high indeed. The prisons inspectorate report in 2015 found that more than half of women who were detained there felt depressed or suicidal when they first arrived, and that there had been 72 incidents of self-harm in the previous six months —a huge rise from the previous inspection. Surely these are circumstances in which we should never put someone who is pregnant.

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. Before doing so, I highlight the fact that, following last year’s Maternal Mental Health Alliance report which highlighted the serious concerns about perinatal mental health, the Government made a very strong response. I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who did such good work in terms of ensuring that more mother and baby units across the country have access to the right mental health professionals to support mothers through that difficult time.

In the past, we had whole families for several months at Yarl’s Wood. Thanks to the important work of the coalition Government—the Conservative and Lib Dem Government—we removed those families. If they were detained, it was for very short periods of time. The Government recognise the principle that this is something that we need to be careful of, and it was good to hear on Report the careful and conscientious reply of the noble Lord, Lord Bates. However, it is disappointing that there is this loophole and an area that still needs to be covered. It seems to me to be so important. Looking at the Maternal Mental Health Alliance report, speaking to mothers who have experienced postnatal depression and depression during their pregnancy and having visited Yarl’s Wood three times myself over the years and spoken to mothers there, I know that, whatever the rights and wrongs of their situation, they are often very distressed and worried about being returned, whether they have rights to remain here or not. To have mothers who are pregnant in that situation is very undesirable.

As the noble Baroness said, there is no evidence that one returns mothers in these circumstances by detaining them. What we have found over time is that it is much more effective to build a relationship and provide services so that they can be returned in a good way. I hope that the Minister will respond to the concerns raised by this amendment.

My Lords, I, too, strongly support this amendment. I will speak briefly because much of what I wanted to say has already been said, and said very eloquently.

This is enormously important. As many noble Lords know, we run a drop-in for asylum-seeker families at my synagogue. In talking to some of the women, many of them pregnant, who visit with their small children, one thing that comes out time and time again is how they worry that the situation in which they are living—they are not detained—is so insecure that some of that insecurity may be transmitted to their unborn children. Of course, we know a great deal now about the transmission of anxiety and trauma to unborn children. If we extrapolate from that and from those women talking about it to women detained for what seem to be not very good reasons, it is really important that we have an absolute exclusion on pregnant women being detained. I hope that people will look at the evidence given by the Royal College of Midwives. That made it absolutely clear that unborn children may well be traumatised by the experience. I do not believe that we in this House would wish to take responsibility for that.

My Lords, from these Benches I support this amendment very warmly. In the previous stage of the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, we had an amendment dealing with vulnerable people but it was debated alongside and really overshadowed by the amendment on a time limit to detention. The amendment provided that detention should take place only in exceptional circumstances determined by the First-tier Tribunal.

After the amendment was tabled, I was quite embarrassed by the opposition to or considerable doubts about it expressed by a number of organisations for which I have the greatest respect. They told me that we had got it wrong and that we should not provide for any exceptional circumstances in the case of pregnant women. I explained to them that the amendment was expressed as it was because we were trying to approach the Government with an offer of compromise. We hoped that the Government would meet us halfway by agreeing to not a complete exception but the one we expressed in that amendment. The list of vulnerable people was taken from Stephen Shaw’s report, in which—no ifs, no buts—pregnancy means vulnerability. As the noble Baroness said, and I will see if I can get it out without tripping over the word, he spoke of the,

“incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children”.

His Recommendation 10 was that they should be excluded.

The Government have added what is now Clause 62 to the Bill and there will be guidance; I acknowledge that that will come to Parliament. However, it will be through the negative procedure, and this is another of those examples where we can talk to our hearts’ content but will not be able to alter what is proposed. I was worried when I saw that new clause in the last stage and I worry now about the expression “particularly vulnerable”. I say again: there should be no ifs, no buts.

The Government proposed the adults-at-risk approach that has been referred to. I thank the Minister for his letter, in which he describes the Government’s concern about allowing all pregnant women access to the UK regardless of their immigration status, and therefore access to maternity services. The noble Earl will recall the debates that led up to the health charge being imposed—I suppose it is two years ago now—and that was one of the concerns which was expressed. We now have the health charge.

The letter from the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, explained:

“The higher the level of risk (and pregnant women will be regarded as being at the highest level of risk), the less likely it is that an individual will be detained”.

He added that the Government’s view,

“is that the best approach is a considered, case by case one which is represented by the adults at risk policy”.

I find it difficult to reconcile the two parts of that—that this is the “highest level of risk” but that there will be a “considered, case by case” approach. I do not think that the Minister can be surprised at the anxiety expressed by the very considerable number of well-respected organisations which are anxious about the policy given their experience of the current policy.

The noble Baroness referred to the all-party group inquiry, of which she and I were members. I turned it up this morning to find the comments that we made then about pregnant women. They included the evidence of Hindpal Singh Bhui, a team inspector at HM Prisons Inspectorate, who said that,

“pregnant women are only meant to be detained in the most exceptional circumstances. And again, we look for evidence of this”.

Of course, I am talking about the historical position. The inspector continued:

“And on the last couple of occasions that we’ve looked, we haven’t found those exceptional circumstances in the paperwork to justify their detention in the first place”.

Our report went on to say:

“We were also told of pregnant women being forced to travel long distances, sometimes over several days, when initially being detained, and failures in receiving test results and obstetric records. In one case, we were told that an immigration interview was prioritised over a 20-week … scan”.

The report continued:

“We are disappointed that the Home Office does not appear to be complying with its own policy of only detaining pregnant women in exceptional circumstances. We recommend that pregnant women are never detained for immigration purposes”.

I see no reason to depart from that but every reason to support it and the amendment.

I apologise in advance for the fact that my contribution will contain a fair element of repetition of what has already been said but it will be relatively brief.

In his review for the Home Office into the welfare of vulnerable persons in detention, Stephen Shaw recommended that it amend its guidance so that the presumptive exclusion from detention for pregnant women was replaced with an absolute exclusion. Stephen Shaw said in his report that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons had told him that in its view there was little to suggest that pregnant women were being detained only in exceptional circumstances. He also said that the Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees had pointed out that an inspection of Yarl’s Wood had found pregnant women being detained without evidence of the exceptional circumstances required to justify this, with one of the women being hospitalised twice because of pregnancy-related complications. In the light of the evidence presented to him, which he set out in his report, Mr Shaw said that he had not sought further evidence that detention had an adverse effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children, since he took this to be a statement of the obvious.

Stephen Shaw also said in his report that he believed that the Home Office should acknowledge the fact that in the vast majority of cases the detention of pregnant women does not result in their removal, and that in practice pregnant women are very rarely removed from this country except voluntarily. Concluding, he said that he was strongly of the view that presumptive exclusion from detention should be replaced with an absolute exclusion.

I hope that the Government will reflect on their apparent decision not to accept Stephen Shaw’s strong recommendation in respect of the detention of pregnant women. It is my party’s policy that pregnant women should not be detained in these circumstances, a view also expressed by Mr Shaw in his independent report to the Home Office. If my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett decides, at the end of the debate—and, most importantly, after the Government’s response—to test the opinion of the House, we shall support the amendment.

My Lords, I understand fully that the intention of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is to reflect the recommendation from Stephen Shaw that pregnant women be absolutely excluded from detention. On this point, I reiterate what I made clear on Report and set out in my letter to the noble Baroness and to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. While the Government agree that it is not right to detain pregnant women unless there are exceptional circumstances, it does not consider that an absolute exclusion would be workable.

As has been explained in this House and in another place, it is important that the Government are able to detain, for a short period, those with no right to be in the United Kingdom who refuse to leave voluntarily. For example, if an immediate removal is planned, a short period of detention may be appropriate to facilitate a safe departure where there are absconding risks or other public protection risks to be considered. Furthermore, exempting from detention an individual who has arrived at the border with no right to enter the United Kingdom and who can be put on a return flight quickly would allow pregnant women access to the United Kingdom regardless of their immigration status.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned that 99 pregnant women were detained in Yarl’s Wood in 2014 and that this number had reduced to 69 in 2015. I am advised that there is, at present, one pregnant woman in Yarl’s Wood. She is a foreign national offender who recently completed an 18-month prison sentence and was detained there on 9 February. A deportation order was signed and removal directions were in place for 3 April. These were later brought forward to 26 March but then deferred because of an asylum claim being made. I am advised that there has now been an application for judicial review as well. Taking that case as an example, if removal ceases to be imminent there is every prospect of release subject to conditions. This is what frequently happens in these circumstances and goes some way to explain why only a small proportion of those actually in detention are subsequently removed from detention and deported. Many are released under condition and their asylum or immigration status is determined subsequently and the matter disposed of in that way.

I stress that we are dealing with cases in which there are exceptional circumstances. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, observed that uncertainty over immigration status could itself be a source of stress and anxiety for a pregnant woman. That may very well be the case: who could dispute it? But she went on to say that they can be detained for not very good reason. We cannot accept that. Our policy and guidelines are very clear: pregnant women are to be detained only in exceptional circumstances. There is a requirement for that detention in particular and exceptional circumstances.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, will be aware that, on Report, I stated that the Government intended to reflect on the detention of pregnant women and would have a considered position by Third Reading. I apologise to the House for the delay in completing that consideration. This is a complex issue and the Government continue to give it serious thought in the context of the work that is under way in developing policy on adults at risk in detention and the further implementation of Stephen Shaw’s report and its recommendations. That is taking time to finalise because the Government do not want to rush what is and is recognised to be a highly important issue. But I assure the noble Baroness and the House that the Government will be making a formal announcement on this matter very shortly. Indeed, the Government expect to make such an announcement in a matter of days.

The announcement will not involve an absolute prohibition on the detention of pregnant women. It will, however, set out a very clear and limited time for detention, only in exceptional circumstances, as it may be applied to pregnant women.

I wonder if the Minister can explain to us why, if it is possible for the Government to make a statement in a few days, it is not possible to make that statement today.

If I was in a position to make the statement today, I am sure the noble Lord appreciates that I would do so. He may be familiar with the wheels of government and with the requirement for these matters to be approved at various levels before a final statement is made. If I was in a position to make that statement, I reassure the noble Lord that I would not hesitate to make it.

But this is Third Reading. Is there not a sense of urgency in these matters?

There is certainly a sense of urgency in this matter and that is why I expressed my apology to the House and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I had indicated that by Third Reading I would be in a position to confirm the Government’s position on this. However, it is a matter that requires detailed consideration. It is a matter that has ramifications. It is a matter that has to be considered in conjunction with Home Office guidelines. It is a matter that must be consulted on and finally approved before issue, and it is for that reason that, regrettably, there has been a period of delay in respect of this point.

I underline that it will not involve an absolute prohibition. It will, however, involve a very limited power of detention to be exercised only in exceptional circumstances and for a very limited period. That is what is anticipated at present. As I sought to point out on Report, it is simply not practicable to have an absolute bar in respect of pregnant women. There are circumstances in which, for example, a pregnant woman arriving at an airport or a port, clearly with no right at all to enter the United Kingdom, may present either a security risk or a risk of absconding, and without any power of detention it would be quite impossible to arrange her return at that time of arrival. Therefore, in these circumstances, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. Many have spoken so eloquently, drawing attention in particular to the implications of this for unborn children, and have made the case very strongly.

I realise that the Minister is in a difficult position in that he is not able to make the statement to which he referred. I asked him for reassurance that the new policy will mean that pregnant women are detained genuinely in the most exceptional circumstances because the current policy is that they should be detained only in the most exceptional circumstances. While the hint of a time limit is encouraging, I have heard nothing to reassure us that the new policy will be different from the old policy.

I quite understand that it is not the Minister’s fault—if that is the correct word—that he is not able to make the statement today. But Stephen Shaw delivered his report to the Home Office on 24 September. The Government have had over six months to consider this crucial issue, which they know many people—organisations, individuals who gave evidence to Shaw and individuals who gave evidence to the inquiry—feel very strongly about. They must have known that people would want a clear answer on this by now and I am afraid that clear answer has come there none. I am quite sure that the noble and learned Lord understands why it is not good enough to say, when this is the last chance we have to discuss it in this House, that we should wait for a few days because the Government have not managed to get their act together to enable him to make the statement today.

Given that every noble Lord who has spoken did so very strongly in support of this amendment, I feel that I have no choice other than to test the opinion of this House.

My Lords, Amendments 7, 10 and 11 are all relatively minor and somewhat technical in nature. Clause 63 ensures that a person may be on immigration bail when they are liable to detention, even if they can no longer be detained, and subsections (3) and (4) apply this to people who have been released on bail under the current provisions of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971. Amendment 7 to Clause 63(5) removes the reference to an amendment being made by subsection (3). This is because, in an earlier draft of the clause, subsection (3) contained an amendment to Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act, but subsections (3) and (4) no longer use that construction.

Amendments 10 and 11 to Schedule 10 ensure that any cross-references in other legislation to immigration bail granted, or a condition imposed, under Schedule 10 will include the rare circumstance when bail is granted by the court, just as if it were granted by the tribunal. I beg to move.

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s explanation but, on Amendment 7, it seems to me that we have never really had an explanation of why it is necessary for these provisions to be made retrospective. The Constitution Committee raised the matter in its report to the House on the Bill, and referred to the Government’s acknowledgement of retrospectivity in the Explanatory Notes, which said:

“This clause is retrospective in its effect because it is intended to clarify the law following a recent Court of Appeal judgment”.

Having read on in the Constitution Committee’s report, I wonder whether “clarify” is the right term. I do not think one can talk about correcting a Court of Appeal judgment, but that is the flavour of what the Constitution Committee had to say. The Government’s response to the committee was that the clause has been remodelled, which does not seem quite to take the point. Could the noble and learned Lord assist the House by explaining why this does not broaden the scope of the Bill and why it is appropriate?

My first reaction on reading Amendments 10 and 11 was to wonder whether the draftsman could not have made a real effort to make them really opaque and difficult to follow. After that rather flippant comment, the serious point is that, as I understand the issue, the Secretary of State is now to have powers over courts as well as the tribunals. The noble and learned Lord is shaking his head, so I look forward to his refuting that. We are bothered, as we have been concerned before, about not respecting the independence of the judiciary. What if a tribunal judge thinks that it is contrary to a person’s human rights to impose the electronic monitoring condition, and the Secretary of State says that it is not contrary to do so? The judge is very conflicted there. What if he or she wants to impose a condition, and considers that it would be practicable to do so, but the Secretary of State says that it is not practicable, so the judge cannot impose the condition? If that meant that the judge did not grant bail to that person, this would be a considerable—and, I think, unwarrantable—interference with the person’s right to liberty. Would the noble and learned Lord expand a little on his explanations?

My Lords, I support the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to the first amendment and retrospection, which was addressed by the Constitution Committee, and to the other two amendments and the extent to which they do or do not mean that the Secretary of State could dictate to a criminal court, including a court of criminal appeal. I am afraid I did not see the Minister shake his head when the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made that comment, but I hope that, if that is the position as far as the Government are concerned, it does not mean that the Secretary of State will in any way be able to dictate to a criminal court and that the Minister will set out very clearly in his response why it is incorrect to draw that inference or assumption from these amendments.

I shall begin with the observations made with regard to alleged retrospective effect in the provisions in Clause 63. Reference was made to a decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of B v the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Before that decision, which is subject to an appeal that I will come back to in a moment, it was widely—indeed, universally—understood that individuals could be released on immigration bail in circumstances where their detention was no longer lawful under the Hardial Singh principles; that is, there was no reasonable prospect of their deportation and they therefore had to be released. That understanding was shared by the relevant tribunals: the First-tier Tribunal and the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Indeed, it was the decision of the president of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission which was overturned in the recent decision of the Court of Appeal, that determined that if detention was no longer lawful under the Hardial Singh principles, it would follow that bail could not be granted and, in particular, that bail could not be granted subject to conditions. As one might imagine, that had wide-ranging implications for the purposes of security, particularly in the case of B, who appeared to be an established Algerian terrorist who was at risk of carrying out terrorist activities to assist others in Algeria and elsewhere. The decision of the Court of Appeal has been suspended pending an appeal to the Supreme Court, which is set down to take place in December. However the Government’s position is that the position prior to the decision of the Court of Appeal was correct and it should be reinforced by statutory provision. It is for that reason that Clause 63 is in its present form. I understand that the appeal to the Supreme Court will proceed in any event, but it is essential, particularly in a matter that impacts on our security, that there should be no doubt or difficulty and no gap in our legislation so far as that is concerned.

Turning to Amendments 10 and 11, the test of practicability is for the Secretary of State, not the court, but there is no question of the Secretary of State usurping the functions of the court. It may be recollected that for that reason an amendment was made to Schedule 10 at an earlier stage to make clear that the Secretary of State could not usurp or overturn any decision-making power of the court or tribunal in these circumstances. That remains our position with respect to Schedule 10, as amended.

My Lords, Clause 71 provides for the transfer of responsibility for relevant children. A relevant child is defined in subsection (9) as an unaccompanied child, while subsection (10) says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the meaning of ‘unaccompanied’”.

At the previous stage of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised the concern that an accompanying adult might not be—I use this phrase non-technically—an appropriate adult. There were concerns about trafficking. The amendment would put into the Bill the definition that is in current Home Office guidance on processing asylum applications by children.

While the amendment is to Clause 71, the same issue might of course arise in respect of Clause 70, the clause that your Lordships agreed on Division regarding the figure of 3,000 unaccompanied children. We will have to see what happens to that provision. In any event, taking a rather narrow technical point about Third Reading, that clause was not the subject of the reassurance from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, that he would put in writing how the term “unaccompanied” would be defined and would operate, and that he would do so by Third Reading. Given the change of Minister last week, I contacted the noble Earl’s office to ask if there would be a letter, and at the point when I tabled the amendment there was not. It arrived around 6 pm yesterday and I read it some time later, and I thank him for it. The letter says that there is,

“no intention to alter the definition”,

for the purposes of this clause. In situations where an asylum-seeking child,

“is accompanied by an adult who is not a parent or relative”,

Home Office officials will,

“verify the identity of the adult and establish the relationship with the child”.

I am not sure whether the relative referred to there is one who by custom has responsibility for the child, otherwise there would be a change from current guidance, although I gather that Home Office guidance is currently being rewritten. What I am really not clear about is why the Bill needs to allow for any flexibility or change in the definition, so it is important to get the position on record.

I was concerned about the reason for leaving the matter open in the way that the Bill does. When I was looking into this at the weekend, I found that the definition used by the Committee on the Rights of the Child is slightly broader because it refers to “other relatives” as well as parents. It occurred to me that it is known that “other relatives” are sometimes traffickers, which is why the wording is not used in the Home Office definition. There may be issues around siblings or other family members. However, it is important that we get the position on the record. It would be preferable to get it into legislation, but at any rate we should understand what the parameters are of the regulations that the Secretary of State might make. I beg to move.

Once again, my Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for tabling this amendment. With her usual lawyer’s quickness, she picked up the point that I raised on Report. As I said then, it is a point that was raised with me by an organisation local to me in the East Midlands, Baca. It was worried because it could not understand why that wording was there. It is perhaps not surprising if groups are worried and perhaps slightly cynical when they come across measures that they do not understand, given that there is so much in legislation that they do not like. So I am delighted that, at the last minute, the letter from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie—not the noble Earl—made it very clear that the definition, as in the amendment, is,

“separated from both parents and is not being cared for by an adult who in law or by custom has responsibility to do so”.

It is helpful to have that in Hansard because of course your average punter cannot read the letters sent between Ministers and Members of your Lordships’ House. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will repeat that for the record. Also, like the noble Baroness, I would appreciate an explanation of why this clause is necessary, given that this is, as the letter says, the,

“established definition in the Immigration Rules”,

and it is accepted by the UN. I am glad that through this organisation raising this matter with me, we have some clarity on what is meant by it.

I am obliged to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister. As they have observed, there is already an established definition of “unaccompanied” in the present context. It is not in guidance alone; it is in the Immigration Rules, and that is important. The definition states that an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child is someone who—perhaps I may, as suggested, read this into the record—is under 18 years of age when the claim is submitted, is claiming asylum in their own right, is separated from both parents and is not being cared for by an adult who in law or by custom has responsibility to do so.

Following the commitment given by my noble friend Lord Bates on Report to explain how the definition would operate, I wrote to the noble Baronesses—albeit, as they observed, at the last minute—to confirm that there is no intention of altering the definition of “unaccompanied” as set out in the Immigration Rules for the purposes of the transfer provisions in the Immigration Bill. Furthermore, defining particular categories in primary legislation is not always desirable or even necessary. As your Lordships will appreciate, there are times, particularly in the context of the current migration crisis, when the Government need to respond quickly to changing circumstances.

I should make it clear that at present we have no intention of amending the definition of “unaccompanied”. We would do so only in response to a significant change in circumstances, but it is important that in such circumstances we are able to react swiftly and efficiently. Clearly, regulations subject to parliamentary scrutiny are a more appropriate way to achieve that result than placing something on the face of this Bill.

I reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, that safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable children is at the forefront of the Home Office’s work with the Local Government Association and the Department for Education to develop a transfer scheme for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I understand the concerns about the definition of “unaccompanied”—it may have unintended consequences and inadvertently place children in the hands of traffickers—but immigration officials working with these vulnerable children are trained to be alert to any signs that a child is at risk of harm or abuse or may have been trafficked. Where an asylum-seeking child is accompanied by an adult who is not a parent or a relative, Home Office officials work with local authority children’s services to verify the identity of the adult and establish the true relationship with the child. If that relationship cannot be verified or there are ongoing welfare or safeguarding concerns, the child will be treated as unaccompanied.

In the light of those points and our recent correspondence confirming that we have no intention of amending the already established definition of “unaccompanied” for the purposes of the transfer provisions, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, that is reassuring. It is difficult to imagine how urgent the circumstances might be that would require a swift change of the definition. However, I am very glad to have the assurances about the position on the record in Hansard, which, as the noble Baroness said, is most easily accessible by those outside this place. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, last week, the Centre for Policy Studies, a respected Conservative think tank, published a paper entitled Dangerous Trends in Modern Legislation. It warns that,

“the length of new Bills and the number of clauses they include is becoming so great that Parliament is unable to properly scrutinise them … There are often lengthy and significant parts of a Bill that receive no detailed scrutiny at all at any point in its Parliamentary passage”.

Clause 87 of the Immigration Bill provides a prime example of this problem. In the Commons it had five minutes in Committee and none at Report. We reached it late in Committee in the Lords, where the Minister was unable to answer the questions raised, telling us that,

“there will be an opportunity for an informed debate on the details”,

when the regulations—that had not yet been drafted—would be laid before the House. He specifically stated that,

“no decision has yet been made”,—[Official Report, 9/2/16; col. GC 174.]

as to the impact on healthcare of the imposition of the charge.

Those of us who took part in that debate received no further communication from the Government between Committee and Report, unlike the usual custom, and no invitation to discuss the issues raised. We reached this clause on Report at 12.30 am on 21 March, at the end of a very long day. The Minister did make a significant concession in his reply on exempting university-level appointments from the new levy, but he declined to tell us when the Government’s response to the report from the Migration Advisory Committee, on which these proposals rested, would be published or to answer other questions raised. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, did at least say that, “Given the hour”, he was,

“happy to put further thoughts in writing … if that would be helpful”.—[Official Report, 21/3/16; col. 2210.]

He then disappeared for a rather long walk. The noble Earl has indeed sent us a letter but it does not answer any of the points on the public sector or public sector training which we had raised. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, then moved, I assume on behalf of the Government, to oppose withdrawal of the amendment to shut off further discussion at Third Reading. The chairman of the MAC was allowed to brief parliamentarians on this charge on 22 March, the day after Report ended. The Government then slipped out their response to the MAC report two days later on the Thursday before the Easter weekend—a quiet news day.

This is not the way to make legislation, as the Centre for Policy Studies paper noted. The Government have not explained the implications of this significant new charge, and in particular its likely impact on the public sector; nor have they provided any coherent rationale for imposing it on the public sector. The Minister did, however, in responding to the debate, say that,

“I will give further consideration to when they”—

the charges—

“are introduced”.—[Official Report, 21/3/16; col. 2212.]

He specifically mentioned that they were looking at the issue of phasing in the charges on the public sector. This amendment returns to exactly that issue, asking what further consideration the Government have given this and whether they will now accept that the current provision to rush this charge into operation only two months after the Bill is passed—as Clause 96 states—is mistaken, incompatible with allowing an informed debate on the regulations that will have to be pushed through, and damaging to the finances of schools and hospitals throughout the country.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, reiterated that the aim of this charge is,

“to bring about some behavioural change in the way that people think about recruitment”,—[Official Report, 21/3/16; col. 2210.]

encouraging employers to look for recruits from within the UK rather than from outside, and to invest in training those recruits in the skills needed. That is fine for the private sector. However, the Government are the employer in the public sector: they set the quotas for teacher and nurse training, and they encourage—or discourage—doctors to stay and work in the NHS rather than going abroad. So here we have the Government encouraging themselves to expand training to fill skills shortages in schools and hospitals by fining those schools and hospitals—out of government funds—for recruiting from outside the UK and the EEA. That is absurd.

There have been a succession of announcements of government policy that the likely impact of this charge will undermine. There are plans to expand and extend maths and technology teaching in schools, but no mention of the existing shortage of maths teachers in this country and of the active efforts that schools are making to recruit from Australia, Singapore and elsewhere. Hospitals have announced that they need to recruit some 15,000 nurses a year from abroad to fully staff their wards, from the Philippines, South Africa and so on. We have just read that the NHS is planning to recruit 4,000 doctors directly from India. These are large numbers of predicted immigrants, recruited to fill avoidable skills shortages within the UK—significant numbers pulled into the UK by our failures in skills training: 30,000 or so a year. The Government should therefore act to provide the training to reduce the necessity to pull such numbers in.

We have asked repeatedly what plans the Government have to increase incentives for maths teachers and to launch crash courses to train them, but there appear to be no such plans. We have also asked about rapid expansion in nurse training and efforts to improve retention of nurses in post. Again, there are no plans to do so yet. So within the next 12 months the Government will start to fine schools and hospitals £1,000 a year per skilled person recruited from outside Europe—fining them from the funds that the Government have just given them.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, suggested on Report that,

“schools … can seek maths teachers from the whole European Economic Area market”,

to avoid the charge for recruiting them from outside that market—to do that, it was implied, rather than to have to train more of our own or to pay British teachers well enough to stay in post. The Daily Mail will love that as a proposal from a Government who are supposed to be trying to reduce the pull factor in immigration from within as well as outside Europe, but I leave that to the Government to answer.

We were assured on Report that:

“The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has confirmed that it will continue to consult with stakeholders”,—[Official Report, 21/3/15; col. 2211-12.]

which in this case presumably means to negotiate with the Department of Health and the Department for Education on how to limit the damage to school and hospital budgets. But BIS, the Times told us last Saturday, is planning a major cost-cutting exercise, shrinking the staff of the Commission for Employment and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency by 40% to 50%. So it is likely to lack the capacity to manage the expansion of training schemes which the Government have promised us, either for the public or the private sector.

In short, the Government have failed to make any case for their proposed rapid implementation of this ill-thought-out scheme. Their failure to answer legitimate questions raised in Committee and on Report, in spite of promises so to do, has fallen well below the normal standards of this House. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, gallantly stepping into the breach, will concede that this has not been well done and will accept the rationale for delay which justifies our amendment. I beg to move.

I attended a meeting of maths teachers earlier this year in Parliament and was sad to learn of the serious shortage of maths teachers in this country, of so many of our children being taught by people with very low qualifications in maths, and of physical education teachers trained up to teach maths desperately trying to fill the gap. The recent concerns expressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that our children should have a good understanding of maths brought home to me the real concerns raised by those maths teachers about the inadequacy of supply of maths teachers. So it concerns me to hear the noble Lord say that schools will be penalised for the shortage of maths teachers. I am afraid it does not seem to be the schools’ fault but somebody else’s. This is not a Department for Education debate, but my experience in this matter coincides with what the noble Lord has expressed. Certainly, one should not penalise schools for a shortage they are not responsible for.

My Lords, the principle of the immigration skills charge is not in dispute. It is absolutely vital that the skills of our own workforce should be improved if we are to achieve the major reduction in immigration which the public so anxiously wish to see. The main issue is one of timing as to when it should come into effect.

The Migration Advisory Committee, to whose work I pay a warm tribute, gave three reasons for its strong support for this scheme. First, to raise the cost of immigrant labour so as to reduce the numbers; secondly, to contribute to the extra cost involved for public services; and, thirdly, to compensate for what it described as the,

“rather modest efforts to upskill UK workers”,

by those firms employing Indian IT workers. All those matters need tackling as soon as possible.

I certainly accept that there may be some loose ends in respect of some of the public services, but we need to get on with this. The Government have announced that they will bring the measure into force in April 2017. That seems a reasonable way to get this moving in a vital area.

The Government have said that the £1,000 per year immigration skills charge will be paid by employers who sponsor tier 2 migrants, with a reduced rate of £364 per annum applying to small businesses and charities as set out in the Immigration Rules. There will be an exemption in respect of migrants undertaking occupations skilled to PhD level, primarily science and research roles. An exemption will also be applied for graduates who switch from tier 4 to tier 2 for the purpose of taking up a position in the UK. As far as other areas, organisations and categories are concerned, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is apparently continuing to consult, including with devolved Administrations and other government departments.

In their letter of 7 April, on Ministry of Defence headed paper, the Government said that they intend to introduce the charge from April 2017 rather than from a somewhat earlier date provided for in the Bill. As they have also said that they are looking at phasing in the charge, can the Minister say what the intention to introduce the charge from April 2017 means as far as timescales are concerned?

The Government have confirmed that secondary legislation will be needed before the charge can be introduced. They expect to lay regulations in the autumn and to publish a draft before they are laid, with interested parties being given an opportunity to comment. There are difficulties with potentially significant issues being dealt with by secondary legislation because such proposed legislation cannot be amended, only accepted or rejected in its entirety.

There appears to have been little analysis provided on the impact of the immigration skills charge. Can the Minister say how much money will be raised by the charge; what percentage of existing training budgets that will represent; and for how many will this additional money provide the training envisaged? What analysis have the Government undertaken to show that the introduction of the charge will achieve the stated objective, as set out in the letter of 7 April, of encouraging employers to think differently about their recruitment so that, where possible, they recruit and train up resident workers and reduce the need to recruit skilled labour from outside the European Economic Area? Has an impact assessment been undertaken and, if so, what did it indicate? By how many is it expected that the charge will reduce the need to recruit skilled labour from outside the European Economic Area?

The Government also ought at least to give a commitment that they will listen to and take into account the views of interested parties when the draft regulations are published prior to being laid; and that interested parties will be given sufficient time to respond, bearing in mind that the draft could be published in the middle of the holiday season.

In looking at where, to whom and from when the charge will apply, what are the criteria against which the Government are determining and making their proposals? Against what criteria, for example, will proposals on the extent to which the charge should or should not apply in the National Health Service be formulated? While the decision not to apply the immigration skills charge to those switching from a tier 4 student visa to a tier 2 visa is a positive move for the health service, it will not as I understand it exempt overseas doctors recruited by the NHS on tier 2 visas to fill medical vacancies in hard-to-recruit medical specialties and areas.

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the position put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and other noble Lords. The Government were pleased to be able to provide further details about the immigration skills charge in the statement made at the Report stage by my noble friend Lord Bates. In addition, a Written Ministerial Statement covering reforms to the tier 2 visa route was laid in the other place on 24 March, but unfortunately it could not be laid in your Lordships’ House because we were not sitting on that day.

As promised at the Report stage, the Government have considered when Clause 87 will come into effect. The first point to make, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is that while the clause commences two months after Royal Assent, it is clear in the Bill that secondary legislation will be needed before the charge can be introduced, and that will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Bates said on Report, we will publish a draft of the regulations before they are laid, enabling noble Lords and other interested parties to comment; I would just emphasise that opportunity.

As regards the date of introduction, the Government have announced details about the rate and the scope of the charge, including the exemptions that will apply, a year before it is to be introduced. The Written Ministerial Statement confirmed that the charge will be introduced from April 2017 and not before. We consider that that gives employers, including those in the public sector, sufficient time to plan how best to manage the introduction of the charge without delaying until after April 2018, as suggested in this amendment—and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Green, for his comments on that point. I would argue strongly that there is no need for transitional provision to be made for institutions in the public sector, which is the other purpose of the amendment. I would just say that, on Report, my noble friend Lord Bates did not commit to consider a phased approach to implementation for the public sector. We made a commitment to consider when the clause comes into effect and, as I have indicated, we stated that we will not introduce the charge before April 2017.

As the independent Migration Advisory Committee stated, public sector organisations are employers, like any other, and should be incentivised to consider the UK labour market first before recruiting from outside Europe. On that particular point, it is worth noting that the MAC took evidence from a full range of stakeholders, including the public sector, before making its recommendations. From my time as a health Minister I recognise the important role that tier 2 plays in recruiting doctors to fill vacancies in hard-to-recruit medical specialties and areas, as the British Medical Association has flagged. I also understand its concern that the charge might take funds away from training in the health service.

Let me be clear about this. Staffing in the NHS is a government priority. That is why there are already more than 29,600 extra clinical staff, including more than 10,600 additional doctors and more than 11,500 additional nurses on our wards since May 2010. That is why Health Education England has increased nurse training places by 14% over the last two years and is forecasting that more than 40,000 additional nurses will be available by 2020. There are already 50,000 nurses currently in training.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked me what plans there were to incentivise individuals into nursing and to encourage retention. It would perhaps be helpful if I mentioned that the Come Back to Nursing campaign, launched by Health Education England in September 2014, reports that 2,188 nurses have registered on a return-to-practice programme, 927 have completed the programme and, of those, 700 have successfully completed their retraining and are now back on the front line providing care and support for patients. We have invested £40 million in leadership training to create a new generation of senior nurses and we are running a campaign to get experienced nurses who have left the profession back to work.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to the pressure on schools, and I understand the points that he made. I hope that he will take some reassurance from the fact that many schools will benefit from the reduced rate of £364 by virtue of being either small businesses or charities. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about ring-fencing the fund and whether the charge will just go, as it were, into general revenue. Let me be clear about that. The Prime Minister was emphatic that this measure will help train up the resident workforce to address skills shortages. I cannot, of course, tell him how much the skills charge will raise. The amount of funding generated will very much depend on employer demand. The Migration Advisory Committee estimated that the charge could raise as much as £250 million a year. The MAC’s estimates did not take account of the reductions and exemptions the Government have announced or the expected impact on behaviour. The Government are still finalising the policy detail, as will be obvious. We have not, therefore, produced a firm estimate. However, we estimate that once the exemptions and reductions are taken into account, the sums raised will be significantly lower than the MAC’s estimate.

With respect to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and those of the Minister, the Science and Technology Committee had a special session here at the House of Lords in March, and we heard that the funding available for training teachers who are not advanced in mathematics or science to become better trained is actually decreasing. I wonder whether the Minister’s remarks are implying that there will be more money for this training, which is absolutely essential if we are to raise the skills and educational levels in science and technology.

My Lords, a great deal is being done to encourage students into science and technology, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware. What I cannot tell him is whether and to what extent the money raised by the skills charge will be directed into particular vocational areas. That is still being worked through. As regards teaching, it has been recognised that public sector pay restraint and specific recruitment challenges in certain occupations present problems for the National Health Service and the education sector in particular. On the new salary threshold, we announced that we will exempt nurses, paramedics and medical radiographers; and in the education sector we will exempt secondary-school teachers in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science—

Primary schools as well are a particular area.

My Lords, I heard what the noble Lord said. Perhaps he will allow me to continue. We will exempt secondary-school teachers in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science and Mandarin from that new salary threshold. The point has been recognised by the MAC and we took its advice on that.

The exemption we have announced for students switching from tier 4 to tier 2 to take up a graduate-level position in the UK will benefit doctors following completion of their foundation training. I am pleased that the BMA has welcomed this exemption. However, if we are to meet our objective of reducing reliance on overseas workers, we simply must reverse the trend of increasing numbers of workers coming through tier 2, including in the public sector. In 2015, sponsored visa applications for skilled workers in the human health and social work activities sector alone, which includes a number of public sector occupations, increased by 13% to more than 3,500 places. For those reasons, we consider that delaying or phasing in the introduction of the charge, or indeed an exemption, for the NHS or wider public sector would overlook the key aim of the charge: to influence employer behaviour. The Migration Advisory Committee was clear that it did not believe the health sector should be exempt from the charge.

I note that the BMA said it is highly unlikely that the NHS would benefit from the proceeds of the charge because apprenticeships are not relevant to or will not benefit the NHS. With great respect to the BMA, there is currently no basis for saying that. Decisions on where the charge income will be spent are not yet finalised, as I said. The priority will be to spend the charge on training the resident workforce to address skills gaps in the UK. Apprenticeships are only one government-supported programme designed to address the long-running trend of underinvestment in skills by UK employers that might be supported. I can assure noble Lords that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is already engaging with stakeholders, including the Department of Health and the Department for Education, to ensure that their skills and workforce planning needs are fully considered. It cannot possibly do otherwise given the key importance of those sectors. I can also assure the House that the Home Office will continue to consult with stakeholders on how best to address skills gaps in advance of the introduction of the charge to inform decisions on how the income is spent.

I hope that noble Lords—in particular the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—will be reassured from what I have said today and from the totality of the announcements we have made about the skills charge, that the Government are committed to implement it in a balanced way, ensuring that the UK remains open for business and can continue to attract the best and brightest to our workforce. I hope, too, that noble Lords are reassured by our confirmation that we will not seek to impose the charge before April 2017, and only after we lay regulations.

In the light of those points, I very much hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw Amendment 9.

My Lords, I am a little reassured but I have to say that I am still left in much confusion as to how the Government intend to get from here to where we all wish to be. The ability of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to raise a very large number of fair questions about what is intended by all this simply demonstrates how unclear many of us in this House and outside are about how the Government will ensure that the extra skills are provided from within this country. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green, that there is a long-term problem of companies in Britain finding it cheaper and easier to recruit direct from abroad rather than spending money on training their own employees. That applies not just to the Indian IT sector but also to long-distance truck drivers and all sorts of occupations in the private sector.

However, in the public sector the Government are responsible for training. As regards when we introduce this charge, I simply point out that it takes two or three years to train a nurse and longer to train a doctor, let alone a good maths teacher. Therefore, a year is not enough. We will find in the interim period that schools and hospitals will pay sums out of their flat budgets, out of which they are already paying for additional pension increases—so budgets are being squeezed—before any new training schemes have provided the additional skilled recruits from within the United Kingdom. That is part of the argument we are making about phasing in for the public sector.

I very much hope that we will have Labour support on this occasion. As I understand it, the Labour Party supports the public sector. I have heard reports that the Labour Party in the Commons has instructed the Labour Party in the Lords not to support this measure because it is a Liberal Democrat amendment and it is a bit queer about supporting Liberal Democrat amendments. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will be able to bring his party along. However, I appreciate that sometimes in the Lords the Labour Party Front Benchers have to defend positions they are not entirely happy about, as, indeed, do the Conservative Party Front Benchers.

I reassure the noble Lord, who is clearly very concerned about my present state and what I have had to say on this amendment, that I fully support an agreement—obviously, to his surprise—regarding what I said from this Dispatch Box. Interestingly enough, the noble Lord has not responded to the objections that I raised on his amendment.

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord has not yet got out his walking maps, but we shall see. I conclude by pointing out that the phasing argument is about the time it takes to train the people from within the United Kingdom who we need to supply skills in our schools and hospitals. We have not yet been informed about the new schemes which the Department of Health and the Department for Education will undertake to provide. However, we know that from April 2017 schools and hospitals will pay an additional £1,000 per person per year for everyone recruited from outside the European Economic Area, although I think I may have heard the noble Earl say that independent schools will have to pay only £330 because they are charities, which raises some interesting questions to which we may also wish to return.

It does not apply just to independent schools, some of which are charities and some of which are not. However, the lower figure is £364 for charities.

We are reassured by that, but I may wish to take it up further with the Minister. Meanwhile, we are not satisfied. This imposes additional charges on the public sector which is already hard pressed. We have not yet heard sufficient about the additional training which the Government, as employers, need to provide from departments other than the Home Office. We are depressed by the news that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is cutting the staff it has to promote skills and employment within the United Kingdom. We therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.

That the Bill do now pass.

My Lords, we are led to believe that Third Reading is for the removal of doubt and uncertainties. I believe that there is still a lot of uncertainty over the Dublin III regulation and over discretionary entry outside the Immigration Rules. These uncertainties affect both those who could use the provisions to reunite their families and those who have to administer the provisions or to present compassionate cases to the Secretary of State. The result is that few people get admitted. Under Dublin III, even the Government do not know how many people reach this country—or if they know, they will not say. Under discretionary entry, on the other hand, an average of 35 persons were admitted in each of the last five years. Only last week, the Children’s Commissioner for England wrote to the French Government about unaccompanied children now at Calais who may be—

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, for whom I have a great deal of regard. It is not proper to open a new substantive argument at this stage of the Bill and I think that he is out of order by seeking to do so.

My Lords, I have taken the advice of the Public Bill Office and I was told quite clearly that I could make a short intervention at this stage. That is what I am doing.

I am sorry, my Lords, but the noble Lord has at least three sheets of paper from which he is reading the comments that he intends to make. I do not consider that a short intervention and I call him to order.

My Lords, I have two very brief questions to put to the Minister. First, will the Government immediately consult the British Red Cross, Save the Children Fund and faith groups, which are in daily contact with split families and unaccompanied children? Secondly, will the Government ensure that all the relevant officials are fully briefed about family reunion and how it can be achieved?

My Lords, with the leave of the House I will briefly answer the noble Lord’s questions. First, as he is aware, we regularly consult external partners and experts including the Red Cross and Save the Children. We will continue to do that. Secondly, we are revising our guidance on family reunion, which provides specific guidance for those already in the UK on how to apply for family reunion and instructions for caseworkers on how to consider such applications. We intend to publish this in April and we will communicate it to all relevant officials. Details of how to apply are already available on GOV.UK and refugees granted international protection are advised about their entitlement to family reunion when they receive their asylum decision.

I take this opportunity—I believe I am doing it at the right place—to express our thanks to all those who have participated in the debates on the Bill, which I believe is now a better Bill than the one that was sent to us from the House of Commons. We are grateful for the amount of information provided by Ministers and the Bill team, for the numerous meetings that have taken place and for the willingness of Ministers to listen to concerns about the Bill and, in some instances, the willingness of the Government themselves to bring forward amendments or place statements on the record to address those concerns. I particularly express appreciation of the work undertaken during the passage of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, whose approach, as with that of his Front-Bench colleagues, has I think been appreciated on all sides of the House.

My Lords, from these Benches I add our thanks, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who has started on a rather long walk, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said. It is one of a series of admirable walks but the noble Lord’s colleagues have been walking well alongside him, and after him, during the course of the Bill. It feels a little odd to agree that the Bill do now pass, because we are by no means clear what it will provide by the time that it has endured—a word that the noble Lord the Chief Whip might use—ping-pong. We are by no means finished with these issues or with the Bill itself.

My Lords, from the Cross Benches, perhaps I can briefly add a remark to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, particularly in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bates, whose leave of absence was agreed by the House only yesterday. I was privileged to get to know the noble Lord, Lord Bates, when we served in another place and we remained friends after he left the House of Commons. I was delighted when he was appointed as a Member of your Lordships’ House; I was even more delighted when the Government had the good sense to appoint him as a Minister of the Crown. He has discharged his responsibilities in the House over the passage of time, particularly on the Modern Slavery Act and now on the Immigration Bill, with great distinction. We have huge admiration for the work that he is undertaking, which is to raise the peace pledge and the work of the Red Cross and Save the Children. It touches on many of the issues which we have debated in your Lordships’ House during the passage of the Bill so, before the Bill passes, I am sure that we all add our voices to those which have already been raised in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for all that he did.

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Bates, were he present today, would be touched and gratified by the comments that have been made about him. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken but, more particularly, I am grateful to the Members on both Opposition Benches and the Cross Benches for their constructive role throughout the passage of this Bill which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said, has not quite left our Chamber yet. We will be returning to it. Nevertheless, the whole tone of the debate has been extremely positive even when it has been questioning and, from the point of view of the Government’s Benches, I express my gratitude for that.

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Energy Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Motion on Commons Amendment 1

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 1.

My Lords, the amendments in this group add the relevant provisions of the Oil Taxation Act 1975 and the Corporation Tax Act 2010 to the legislation listed at Clause 2(6), which contains the Secretary of State’s relevant oil and gas functions. This ensures that the functions provided for by these Acts fall within the definition of “relevant functions” and can be transferred from the Secretary of State to the Oil and Gas Authority by regulations made under Clause 2(2).

Schedule 1 to the Oil Taxation Act 1975 and Part 8 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 contain the important oil and gas functions of determining oil fields, cluster areas and whether an oil field project is materially complete. These functions form the basis of oil taxation and are currently undertaken by the Oil and Gas Authority in its capacity as an executive agency. Amendment 2A to Commons Amendment 2 simply seeks to ensure that the function of determining whether an oil field project is materially complete is also transferable to the OGA.

These amendments are technical in nature and simply seek to put it beyond doubt that these key functions can be transferred to the OGA once it becomes a government company, as we have always intended. I beg to move.

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 2.

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 3.

My Lords, following a Division on Report in this House, a new clause was added to the Bill. This new clause rewrote the OGA’s principal objective in three significant ways. First, it removed the Wood review’s central premise to maximise the economic recovery of UK petroleum within Part 1A of the Petroleum Act, and replaced it with an objective to maximise the economic return of UK petroleum. Secondly, it imposed on the OGA an obligation to retain oversight of the decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure. Finally, it imposed an obligation on the OGA to secure oil and gas infrastructure for reuse for the transportation and storage of greenhouse gases. Noble Lords will know that these changes were reversed in Committee in the other place.

The OGA has important functions in respect of both decommissioning and the storage of carbon dioxide. However, the change to the principal objective made on Report detracts from the OGA’s focus on maximising economic recovery and is damaging to the North Sea. This is unacceptable—particularly at a time of unprecedented challenge for the oil and gas industry. The OGA should remain focused on maximising economic recovery, and anything other than this risks seriously weakening its ability to provide crucial and urgent support to our oil and gas industry.

The amendment made at Lords Report stage had significant potential knock-on effects. By diluting the OGA’s principal objective, it would not only risk the premature decommissioning of key North Sea infrastructure but seriously jeopardise vital skills and experience, including those that could help to promote the longevity of the industry through carbon storage projects. From this perspective, the amendment is self- defeating.

My Lords, it is our view on these Benches that carbon capture and storage and transportation should have been woven into the principal objective of the OGA. I hear what the Minister says, but it leaves me some concerns. Although the Government have made many arguments and given many assurances about the importance of carbon capture and storage, we on these Benches are not completely convinced.

I wish to raise with the Government some points which still give us great concern about the level of commitment to carbon capture and storage and indeed about their ability to deliver on our legally binding targets. If CCS is not going to be integral to the principal objective and functions of the OGA, we might have had more confidence and assurance if Her Majesty’s Government had agreed to an earlier amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, to which my noble friend Lord Teverson added his name, which would have required the Government to undertake and develop a national strategy for carbon capture and storage. CCS is such a vital part of decarbonisation for the period when carbon is still being produced that we have grave concerns in this regard.

On Report in this House, the Minister made great efforts to assure the House of the Government’s commitment to carbon capture and storage and about the money invested—£130 million since 2011 to support research, development and innovations to foster the next generation of CCS technologies. In Committee, the Minister assured us:

“It is not as though no work is happening on carbon capture and storage. We are committed to a competition with up to £1 billion capital—that is current, and we will make an announcement on it early in 2016”.—[Official Report, 7/9/15; col. 1230.]

That was on 7 September 2015. On 25 November 2015, Her Majesty’s Government cancelled that £1 billion Conservative manifesto pledge, as was stated in this House.

I simply say to the Minister that actions speak louder than words, so perhaps he will understand that we on these Benches would like to trust the Government’s words, but they have made it somewhat difficult. Time will, of course, tell, but I remind the Minister that carbon capture and storage is a vital component of our ability to meet our carbon emissions targets. The establishment of the OGA was an opportunity to embed proper regard and action on transportation and storage. That is now an opportunity lost.

My Lords, I will not delay the House unduly, and I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests as the new president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association. I have some very big boots to fill in the shape of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh.

I do not want to replay what has happened to development proposals for carbon capture and storage, I say to the Minister only that there are great opportunities with it, but investors and the industry now need reassurance from the Government. There are interesting developments, not least within our regions. The Dutch are increasing their interest in carbon capture and storage. As we come to the closing stages of the Bill, I ask the Minister to regroup on the issue, to give us back some reassurance and to look to the positive opportunities that lie ahead. Britain can lead in this technology, but it will take some commitment from the Government and the industry. The key thing needed at the moment is reassurance to the industry.

My Lords, I, too, express some concerns about the removal of the amendment in the Commons. Although I have listened to the argument that it would detract from the intention behind the OGA, I seriously hope that the Government will look back at the primary objectives that they have given it and conduct a timely review—I know that that will happen.

Since we last considered the amendment, we have had two important events. The first was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone: the cancellation of the carbon capture and storage project. I do not intend to debate the whys and wherefores of that, but it is clear that there has been a significant dent in investor confidence. People have invested in good faith in this technology knowing that, to meet our long-term climate targets, we need a form of capture and storage for certain sectors of our industry.

The second big event is the signing of the Paris agreement, when the Government and the Secretary of State, Amber Rudd, played an enormous role in making it the success that it was. That states a very clear target for the world: that we must get our anthropogenic sources, our sources of carbon emissions, matched and cancelled by anthropogenic sinks. That largely means capturing and storing carbon and putting it underground. We need to take that Paris equation seriously.

I suggest to the noble Baroness that a third event has happened—we have the early results from the Canadian carbon capture and storage project, which is by far the most advanced in the world. They are very disappointing in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide reduction and the cost that it has taken to achieve it.

I note that, but I would just say that we are not Canada and we are very fortunate to have the North Sea as a reserve to use, which I believe would make it more cost efficient if we could do it in a timely fashion—obviously, not wanting to gold-plate anything, but making the best of the resource that we have in this nation. As I said, we need some reassurances from the Government. I am part of the group that the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has now set up, which is looking at the whole issue afresh. We do not want to push carbon capture and storage for its own sake, but only in so far as it gives us options to decarbonise at least cost. I hope that the Minister will be able to say some words of reassurance about that process and the seriousness with which the Government will take the recommendations of that group.

My Lords, I agree that carbon capture is one of the keys to the future of energy and climate policy, because, if it can be done commercially and successfully, it will allow us to continue burning fossil fuels but in ways where the carbon is extracted. This is the case for continuing with fossil fuels, and perhaps slightly undermines the case of those who want to abolish fossil fuels altogether, because the whole point is that you can carry on if you have the technology.

Through your Lordships, I ask the noble Baroness who just spoke from the Liberal Democrat Benches whether they have thought about alternative and cheaper carbon removal technologies. There is carbon capture utilisation, which is developing in all sorts of new areas. It is beginning to look as though it can undermine the vast costs of piping carbon away into the North Sea. As we heard from the Minister, that would set back the problems in the North Sea, which are enormous and one hesitates to add any burdens to them, however important one may think the technology. So if there are cheaper ways of going forward, surely we should be going those ways.

That makes sense of what I understand from my noble friend to be the Government’s strategy, which is that the experimental efforts with carbon capture and storage in its full glory, with piping, transmission, finding places in the North Sea and overcoming all the vast technical and cost problems, can be replaced by something rather more imaginative. We may be moving in the right direction. My question is whether the Liberal Democrats have thought about those alternatives before pressing something which will obviously hurt the oil and gas industry in the North Sea at a time when it is already hurt very considerably.

I am happy to answer the noble Lord’s question. The Liberal Democrats keep an open mind on all technologies which can advance our climate change agenda. However, in Peterhead, for example, projects were well advanced and should have been continued.

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but at this stage of the Bill noble Lords are not allowed to speak more than once.

My Lords, speaking briefly from these Benches but entirely personally, because bishops take different views on this, I welcome the realism that lies behind the Commons amendment. Following on from the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, it may well be that nature’s way of carbon capture and storage is some sort of vegetation. That may be the solution, but it is hardly a function for the Oil and Gas Authority to supervise. The great cost of extracting carbon dioxide—which can be done perfectly easily, technically—and then transporting it under the North Sea would increase energy prices in this country to an extent that would make the recent threat to our steel industry look like simply the foothills. It would have a major impact in raising energy costs. So the Commons amendment limiting the function of the Oil and Gas Authority is realistic and entirely supportable.

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for participating in the debate on this amendment. I will try to cover the points raised and do justice to some very important ones. First, there is nothing inconsistent in having a laser-like focus on the development of the North Sea as a principal objective set out by the Government and developing CCS. I reassure noble Lords who raised the issue—the noble Baronesses, Lady Featherstone, Lady Liddell and Lady Worthington—that the Government are very much wedded to the importance of CCS. As the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said, we set up an advisory committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who I do not think is in his place. He brings to this task great expertise. It has cross-party representation, with all principal parties here represented and also the Scottish nationalists from another place. We will be responding to the advice that we receive from the committee, which I think will come in a timely way at the end of the summer or the beginning of the autumn. I know that the committee has met at least three times already and is driving this agenda very hard.

I will mention what we are doing on CCS to reassure noble Lords. There is collaboration with key partners who are also developing CCS; we are sharing data and research with them. Officials in the department are working on CCS; this is not an area where there is no activity. Our science and innovation budget has been increased, and we are looking at how we can usefully use it. There are developments on Teesside with industrial CCS, which is important. My noble friend Lord Howell made a valid point about carbon capture usage, which is also a key part of what we are looking at—but these things are best done together.

I thank my noble friend Lord Ridley for mentioning the issue of Canada; we study progress there very closely. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for injecting some realism about the importance of having that laser-like focus on the North Sea, but, at the same time, as has rightly been accentuated and stressed by other noble Lords in the debate, developing a CCS strategy. With that, I commend the amendment.

Moved by

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 4 and 5.

My Lords, Commons Amendments 4 and 5 overturn amendments made at Lords Report stage. They reinstate the original wording of Clause 17, to require the Secretary of State to carry out reviews of the OGA’s performance and functions on a no more than three-yearly, ongoing basis. There is broad consensus that measures are needed to ensure that the OGA remains well equipped to address the diverse challenges faced by the oil and gas industry. Its role and scope, including in relation to the storage of carbon dioxide, needs to be appropriate, sufficient and regularly evaluated. As such, the Government introduced provisions requiring review of the OGA’s effectiveness in exercising its functions, as well as review of the fitness for purpose and scope of such functions.

However, requiring an initial review to take place no later than one year after the Bill comes into force, and then annually for subsequent reviews thereafter, would be an incredibly onerous process for government, the OGA and industry. Moreover, it would likely have myriad unintended consequences. It would require the almost continuous evaluation of the effectiveness of the OGA, with very little time to implement the recommendations from each review. Reviews would be extensive, needing to cover both statutory and non-statutory functions, and an assessment of effectiveness against external factors, such as changes in the regulatory landscape, operational practices across the UK continental shelf and environmental and economic factors.

All this would be required as part of the review to enable the Secretary of State to produce a report setting out the findings of the review which is to be laid before Parliament. This would create significant resource burdens both for the OGA and government, and risk obstructing the work of the OGA. This process would be inefficient and likely to result in an ineffective review. It would weaken the OGA’s ability to act as an independent regulator free from government intervention. It would also create a review process significantly out of step with other regulators.

There will be other mechanisms in place to ensure that the OGA’s performance and functions are appropriate. The OGA will publish, on an annual basis, a refreshed five-year business plan and an annual report and accounts. The need for an arm’s-length body charged with effective stewardship and regulation of the UK continental shelf was a central recommendation of the Wood review. I believe that the original three-year review periods introduced by government must be reinstated to avoid conflict with that recommendation. I beg to move.

Moved by

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 6.

My Lords, the Government remain committed to delivering our manifesto pledge to end new subsidies for onshore wind. To deliver on this commitment the Government are intent on bringing forward the closure of the renewables obligation to new onshore wind in Great Britain. It is the Government’s view that all the government amendments in this group are consequential on each other.

Commons Amendment 6 reinserts the early closure clause removed at Lords Report stage. It gives effect to the manifesto commitment to end new subsidies for onshore wind. As I set out during our earlier debates, the Government have engaged widely on their intention and have considered in detail each of the proposals that have been raised, not only by noble Lords and Members in the other place but by many valued industry stakeholders during the passage of the Bill. The Government are committed to protecting consumers from the rising costs of energy bills while also protecting investor confidence. It is the Government’s opinion that the new clauses presented here do exactly this.

To protect investor confidence, the Government have proposed a grace period for those projects, meeting certain conditions as at 18 June last year, as outlined in the Statement on that date by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd. The grace period conditions set out in Commons Amendment 7 are intended to protect those projects which already had the following as at 18 June last year: first, relevant planning consents; secondly, a grid connection offer and acceptance of that offer, or confirmation that no grid connection is required; and, thirdly, access to land rights.

In addition, and to address feedback from industry, certain projects which have been granted planning permission following a successful appeal will also be eligible for the grace period. This will include those projects which have, as a result of a judicial review or an appeal, had a negative planning decision which was made on or before 18 June last year subsequently overturned.

The Government have also taken on board concerns raised by industry about an investment freeze. Following industry engagement after the 18 June announcement last year, we have seen evidence that certain projects have been experiencing difficulty securing funding due to legislative uncertainty caused by the Bill’s passage through Parliament. We have, therefore, sought to address this through the investment freezing condition. This will ensure that projects which meet the approved development condition, and which would otherwise have been able to commission and accredit under the RO by the original closure date, 31 March 2017, are not frozen out of the process. This investment-freezing condition has been designed specifically to protect the projects that were intended to be able to access the grace period as proposed on 18 June last year but which have been unable to secure debt funding pending Royal Assent due to legislative uncertainty. Indeed, feedback from industry suggests that it supports and welcomes such a measure.

The Government want to take a consistent approach to all onshore wind projects eligible to accredit under the RO. The Commons amendments therefore also seek to ensure that an existing grace period for delays caused by grid or radar works will continue to apply. Let me reiterate so no ambiguity remains: this is a manifesto commitment based on plans which we signalled well before the election. The honourable Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, Mr Philip Boswell, said at Committee stage in the other place:

“We agree that swift passage of the Bill with clear and consistent RO grace period provisions is needed in order to provide certainty to investors in the onshore wind sector as quickly as possible. The renewables industry fears that the longer legislative uncertainty over RO closure persists, the greater the risk of otherwise eligible projects running out of time to deliver under the proposed grace periods”.—[Official Report, Commons, Energy Bill Committee, 2/2/16; col. 127.]

On Commons Amendment 8, the Government would like to see an equivalent approach to closure of the RO to onshore wind taken across the UK. Commons Amendment 8 gives the Secretary of State a power to make regulations, which, if made, would prevent suppliers in Great Britain using Northern Ireland renewables obligation certificates. These would relate to electricity generated by new onshore wind stations and any additional capacity added to existing wind stations after the onshore wind closure date. This power allows for circumstances to be specified in regulations when such Northern Ireland renewable obligation certificates may still be used, and for the setting of a later date than the onshore wind closure date. The power has been included with an intention to protect consumers in Great Britain from the costs of any additional support which Northern Ireland chooses to provide.

This is a backstop power; it would be used only if Northern Ireland does not close its renewable obligation to new onshore wind on equivalent terms to the rest of the United Kingdom. As my honourable friend the Minister of State Andrea Leadsom confirmed in the other place, this power would be used only in relation to new onshore wind stations and additional capacity in Northern Ireland that do not meet closure conditions equivalent to those in Great Britain.

I am pleased to say that renewable obligation in Northern Ireland has now closed to large-scale new onshore wind stations with a capacity above 5 megawatts with effect from 1 April 2016, and that Northern Ireland is currently consulting on closing stations at 5 megawatts and below on equivalent terms to the rest of the United Kingdom. The Government continue to engage with Northern Ireland with a view to effecting closure on equivalent terms to Great Britain through Northern Irish legislation, but this backstop power is included with a view to delivering on our manifesto commitment across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Amendment 10 seeks to ensure simply that the provisions set out in Commons Amendments 6, 7 and 8—that is, the early closure of the RO to new onshore wind in Great Britain, together with the related grace-period provisions, and the backstop power relating to the RO in Northern Ireland—will come into force on Royal Assent. As my honourable friend the Minister of State Andrea Leadsom set out in the other place, the Government intend the provisions implementing the early closure of the RO to come into force on the date of Royal Assent and do not intend to backdate these provisions.

Government amendments to Commons Amendments 6, 7 and 8 further clarify that the onshore wind closure date will be the date on which the Bill achieves Royal Assent. These changes are set out in government Amendments 6A, 6B, 7A to 7S, 7AJ to 7AL and 8A to 8C. The amendments also include a number of consequential changes to the investment-freezing condition, extending it by one month to account for the additional period of legislative uncertainty. The amendments further ensure that projects seeking to access the grid or radar delay condition would continue to have an additional 12 months to accredit where they satisfy the relevant eligibility requirements. The Government are making these changes to provide clarity and certainty for the industry, and our policy makes it clear that we are taking steps to protect consumer bills while also balancing the interests of industry. I beg to move.

I shall speak to Amendments 7U, 7V, 7W, 7Y, 7AC, 7AD and 7AE which are in my name. The Minister is a good friend of mine, and I have great respect for him. Before he became a Minister, he and I used to work together on the great issue of devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales. We worked very well together, so I want to reassure him that I have every interest in him continuing in his post. I do not want him to do anything that would threaten his future. That is why I want to reassure him that everything that I am suggesting is in line with the Conservative election manifesto pledge.

That is a first.

It is indeed. Absolutely. As my noble friend Lord O’Neill said, it is unusual—exceptional—for me to do that.

Unprecedented.

It is unprecedented, as my noble friend Lord Hain says. I also want to reassure the Minister that no constituencies of English Conservative MPs will be affected by this because I know some of them are genuinely worried about the effect on their constituencies. What I am suggesting in my amendments and what others are suggesting in theirs deals with proposals principally in Scotland and with very important community projects in Scotland. Two categories are dealt with in my amendments. The first category is those covered by Section 75 which are unable to go ahead not because they do not have planning permission —they have managed to get that—but because of some technicality. We are suggesting that that technicality is creating huge problems for them. The other category is in relation to grid connections. There is a particular problem in Scotland with the transmission and distribution grids not necessarily being as easily available as south of the border and having different arrangements. Some projects have fallen foul of these regulations.

If we put the schemes together, they amount to only just under 90 megawatts of generation. It is not a huge amount we are asking for. It is a relatively small amount. They all have the democratic consent of the local council, which is one of the matters raised in the Conservative election manifesto. I shall give the House a couple of examples. There is a scheme in Sorbie, a working dairy farm in Ardrossan in north Ayrshire, that has full planning consent and for which bank finance has been secured, a turbine contract has been agreed and design work has been started. Nearly £1 million has been spent on the scheme by the people concerned. The family-run working dairy farm is already suffering because of the low price of milk. If this project were to be cancelled because of the Government not accepting the amendments being put forward today, it would be in real difficulty. That is the kind of problem that is being faced.

My Lords, on Report I drew attention to the unfair effect upon a development on Skye. The original provisions about the date upon which the guillotine would fall on new onshore wind farms discriminated against a development at Glen Ullinish in Skye which had planning permission, control of the land, the support of the local community and an agreement to link to the grid; the developers were paying money to the grid in fulfilment of that agreement. The only reason why the development could not go ahead was that the grid had to be upgraded, and that could not be achieved within the appropriate time.

I voted with the amendment that removed the clause from the Bill, but afterwards I wrote to the Minister to explain that that was the only option I had. I called on him and the Secretary of State to consider accommodating this unusual situation. I am grateful to the Minister, the Secretary of State and officials in the department for giving this matter consideration. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, I read the new Clause 32LL as a solution to the difficulty that there is a grid or radar delay condition. I seek confirmation from the Minister that I am reading it correctly, but I genuinely think it has enabled the development at Glen Ullinish to proceed. As I indicated in my letter, if that problem were resolved and a clause were brought back that accommodated this issue, I would support it, subject to the Minister’s confirmation that my understanding of Clause 32LL is correct.

My Lords, I tabled Amendment 7T and took the liberty of giving the Minister a copy of my draft speech in advance, in the hope of his co-operation and acceptance of the amendment. The Bill as it stands puts at risk a multimillion pound investment in Wales in and around my home area of Neath Port Talbot, which is already facing massive economic haemorrhage resulting from the threat to Tata Steel. The issue at stake relates to an already consented project, Gamesa’s Llynfi Afan renewable energy project, which has had its planning condition varied through a Section 73 consent to allow for a different road access route. The project is ready to start construction, and some of the major work is going to local businesses, with obvious positive implications for jobs, which in that area is welcome.

On 27 August 2013, the Llynfi Afan renewable energy project was granted consent by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. Previous consent had already been granted by two other local authorities, Bridgend County Borough Council on 18 July 2013 and Rhondda Cynon Taff on 13 October 2011. However, due to a change in the proposed site access route, the developer, Gamesa, successfully applied for variation of two conditions of the Neath Port Talbot permission by way of Section 73 consent. I stress that the variations dealt solely with the access route for turbine component deliveries to the site of the consented generating station itself, and its capacity will remain unaltered. As such, the impact on the DECC budget is neutral.

The variations were approved on 24 February 2016 by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. As I understand it, where an application under Section 73 is granted, the effect of the Planning Act 1990 is the issue of a new planning permission, with a new decision date, sitting alongside the original permission, which remains intact and unamended. The consent and conditions of the original consent are preserved, as is the implementation date by which the construction of the generating station should have been started. On Report in the House of Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said:

“Where consent is granted for development on or before 18 June and is subsequently varied”,—[Official Report, 21/10/15; col. 668.]

in this way, it will continue to fall within the approved development condition.

While that is very welcome and positive for this project, regrettably, his statement by itself has proved insufficient to achieve adequate investor confidence. That is because the renewable obligation certificate is awarded after the wind farm has been built and has proven to be exporting electricity to the grid. Investors therefore need certainty before construction, otherwise there is a risk that the project could be built but not receive the required support. As a result, investors wish for certainty reflected in the legislation, and without the amendment the project will be put at risk. The amendment therefore aims to resolve the issue and ensure that the project can go ahead, matching government intent and delivering investment in the local community. My understanding is that without the amendment, such variation permissions as Section 73 would not qualify under the Government’s grace period condition.

The investors’ legal advisers have said that, as the Energy Bill currently stands, it fails to reflect the position that variation consents are fresh planning permissions as a matter of law, as used to be the case. They assert that without an amendment, such variation permissions would not qualify under the Government’s grace period condition. Amending the Bill would make it absolutely clear and avoid any additional funding being added other than what the Government have already allowed for.

In the particular case of Llynfi Afan Renewable Energy Park, tens of millions of pounds will be invested in the construction and operational phases. The communities have widely supported Gamesa’s Section 73 application, as they support the project and wish to see it happen. The local community stands to gain substantially in community benefits, and in terms of business rates and direct and indirect local employment opportunities. Gamesa is in the final stages of appointing a contractor who will be responsible for building the wind farm and, as such, will require employment and services from the locality. It has been Gamesa’s aim to work wherever possible with local companies, involving local jobs, and will continue to do so during the construction and operational phases.

I appeal to the Minister to agree to the amendment. If he finds some technical fault with it—although it is not obvious to me what that might be—will he agree to write a letter to the developers explaining why the Bill as it stands, without the amendment, meets their objectives and that they will be able to proceed, notwithstanding the fact that this amendment may not be accepted by the House?

My Lords, the Minister has moved Amendment 6 and spoken to Amendment 7, and I want to speak principally to my amendments to Amendment 7. My noble friend Lady Featherstone may say something about the wider issue of the early closure of the renewables obligation in respect of onshore wind generating stations. The Minister has repeated the Conservative Party manifesto commitment that there will be no new subsidies for onshore wind, but I well recall the comment from the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, that it is difficult to think that a new subsidy is actually the early closure of a long-existing subsidy. The Minister repeats that again and again, but no one is seeking to overturn the early closure. However, the grounds he has stated— that it is a manifesto commitment—are somewhat doubtful.

I have yet to find many people in the industry who think this is a very wise move at all. It is not simply about what is being done with onshore wind; as we have already heard in this debate, a large amount of the investment made in developments over a long period will be cut off at a fairly arbitrary date. The Government’s capriciously cutting off developments in the way proposed affects the confidence of those who want to invest not only in onshore wind renewables but in the entire renewables industry and, indeed, in other infrastructure developments.

Turning to the amendments, I begin by thanking the Minister for his willingness to engage through exchanges of letters and in meetings. One reason why we on these Benches were very happy to support the move to take out the principal clause in the original Bill was not that we did not expect the Government to try to bring back the clause, but that we felt that it would give them an opportunity to reflect on and try to improve the grace periods. Although they were welcome as far as they went, they certainly fell far short of what many people in the industry—I would say almost universally—thought was required.

What has been disappointing, and perhaps not in keeping with the way this House operates when we ask the Government to think again, is that we have absolutely no sense that they are willing to compromise in any way whatever. They have said that there is no compromise, and that is why the amendments that I have tabled—particularly Amendment 7X—embody quite a number of the changes which the industry wants to see and on which we have had representations. I invite your Lordships to support that amendment. I hope that if that measure is brought back in—after all, the Bill has to go back to the Commons because the Government have brought forward amendments to their own amendments—there will be a further opportunity for the kind of engagement that is part and parcel of the way this House operates. Certainly, when I had the privilege of sitting on the Front Bench and dealing with amendments, I tried to find some means of compromise when there were Lords defeats.

My Lords, I would like just very briefly to seek clarification on something that has arisen from our debates. I do not know whether I am alone in not being sure of the implications of what we are discussing here. However, I would like to know from the Minister, or indeed from those who tabled the amendments, how many schemes are affected, where they are, and whether any of the schemes that might be affected by the amendments are ones where the local communities have very much opposed the developments that are taking place.

I feel in something of quandary in approaching these amendments, because I do not want schemes which have a lot of public support, referred to by my noble friends Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Hain, to be prevented from going ahead, but at the same time I hope that what is proposed would not allow schemes to go ahead in my own county of Northumberland, where a large number of schemes have been introduced against the wishes of local people and local communities. I would not like them to go ahead because of changes that we are considering introducing here via amendments.

The Minister knows that I have a lot of sympathy with the Government’s approach, in that a lot of schemes have been inflicted on local communities in sensitive landscapes and in areas where we are trying to develop tourism. It has been a real issue in Northumberland, which has twice as much onshore wind capacity as any other English county. I would simply like to hear from the Minister and others whether there are implications for Northumberland in what is proposed today.

My Lords, I was not intending to speak on this amendment, but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was kind enough to refer to me, I want to ask a simple question. I want also to pay tribute to the commitment shown by the noble and learned Lord in the detailed way in which he has approached this question and sought to canvass a wide section of views on this clearly still controversial topic.

My question is more about the future. The Government are doing what they wish to do and it is clear that we need to see a pathway towards all renewables standing on their own two feet, supported, one hopes, by a carbon price which makes investment in cleaner technologies a sensible way forward. My question is in relation to another event that has taken place since we last considered this matter, which is the announcement about the auctions of CFDs. I understand that onshore wind will not be eligible for CFDs. I wonder whether there has been representation from Scotland in that decision-making process, since many questions about eligibility for the RO could be alleviated if there was access for Scottish wind farms to a CFD or equivalent that Scotland could determine. That is my question. It is less about the detail looking backwards over this government statement than about the Government saying something reassuring about repatriating an element of energy control to Scotland to enable it to persevere with this industry, which is clearly very important to it.

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. In particular, I want to speak to Amendments 7AA and 7AM in the name of the noble and learned Lord.

As the noble and learned Lord said, there are two important realities that these amendments seek to address. The first is that planning regulations in Scotland, unlike in England, require a set period of pre-engagement. This means that the submission of a major planning application can take place only once a statutory three or more months of consultation have taken place. In Scotland, therefore, between three and six months is added to the equivalent statutory period that applies in England. In effect, the lodging of this proposal of application notice in Scotland is at exactly the same point in the process as the lodging of a planning application in England. In other words, it is the start of the formal planning process either side of the border.

The second reality that the noble and learned Lord’s amendment seeks to address is that projects involving community equity are inherently disadvantaged alongside established developers in terms of the speed with which they can develop their projects, the level of finance that they have available, the time it takes them to get the requisite level of finance and the relative risks they take in getting a project to a particular stage by a particular date. Securing the initial funding for a community stake takes valuable time before the actual planning process can even be initiated.

As a result of these two realities, the Scottish planning regulations and the challenges facing community projects, this Bill would lead to the following scenario. A community-based project could be stopped dead in its tracks despite a significant investment involving a community shareholding having been committed well before 18 June, despite that project having been firmly and formally within the Scottish planning process since well before 18 June and despite all other grace period criteria having been met. Such a scenario would be a regrettable and, I believe, unintended consequence, especially given the importance that the Government attach to the involvement of local communities in, and their support for, onshore renewable projects. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, that aspiration was expressed in the Conservative manifesto.

On the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, at the same time as such a community project would be stopped dead in its tracks, other cases that were refused planning permission before 18 June by the local planning authority—in other words, they did not have local support—but were subsequently granted on appeal would be able to accredit under the grace periods, while a genuinely community project which is fully committed by 18 June, with full local support and equity ownership, would not. The noble Baroness has therefore raised a very serious concern.

Such a scenario would be addressed by Amendments 7AA and 7AM in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. They would ensure that community projects that had committed significant financial resources, that had been in the formal planning process well before 18 June and that now had permission and accorded with all the other grace period requirements were given a reasonable grace period to deliver.

Like other Members of this House, I have been grateful to the Minister for his willingness to correspond and engage on the issues relating to this Bill, and I am grateful for the correspondence that I have had with him about the issues behind the amendments. I want to reassure him on two concerns that he raised with me. The first was a concern that, in accepting these amendments, there would be significant additional deployment. This is not the case. Research through RenewableUK data demonstrates that the amendment would lead to an additional deployment of only 45 megawatts, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, said. That is less than 0.1%—that is, 1/10th of 1%—of the current annual ROC spend.

My noble friend the Minister also expressed the view that the amendments run counter to policy intent. I can reassure him that they do not. They are about improving in a very precise and limited way the flexibility in how the Bill would apply, especially in Scotland. The amendments are modest in their intent and negligible in their cost and therefore in their impact on the ROC budget, yet, as we have heard from other noble Lords and especially the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, they would deliver significant local benefits.

I hope that the House and especially my noble friend the Minister will support the amendments or at least consider them constructively. They deal with the very lengthy pre-application consultation requirements in the Scottish planning system and with the challenges that community projects face. I will listen carefully to my noble friend’s response, and hope it is a positive one.

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 7AB, tabled in my name. The Energy Bill started in your Lordships’ House shortly after the generally unexpected Conservative majority in the general election last year. It focuses primarily on the setting-up of the Oil and Gas Authority. Into the Bill, the new Conservative Government thrust two new clauses on onshore wind, closing down early, to a date of 18 June, the renewables obligation. Hurriedly, the Government agreed to consider exceptions, as grace periods, to allow schemes to complete as they had travelled a long way through the development stage, in good faith and at considerable cost.

While understanding that the Government have to draw a new line somewhere to give effect to this measure, your Lordships’ House was not content that sufficient logic had been applied and passed the Bill to the Commons with these two clauses omitted from it. These clauses now return to your Lordships’ House but without material amendment having being made in the Commons to these grace period proposals.

Amendment 7AB proposes a logical, consistent, clear, honest and fair extension to the exceptions agreed by the Government. The wider onshore wind industry has come to a consensus and supports this single, narrow extension to the existing renewables grace period criteria. The proposed change is for projects that have achieved democratic local consent for their development at a planning committee on or before 18 June 2015 but received Section 75 in Scotland and Section 106 in England and Wales agreement after that date. At present they are excluded.

This cannot be said to be against Conservative Party policy. It is widely considered that a decision made by a democratically elected local planning committee embodies the principle of giving local people the final say. To deny this extension is to deny and prevent local people having the final say on wind farm applications.

The publication of a resolution to grant permission is considered by both developers and local authorities to be a procedural step and that planning permission is to follow—in effect, agreement is all but made. The industry is not aware of any commercial project that received local community consent at planning committee and was not awarded a written decision because of a failure to complete a Section 75/106 agreement. Continuing to proceed on the basis that planning consent is secured, developers have greater sunk costs at this stage. Formal notice is expected because a resolution by a planning committee is a real and substantial commitment.

The lack of logic in the Government’s position arises from the concession they have granted to projects refused permission at 18 June but subsequently agreed on appeal. Projects refused on 18 June, although overturned, can qualify, whereas agreements resolved on 18 June and subsequently fulfilled cannot. This is a bizarre interpretation. The legal advice that the industry has received categorically states that there is as much “legal right” to a planning permission resolved at local level as there is to a permission subsequently granted on appeal following a refusal by a planning committee. As I have said, the Government are content to allow these successful appeals to proceed.

Grace period concessions for anomalies and complexities around the criteria should allow for projects which have local consent but missed the cut-off date due to the time needed for a planning authority to complete a Section 75/106 agreement and issue a decision notice. It would comply with Conservative policy that locally approved wind farms be enabled to go ahead.

To allow this concession will not open—I will not say floodgates—a gale of projects coming forward. I understand the industry has put forward a list of projects that received resolution for approval but where formal permission was issued after 18 June. The list totals seven projects—six in Scotland and one in England. This totals just under 90 megawatts. To put this into context, 90 megawatts would power 50,000 households—a mere fifth of 1% of more than 26 million households and about 1% of the present onshore wind capacity of over 8,500 megawatts. Surely the Minister cannot contend this to be a major concession.

As to the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, he has worked tirelessly on trying to get a fair outcome for projects started in good faith by people who have committed substantial time and assets to bring forward onshore wind developments—which, after all, will be the least-cost technology providing low-carbon power. He has worked extensively, engaging with industry and the Government, to get a resolution that does the decent thing by these developers.

This measure closing down the renewable obligation has been one of the many taken by this Government that has done severe damage to investor confidence and led to a Commons departmental committee issuing a report on investor confidence in the UK energy sector.

I do not doubt that the amendments the noble and learned Lord has tabled are thought through with good intentions. However, I have targeted this side of the House’s focus specifically on the very minimum that could be considered reasonable, given that onshore wind developments are likely to be coming to an end in any case. His Amendment 7X, in part, supports my case. Yes, we want to be fair where we can, considering that the provision can be said to be in the Conservative Party manifesto, and the Commons has expressed its decision. We ask the Government to think again on the small measure I propose, at the very least, and show some consistency

I thank my noble friend Lord Hain for bringing this situation and his amendment to the attention of the House today. It allows me to underline just how destructive the Government’s arbitrary cut-off date of projects has been. A great amount of uncertainty now exists throughout the renewables sector and I urge the Minister and his department to open a dialogue with their Welsh counterparts to resolve this anomaly as quickly as possible.

I turn now to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and supported by my noble friend Lady Liddell and others. My noble friend’s Amendment 7Y, in part, also supports the case that I have made. Unfortunately, he includes other provisions that go beyond the small, narrow extension to the Government’s concessions. The fact that six of the seven projects arising from this extension are in Scotland shows the importance of wind power for jobs and enterprise there. He has identified the effect on schemes locally in Scotland in his remarks. It is unfortunate that the Government have brought back the renewables obligation scheme to be solely under the reserve of the Westminster Parliament by withdrawing it from being a devolved matter.

From the amendments that have come forward, I consider it reasonable to press ahead with the amendments that I propose.

My Lords, we have had a wide-ranging debate on the opposition amendments which I shall try to cover in my response. I shall take the speeches in the order in which they were made.

I acknowledge the great efforts that have been made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes, Lord Grantchester and Lord Hain, and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and I thank them for their comprehensive suggestions and the detailed drafting of the amendments. I also thank them for their hard work and forensic skill—particularly that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace—in putting them forward.

I understand the points that are being made. There is, by and large, a doctrinal difference in attitudes to onshore wind between the Opposition and the Government. Hence it was in our manifesto and not in those of other parties. That should be our starting point.

I should make one thing clear that I hope I do not need to make clear. There were many references to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and projects being in his constituency and I hope no one was suggesting that there should be special treatment in that regard. Let me make it clear that there will not be—nor would the right honourable member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale expect such.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for his unusual, unprecedented and almost unique accolades. We go back a long way on devolution and, as he knows, I have the greatest respect for him. I am about to damage him with his Benches in the same way as he damaged me with mine but I thank him for his contribution. I contest the point he is making about these being mere technicalities—they are much more than that.

As noble Lords will appreciate, I cannot respond to all of the detailed projects because I do not have knowledge of every single one. Of those I do, I will endeavour to say what I can on them, but I cannot specifically carry the knowledge of where we are on them all. I certainly would encourage noble Lords and the developers to be in touch with the department because officials are keen to engage, to be helpful, and to give clarity in relation to these different projects.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, who I know makes great efforts on behalf of his part of Scotland and the area he used to represent, and he has put forward a powerful case. I shall pick up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and say that of course there would be an impact on deployment. Obviously if we alter the law it will not be just in relation to Scotland, it will apply to the whole of the country. It will not be laser-like on a particular area, so it will increase deployment, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, indicated in his remarks. His figure was higher than that suggested by my noble friend Lord Lindsay. Further, as has been indicated, we have undertaken extensive consultation.

I turn to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and I thank him very much indeed for making me aware of what he was going to say in relation to Llynfi Afan in the Afan Valley and the Gamesa project there. As he knows, DECC officials have already been engaged with the developer and they are happy to continue to do that. I am also certainly happy to write to Gamesa, as he indicated. From what I gather, this is not a difficulty with the Welsh Government, as has just been suggested. I do not think that that is the case at all. This project has planning permission so we will certainly take a close look at it and clarify the position. If I can help in that regard, of course I will.

I turn to the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, on the issue of the grid and radar delay as set out in the letter that we sent to him. If I can, I will get officials to contact him again in case there is a lack of clarity on that or if there is an ambiguity; I do not think there is. I know that it is an issue that matters to other noble Lords as well.

I turn to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who raised many points with forensic skill, as he does. As he has been around the legal block a bit he will know that cut-off dates are always a problem. It can be suggested that they are capricious or arbitrary, but virtually all legislation has cut-off points in it, and there will always be someone on the other side of them who you wish you could help. But in reality a cut-off point has to be set, and that is what we have done. I can understand that it does not appeal to some people, but of course it is arbitrary only in the sense that any date is arbitrary, so even if we moved in the way he has suggested, there would be other projects that would fall just the other side of the line.

I think that the noble and learned Lord’s ultimate conclusion was that there is no hybridity in this Bill. If that was his conclusion, I agree with him; this is not an issue about hybridity. Scottish developers are subject to Scottish planning law and those in England and Wales are subject to English and Welsh planning law. It is not unusual for differences in law to arise on either side of the border these days, and indeed it is now happening more and more in relation to Wales as well, producing different practical results. I do not think that that causes hybridity unless a specific private interest is affected, but I do not see that being the case here. So, with regret, I do not think that I can move on any of the points he has raised. We have made our position very clear.

Perhaps I may just say in response to some of the matters that have been brought up in relation to Scotland—I understand the particular interest in Scotland because of the massive deployment there; it has benefited massively, there is no doubt about that—that it was not a significant issue in the House of Commons. I did not think it was and so I double-checked it. That is not to say that it is not a matter that needs to be addressed, but it is interesting to note that it did not seem to be a massive issue in another place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, set out a position in relation to CFDs and the Scottish Government. We have set the rules for CFDs and we have said that they will not be considered for the round of CFDs in this year, but I am very willing to ensure that we engage with the Scottish Government, as we do on energy issues, to see if there is anything that we can do in relation to future CFD rounds. I will take that away and look at it.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, raised an issue about what he saw as the improved clarity set out in the letter that I sent to him. That is the correct position, and we will ensure that the letter is circulated to noble Lords who have participated in the debate and we will make use of it too if it is helpful to developers, as indeed we do. The correct position is set out in it, so I will be happy to do that.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, spoke kindly about our unexpected election victory as he saw it, and he also said quite rightly, for which I thank him, that one has to draw the line somewhere. That is a very realistic position. We can take different views as to where the line should be drawn. He talked about democratic control, but I would make the point that this does not stop wind farms deploying onshore, it ends the subsidy. People need to grasp that. The position is that we do not want to carry on subsidising where there is no continued need for subsidy. That is the basis on which we are moving and one of the prime reasons for this provision.

My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the Bill, having only joined the House since then. On the basis of what was said by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, like the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, I represented an area which had an awful lot of applications, but we found that the big developers got in very quickly and were able to process their applications, whereas the small community proposals took a lot longer and found it more difficult, so they were later in the field. They have been caught by this. Does the Minister not recognise that the Government could find themselves in a situation where they are seen to have gone against communities in favour of big business? That just compounds the difficulty and the ideological divide that the Government are pursuing.

The noble Lord is wrong on the issue because, with the grace period and with the investment-freeze conditions, we have allowed for movement on these issues. I take the point that he is making but I do not agree with it.

I am just double-checking, but I hope that I have now done full justice to the comments that have been made.

My Lords, I do not think that the Minister has addressed two points, one of which is the investment-freeze conditions and green organisations such as Triodos, which do not appear to qualify. Even at this late stage, would he be prepared to look at this again? I also refer to the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and myself with regard to community investments. I do not think that the Minister has specifically addressed that issue as regards the Dalquhandy and West Douglas development.

Taking the latter point first, I think that I did so in response to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. We do not see any reason for distinguishing between community projects and others. That would only give rise to difficulties.

On the investment-freeze conditions, I think that the noble and learned Lord is pursuing the lenders point. There is no intention to alter the list. It is something that I think could be done in the future without primary legislation, but there is no proposal to change that. I apologise for not covering it earlier.

I think that I have covered all the main points, and with that, I ask noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.

Amendments 6A and 6B (as amendments to Commons Amendment 6)

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 7.