National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I too support my noble friend Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest and thank her for her very moving and informed speech. It triggered a memory for me. I was approached by the Children’s Hospice South West for a fundraiser —my goodness, I think it was 15 years ago—and managed to raise a record amount by putting on an event for it. I saw for myself the astonishing job that hospices do. They provide a level of care and places that many of these people—children, in particular—could not find elsewhere, so the question for the Minister is this: if some of them are to shed staff and therefore be less able to take these very needy children and their relations, where will the Government step in? How will they take up the slack and what, ultimately, will be the cost to the Government?

I have some sympathy with the Minister. He has come here today to hold the Treasury line, of course, but we are wasting our time if, to each and every group of amendments we table, the stock reply is, “The Government need to raise the money. They don’t recognise the figures that the Opposition are presenting”, and we move on to another set of amendments. That does not suggest to me much dialogue or debate. But I congratulate the Minister on one thing: so far in our deliberations this afternoon he has not alluded once to the fictitious £22 billion black hole.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, listening to noble Lords present the case for Amendment 29, I agreed with every single word that was said. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, said that an exemption was required. Amendment 29 does not ask for that exemption; it asks for an assessment to be done, and therefore it does not mean that an exemption would come, which is why, on day one in Committee, we on these Benches tabled an amendment to say that an exemption for hospices should apply. If we bring that back on Report, I hope that the noble Baroness will support us as we hold our ground.

I want to talk briefly to the other amendment in this group: Amendment 41, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, regarding the increase in the employer allowance to £20,000 for hospices. Just as a matter of fact, the average number of staff per hospice is 81 full-time equivalent employees, and the average salary is £23,626. Therefore, the average total salary bill for a hospice is £1.863 million, so a £20,000 employment allowance will be absolutely useless because hospitals will still be clobbered by the national insurance contribution increase. That is why we put them down for an exemption, and we hold our ground on that.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 41. I support Amendment 29 in the name of my noble friend Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest, who gave an extremely moving speech. She has made such a huge contribution to the charitable sector, as a supporter and a fundraiser. We must listen to her and the evidence that she has gathered in her work in the run-up to this discussion, which shows how important it is to find a way to match the compensation that NHS bodies are getting under the arrangements made for increasing national insurance and reducing the threshold.

That is the purpose of our series of amendments, some of which are probing, some of which we will pursue, because this is an important sector. Hospices are an essential part of our healthcare system, and the Bill will leave many unable to provide the services that they are currently offering. I was glad to have the support of my noble friend Lady Sater for both amendments, and that my noble friend Lord Swire was able to mention the fundraising for hospices which many have taken part in across this House. Indeed, hospices were one of my favourite charities of the year at Tesco, and one of the most moving with staff. We were talking about up to 300,000 people who were engaged in raising money for hospices. That taught us a lot about the difficulties and the wondrous jobs that they do.

My Amendment 41 seeks to increase the employment allowance for hospices, which would ease some of the financial pressures that they are facing at the hands of this Government. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, intervened, and it was helpful, to say that an exemption would cost—£1.83 million or was it billion?

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I was pointing out that the average salary bill of a hospice is £1.8 million.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

That is the average salary bill, so the noble Lord is right that an increase in the employment allowance would not absorb all the extra costs.

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[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, I will address Amendments 29 and 41. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I acknowledge the powerful contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton of Dallington Forest; I listened very carefully to all the points that she and other noble Lords made.

As I noted in a previous sitting of this Committee, it is important to recognise that all charities, including hospices, can benefit from the employment allowance, which this Bill more than doubles, from £5,000 to £10,500. This will benefit charities of all sizes, particularly the smallest ones. The Government also provide wider support for charities, including hospices, via the tax regime. This tax regime is among the most generous in the world, with tax reliefs for charities and their donors worth just over £6 billion for the tax year to April 2024.

On the specific point made by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, the situation whereby independent contractors, including primary care providers, social care providers, charities and nurseries, will not be supported with the costs arising from these changes is exactly the same as with the changes to employer national insurance rates under the previous Government’s plan for the health and social care levy.

This Government have provided a real-terms increase of 3.5% in core local government spending power for 2025-26, including £880 million of new grant funding provided to social care. This funding can be used to address the range of pressures facing the adult social care sector. We are also supporting the hospice sector with an increase in funding of £100 million for adult and children’s hospices to ensure that they have the best physical environment for care—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Can the Minister confirm that the £100 million is capital and cannot be used for revenue?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

We are also providing an additional £26 million of revenue to support children and young people’s hospices.

As I have said previously, delaying commencement of the Bill would reduce the revenue generated from it and require either higher borrowing, lower public spending or alternative revenue-raising measures. The Government carefully consider the impacts of all policies, of course, including the changes to employer national insurance. As I have also said previously, an assessment of the policy has already been published by HMRC in its tax information and impact note.

Further, the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook sets out the expected macroeconomic impact of the changes. The Government and the OBR have therefore already set out the impacts of this policy change. This approach is in line with previous changes to national insurance and to taxation. The Government do not intend to provide further impact assessments.

In the light of the points I have made, I respectfully ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

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[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment on pharmacies. We must think of the impact. I have spoken to those who have been impacted already and worry that there is an impact not just on community pharmacies, which employ more pharmacists, but on small providers. When we look at what happens in towns and villages across the country, we see that, when a pharmacy closes down, elderly people, families and people looking for their prescriptions have to take a bus and go somewhere else. The impact on town centres of this sort of change can be quite significant. We have 3,560 independent pharmacies today.

In all of our debates today, we have spoken about the impact on each sector and how it might be alleviated, with amendment after amendment proposed from these Benches and from the Liberal Democrats, who spoke earlier in Committee. Barring retail and hospitality, today’s groups of amendments cover what are usually called public services. They are provided by independent providers. Some, such as the early years and hospice sectors, are charitable as well as independent. If they do not provide these services, there will be greater costs to the taxpayer, and they will do so in a much more bureaucratic and less person-sensitive way. The quality will go down and the cover will be broader; in fact, it will not meet the kind of person-to-person approach that we see offered by many independent providers.

I support my noble friend Lord Jackson because we are talking about people and their jobs: 80,000 pharmacists were employed in 2023-24. As well as them, we are thinking of pharmaceutical technicians, of which there are 34,300. These are real people and real jobs, and they are on top of the jobs that we have spoken about day in and day out in this Committee. I implore the Government and the Minister to think about what happens when people’s jobs go: not only do we as communities lose the services that are vital and which we have spoken about; we see an impact on our streets and our communities, and we increase the cost to the taxpayer—that will go further, in addition to the high hike in borrowing and the tax rises that the Government intend. We will see the further damage that will be caused to the economy. I implore the Government to think again.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to the amendments in this group; I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, for introducing it. I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that I am the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy, so this issue is close to my heart.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, aptly outlined the pressure that community pharmacists are under at the moment and the issues that they face. He also mentioned a lot of facts and figures from Community Pharmacy England and the National Pharmacy Association, which have outlined the impact that these national insurance contributions will have on community pharmacy. The reason an impact assessment will not work is that the data is already out there, in terms of data from the industry itself. On average, every week, 10 community pharmacists are closing. There is a crisis in community pharmacy, which means that pharmacy after pharmacy in communities up and down this country can no longer survive and is falling by the wayside. An impact assessment would be useful only to reiterate the information that is already out there from the industry; it will not stop organisations falling by the wayside every single week.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 44, 45 and 46 and to Amendment 34 in the name of my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough. I agree with everything that he said.

Primary care facilities have been hung out to dry. The Government have already acknowledged that the NHS should be exempted from the jobs tax. It is unfortunate that they have made the bizarre decision not to include other healthcare providers, such as GPs, pharmacies and dentists, which serve the same purpose as NHS providers.

We need to get to the bottom of two issues: first, why GPs, pharmacies and dental practices have not been included, as the NHS has, in the exemptions from the increase in employer national insurance contributions; and, secondly, why GPs, pharmacies and dentists will not benefit from any increase in the employment allowance.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury told BBC “Question Time” in November:

“GP surgeries are privately-owned partnerships, they’re not part of the public sector”,


and

“they will therefore have to pay”.

However, GPs are recognised as public authorities in existing law, such as the Freedom of Information Act 2000. They may be privately owned partnerships, but that does not reflect how they operate. Not only that but because they are legally classed as public authorities, they will not be eligible for the increased employment allowance, so they will have to pay the full national insurance increase.

Section 2(1) of the National Insurance Contributions Act 2014 states:

“A person cannot qualify for an employment allowance for a tax year if, at any time in the tax year, the person is a public authority which is not a charity”.


Section 2(2) defines a public authority as

“any person whose activities involve, wholly or mainly, the performance of functions (whether or not in the United Kingdom) which are of a public nature”.

GP surgeries, whether they are privately owned partnerships or not, exclusively provide NHS services: their activities wholly involve the performance of public functions. The Minister confirmed last week that the employment allowance does not apply to charities, which my research confirms. Does he agree that the allowance should apply to these other vital services—pharmacies, dentists and GPs? That would be a simple change. Previous Conservative Governments recognised this. We fully funded and offset any increases in employment costs for GPs; this is acknowledged by the British Medical Association.

Given that the Institute of General Practice Management, which represents GP practice managers, estimates that the jobs tax will cost the average GP practice around £20,000 a year, it is all the more vital that we offset these costs by allowing GPs to receive the employment allowance, preferably at an increased rate of £20,000, as my amendment suggested. It may not be much but it might help with non-GP staff in surgeries, in pharmacies and in dentists. I am looking all the time at changes and concessions that might not cost the Government too much, but I do not get the feeling that the Government understand the difficulties that some of these sectors are in.

It is not just GPs that will suffer. Community Pharmacy England estimates the cost, as I think we already heard, at £50 million in total. That is part of the treble whammy that we heard about from my noble friend Lord Jackson. I am especially concerned about this because of the impact of these changes across the private-sector end of healthcare, because its work makes life easier for NHS services, reducing pressure on A&E and on other public health services.

I spoke to a local pharmacist yesterday. He is a worried man. He believes that when the new NICs charges come through, he will have too little left at the end of the period to invest in his shop and his vaccine services. So, he will be lacking the crucial application of capital to keep the business up to date and serviceable. He will also look to reduce hours. At present, he is open early and late, providing a superb service to the local community—indefatigable, as he was through Covid. I have to say that the pharmacy in my local Wiltshire village is already closing on Saturday, and it is a half-hour drive to another or to the local A&E. Multiply these types of decision by the hundreds of thousands of pharmacies, dentists and GP surgeries across the country, and you can see that the Government’s failure to compensate for the NICs increases is an act of self-harm. Can the Minister therefore confirm that, as a minimum, the Government will include GPs, pharmacies and dentists, who provide NHS services for the public benefit, in the employment allowance?

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Just for absolute clarity, community pharmacists can claim the employment allowance. Of the other two services the noble Baroness mentioned, GPs cannot but dentists can if their NHS work is below 50%. It is important that we get that absolutely correct for the record.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I was actually asking the question about this, as we did on charities. The Minister confirmed the position very helpfully last time, and I am asking him to clarify the position and look positively at trying to extend this. I am delighted that some community pharmacies get the employment allowance and would like to see it increased to alleviate difficulties in the sorts of small chemists I was talking about. If we can find another way, I would be delighted as well, but this 50% rule seems a bit odd, and I wonder whether the Minister could clarify or have a look at it. Frankly, it was very good to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, in view of his role in community pharmacies, and, more worryingly, to learn from him just how many pharmacies are closing. When I was in retail and we had pharmacies, there was actually a battle to buy extra licences so that more pharmacies could be opened. If it is going in the other direction, that is not good news for our healthcare services, which we all care so much about.

I look forward to a positive response from the Minister on this important area, which is complicated.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, I will address the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, which seeks to prevent commencement of the Bill until an impact assessment is published for community pharmacies. Delaying its commencement would reduce the revenue generated from it and require either higher borrowing, lower public spending or alternative revenue-raising measures.

The Government carefully consider the impacts of all policies, including the changes to employer national insurance. As I have said before, an assessment of the policy has been published by HMRC in its tax information and impact note. Further, the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook sets out the expected macroeconomic impact of the changes to employer national insurance contributions. The Government and the OBR have therefore already set out the impacts of the policy change. This approach is in line with previous changes to national insurance and taxation and the Government do not intend to provide further impact assessments.

I turn to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, which seek to increase the employment allowance for those employed in primary care, including in GP surgeries, dentist surgeries and pharmacies. The distinction between those in the public sector who will be compensated and those who will not follows existing practice and is the same as the distinction that the previous Government used for their health and social care levy.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, asked specifically about eligibility for the employment allowance. Eligibility is not determined by sector but depends on the make-up of an individual business’s work. HMRC guidance explains that this is based on whether an organisation is doing 50% or more of its work in the public sector. It is therefore down to individual organisations to determine their eligibility for any given year. The employment allowance was introduced in 2014 by the previous Government. This Government have not changed the eligibility rules on the employment allowance in any way, beyond removing the £100,000 threshold.

The revenue raised from the measures in the Bill will play a critical role in restoring economic stability and funding the NHS. As a result of measures in the Bill and the wider Budget measures, the NHS will receive over £20 billion extra over two years to deliver 40,000 extra elective appointments a week. Primary care providers—in general practice, dentistry, pharmacy and eyecare—are important independent contractors which provide nearly £20 billion-worth of NHS services. Every year, the Government consult each sector about what services it provides, and what money it is entitled to in return under its contract. As in previous years, this will be dealt with as part of that process.

The Government have announced a proposed £889 million uplift for general practice in 2025-26 and have set out the proposed areas of reform which will help us to deliver on our manifesto commitments. This is the largest uplift to GP funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means that we are reversing the recent trend, with a rising share of total NHS resources going to general practice. We have started consulting with the General Practitioners Committee England of the British Medical Association on the 2025-26 GP contract and will consider a range of proposed policy changes. These will be announced in the usual way, following the close of the consultation later this year.

The Department of Health has entered into consultation with Community Pharmacy England regarding the 2024-25 and 2025-26 funding contractual framework. The final funding settlement will be announced in the usual way following this consultation. The NHS in England invests around £3 billion on dentistry every year. NHS pharmaceutical, ophthalmic and dental allocations for integrated care systems for 2025-26 have been published alongside NHS planning guidance.

In light of these points, I respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Again, for the clarity of the record, the Minister has just said about GPs something which completely contradicts what it says on WWW.GOV.UK. It is about whether a GP practice can claim employment allowance. It says:

“There is no entitlement to the Employment Allowance, because the majority of the work done, is wholly or mainly of a public nature”.


Since it says on GOV.UK that GPs cannot claim the employment allowance, can the Minister write to the Committee to clarify the contradictions between the website and what he has just said in his answer?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I will happily write, because it is an important point and deserves clarification. Listening to what the noble Lord read out, I do not think the statements are contradictory, because the website is absolutely referring to the 50% or more point. I think it is drawing a conclusion from that, given that most of them are doing more than 50%, but I do not think they are contradictory.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I quote again exactly what it says, which is that

“there is no entitlement to the Employment Allowance”

for GPs. That is from “Eligibility for Employment Allowance: further employer guidance” on GOV.UK. It makes it clear that there is no entitlement to the employment allowance for GPs.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

As I said, I am more than happy to write to clarify that. What it goes on to say suggests it is consistent with that. Perhaps that first sentence is incorrect but I will write to the Committee to clarify.

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[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I understand that the noble Lord may have had other appointments on day one in Committee, but if he had been here then he would have seen that we are totally against it. We gave explanations of how extra taxes could have been done.

While I am on my feet, just to clarify for the Minister, I have looked a bit further at the website and what he said is absolutely correct. The 90% that I was referring to was a specific example of a number of people employed.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that point. I am of course still happy to write, so that we have absolutely clarified the point.

National Insurance: Charity Sector

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point. I have not personally received an apology. I would not necessarily expect such an apology to come to me; I would expect it to be made to the nation.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, in the middle of this political shenanigans going on, the average hospice in this country will be hit by a £200,000 funding gap based on the Government’s national insurance contribution rise. What advice would the Minister give to managers of hospices who are now looking at either laying off staff or reducing services?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be well aware of the Secretary of State for Health’s commitment to hospices, including supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million boost for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care and £26 million to support children and young people’s hospices. I am not playing down how hard it is going to be for organisations to find the additional revenue, but not all organisations will find that their NICs bill increases.

Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]

Lord Scriven Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 13th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for this Bill. He may not realise that he has highlighted an important issue that needs to be addressed—not the limited and, I may say, misguided focus of this Bill, but the wider issue of robustness of health datasets and the reliability of statistics used to plan, improve and deliver safe services as part of our healthcare system. As a former health services manager, I have taken an interest in this for a long time.

The NHS is one of the most data-rich healthcare systems in the world, yet some of its datasets suffer from weaknesses that can impede its ability to deliver high-quality, data-driven care. These weaknesses can broadly be categorised into areas of data quality, interoperability, accessibility and governance. One of the fundamental challenges lies in the inconsistency and incompleteness of data. NHS datasets often include outdated, duplicated or incorrect information due to variations in how data is recorded across trusts and practices. For example, patient demographics, diagnosis or treatment codes and records might be inconsistently documented, making it difficult to draw accurate insights. This runs into thousands of conditions and treatments, not just this one, which I hazard an educated guess has not been randomly plucked for the attention of this Bill. When you add in the private sector, it becomes near impossible to provide a complete patient journey through statistics to help improve patient care.

If the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and his supporters want to improve healthcare outcomes for not just women but everyone, and safety and policy built on better data, their Bill should focus on legislating to improve data quality in the NHS. It should be about adopting national standards for data quality, promoting interoperability, enhancing accessibility, strengthening governance and transparency and leveraging advanced analytics. So why pick out just one treatment among thousands with poor and conflicting data in our healthcare system and make the exception of trying to report it to this Parliament? The noble Lord’s reason for exceptionability does not stand up: 55% of ophthalmology cases are provided by the private sector and 30,000 hip replacements are provided by the healthcare sector.

This Bill is a back-door attempt to limit abortion in this country, using statistical jiggery-pokery as a smokescreen. I say sorry to the noble Lord and his supporters, but this just will not wash. The real motives need to be exposed. It is telling that the majority of those actively campaigning for this Bill are the very organisations that are prominent in attempts to restrict or, in some cases, ban abortion in this country.

These Benches will support genuine and effective measures to improve datasets in our healthcare system, to improve safety and outcomes for not just women but all patients, but we will not support the ideas of this Bill, which are not a foundation for effective improvement in healthcare and healthcare safety. We need to be clear: this Bill will not deal with the underlying weaknesses of healthcare datasets. It is the first step in an agenda to restrict women’s choice and, in some cases, restrict abortion altogether.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. My noble friends Lord Frost and Lady Lawlor made important points about patient empowerment, but also about the improvement in medical care that can only follow from a better understanding of what is actually going wrong.

I am also partly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, because she supported the principle that the data should be collated—she thought perhaps not by means of an Act of Parliament. I conceded that point in my opening remarks—there are other means of doing it—but she said that she thought the data should be collated.

I find myself less able to express gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, who lives in a world that I simply do not recognise. I have not read the American book she referred to. She came dangerously close to suggesting that I was either in receipt of or being influenced by money for this purpose. That would be a contemptible thing to say, and I will happily give way if she indicates that she wishes to distance herself from any such implication.

My noble friend Lady Sugg said that the Bill required abortion complications to be reported for the first time, and that this would be different. It does not. Abortion complications, as the Minister said, are already reported. The question is whether the data is robust and the sources from which it is drawn. My noble friend also said that collecting data could compromise the privacy of patients. Well, of course it could, but it does not, because you collect it without compromising the privacy of patients. Nobody has suggested that the report produced in November 2023 remotely compromised the privacy of patients. All that the Bill does is require that this report continue to be produced on an annual basis.

The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was massively keen to improve the quality of NHS data, but the moment he sees a report from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which clearly improves the quality of data, he retreats into a sort of conspiracy theory.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

If you are going to have end-to-end patient data, it needs to include A&E, GP, private, in-patient and out-patient. The statistical analysis that the Bill puts in place is a complete gap and does not give end-to-end patient data. Therefore, it becomes a totally ineffective use of statistics.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

With respect, it is true that the report, which the noble Lord has obviously read carefully, does not include data from GPs or from 111. That would have been an onerous task and, as the Government have said, this was a first and experimental effort. This is an argument for going further and improving the collection of that data, not for giving up the attempt altogether and seeing it as a conspiracy, which is what the noble Lord appeared to do.

We are really all on one page about this—or at least he and I seem to be. What is so strange about the advocates of choice in this debate is that they are so defensive; they speak as if they are surrounded by conspiracy. I do not actually think they are. If I thought I was surrounded by conspiracy, I would want to live in a world of facts and not hide myself from them, which is what they seem to be doing. The proposal is that data produced by an arm of the NHS should continue to be produced, whether by statutory or administrative means. That is all it is.

I know that there are other things happening today, so I turn finally to the remarks of the Minister. I am grateful to her for being one of the few people to treat the Bill seriously and to look at what the words in it say. She wandered slightly from that into the worlds of strange contexts, but in fact a great deal of her speech was an echo of my speech. On the history and the factual and contextual issues here, we are largely agreed. I agree that the Bill exceptionalises abortion to some extent because, as I said, abortion is exceptional, in that its statistics are generated from different data sources, which is very different from the majority of NHS procedures that take place inside a hospital. I grant that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, has a point that there are other exceptional cases. I did not say that abortion was unique; I said it was exceptional. There are differences between the two words, and he is right about some hip operations and so forth taking place in the private sector, where similar issues might arise as well.

The Minister says that there are different and other ways of collecting these statistics: non-statutory means. I conceded that point, too, in my opening remarks. What she did not say is that she would use a different, non-statutory means of collecting these statistics. I remind her that when she signs her letters, underneath her name it says: “Minister for Patient Safety and Women’s Health”.

We need better statistics on complications arising from abortions. I am disappointed that the Minister has not committed herself to that and agreed that, even if a Bill is not necessary for this purpose, she will set herself to do so. Sadly, she has not.

Public Procurement: Data Offshoring

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I think the security piece and the development piece can and should go in tandem, otherwise neither is sustainable. Three in every four people in England have already downloaded the app. This Government want to establish adoption through improved patient experience and system benefits, and to expand the services offer. This is part of making sure that more people can access the services they require.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, Microsoft gave a view to the Scottish Government in June this year that it could not guarantee that data held by public services on its Microsoft 365 and Azure hyperscale cloud infrastructure will remain in the UK. What mitigations are the Government looking at in the light of this statement by Microsoft?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I refer back to my initial Answer, which is that each contracting authority should carefully consider, and make risk-based decisions on, whether and where data can be offshored. We can get really hung up on offshoring, onshoring or where the data is stored, but we have to make sure that all data and cybersecurity are central to how we move forward with this type of procurement. This is why the Government are introducing a cybersecurity and resilience Bill, which will help ensure our cybersecurity for the future.

Global IT Outage

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question, which packed a lot in. I agree that the dominance of any particular software company or IT system is a risk to resilience, as government has known for some time. But we need to look at this as a whole and—I do not want to sound like a broken record—this will be covered by the cybersecurity and resilience Bill as it proceeds through the House.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, one of the public services specifically hit was the NHS, so why are systematic back-up systems not in place in the NHS for primary care and pharmacy? Who has been asked to take this forward to ensure that such systems are in place as a matter of urgency for those who are ill?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

All relevant departments will take part in the review, and I will feed back the specific points made to the Cabinet Office and colleagues in the Department of Health. Going back to the previous point about the widespread use of specific software systems, this needs to be taken seriously as we move forward with the proposed legislation.

Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL]

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, your Lordships are probably as surprised as I am to see me winding up from our Front Bench on this. That is because, even though I am an openly gay man, I have never got involved at all in the wider debate on gender identity. I understand there are very strong and passionately held views on both sides of the debate, and there is a lot about personal identity—what it is to be a woman or to be transgender. I have listened carefully, and I will continue to do so. However, I am afraid that sometimes in this debate we have done exactly what society has done: we have polarised ourselves around an argument which I believe not to be true.

I come to this debate with a sense of wanting to listen; the debate has raised some quite important issues and some important points of law and of clarification. That is this House at its best, with Members listening and debating with each other about points if something is going to become law. However, I come here as a human being with a sense of humanity, decency and empathy, trying to do my best as a legislator for our fellow citizens. I am sure that all noble Lords have come to the Chamber with that view.

I have also come with one principle. Would I support degrading, hurtful, damaging practices on a fellow human being? I am sure all noble Lords would say, “No, that’s not something that we would want”. However, I find it quite strange that when we then put a label on some individuals, some people start fraying at the edges because it does not fit to a norm which we hold, and we want our norms enforced on others. That cannot be right.

I have listened to this debate carefully. In fact, I threw out what I was going to say; the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has seen me scribbling on my phone quite a lot during this debate, because I have been trying to respond to what has been said. The argument against my noble friend’s Bill comes down to four reasons. The first one is that there is no need; new laws are not required. In 2021, the Government pointed out very clearly that:

“Our existing criminal law framework means that conversion therapy amounting to offences of physical or sexual violence is already illegal in this country. However, we have identified gaps that allow other types of conversion therapy to continue”,


and they identified that we need to close them. They went on to talk about “Targeting talking conversion therapy”: the Government identified that as a potential gap in terms of consent and in terms of some practices.

The Government also talked about “targeting physical acts conducted in the name of conversion therapy” by pseudo-psychological therapy. Those are not my words, but the Government’s. They also talked about it potentially being a mitigating factor that judges would have to look at in sentencing, and raised other gaps—potentially looking at conversion therapy protection orders, support for victims, restricting promotion and removing profit streams. So there is a gap in what is required, and the Government have outlined that.

A lot of noble Lords have said that the Bill is badly drafted. As somebody who supports the Bill, let me tell noble Lords that I have been in this House quite a lot and it is not the first time I have seen a badly drafted Bill. But I have been told many times by many noble Lords that the point of the Lords—and I accept that it is our role—is to reform and change Bills and make them better. That is what Committee stage is about. There are things that some noble Lords have said today about which I think, “Actually, that does need exploring further”. The question is whether this law is not required—the Government said in 2021 that extra law was required—or whether it is a matter of principle that it should not go forward. I would like to see it go to Committee, so we can explore some of the important issues that many noble Lords have identified.

Another reason given why the Bill should not go ahead is that it will stop medical practice and limit what happens. Let me be clear: the Bill will not stop any legitimate registered medical practitioner carrying out regulated activity. What it will stop is somebody deciding, before they have even started exploring the issue with that young person, that their sexual orientation or gender identity is wrong and needs to be changed. Through the process, as happens now, some will change and some will not, and medical practitioners will determine with them what happens—you will not come before someone who predetermines that your sexual orientation or gender identity is wrong. That is really important to understand.

The final issue is freedom of speech. Certain noble Lords are shaking their heads; that will have to be explored in Committee, if that is the case, with amendments and probing. That is absolutely fine. I believe one thing about the Bill and other noble Lords believe something different, so we will have to tease that out in Committee.

A number of anecdotes have been given today; let me give one of mine. About four or five years ago, I was at Gay Pride in Sheffield when a number of evangelical Christians turned up with megaphones and soapboxes, and suddenly started telling us that we were sinful and were going to hell. There was a big outcry from some members of the LGBT+ community that we should get the police, and off the field these people should go. Much to the anger of some of the people on the committee, I said; “No. They’ve got every right to tell us that we’re going to hell, and we’ve got every right to argue with them why we’re not going to hell. They can have that view”. The difference would have been—here, the police would have been called, and this is where my noble friend’s Bill comes in—if they had decided to take me somewhere in the park and tried to force me to stop being gay. But they were not doing that. It is exactly the same in this Bill; the motivation for stopping you being gay or having a certain gender identity also has to be taken into consideration in this Bill.

My noble friend’s Bill may need amending, but it is important. She has created a space on an issue that the Government, since 2018, have been saying needs space to be debated and legislated on. She wants the loopholes in the law, which the Government also identified in 2021, to be closed. I hope that noble Lords today will allow that space to remain and allow us to deal in Committee with some of the genuine concerns that have been raised, iron them out and stop once and for all this abhorrent practice of conversion therapy, which has no place in modern Britain.

Security of Government Devices

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I can certainly pass the concerns that have been expressed back to the security authorities in Parliament. I add that we have a Defending Democracy Taskforce, headed up by Tom Tugendhat, and the parliamentary authorities are involved in that because of the importance of sharing information, including sensitive security information, which it may not be possible to make public.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I want to go back to the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, who through freedom of information requests has found out that 18 police forces across the country use external cameras that have equipment that have serious security and ethical concerns. He says that the use of such equipment by police forces needs to be seriously questioned. What action will the Government now take on a systemic approach across government to deal with those ethical and security issues, rather than just a pick-and-mix approach?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

We have security and resilience frameworks which try to do just that, but obviously the police are independent, so the noble Lord’s question about the police goes beyond the areas in which I am expert today.

WhatsApp: Ministerial Communications

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I note what my noble friend says and I refer to my previous answer about disappearing WhatsApps. Of course, parliamentarians and indeed Ministers get advice on security and on the use of social media, which I am sure the noble Lords opposite concur with.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I note what the Minister says about guidance, but there is a difference between guidance and rules. The Hancock WhatsApp saga has highlighted that no standardised and formal rules exist across government on the handing over of government business app messages on a private phone when individuals leave their post. When and how will the Government close this serious loophole?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As I have explained, we do have guidance and we are in the process of developing revised guidance on the use of non-corporate communication channels, which we will be publishing in due course. There is a general understanding of the nature and extent of the use of WhatsApp for ministerial correspondence. As regards Mr Hancock, we have of course established a Covid inquiry to look into these things and it would be wrong of me to be making piecemeal comments on his use of WhatsApp.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Scriven]

72: Clause 40, page 26, line 22, at end insert—
“(3A) Provision under subsection (1) must not confer any preferential treatment on suppliers connected to or recommended by members of the House of Commons or members of the House of Lords.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to prevent the future use of “VIP lanes” for public contracts.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I will also support Amendment 113 in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Fox, which I have put my name to.

Imagine this House’s response to a public sector procurement Bill or statutory instrument that came before your Lordships’ House with the following provisions. The Government could, without reference to anyone, set up a new procurement channel that was mainly for people who knew Members of the Houses of Parliament, and particularly government Ministers. The companies offering the items would not have to be trading, or could just have a few weeks’ incorporation, and would still be included in the special channel. Normal scrutiny and due diligence would not be required of such contacts. These contacts would have preferential treatment over existing and trusted suppliers. They would be 10 times more likely to get a contract, many running into multi-millions of pounds, than other companies not in that special channel, many of which would have had a trading history of years of supplying relevant, safe and reliable goods and services. In addition, those on the special channel would be able to make three times the normal profit margin before the usual and rigorous value-for-money checks were carried out.

Quite rightly, we would be outraged and would see that as unethical and an unacceptable way to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. I hope that a fatal Motion would be put so that such provisions were stopped in their tracks. However, that is exactly what happened with the VIP channel set up for PPE in 2020. The findings of the National Audit Office and other reports that have been investigating the VIP channel paint a picture that is not acceptable and should never be part of an ethical public sector procurement process. The National Audit Office reported that companies referred to the VIP channel lane by Ministers, senior MPs and Peers had a success rate for gaining PPE contracts 10 times greater than other companies, many of which had a history of supplying reliable PPE in the other procurement routes. Parliamentary Questions show that 41 out of 111 contracts awarded through the high-priority lane by May 2020 had not gone through the formal eight-stage due diligence process.

If speed is required in public sector procurement, the normal rules of probity and ethical standards cannot and must not be ditched. We know that it leads to some with access to government Ministers’ personal WhatsApp contacts, telephone numbers or email addresses ending up making many billions of pounds for nothing more than having those contacts, and the door is open to the public sector market with the ability to supply goods and services. It is reported that some individuals have made over £29 million in personal gain from a company that was not even incorporated when they were lobbying government Ministers to get in the VIP lane, and indeed, when they eventually landed a multi-million-pound contract, they provided some goods and services that were not fit for purpose and could have put our NHS staff at risk had they been used.

Amendment 72 prevents another VIP lane from being set up that creates special and lucrative routes to market for those with privileged access to Members of the Houses of Parliament, and particularly to those in the Government. It will still allow the Government to procure in an emergency but would ensure that one route to getting to market exists—one doorway, with the same due diligence and rules applied regardless of who made the recommendation of the individual or company, rather than a fast-track and light-touch scheme for those who have a contact who is a senior politician or government Minister.

Without this simple amendment, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent another unethical procurement scandal that could set up a VIP lane and become another get-rich-quick scheme for some who have personal access to government Ministers and senior politicians. As the National Audit Office said, contracts awarded by the department through the parallel channel made up only 3.6% of all contracts awarded but accounted for 52% of expected contract value.

With this in mind, I ask the Minister: what in this Bill would prevent another VIP channel from being set up that is predominantly populated on contracts from senior politicians and government Ministers? I look forward, as I am sure many noble Lords do, to hearing what the Minister has to say to reassure the House that the Bill has provisions that will prevent the kind of scandal that the country saw with the VIP lane set up. It was mainly populated by those who had contact with senior politicians and government Ministers, who made millions of pounds in personal gain for those contracts while going through a regime of much lighter touch than that for those not in the VIP lane. If the Minister cannot convince the House that provisions in this Bill will prevent this from happening again, I am minded to test the opinion of the House.

As a matter of objective, Clause 11 is meant to ensure that, in carrying out public sector procurement, bodies are

“acting, and being seen to act, with integrity”.

Amendment 72 will do exactly that, and ensure probity and integrity, so that never again will taxpayers see their money used in such a cavalier and unethical way as they did with the PPE VIP channel. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 97 for two reasons. First, it is to ask for an assurance from the Minister that the procurement review unit will be set up, and secondly, it is to put down a strong marker on the reasons that the Minister’s department presented for attempting to exclude my amendment as constitutionally improper.

The Minister will recall that, in the responses to the Green Paper, there was a warm and widespread welcome to the proposal that an autonomous unit should be set up within the Cabinet Office to oversee contracting authority compliance with the new procurement rules and so help to realise the benefits intended from the transformation of public procurement legislation. In turn, the Government’s response gave a clear commitment to set up what it now labelled the procurement review unit. This is not in the Bill, however. Therefore, will the Minister Pepper v Hart that commitment, so to speak, by stating in the House that this remains the Government’s clear intention, and that during the passage of the Bill an effective PRU will be established, along the lines indicated by the Government’s response to the consultation?

On the second issue, the slide presentation to the briefing given to Peers on the PRU between Committee and Report, which I was unfortunately unable to attend, stated that the principle of indivisibility of the Crown means providing statutory powers to Ministers whereby they can direct action to be taken by central government departments—in other words, another part of the Crown—and is not usually provided for in legislation. To do so also risks fettering the non-statutory powers Ministers already hold.

I had not previously heard the principle of the indivisibility of the Crown, nor that this principle inhibited Parliament from including specific instructions to Ministers in legislation. It is, after all, an assertion of prerogative—executive sovereignty against parliamentary sovereignty—although oddly qualified by including the adjective “usually” in its attempted exclusion of legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I meant a noble friend. We intend to issue guidance recommending that contracting authorities include provisions allowing spot checks on the payment performance of supply chain members through their terms and conditions. This does not need to be done in legislation; we are currently exploring options to include it in the model government contract and terms and conditions. As I have made clear throughout, digital tech is integral to these reforms, as the noble Lord said, and we will use it.

I apologise for speaking like this, but I feel passionately that we have learned from the past and that it is important not to overreact to past problems. I have felt this in many areas that I have dealt with in my long life. I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment and the other noble Lords do not move theirs.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, which is a continuation of what we have spoken about in Committee and on Report. It is about ensuring that, if the Bill—which concerns spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money—is to go through, trust, fairness and integrity are central to everything that happens and every penny of taxpayers’ money spent. Every amendment in this group is about that.

I have listened intently and diligently to what the Minister said on my Amendment 72, but the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made a very important point. In answer to my noble friend Lord Fox, Clause 40 gives exactly the same powers that previous Ministers have had through statutory instruments, and this will get us to the same potential mess that the VIP lanes got us to with PPE. I note everything that the Minister said, but Clause 40 could do away with nearly everything in the Bill because it gives the Government unfettered discretion to set up a fast-track lane, as we have seen before. Giving that amount of power to a Minister in a time of crisis, when all power reverts to the Minister and those who are close can have privileged access to contracts, as we have seen, means that I wish to test the opinion of the House on this occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I do take these issues seriously and I commented on diversification, which I have personally been involved in. It is because there is a large amount of trade with China that this cannot be changed overnight—and there might not be a case to do so in non-strategic areas. Inflation is very important and the opening up of Asia has historically been helpful in this country. The Prime Minister said in his speech that we must be realistic and clear about China, but that obviously does not mean we should abandon our values.

It goes without saying that practices such as slavery and human trafficking have no place in government supply chains. We have shown our determination to address modern slavery in many ways, including in the Bill. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the fact that under Clause 27, contracting authorities must ask suppliers to provide details of their intended supply chain for the contract. Authorities can consider whether a subcontractor is subject to a ground for exclusion such as modern slavery. If they conclude that this is the case and that it has failed to self-clean, the lead supplier itself is liable to be excluded from the procurement if it does not take the opportunity to remove the subcontractor from its supply chain. However, we must recognise the complexity of the issue.

My noble friend’s amendment says that

“The Secretary of State must … make provision”


in procurements and contracts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking, and that this is to be done by secondary legislation, but I fear that the amendment fails to reflect the sheer complexity of the matter. Regulations cannot specify precisely which award criteria might be appropriate to address the risk of slavery and human trafficking in every different procurement: this depends on the nature of the particular contract being tendered, including what is being purchased and the likely nature and location of supply chains. The right vehicle to help contracting authorities address slavery and human trafficking risks is in guidance, and there is already comprehensive guidance setting out the action that departments must take. This is 46 pages long and includes sections on managing risks in new procurements, assessing existing contracts, taking action when victims of modern slavery are identified, supply chain mapping, useful tools, training and questions to ask.

My noble friend will know that I have committed to put the matters addressed in the guidance on a statutory footing as part of the national procurement policy statement, provided for under Clause 12 of the Bill. This would mean that all contracted authorities would have to have regard to that guidance, which I think the noble Baroness can see is a significant step forward.

Finally, I note that the draft provisions in the amendment go significantly beyond the language in the Health and Care Act with which it was my noble friend’s stated intention to bring the Bill into alignment. Amendment 141 also creates a strong expectation that the Minister will make regulations, and that they will cover the matters referred to in the amendment, so it is effectively a must.

I know that people are looking forward to getting to the end of this debate, so I will not go through the problems with proposed new subsection (5)(d) to (f), but I will ask noble Lords to note that this will be burdensome to contracting authorities as well as small businesses. I know that my noble friend does not much care about the latter, but there might be wider concern about the gumming-up of contracting authorities in this matter when we have already made arrangements in the Bill to give modern slavery much more focus, and have added that to the relevant schedules.

We believe that proposed new subsection (5)(f), for example, is disproportionate and contrary to the open principles of our procurement regime, as well as to the interests of efficiency, value for money and common sense. Moreover, countries and regions that pose risks change over time, and that is another reason to use guidance, and not this Bill, on this matter.

Finally, I say to my noble friend Lord Blencathra that we should remember that the new regime will give broader exclusion powers to contracting authorities—he referenced Huawei—which will have primary responsibility for applying the exclusions regime.

In closing, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to withdraw his amendment, but I emphasise the progress that this Bill has made, and I therefore find some of the comments on this group a little disappointing.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Just before the Minister sits down, so we understand, because some may want to press this to a Division, I ask: what would the Government’s intent be if this Bill was to pass with a debarment list, particularly with regard to companies that the Government no longer wish to deploy their surveillance equipment in the UK? Would such companies go on the debarment list, or would it just be down to guidance to determine whether such equipment is purchased by non-central government bodies?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

If the noble Lord looks at Schedule 6, which is the criteria for the debarment list, he will see that it includes modern slavery and security, so there is no reason why those could not be used in an appropriate way. I hope that helps.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My question was: is it the Government’s intention to use the debarment list for these types of companies, or is it still going to be down to guidance?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

They are mandatory grounds for exclusion, so if you find that you have a security issue—as we obviously found in relation to Hikvision—those become mandatory exclusions. On modern slavery, again, they are mandatory exclusions. Clearly, if a company is able to self-clean and has shown that it has changed the arrangements, it will not necessarily stay on the debarment list. I do not want to mislead the noble Lord.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 28th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Like most noble Lords, probably, I have listened to what has just been said and am more confused now than when the Minister started. I ask a very simple question: if the Bill applied to NHS procurement, as it does to the rest of the public sector, would it not harmonise the procurement of NHS provision, whether clinical or non-clinical, including social care? That would make it simpler, not just for the procurement body but for organisations that might wish to tender for NHS clinical services.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

That is a point, but I did try to explain in my introduction that there was concern during the passage of the Health and Care Act, to which I was not party, that the NHS arrangements—I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is nodding her head. Perhaps she is nodding it negatively.