Oral evidence from the Prime Minister, HC 835
Oral evidence, 17 November 2021.
Witness
Rt Hon. Boris Johnson MP.
Chair
I welcome my colleagues and of course the Prime Minister to this session of the Liaison Committee. We will try to cover four main topics: standards and ethics, violence against women and online harms, the outcome of the COP26 summit and its implementation, and the Budget and spending review. We have 15 colleagues participating in this session so, Prime Minister, I request that you give us your customary extra time—and even a little bit extra—if you can afford it, so that we can cover all of the topics. I would be very grateful for that.
The Prime Minister
I will do my best to oblige you, as ever, Sir Bernard. I have got quite a lot on, but I will do my best.
Chair
I appreciate that. Prime Minister, you are slightly hoarse of voice this afternoon. You can save your voice by giving nice, short answers.
The Prime Minister
Not if you keep me for longer.
Chair
I shall give the Committee short shrift if their questions are too long, although they are entitled to use their time as they please. We will go straight to the first topic, with William Wragg, the Chairman of PACAC.
Mr Wragg
Thank you, Sir Bernard. Good afternoon, Prime Minister. Can you understand the public mood, in much of the country, about standards issues around Members of Parliament and Ministers? Would you care to reflect on that in light of the events of a couple of weeks ago?
The Prime Minister
Yes. Thank you, Mr Wragg. I think that there is a feeling that we need to be getting on and ensuring that we have the utmost propriety in our dealings with each other and with the public, and that the public can have full confidence in the system. What I would like to place on record, although I have said it before, is that I think it was a mistake, two weeks ago, to conflate the very sad and difficult case of a particular colleague who had fallen foul of the Commissioner for Standards and the standards process, and the need—as many colleagues saw it, rightly or wrongly—for reform and improvement to the system, and particularly to the system for appeals in the event of very difficult cases. What I hoped to achieve was some sort of cross-party progress on that; plainly, that wasn’t possible. What I would like to see now is cross-party progress on endorsing some of the, I think, very useful conclusions of the report of the independent committee on standards and privileges of 2018.
Mr Wragg
Thank you. Specifically, on the ministerial code—as I am sure that the Chair of the Standards Committee will have further questions— how do you view the ministerial code? Do you see it as a constitutional document? Do you see it as a guide? Do you see it as advisory? What is its status in your eyes?
The Prime Minister
I think the ministerial code is extremely important. As you know, it has been greatly strengthened in the last few years and elaborated, in very clear terms, to give guidance for Ministers. What I have done is brought in an independent advisor to me, as I am the upholder—the guarantor—of the ministerial code, but what I think I benefit from is independent advice about how to implement it, and that’s what Lord Geidt provides.
Mr Wragg
As well as that oversight, you, as Prime Minister, are bound by the ministerial code. Is that right?
The Prime Minister
Of course.
Mr Wragg
Do you sense a slight conflict of interest in that settlement? Might not the independent advisor do well to be invested with the powers of initiation of investigation?
The Prime Minister
That’s a very good question. I think there are difficult constitutional issues raised in that, but where we’ve got to is that Lord Geidt has the ability to suggest to me that something might be worth investigating, or that there is some issue that has been raised under the ministerial code, and I think it’s highly unlikely that I would, in any circumstances, disagree with him, and we proceed on that basis. I find him an exceptionally valuable source of advice. To give a recent example, the Committee will have noted that the Business Secretary wrote a letter to the Commissioner for Standards setting out an explanation and an apology for some recent comments. That was certainly something that was generated in the course of consultation between me and Lord Geidt.
Mr Wragg
Traditionally, breaches of the code have meant resignation or sacking—one or the other. Do you think it is therefore too much of a blunt instrument? Could you update us on any progress that has been made on a gradation of sanctions that might make the ministerial code more applicable?
The Prime Minister
Yes, that is another important point. The ministerial code is quite compendious; it covers a lot of things. As it was initially constituted, it was basically a hair-trigger code so that one toecap over any of the red lines and you were finished. It is the view of Lord Geidt, and I think it is reasonable, that there should be gradations and ways in which there should be other sanctions, and that a breach—a small breach, I should say—of the ministerial code should not necessarily lead to resignations. That is his view, as I understand it.
Mr Wragg
Following the Greensill episode, if we might describe it as that, you commissioned Nigel Boardman to review what had happened. Part 2 of that was published recently, admittedly in the middle of the Government reshuffle. Have you considered those recommendations? In particular, do you think that ACOBA’s recommendations of employment restrictions on former Ministers should be made legally binding, as Boardman suggests?
The Prime Minister
We are considering the Boardman recommendations, Mr Wragg, and we will report back to you and your Committee.
Mr Wragg
But in this moment, Prime Minister, what are your instinctive thoughts on that?
The Prime Minister
I certainly think that the ACOBA process is invaluable, and it should be incumbent upon anybody leaving public office to follow those rules.
Mr Wragg
A pretty toothless organisation, though.
The Prime Minister
No, people have to abide by the ACOBA rules. The Cabinet Office—Simon Case and others—are leading work with ACOBA and Eric Pickles to see what improvements can be made, and we will be reporting back.
Mr Wragg
But with respect, they do not have to follow the recommendations; they can do what they like. They are issued with a very polite letter, but they can simply disregard that. There are quite a few examples of that, so it is a pretty toothless organisation. Do you think, therefore, as part of this work that we are taking forward, it can be strengthened?
The Prime Minister
We do think that there is scope for improving it. What I am saying to you is that, as a result, we have not yet formed a hard and fast view about how to do that.
Mr Wragg
Thank you.
Chair
When do you think you will form a view on that matter, Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister
We will be updating later this year.
Chair
Later this year. That is excellent; thank you.
The Prime Minister
Not that there is much left of this year, but later this year.
Chris Bryant
Good afternoon, Prime Minister. Can I just check something? In one of your answers there, you said that the Business Secretary had written to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards apologising; excellent. As I understand it, you were saying that Lord Geidt had asked him to do so.
The Prime Minister
That is not quite what I said. I said that the process by which the letter was generated was one that involved a collaboration between me and Lord Geidt and my reliance upon him for his advice, and that is a very important thing.
Chris Bryant
So you told the Business Secretary to apologise.
The Prime Minister
That is a matter between me and the Business Secretary, but if you mean did Lord Geidt ask the Business Secretary to apologise, the answer to that is no.
Chris Bryant
But you are not telling us whether or not you did. Some of us might gently suggest to you that we were surprised that the Business Secretary would freelance when he went on the air. One presumed that you had asked him to go on the air to call for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to resign.
The Prime Minister
No, that is obviously not right. No, I did not do that.
Chris Bryant
Did you know in advance that he was going to do that?
The Prime Minister
No. Just to clear the matter up, since I do not want to leave any ambiguity for the Committee, I certainly thought it was appropriate for the Business Secretary to write in the way that he did, and supported him in that.
Chris Bryant
Okay. Why is the list of ministerial interests published only twice a year? Most of every year, it is not even an accurate list of Ministers, let alone of their interests.
The Prime Minister
The list of ministerial interests is there to be consulted. In so far as Ministers also serve as MPs, which of course they do, their parliamentary interests are there to be consulted and to be updated at very regular intervals.
Chris Bryant
The Commons publishes a rolling register, which includes everything, every fortnight. You can see the whole of the House of Commons on a single document. But the Government tuck all the details for Ministers away in 232 separate documents online. That is not really transparency, is it?
The Prime Minister
I disagree. MPs who are Ministers—that is the majority of Ministers—have to register all their interests in the parliamentary register—
Chris Bryant
Oh but they don’t, all of them, do they? The Prime Minister—and there is the additional register of ministerial interests.
Chris Bryant
Okay, let me give you an example. If two MPs were sitting next to each other in a box, being wined and dined as guests of some business or industry body, and one was a Back-Bench MP and the other was a Government Minister, the Back-Bench MP would have to register this with the House of Commons within 28 days and would have to give details of the amount it cost, but the Minister would not have to register the amount of money that it cost at all, ever, and the registration would only appear six months later. That is just unfair, isn’t it? Shouldn’t there be one rule for everybody?
The Prime Minister
I am sure that most MPs who had been taken out to dinner would register their interest in the register of interests—
Chris Bryant
So you think Ministers should?
The Prime Minister
I think the system that we have is the one that I inherited and it seems to work pretty well, but if you have recommendations to improve it, Mr Bryant, I am sure that the House would be interested to see them.
Chris Bryant
Excellent—thank you. May I ask you, because I don’t quite understand, whether you think that Owen Paterson was guilty or not?
The Prime Minister
I think it was a very sad case, but I think there was no question but that he had fallen foul of the rules on paid advocacy, as far as I could see from the report. I think the question that people wanted to establish was whether or not, given the particularly tragic circumstances, he had had a fair right to appeal.
Chris Bryant
He had an appeal. His appeal was heard—endlessly—by the Committee.
The Prime Minister
Mr Bryant, I wish to restate that in forming the impression that the former Member for North Shropshire had not had a fair process, I may well have been mistaken, but that was certainly the impression that many people seemed to have.
Chris Bryant
Theresa May said yesterday that your actions over this case were “misplaced, ill-judged and just plain wrong”.
The Prime Minister
I have said several times now that I do think it was a mistake to conflate, as we did, those two things in a particularly difficult case. It is not often in the House of Commons that a colleague suffers a family bereavement in the course of an investigation. There was quite a lot of feeling about it, and for that reason, in a spirit of compassion, I thought it might be useful to see whether there was any cross-party support—
Chris Bryant
But you didn’t approach cross-party at all, did you? You told John Whittingdale that there was a cross-party agreement to set up this committee, but that wasn’t the case, was it?
The Prime Minister
So it would seem.
Chris Bryant
Why did you tell him that?
The Prime Minister
I cannot comment on that conversation, since I did not have it. What I can say is that I believed that there would be cross- party support for the idea—
Chris Bryant
How did you believe this—you came up with it just out of your head?
The Prime Minister
It was put to me that—
Chris Bryant
By whom?
The Prime Minister
By colleagues, that people would feel—indeed, I was fortified in this by the reflection that many people would have felt that this was a particularly difficult and sad case and that many people across the House would have felt a degree of sympathy for the Member for Shropshire North and would have thought that, in those particular circumstances, it might have been possible to consider whether the process was capable of improvement. I am very willing to accept that I was mistaken in that belief.
Chris Bryant
The problem is that you say that the country is not corrupt, but what Owen Paterson did was a corrupt practice: it was lobbying Ministers and officials on behalf of his paying clients. That is a corrupt practice, and the danger is that by all of this you have tarred the whole of the House with the same brush—and yourself, haven’t you?
The Prime Minister
If you recall what I said, Mr Bryant, at Prime Minister’s questions on that Wednesday, I began by saying that paid advocacy and lobbying is against the rules and anybody who does that should be properly penalised. That was how I began, so the intention, genuinely, was not to exonerate anybody; the intention was to see whether there was some way in which, on a cross-party basis, we could improve the system. In retrospect, it was obviously, obviously mistaken to think that we could conflate the two things. Do I regret that decision? Yes, I certainly do, Mr Bryant.
Chair
Looking forward, Prime Minister, you will accept the recommendations of the Standards Committee that are agreed between the parties and that have the consensus. The Government will facilitate the implementation of those changes.
The Prime Minister
Which changes?
Chair
Whichever changes the Standards Committee comes up with, agreed between all the parties.
The Prime Minister
Yes, I think what we are saying is that there should be—are you talking about changes to the standards system?
Chair
Indeed.
The Prime Minister
Of course, and I hope that there can be cross-party progress on that. I further hope that there can be cross-party progress, whether in the Standards Committee or in some other cross-party body of the House, on the issues that I described earlier, and I described in the House, relating to the conditions and stipulations under which we serve and are able to have outside trades, callings, professions, interests and so on—which, as the independent Committee has said, is of use to the House.
Chair
I want to follow up the question raised by Mr Wragg, for which I have great sympathy because his Committee, under my chairmanship, reached the same conclusion about the ability of the independent adviser to instigate investigations. I still do not understand the objection that you have to this. You say that you will almost always accept his recommendations to have an investigation. Now that you are going to be encouraged to take control of the sanctions and mitigate the sanctions to reflect circumstances, what is the objection to allowing the independent adviser to instigate his own inquiries? I don’t understand it.
The Prime Minister
Thank you. What the independent adviser—you mean Lord Geidt?
Chair
Yes.
The Prime Minister
The ministerial adviser. So what Lord Geidt can certainly do under the new dispensation that we have agreed is suggest to me at his own initiative—
Chair
But under what circumstances would you want to veto that? The Prime Minister—something that he thinks bears investigation or needs to be corrected or where something has gone wrong. As I said, I think, in my opening answer, it is hard to think of circumstances in which I would want to overrule him.
Chair
I cannot imagine any either, so why not just give him the power? I hope you will reflect on that.
The Prime Minister
I think people can see that the balance of the situation is, I think, well judged at the moment.
Yvette Cooper
Welcome, Prime Minister. Can I follow up and quickly clarify some of the responses you have just given to William Wragg and Chris Bryant? This is an area where we really need clarity, given your important role. You used a slightly odd form of words in response to William Wragg. You said, “it was a mistake…to conflate the very sad and difficult case of a particular colleague who had fallen foul of the Commissioner for Standards”. Could you just clarify, do you believe that Owen Paterson broke the rules? Yes or no?
The Prime Minister
Yes. At least that seems to me to—
Chair
Yes, you do?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do. As I said at the beginning of PMQs two weeks ago, we did not seek to in any way minimise the importance of that. People who break the rules on paid advocacy must pay the price.
Yvette Cooper
You are still qualifying it. You are still saying, “Well, it seems to me.” Do you recognise that, given your responsibility to uphold the ministerial code, to uphold the rules, to uphold the standards—
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do.
Yvette Cooper
—it is really important that you should not give any impressions that, when there is an independent report that found 14 occasions of paid lobbying, somehow you think that is okay.
The Prime Minister
No, I didn’t.
Yvette Cooper
Can you clarify that you don’t think it is okay and you don’t think what Owen Paterson did was right?
The Prime Minister
Of course I don’t, and that was the first thing I said when I began on this subject two weeks ago. Frankly, I think it is extraordinary that colleagues sometimes do behave in this way, and it is quite right that the Commissioner is able to investigate and to hold them to account. All we sought to do—I think the Committee will agree that I have accepted that it was a mistake and that it was my mistake—was to see whether, in view of the particular and frankly tragic circumstances of the case, there was any scope for cross-party agreement on an appeals process. That was all we were trying to do.
Yvette Cooper
And given that you have said that you did ask the Business Secretary to apologise, and the Cabinet Office Secretary has also apologised, would you express your own regret for not having said three weeks ago that Owen Paterson broke the rules, which would have provided clarity about the standards that you expect to be upheld?
The Prime Minister
I began—two weeks ago, I think it was—by saying that those who broke the rules should pay a price.
Yvette Cooper
No, the issue is whether you should have said three weeks ago that Owen Paterson—
The Prime Minister
Yes, in retrospect—thank you. In retrospect it might have helped a bit if I had said that I believed that Owen had broken the rules, as far as I could see.
Yvette Cooper
Again, you say “as far as I could see.” You have an independent process that has looked into this. Every time you say, “as far as I could see” or “Well, it seems to me”, and you try and qualify it, you are undermining an independent system that we need to work. All of us need this to work. We need you to have some integrity. We need you to be able to uphold the standards.
The Prime Minister
Yes. Then let me repeat: it was clear to me that he had broken the rules and he had fallen foul of the rules that we have in Parliament. I made clear at the outset in my first answer in PMQs that, for me, that is something that deserves punishment. My question was, in all humility, given the particular circumstances of the case, whether there was any cross-party support for improvement to the system. That was what we were trying to achieve. I can now see that that was a mistake. I also think it was a mistake not to go ahead with the 2018 report of the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life. I think the House should have implemented those conclusions as well.
Yvette Cooper
Do you also accept that the problem is that, with all the prevaricating and all the attempting to still be defensive about the things that, actually, everybody accepts that you got wrong, whether it is your reluctance to—
The Prime Minister
I am not remotely prevaricating.
Yvette Cooper
It sounds a lot like prevarication. There is a whole series of things that create an impression that is very unfortunate and is very damaging to public life. Whether it is not wearing a mask in Hexham Hospital or defending colleagues who have broken the rules in a series of different cases, do you accept that you have a responsibility to go above and beyond, to go further than everybody should expect and to establish much higher standards?
The Prime Minister
I do. Thank you, Ms Cooper. Yes, I think it was a total mistake not to see that Owen’s breach of the rules—the former Member for North Shropshire’s breach of the rules—made any discussion about anything else impossible, and I totally accept that. But as for not wearing a mask in Hexham Hospital, which you wrap up into my general litany of crime, can I just say that, actually, there was barely 30 seconds when I was not wearing a mask? I walked out of a room mistakenly not wearing it. I then put it on as soon as I realised I’d made that mistake. I apologise for it, but most pictures of my visit to the hospital will show that I was duly masked throughout the remainder of the visit. I was masked on the way into the visit. But I thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear that up.
Yvette Cooper
Let me briefly ask you about the—[Interruption.] I am not, actually, because I did not start until 3.20. Let me briefly ask you about violence against women and girls. Less than 1% of actual rapes are prosecuted, and less than 2% of reported rapes. You have set a target to get prosecution rates back up to 2016 levels by the end of the Parliament, but you have said that it is going to be really hard to meet that target even though it is only 11%. Why is that? When it is such a shocking crime, why are we effectively letting 99% of rapists off and letting so many victims down?
The Prime Minister
Well, Yvette—Ms Cooper—that is an incredibly important question. It is something I am campaigning and working flat out on now in Government. I lead the crime and justice taskforce; this is our No. 1 priority. You ask why it is so difficult. There are many reasons but, as you will recall, there was a particular case in 2018 in which the evidence from a mobile phone was used by the defence to exonerate an alleged perpetrator of rape. Since then, I am afraid there has been a huge reliance on mobile phone data by defence counsel—[Interruption.] It is a very important point—
Yvette Cooper
I understand.
The Prime Minister
I just want to tell you what we are doing about it.
Chair
You have had nearly eight minutes, Yvette.
Yvette Cooper
You have said that it is your top priority for police forces, but you have refused to put it in the strategic policing requirement, which includes terrorism, child exploitation and organised crime. Will you review this? If it is your top priority, will you put it into the strategic policing requirement and make it a requirement for forces across the country?
The Prime Minister
We are making it the top priority for our police. Maggie Blyth, the deputy chief constable, has taken over the lead for it. We are insisting that mobile phones are handed back to victims within 24 hours. One of the reasons we have such victim attrition, and one of the reasons we have such low prosecution rates, is because victims don’t feel confident in the system. We are going ahead, under section 28, with allowing victims to pre-record their evidence, to give them more confidence, and we are putting a lot of money into ISVAs and IDVAs— independent sexual and domestic violence advisers—so that they can help victims through the very difficult period of the trial, again to stop this attrition of victims and the failure to prosecute enough people. We are also investing in many more prosecutors.
Chair
Caroline Nokes.
Caroline Nokes
Thank you, Chair. Do you agree that there is a ladder of offending when it comes to violence against women and girls and that those who might perpetrate crimes like indecent exposure then move on to far more serious crimes like rape, kidnap and murder?
The Prime Minister
I do believe there is evidence to support that. If you look in particular at the case of Wayne Couzens, that was something that, frankly, should have been picked up. That is unquestionably going to form part of the investigation into what went wrong in that case.
Caroline Nokes
Could there then also be a case for making crimes such as public sexual harassment specific crimes, perhaps through the PCSC Bill, which will come back to the Commons soon?
The Prime Minister
We have quite a lot of statute, of one kind or another, against serious assault, sexual violence, rape and harassment, and, as Yvette Cooper has just been saying, the tragedy at the moment is that we are not enforcing this enough as it is. I have to think about how really to tackle the crimes that the public want tackled, rather than widening the range of human conduct that we ask the police to criminalise and enforce against. What I want to see is proper enforcement of the existing law and, as Yvette was saying, much more prosecution for those who are accused of rape, and at the moment that is where the numbers are going wrong.
Caroline Nokes
Having agreed that there is a ladder of offending, should we not have a plan to intervene earlier, before those who are harassing women become sex offenders?
The Prime Minister
I think that what we need to do, rather than expanding the sphere of activity that we criminalise, is prosecute people more effectively and successfully for the things that are already criminal. There is an abundance of statute that is not being properly enforced, and that is what we are putting our investment into.
Caroline Nokes
Baroness Newlove has put down an amendment to the PCSC Bill that would make misogyny a hate crime. Do you have any views on the progress that has been made on encouraging women to come forward? Some 75% of them in Nottinghamshire, where the pilot is being carried out, now feel that they have had a positive outcome, so should we not expand that?
The Prime Minister
I will study what Baroness Newlove has come up with, and I am glad that women have the confidence to come forward— that is always very important. But I think that the best way to tackle misogyny and to give women confidence is to deal with the abundance of courses of conduct that are already illegal and that we are not doing enough to tackle and not prosecuting enough—in particular, rape. That is why we want to double prosecutions for rape, and we are now seeing a small increase.
Caroline Nokes
You are right to focus on the efforts going in to increase rape prosecutions, but one of the real challenges is that women do not feel confident about coming forward to report incidents. Is it not fair to say that if public sexual harassment was a specific crime that they, the police and, indeed, the Crown Prosecution Service could point at, we might see women having more confidence to come forward?
The Prime Minister
I think that all women should have the confidence to come forward and denounce the harassment or crime against them that they have experienced, and there are proper procedures for those claims and complaints to be investigated.
Caroline Nokes
One of the cultures underpinning male violence against women is the easy access to extreme, violent and degrading pornography. Can we have any confidence that the online harms legislation, which you have said we will get to vote on before Christmas, will do anything to address that? We know that people like Wayne Couzens access that sort of pornography. Should we be doing something to stop people like him getting access to it?
The Prime Minister
I think that is an incredibly important point, because when you look at the evidence of people like Wayne Couzens—not just him but also, I am afraid, terrorist offenders and many others—it is clear that people are coarsened and degraded by this stuff. We will see what we can do. The technological difficulties are quite extreme, but it is up to the online giants to make sure that they do not have this stuff on their systems. We will take the steps necessary to hold them to account, and that is what the online harms Bill is designed to do.
Caroline Nokes
So can we have confidence that there will be legislation forcing the massive online giants to do that?
The Prime Minister
I think it is time the online giants realised that they cannot simply think of themselves as neutral pieces of infrastructure. They are publishers and they have responsibility for what appears on their systems. The online harms Bill is designed to give effect to that distinction.
Caroline Nokes
One final question quickly, Bernard. If there is a challenge around the culture that underpins male violence against women, should we start addressing that in schools, and should we look to make consent classes compulsory?
The Prime Minister
I think that kids nowadays are given much, much better and more balanced instruction about these questions than was the case even 10 years ago, never mind 20, 30 years ago, but there is a way to go, and it is certainly something that I am willing to look at.
Caroline Nokes
Thank you.
Chair
Julian Knight, for the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Julian Knight
Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, Prime Minister. Do you think that acts that are illegal offline should be illegal when committed online?
The Prime Minister
Give an example.
Julian Knight
Cyber-flashing.
The Prime Minister
Sorry?
Julian Knight
Cyber-flashing. I can give a description if you would like, Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister
Cyber-flashing? Yes, I do not care whether flashing is cyber or not, it should be illegal.
Julian Knight
If that is the case, will you commit to expand the present definitions of online harms—at the moment, we look at terrorism and child exploitation—and place a specific duty of care, following on from your answer to my hon. Friend, on the social media giants, to include such crimes as flashing and assisting self-harm—pushing people towards suicide, Prime Minister—on the face, crucially, of the online harms Bill?
The Prime Minister
I thank you very much for your suggestion. I will make sure that we look at it. As colleagues know, the online harms Bill is due to leave the Joint Committee—
Julian Knight
With respect, though, Prime Minister, the difficulty that we have is that there will not be another Online Safety Bill in this Parliament, and there may not be one in another Parliament. So are you prepared to shun the opportunity right now to protect women and girls from vile acts such as those we described before—cyber-flashing?
The Prime Minister
The answer to your question is, yes, if we can do something in the online harms Bill to stop cyber-flashing, which is clearly a scourge that is developing, then—
Julian Knight
It is not just about that. It also folds into violence against women and girls and the whole strategy around this. Here is a key piece of legislative intervention that will become the law of the House, and so far the scope is so narrow, with all the lobbying that goes on. It is just the idea that maybe—
The Prime Minister
If you can draft something that will capture it, let us have a look at it. It sounds like a useful—
Julian Knight
Given that there is a five-day time lag between the reporting of the Joint Committee and the promise to present legislation, can we just be clear: will we have the Second Reading, as you promised at the Dispatch Box, of online harms legislation before Christmas? Yes or no?
The Prime Minister
I think that depends on the Joint Committee, I am afraid to say—as far as I understand it.
Julian Knight
But Prime Minister, you said at the Dispatch Box that you would bring legislation forward before Christmas.
The Prime Minister
If the Joint Committee can conclude its work in due time.
Julian Knight
With respect, they are charged with doing that five days earlier, so you will have five days between the Joint Committee reporting and the legislation, as you promised at the Dispatch Box, being presented to the House. Will you do that before Christmas? Yes or no?
The Prime Minister
Well, if the Joint Committee reports in time, then yes.
Julian Knight
It will report.
The Prime Minister
Well, then, fine.
Julian Knight
So you will do it if they report five days before?
The Prime Minister
We will report as soon as we can after the Joint Committee has concluded its work.
Julian Knight
Is that before Christmas?
The Prime Minister
If it can be done before Christmas, I think that would be a great thing. As far as I understand it, the Joint Committee is due to report before Christmas. After that, I do not know what the delay might be between bringing it back before the House and—
Julian Knight
Another thing you said at the Dispatch Box is that you wanted to see potential criminal sanctions for social media giants if they fail in their duty of care. That leaves a lot of wriggle room with the word “potential”. I would like to find out what you actually have in mind. Will you incorporate a criminal sanction in the Bill—in primary legislation— rather than incorporating the potential at a later date for the Secretary of State to introduce secondary legislation and thereby introduce a criminal sanction? Criminal sanctions now or at the discretion of the Secretary of State?
The Prime Minister
I share your anxiety, Mr Knight, about the deferred sanctions that we are currently looking at. Let me take that away.
Julian Knight
All right. Is that just to take away? Do you actually think that they should be in place in the Bill itself?
The Prime Minister
Let me put it this way. I think we want the strongest possible deterrent and the strongest possible sanctions against people who run online companies who are allowing a torrent of hateful stuff to appear on their networks.
Julian Knight
A final question, Prime Minister. You said to me on 24 March in the Liaison Committee that you would ensure that EU visas for creatives and those in the touring industry would be “sorted”—I am directly quoting you: you would get it sorted. Since then, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has had a total of four meetings, all with Spain, and none with any other countries. We have the issue of Lord Frost failing to attend my Committee for a long period of time until I had to put a point of order to the House. How is four meetings in eight months getting it sorted?
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful to you for the work that you are doing. I know that at least 20 member states, including France and Germany, now offer visa and work permit-free routes for touring musicians. I think I read just yesterday or today that progress had been made in Spain. We are continuing to push very hard.
Julian Knight
Does that not show, Prime Minister, that actually meeting them does make a difference—that we should go and meet our bilateral partners in order to negotiate these deals? The issue is that we are losing huge swathes of the touring industry. We were the centre of touring. It is far bigger than many other industries that we take a lot more time over. I wonder whether or not it would now be time to genuinely face up to this and to go and have these bilaterals. At the same time, the idea of these other countries—that was a press release from several months ago. Take my word for it: nothing has happened since March in terms of progress, until very lately as a result of those Spanish negotiations.
The Prime Minister
Okay, I fully accept your criticism. What I would say is that the circumstances have also been pretty difficult for touring of any kind for a long time. What we want to see is markets opening up for touring musicians and for tourists of all kinds. We want to see many more people coming to London, whether they are musicians or not. We shall be making an effort to ensure that happens.
Chair
We are going to come back to this subject, Prime Minister. It is a subject I feel very strongly about and I think the Government could make a more co-ordinated effort. Could I just go back to the question of violence against women? Since Sarah Everard was murdered, about 80 more women have been murdered, nearly all by men. At a time when women are feeling so vulnerable, what are you going to do to demonstrate that the Government are behind them? For example, will you guarantee the safe spaces for women based on their sex, such as changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons and so on, which they feel are under threat?
The Prime Minister
Thank you, Sir Bernard. It is appalling to see crimes of violence against women. That is why I said in my answer to Yvette that it was our No. 1 priority. What we are trying to do is all sorts of measures, from the stalking protection order, the Domestic Abuse Act, steps we are trying to take to increase prosecutions for rape—we are doing all that. I am not going to pretend that this is making the progress that I would like or that it is going as fast as I would want, but it is an absolute priority for the Government. We are doing things that make a small difference, such as putting a lot more money into streetlights. We have many more female police officers, for instance; I think 42% of the Met is now female— sorry, 42% of the recruits are now female. So we are changing the culture, but we will not rest until women have confidence in the system, confidence in the streets and confidence that they will get justice when they are attacked.
Chair
And you have been clear in your message to the Joint Committee looking at the Online Safety Bill that you would like them to include extreme violent pornography as an online harm, and we need to protect our children from that?
The Prime Minister
I do think that, yes.
Chair
Thank you. We are miles behind, of course, but can we move on to Bob Neill?
Sir Robert Neill
Good afternoon, Prime Minister. Can I go back to conviction levels for rape cases? You are aware of the concern about them. You would accept, of course, that there should only ever be a conviction if a jury is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on lawfully admissible evidence as to the guilt of the person concerned? Yes? The Prime Minister indicated assent.
Sir Robert Neill
That being so, doesn’t the success rate of prosecutions depend upon the quality of the evidence?
Sir Robert Neill
And the quality of the investigation, therefore?
Sir Robert Neill
What more is being done to invest in investigation of rape and serious sexual offences, both at the police training and the Crown Prosecution Service level?
The Prime Minister
We are investing about £85 million more into prosecutors for the CPS, specifically to try to give them more heft to get cases done faster and to give victims more confidence. I chair the crime and justice taskforce and I bring together the Ministers responsible for all of this—from the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary to the Minister for Policing and Crime and so on. The CPS, the prosecutors and the police need to work absolutely hand in glove from the outset, rather than constantly passing the buck between each other about who has failed to assemble the requisite evidence or who has left the file in the wrong condition. That has basically been one of the problems. We are beefing up the CPS, but also trying to have much greater integration and grip from the police and the CPS together.
Sir Robert Neill
That is a fair observation, but it will require resource to do that, won’t it?
The Prime Minister
It will.
Sir Robert Neill
Are you going to make sure that continues to be funded?
The Prime Minister
We are.
Sir Robert Neill
You referred to disclosure and the Liam Allan case. Would you accept that the right to disclosure of unused prosecution material, which may actually assist the defendant or undermine the prosecution’s case, is a fundamental safeguard in the system?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do of course agree with that principle, but I think what has happened, sadly, is that a great deal of data and information has been mined from mobile phones, which has produced pain, embarrassment and discomfiture on the part of the victims and has discouraged them from continuing with the case. It has perhaps even deterred people from coming forward. That is why it is vital that we delimit what the police can use in evidence from a mobile phone—restrict it to what is actually germane to the case and make sure that the phone is handed back within 24 hours.
Sir Robert Neill
Would you accept that that could be assisted by further investment in technology for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, to search digital material by artificial intelligence, in the way that happens in serious fraud cases? Would we put the money in for that?
The Prime Minister
I do accept that this is an area where technology has moved very fast. Evidential demands—the demands upon the CPS and the police caused by this huge quantity of data—have been very severe. We need technology, artificial intelligence, to winnow it out and get to what is actually necessary for the prosecution of the case.
Sir Robert Neill
The other great cause of victim attrition is delays in bringing cases to court. That requires courtrooms, lawyers and judges. Will you be reviewing the level of funding made available to the Courts Service and to defence lawyers to ensure that we have good quality lawyers, who can handle these cases in a sensitive fashion on both sides of the case?
The Prime Minister
Yes; I have the utmost esteem for the legal profession, and I am sure they will do an excellent job. What we are doing to invest in speeding this up is—we have got to try and clear backlogs in courts, as you know—funding 32 more Crown Nightingale courtrooms until the end of March. We have got courtrooms—you talk about technology, and you are quite right. We are equipping courtrooms with cloud video platforms enabling more than 13,000 cases to be heard virtually every week, and we have removed the limit on the numbers of days the Crown court can sit, and so forth. We have a new super- courtroom in Manchester, and we are working flat out to bust the backlog.
Sir Robert Neill
Certainly people are working flat out, and I know the judiciary and lawyers are, but are you also aware that on a number of occasions recently, serious cases have had to be taken out of the list because lawyers were not available either to prosecute or defend them, or because judges were not available? That is because experienced lawyers are leaving the profession because of the low levels of pay. You have the chance to put that right with Sir Christopher Bellamy’s review. Will you commit to funding the results of the Bellamy review into criminal legal aid?
The Prime Minister
I will certainly study the review into legal aid with great care and great interest. We certainly believe that the criminal justice system needs proper funding. We provided £150 million this year for victims and witness support services, getting back to the earlier points I was making, and the spending review gives another half billion to the criminal justice system to help it recover from the pandemic.
Sir Robert Neill
Thank you. One final thing: another cause of delay is the length of time under which suspects are released under investigation rather than being bailed. That can last for many months and even years. The policing Minister committed in Westminster Hall to reform that. When will we see legislation to reform our RUI and go back to the previous system where you had time limits on bail brought forward?
The Prime Minister
I am certainly very attracted to setting benchmarks, scorecards, for the whole system and that should include, in my view, timing. It should include deadlines. I think that justice delayed is justice denied—also, justice delayed is wildly more expensive.
Sir Robert Neill
It does require primary legislation to try to reform RUI—
The Prime Minister
I am aware of that.
Sir Robert Neill
Will that be brought forward?
The Prime Minister
We are discussing it right now.
Chair
Thank you very much to the Chairman of the Justice Committee. We now move on to the outcome of COP26 and its implementation. We start with the Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, Darren Jones.
Darren Jones
Thank you, Sir Bernard. Prime Minister, following COP26, will our climate change commitments become firm red lines in future trade deals?
The Prime Minister
Sorry, Darren—our climate change commitments?
Darren Jones
Will they become firm red lines in future trade deals?
The Prime Minister
Yes, they are commitments that we will certainly be keeping, and we lead the world. One of the reasons we were able to make, I think, a big positive impact at COP26 was that we stick to these commitments, and we in fact made significant reductions in CO2. So what we say to our friends and partners is that these matter to us. When it comes to, for instance, Australia—
Darren Jones
On the Australia trade deal, Prime Minister, I asked you on Monday and you did not answer the question. We dropped our climate change commitment in that trade deal in order to get it across the line. Do you regret that?
The Prime Minister
As far as I know—
Darren Jones
No, we did, Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister
Our trade deal with Australia actually includes a substantive chapter on climate change, which reaffirms the commitments of both parties to upholding our obligations under the Paris agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5°, so I must humbly correct you there. Australia has made a—
Darren Jones
My question is not on Australia’s climate change proposals.
The Prime Minister
I am not here as a spokesman for the Australian Government, by the way—
Darren Jones
I understand, which is why I do not want you to answer for them, but answer my questions instead.
The Prime Minister
There was an agreement in our free trade deal about climate change.
Darren Jones
Prime Minister, I am going to move on. Will you give the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities the power to block decisions such as new coalmines in the UK?
The Prime Minister
These are matters that are already for the relevant planning authority.
Darren Jones
I am asking if after COP26 you will give new powers to the Department to block these things.
The Prime Minister
I think that these are already matters for the relevant planning authority, and I think—
Darren Jones
So nothing will change?
The Prime Minister
I think that what people can see is that this Government leads the world in moving away from coal. What you got at COP26 was quite a remarkable and historic event, as Greenpeace themselves said, because we are moving beyond coal.
Darren Jones
Thank you, Prime Minister. The reason I asked the question is that we are not blocking a new coalmine in the UK, albeit for the steel industry. Instead of helping the steel industry move away from coal, we are facilitating a new coalmine. It was cited at COP26 that that undermined what we were trying to deliver there, when there was progress, although not sufficient progress, on coal. Do you not think our actions undermined our ambitions at COP?
The Prime Minister
No, on the contrary. I think what happened was that our actions convinced the world that it could be done, and that what we had in the United Kingdom was an incredible exemplar of a country that used to be 80% dependent on coal for our electricity 50 years ago and is now less than 1% dependent—or 1% or 2% dependent—on coal, and will go to zero. We are going to zero carbon in our whole power-generation system. That is quite an astonishing thing, and people can see that. That was the most powerful argument that we had.
Darren Jones
Prime Minister, we are short on time, so I need to stick to my questions, if that is okay. The next question is on climate aid. It has been suggested that, in order to meet our climate-aid commitments at COP26, the Foreign Office will need to spend on average £2.3 billion a year, which is an increase of 140% based on previous figures on climate aid. That was not in the Budget from the Chancellor recently. When will the Chancellor update the House on our increased climate-aid commitments?
The Prime Minister
Mr Jones, I do not recognise your figures. The ones I have in my head are that we have committed to £11.6 billion of climate aid, or aid to developing countries to go green. We further said that, when we go back to 0.7%, which the Chancellor’s Budget predicts will be by ’24- ’25, we will have a further £1 billion, so that is a £12.6 billion commitment from the UK around the world. That is an astonishing sum of money. Most people in this country are amazed that we are making such a contribution. We are doing it because we know it is the right thing to do.
Darren Jones
Thank you, Prime Minister; maybe we could confirm the figures in writing afterwards. It has been reported that you are minded to split up the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to give the COP president, Alok Sharma, his own energy and climate change Department. When I asked the Business Secretary about that yesterday, he disagreed. What is happening?
The Prime Minister
We have no such plans. One of the great things about COP26 was that we brought business and the environment together.
Darren Jones
That’s fine. If there are no such plans, that answers my question. My last question for you, Prime Minister, is about my Committee’s inquiry into the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme. We have called for 100% of the profits from that pension scheme to go to the pensioners instead of the Government pocketing 50% of the surplus, as it has done historically. During the 2019 general election in Mansfield, you said, “I want to tell the Mansfield Chad categorically that we will make sure that no Mansfield miner, or any other miner signed up to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme, is out of pocket. We will make sure that all their cash is fully protected and returned. I have looked into it and we will ensure that’s done.” But Prime Minister, you have rejected my Committee’s proposals to return those profits to the pensioners. I am not sure why you said to those voters that you had looked into it and would return all their cash, when since then your Government have clearly not done either. Did you mislead those voters in 2019?
The Prime Minister
I can tell you, Mr Jones, that I certainly did not wish to give those voters any false impression about what we were doing.
Darren Jones
But you said specifically that you had looked into it and you would ensure that it would be done. You said it was categorical that that was the case. That suggests that there was some thought behind it— that you had not just mistakenly misled voters. No?
The Prime Minister
I will have to get back to you on my quotation in the Mansfield Chad, and I will write to you as soon as I can.
Chair
Thank you, Prime Minister. We will expect that. We move on to Philip Dunne, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.
Philip Dunne
Prime Minister, in your opening remarks to the COP26 conference in Glasgow, you made clear your own personal commitment. I think you said it was the moment when we began “irrefutably to turn the tide and to begin the fightback against climate change”. What changes do you think you need to make to the structure of Government to be able to deliver net zero Britain?
The Prime Minister
I think the Government is well structured to deliver net zero in the UK. What we have is a COP president in Alok Sharma who will help to continue to make sure that the world’s climate change objectives are delivered. Alok will work with the incoming Egyptian presidency of COP and the Emiratis, who will run COP28. The real job of work is global: we have to make sure that everybody—all 190-plus countries—stick to the commitments they made, and make COP26 real.
Philip Dunne
So his focus will be on delivering the global commitments. At the moment, he chairs the Climate Action Implementation Committee, which relates entirely to the UK delivery. Will he continue to chair that committee?
Philip Dunne
When did you last chair the Climate Action Strategy Committee, which sits above it?
The Prime Minister
I cannot give you the date, but not very long ago.
Philip Dunne
Would you mind letting us know? When will you chair the next one?
The Prime Minister
We are driving the whole green industrial revolution throughout Government. It is something that I set out in the 10-point plan almost exactly a year ago. We have been leading it from the centre but rely on Departments of State to get on and do it. I pay tribute to Alok, but I also pay tribute to BEIS and Kwasi Kwarteng, who are running with this agenda. Since we produced the 10-point plan, we have seen investment in green technology in this country in the order of £15 billion, and the creation of many thousands of jobs.
Philip Dunne
That is the point, Prime Minister. You have set a strategy, and there is good co-ordination in developing the net zero strategy across Departments at civil service level; the challenge is that at BEIS, only a sixth of activities relate to this agenda, and other Departments are being left more or less to their own devices to deliver, and there is not the kind of oversight that would allow you to ensure they are delivering.
The Prime Minister
That is not true, because—
Philip Dunne
Well, we are behind on the fourth, the fifth and the sixth carbon budget projections for the coming—
The Prime Minister
Yes, but the oversight is being given by me. We are driving the 10-point plan. On CB6, for instance, the only way to do that is to put in the cleaner, greener forms of heating. We are continuing to push on very hard with that. It will be tough, but it can be done. The lesson of clean technology over the last 20 years or so is that, provided Government get behind it and show that they are committed to it, the price will come down. The price of EVs is falling, and the price of wind and solar has fallen very sharply.
Philip Dunne
If the COP President is to continue to chair the implementation committee, that sounds like a good idea, although it is UK-focused and will divert him from his global role, which seems challenging for him. Will you discuss with him the remit, composition and reach of the committee, to make sure it has the necessary powers to deliver across Government? All the evidence we have had before our Committee is that there is a considerable lack of joined-up activity across Government to deliver this agenda. We have multiple Ministers appearing before us, and they regularly say they do not have responsibility for the subject we are talking about.
The Prime Minister
The whole of Government is working to deliver this agenda. You can see the efforts in the results that they are producing. We are securing record sums of investment in green technology; we are reducing our carbon output and we are creating many tens of thousands of jobs.
Philip Dunne
Finally, the UN Secretary-General said in his opening remarks that his intent for the next year is to establish metrics to measure countries’ performance in meeting their NDC commitments at COP. Are you intending to introduce new metrics and measurements so you are able to measure your own performance, or the Government’s performance against their commitments?
The Prime Minister
The measurements are clear for everybody to see. They are there in the reductions of CO2 that we achieve. One of the things that was achieved in COP26 was an agreement on the Paris rule book, so that everybody has common metrics and dates by which they judge progress.
Chair
To follow up Mr Dunne’s machinery of government point, I am quite surprised that you are so happy with the machinery of government. Under covid, I seem to remember you were very frustrated with it and you did not feel it worked, so what has changed? Or are there lessons we have learned from covid that we can implement that will accelerate and give the public confidence that we are going to implement these changes?
The Prime Minister
I did not say I was happy, Sir Bernard. I said that so far as I can see, Departments are working. The beauty of the 10-point plan was that it set out pretty clearly where we need to get to and how to get there. We are also now producing 10 specific road maps for each of the areas—for EVs, carbon capture and storage, or whatever. We are producing for business the things that the Government are doing to make each of the 10 great projects investable, and I think that will help things greatly.
Chair
But covid demonstrated that if you produce real data, engage the public and set up the machinery to drive the process, you can achieve miracles. Isn’t that what we need to do with this post-COP agenda?
The Prime Minister
Yes, and that is what we are doing. As you will know, we have a delivery unit under Emily Lawson, with many others working to her, that is chivvying everybody, studying the data in real time and seeing where we are going.
Chair
Thank you. We now move to Neil Parish, Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
Neil Parish
Good afternoon, Prime Minister. I want to talk about the practicalities. We have signed up as one of the countries that will reduce methane by 30%. Much of our red meat—beef and sheep—is produced on permanent pasture, which holds a lot of carbon in the soil. That is a good thing. How do we balance that with reducing our methane? Do we take all the sheep and cattle off the hills—off Exmoor? I do not think you want that, so how do we help farmers get to 30% not just by reducing numbers? Can we bring in new technologies? What can we do to help the farming sector?
The Prime Minister
Well, Mr Parish, I am told that very substantial progress is being made with new technology to reduce the methane emissions from livestock, and I think we should encourage that. I think you can do it without in any way jeopardising the quality of British food— British meat. There are breeding techniques, there is diet; there are things that we are looking at.
Neil Parish
There is a Dutch company that is investing in Scotland to produce feed additives that it claims will reduce methane gas emissions from animals by up to 30%. I think there is a lot we can do. Will you commit to helping farming with that new technology as well?
The Prime Minister
Yes, and as you know, in New Zealand, they use seaweed, or they have found that seaweed can be an important additive. We are looking at all that sort of thing.
Neil Parish
Yes, because depending on the type of grass they graze, the more easily they can digest and the less methane gas they give off. I think there is much we can do. I want to move on to how UK finance is funding deforestation. We have looked into this, and many banks in this country bankroll these big companies in Brazil. Brazil has cut down rainforest the equivalent of twice the size of Devon in the last year alone. Can we do more to strengthen our legislation to stop British financial institutions funding deforestation?
The Prime Minister
Yes, but that is what they all agreed at COP. I think there were about 40 of them: Barclays, Aviva, Schroders—I cannot remember, but there were loads of them, a big, long list. What that means is that their account holders, their shareholders and their customers will hold them to account if they continue to finance deforestation. The agreement at COP to halt and reverse deforestation for 90% of the world’s forests is underpinned by agreement from financial institutions not to fund it, and also agreement from some of the big grain companies and others— Cargill and so forth—not to use product that comes from deforested land.
Neil Parish
Again, in Brazil, the savannah is being ploughed up to grow soya beans, so all this is still coming in. It is very laudable what has gone on at COP but, Prime Minister, we need to make sure it affects what we buy and that we do not stop agricultural production in this country and import from deforested land. I hope you are determined to make sure that does not happen.
The Prime Minister
No. Of course, Mr Parish, there is no power greater than the power of the consumer. That is what will make the difference. In the end, people will make choices about the firms whose food they buy based on where it comes from. Large numbers of companies at COP signed up not to—
Neil Parish
And that also needs to be recognised in our trade deals, does it not?
The Prime Minister
Well, I certainly think that you can make a lot of progress in these areas on trade deals, and as you know, all the countries concerned that we are doing trade deals with signed up—I think—to the compact on forests.
Neil Parish
Provided that we are not importing that food that is from deforestation. Finally, plastics they are predicted to be a bigger carbon emitter than coal. I think you are dedicated, like I am, to reducing the amount of plastic used. The trouble is that a lot of the Government efforts at the moment are about tackling plastic waste and recycling. That may be laudable, but in the end, if we could actually reduce the amount of plastic we use in the first place, that would be much better. What initiatives do you see? Do you tax some of the original plastics when we make the plastic in the first place? You have to have a method of reducing the amount of plastics being used.
The Prime Minister
Yes, you are completely right that the answer is not recycling. As you know, we are bringing forward measures to stop the export of plastic waste to developing countries, as we said that we would in the manifesto, which I think is right. However, you also have to stop the needless domestic consumption—or production—of plastic stuff. That is why charging for bags in supermarkets has led to a 95% fall in bag use. We are banning stirrers and so on and so forth.
Neil Parish
We just need to get the deposit return schemes going. They have all been delayed. Can you give us assurance, whether it may be bottles or whatever it may be, that we will actually get that also up and running?
The Prime Minister
Yes, but what we also need to do is recognise that the best answer is reduce. Reduce comes before reuse or recycle. Reduce, reduce, reduce. There are alternatives to plastics.
Neil Parish
So we look forward to new Government initiatives.
The Prime Minister
I am thinking of seaweed again. I think seaweed may be one of the keys, Seaweed seems to be the answer for everything, but it is not just seaweed; there are plenty of alternatives.
Chair
Now we have Sarah Champion, Chair of the International Development Committee.
Sarah Champion
Prime Minister, can I take you back to your answer to an earlier question about relationship education? It should have been mandatory in all primary schools in September 2020, but that has not happened. Can I ask you to intervene and make sure it is mandatory, because it is the key to preventing child abuse and violence against women and girls?
The Prime Minister
Let me look into it. I am afraid that it is something that has not really been brought to my attention before. I will look into it. As far as I can remember, it has not been brought to my attention before. I will look into it.
Sarah Champion
Thank you. Can I turn to Afghanistan? I am sure you will agree with me that it is looking like hell on earth over there at the moment. You have the drought, you have the flooding, you have the conflict, you have millions of displaced people, the infrastructure collapsing and more than half the country facing starvation over what is going to be a very harsh winter. I really welcome the fact that we are committing to putting more aid, but I wonder if you could speak on how you actually see that being delivered and when.
The Prime Minister
We have doubled aid to £286 million, as you know. We are working as fast as we can to ensure it gets to the people who need it. You are right; the situation is grim. We are—
Sarah Champion
The problem, Prime Minister, is that much of the delivery, particularly of healthcare, was done by women. If we are expecting them to step up and deliver the aid, that is putting them in the face of danger.
The Prime Minister
I appreciate that point. We must make our position clear to the Taliban authorities that we expect them to treat women fairly and equally, as is obviously expressly provided for in the Koran. We must also engage with the Taliban. This is slightly controversial, but I was strongly of the view, when Kabul fell and we had the change of regime, that there was no point in the UK just standing on the sidelines and failing to engage with the Taliban. They may not speak for all Afghans—far from it—but they are some kind of authority in Kabul, even if a very imperfect authority. The UK must try to engage, for the sake of the people you are talking about, if we are to get aid through. That is why we sent Sir Simon Gass out, who did an outstanding job in talking to the Taliban. That does not mean that we necessarily relish the things they have said or done, but we see practical advantage in that for the people of Afghanistan.
Sarah Champion
Thank you. Going back to climate change, how much of the £12.6 billion that you pledged for climate finance will actually be spent on loss and damage?
The Prime Minister
I cannot give you the figure now, but I will write to you. One of the reasons we got an agreement at COP26 was because we had the chapter on loss and damage. I am sure the answer is out there. I will come back to you.
Sarah Champion
Thank you very much. I really welcome that you have signed up to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. Does this mean that you will now also change your policy on supporting fossil fuel projects in low and middle-income countries through UK Export Finance and the money that you give to the Commonwealth Development Corporation?
The Prime Minister
Yes. For middle-income countries and every country that is having difficulty moving past coal, which is loads and loads of participants, the UK has pioneered, with our American and European friends, a new country platform where we set out the portfolio of projects that we want to support but where we want the SMEs, the private sector and the big banks to come in as well. These are projects where people can make a good profit as well as helping to cut CO2. That is what we are working on.
Sarah Champion
Excellent. The problem at the moment is that the exceptions to that rule are pretty broad. If you could take to look at the guidance given to our finance institutes and try to close that, it would be really appreciated. I wonder also how you personally reconcile the new funding to support the global efforts to tackle climate change with the severe cuts to the UK aid programme. I am thinking specifically about the money we give to Bangladesh, which of course is vulnerable to flooding and sea level rises. It will see a 62% cut in our aid in the next year. Ethiopia, where climate change and conflict blight the lives of millions, will see a 55% reduction in UK aid. Is this a situation in which you are giving with one hand but taking away with the other?
The Prime Minister
No, because we are making a massive commitment to climate finance, as you know, which is of great value to those countries. On ODA generally, in spite of the temporary reduction to 0.5% because of the pandemic and the exceptional pressures that we face, we are still spending £10 billion in ODA in 2021. That means that we are the third largest ODA donor in the G7 as a percentage of GNI.
Sarah Champion
We are the only G7 country that has cut our funding, though, aren’t we?
The Prime Minister
And the percentage goes back up, as you know, by 2024-25. I think most people in this country can see what a huge sum of money we are giving to the world, and they think that is right, but they also accept that in the grip of a pandemic, when we had to spend £407 billion to look after people in this country, it was right to adjust things.
Sarah Champion
I understand that, but I think the problem is that the immediate pressing issues are not being funded and yet we are seen to be dangling money for climate finance in the future. I wonder how you reconcile those two things together in your own mind.
The Prime Minister
We are funding as much as we can of the pressing issues—£10 billion is a lot. We are investing more in, for instance, girls’ education, and we pledged another £430 billion—£430 million, I should say—for the Global Partnership for Education over the next five years.
Sarah Champion
Thank you, Prime Minister. You have, though, cut £183 million to girls’ education this year.
Chair
Please can we not forget the very important funding for securing women’s rights to control over their fertility so that we can help support population control in developing countries? That seems to me a very important part—
The Prime Minister
It is. And education, if I may say so, is the prior—
Chair
Yes, but education without access to contraception is not worth nearly as much, is it?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I agree with that.
Chair
Thank you. We will now move on to the Budget and spending block of questions. I am sorry that we are going to detain you a little longer, Prime Minister, but I am pleased to say that we are not that far behind, despite everyone going over time.
Mel Stride
Good afternoon, Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister
Good afternoon, Mel—Mr Stride.
Mel Stride
In March, you told the Committee, “I strongly believe in a low-tax Government, and I am a low-tax Conservative.” How do you square that with the fact that your latest spending commitments around the Budget and the comprehensive spending review have led the OBR to forecast that the UK’s tax burden will rise to its highest level since the Government of Clement Attlee post-war?
The Prime Minister
For the very simple reason that the country has been through the biggest fall in output not just since the second world war but before the second world war—it is the biggest that I can see for a very, very long time—and we had to look after people throughout the pandemic. We had to spend upwards of £407 billion on schemes to keep businesses going, to put bread on family tables and to look after everybody in the country. I think that everybody understood the huge fiscal impact of that.
Mel Stride
I certainly accept that we had to spend a great deal of money, but a big choice was made at the time of the Budget, particularly with the forecast having improved from March, as to what the Chancellor did with that extra fiscal space. He had a number of choices, and two of those were: did he spend more or did he relieve the pressure on tax increases? The decision seems to have been taken that he would spend an awful lot more. In fact, in the Budget he trumpeted an increase in public expenditure greater than any Government this century—I think that is how he put it. Are you comfortable with that? How does that square with your ambition, by the end of this Parliament, of getting taxes down?
The Prime Minister
What the Chancellor also did was cut taxes for the low paid very considerably by—
Mel Stride
But overall the tax burden is going to rise, isn’t it?
The Prime Minister
—about £1,200 for a single mum or a single parent on universal credit.
Mel Stride
But, Prime Minister, in the round, the tax burden is going to go up very considerably. We have had huge corporation tax increases, a freezing of the thresholds of income tax—
The Prime Minister
Yes, I accept—
Mel Stride
These are huge, broadly based tax increases. I am interested in how you think we are going to get those taxes down, given all the spending that is going on.
The Prime Minister
First of all, unemployment is much lower than forecast. People said it would be 12%; it is now actually running at levels we saw before the pandemic. It is quite an extraordinary thing. Unemployment is a very expensive as well as a very wasteful and hateful thing. We are also seeing faster growth than many people forecast. We have the fastest growth forecast—
Mel Stride
But the OBR’s forecast on growth going forward is fairly anaemic, once—
The Prime Minister
We have the fastest growth forecast of the G7 next year. What I believe the Chancellor’s strategy is, and it is one I certainly support, is to ensure that Britain—the UK—takes the steps now to deal with the debt we built up, to deal with the fiscal impact of covid, but also to make the long-term investment we need to drive up productivity and get growth out of the economy. If you want the big economic strategy, for decades this country has underperformed in productivity and—
Mel Stride
May I ask about productivity, as you have mentioned it, Prime Minister? You have urged at various points that companies should pay their workers more. Do you accept that if wages go up and productivity does not—the OBR suggests it will not move very much in the coming years—that just leads to inflation? Are you concerned about inflation and the impact it could have on the public finances?
The Prime Minister
You always have to watch inflation. The numbers today speak to the price of energy, the difficulties in global supply chains, and an economy coming out of covid, but I would rather have a situation now where there is big demand for labour and an economy recovering strongly where people want employees than a situation like those in the ’80s and the ’90s, which you and I remember well, when millions of people unfairly and unnecessarily had their talents wasted because of unemployment. That is far crueller. You are quite right in your point about wages without comparable productivity gains—
Mel Stride
This is a critical point.
The Prime Minister
—but that is why we need to invest now in the other ingredients that drive productivity, such as skills, training, infrastructure and making sure that people are able to live nearer their place of work.
Mel Stride
That is right, but that will take time. If that investment is made, it will not happen overnight; we are not going to see productivity suddenly spike up in the next year or two as a consequence of that. Is not the danger that by talking up wages as we are at the moment, with inflation so high and knowing that productivity is low and has been since the financial crisis of 2007, we will push inflation still further? We could end up in a wage-price spiral that will have devastating consequences for the public finances. Do you think that the Government may need to be a bit more thoughtful when it comes to urging employers to constantly put up wages without commensurate increases in productivity?
The Prime Minister
If I may say so, I think you are slightly overegging what the Government have been doing. As it happens, I think people should be paid fairly for what they do, and I think it is right that the living wage has gone up, but wages and prices are not for the Government to set; they are for the market to agree.
Mel Stride
But they do condition the expectation in the labour market of where wages might be going every time the Government say, “Come on, everybody’s got to have a pay rise,” but there is no productivity improvement to go with it.
The Prime Minister
I think you are ascribing too much power. I think it was the Emperor Diocletian who tried that; it did not work.
Mel Stride
That is an essay question we will know the answer to in time, Prime Minister.
Chair
We come to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Stephen Timms.
Stephen Timms
Thank you, Sir Bernard. Prime Minister, I welcome the additional funding for universal credit in the Budget, but should not some of that have been directed towards people who are not working? Almost a quarter of people who claim universal credit are not required to look for work, because of their health problems or because they are caring for young children. They all lost the £20 a week uplift, and they are facing the big price rises we know about. Shouldn’t some of the help have been provided for them?
The Prime Minister
I understand completely why you say that, but to go back to what I was saying to Mel Stride, what we are trying to do now is encourage people into work. The situation at the moment is we have, in some places, a serious labour shortage; therefore, the incentive should be to get people into better paid work, which is why I think the Chancellor was absolutely right to cut the taper relief on universal credit, so as to make work pay more for those on UC. For those who are not in work on UC, I understand your point perfectly, Mr Timms. They are people we must look after in any event, but for them, there are other interventions that we have, such as the £500 million for local councils, the energy price caps, the freezing of fuel duty, the winter fuel allowance, cold weather payments, support for the cost of childcare and so on. You and I have talked many times about people with no recourse to public funds. Even they have those types of support.
Stephen Timms
Do you agree—I think you will—that social security should provide an adequate safety net for families?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do. This is a very important point: of course I do, but the best thing for those families is to help at least one member of that family into work. That is why I think what we were doing with universal credit was right.
Stephen Timms
But our Committee has heard from parents, for example, who will have to skip meals in order to make sure that their children do not have to skip meals because of the £20-a-week reduction. That should not be happening, should it? Shouldn’t the social security safety net avoid that from happening?
The Prime Minister
Yes, it does.