It is right to say that we have made a lot of progress since we last discussed this in the autumn. Noble Lords will remember that there were five asks from industry, trade unions and others. There are two more today. We have made substantial progress on four of those five asks, as I pointed out in my Statement. We have not made progress on rates because they are the subject of a current review by the Government. In Wales action on rates is, rightly, for the devolved Administration, as has already been said.

I was asked when the Prime Minister first raised steel in China. I know that he certainly raised the issue of steel when President Xi visited us in October.

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In Brussels, which I was asked about, we have of course changed our approach on steel. In the relevant committees in July and in November, for the first time we pressed for action and voted against rebar. Individual cases of Chinese and other dumping have been pursued and accelerated. There was a summit of the EU Competitiveness Council, a special meeting that took place entirely because of a request by the Secretary of State to Brussels. I think noble Lords will agree that looking at these things together in Brussels is necessary, and that the action on energy costs and industrial emissions directives has come about directly as a result of that work. These things are difficult, but we have been determined to do a lot and we have been acting in Brussels constructively.

5.26 pm

Lord Crickhowell (Con): My Lords, from these Benches I first express my sympathy for the workforce, whose jobs are being lost. Bearing in mind what has rightly been said about the importance of Port Talbot for our highly successful motor and white goods industries, I am pleased to hear of the determination of the Government, working with the Welsh Government, to see that Port Talbot has a sustainable and commercial future. I also welcome the specific measures that my noble friend has drawn attention to. However, on the question of rates, it is true that there is a long-term review in England and that rates are the responsibility of the Welsh Government, but surely there is a need for early and specific action in the steel industry on the rates question. Will my noble friend assure me that we will not necessarily have to wait to the end of the year for the completion of the long-term review of rates?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I hear what my noble friend says and completely agree that rates is a vital area. We have three ministerial working groups, set up in October. They are very aware of the importance of rates. My noble friend Lord O’Neill is leading the work stream on productivity and competitiveness. I will ensure that I pass on the comments made on rates.

Lord Brookman (Lab): My Lords, I wanted to hear what the Minister had to say because I was general secretary of one of the unions involved in the steel industry. As the Minister said, it is devastating news, but it is not unusual news for the steel industry. I am reminded of something I said a few weeks or months ago, about when there were 270,000 employees in one company in the steel industry in the United Kingdom, called the British Steel Corporation. Now we are where we are. The figures are abysmal and most worrying. I worried even further when someone said to me, “Keith”—that is my first name—“You must remember that we live in a post-industrial society”. If we are heading down that track—we are rapidly going down that track as far as the steel industry is concerned—frankly, what the Minister and the Government are saying is not good enough.

I am concerned that I do not hear too much from the Minister about what the trade unions are actually saying at the moment. Are they accepting the closures? Are they accepting the fact that there will be fewer than 30,000 people in total manufacturing steel in the

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United Kingdom? Are they not that concerned—the Minister made the point that she was—that the imports from China and elsewhere are causing havoc in this country? I do not think the news from the Government is good enough, and I hope we get some more positive action from them.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I would like to pay tribute to the unions in these very serious steel difficulties. They really have been amazing and shown that they can be extremely constructive. They therefore have been working in the task forces with Tata and other steel producers to try to minimise the problems and difficulties of the steel industry.

It has unfortunately been a long tale of decline, with job numbers halving between 1998 and 2010 and a reduction of around one-third in production in that area. There has been an improvement up to 2014, with numbers up from 33,000 to 35,000, but, of course, we now have the latest set of difficulties.

All sides need to come together. Obviously, we need to pursue the problems in Brussels. We have colleagues in other member states who also have steel industries that are suffering from the effect of China. We have to engage on the China side. In the various working groups, we have to look ahead because steel is an important industrial sector. One of the things we have been looking at, for example, is how the improved procurement rules that we helped to negotiate in Brussels can be used to help British steel go into major projects such as HS2.

Lord Wigley (PC): My Lords, is the Minister aware of the article in today’s Western Mail by the eminent economist Gerry Holtham and Adam Price? They see the possibility of being able to create a joint public and private sector venture between the Government of Wales and Tata, and because of the high quality and specialist steels that are being made in Shotton, Trostre, Llanwern and Port Talbot, this could be a flyer.

In the past, such investment by government has been allowed in Italy and Germany within European rules. Will the Minister and the Government take this forward in conjunction with the Welsh Government to see if this is a positive way out of our difficulty?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I have not seen the article, but it sounds extremely interesting. I think we have made it clear that we are very keen to work with the Welsh Government on sensible options. We have already shown our readiness to get proposals through and ensure that the state aid rules are not a bar to that.

Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab): My Lords, this is a very sad day for Port Talbot. When I first became its MP, 16,000 workers went through its gates every day. There has been huge investment in the harbour, which I had the privilege of opening, and continuous casting. While I welcome the state aid approach of compensation for about 30% of electricity bills, could not the long-standing grievance of an unlevel playing field have been dealt with some years ago?

I also welcome the new guidance on procuring steel for major contracts, but is this another example of trying to bolt the stable door much too late? In short,

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could not the long-standing problems of the steel industry that we have been talking and reading about have been anticipated many years ago?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: This has indeed been a very long-standing issue. As far as I am concerned, I am always “glass half full” and I think we have to look forward to action that we can take together in the EU. We have to look forward to the work that has been suggested by the industrial strategy groups that have been set up on steel, and to the work that the Welsh Government, supported by our Government, can do in Port Talbot in particular.

Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD): My Lords, I come from an area which has suffered steel losses in the past. The Brymbo steelworks near Wrexham were closed. I think the noble Lord, Lord Evans, had something to do with that. Shotton had the greatest number of redundancies in Europe at that time. It required a huge effort to replace those industries in order to give jobs to the people who had been displaced.

Will the United Kingdom Government promise to fund to the utmost extent the needs of the people of Port Talbot and surrounding areas—the 10,000 jobs that depend on the steelworks, as well as those of the people who actually work there—to make sure that that part of Wales remains viable and economically successful?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The work we are going to do with the Welsh Government, who lead on these issues for Port Talbot, is incredibly important. In other areas, task forces have come together from all stakeholders and have spent the available money really well, which obviously has to include looking after the people who are made redundant.

Lord Hain (Lab): My Lords, will the Minister accept the deep frustration that many of us feel—in my case, as a former MP for Neath—who have had close associations with the steel industry and with the Port Talbot plant in particular? We gave warnings many years ago about sky-high energy costs, about Chinese dumping of steel more recently, and about the failure of this Government and their immediate predecessor to tackle the deficit through investment in growth rather than austerity. As a result, there has not been sufficient demand in terms of Government and private capital investment these last six years for British steel, including from Port Talbot. To that extent, the Government are responsible for the catastrophic impact on the local communities of Neath and Port Talbot in particular.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I do not think I can accept that, although I know all that the noble Lord did when he was Secretary of State for Wales. There actually was a decline in the steel industry for many years. We have helped to get viable steel operations on their feet. We are dealing sensitively and carefully with the current issues that have arisen partly because of global changes. Consumption of steel, as the House will know, has declined radically and at the same time China has been increasing its production hugely. This causes a unique storm and we are trying to find a way

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forward in these very difficult circumstances. I think that the Secretary of State and the steel Minister, Anna Soubry, are doing an excellent job in very difficult circumstances.

Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab): My Lords, I appreciate the Minister’s recognition that the news we have heard today is grievous for the communities of south and south-east Wales, including Newport, where I was the Member of Parliament. The steelworks at Llanwern are located in my former constituency of Newport East.

Will the Minister be more specific about the measures that she indicated in highly general terms that the Government intend to take to stand by those who have been made redundant? I also echo what my noble and learned friend Lord Morris and my noble friend Lord Hain have said. Surely, the measures to support the steel industry that the Government have taken in recent months, welcome though they are, should have been taken much earlier so that they could have averted the disasters that we now face rather than taking steps simply to palliate them. Will the Minister also say what intention the Government have to act strategically to help the economies of south Wales and south-east Wales to diversify? What will she do to support retraining of those who have lost their jobs in the steel industry and what will she do to support investment to enable new industries and new businesses to grow in the regions affected?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, there was, of course, a new Government after the election and I have tried to explain what this new Government have been doing in this area. It is important to have a growing economy; that creates jobs in other areas. The noble Lord is right to point to other opportunities. On other occasions we debate the digital single market and all the service industry that has grown so strongly in the UK. That has to be part of the solution to the problems in communities such as those in south Wales that have been so severely affected today and for which we are all so sorry. The task forces that we have set up elsewhere, and that the Welsh Government are setting up for Port Talbot, can, in my experience, make a huge difference.

Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab): My Lords, first, I refute the suggestion that the Welsh Government have done very little to help the steel situation in Wales. They have worked very closely with the steel unions and Tata Steel to try to prevent this happening but the writing was on the wall a long time ago. There has been a steel summit and I am very happy to hear that a task force has been set up. While the biggest blow in terms of job losses announced today will be felt at the huge plant at Port Talbot, which is an absolute tragedy for that community, particularly for the workers and their families, we must not forget the impact on plants such as Trostre in Llanelli, which also have a very proud and long tradition of steel making. Will the Minister explain why we should be subject to the whims of the Chinese, who are dumping steel in the UK at below market cost? She talked about a level playing

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field; it simply does not exist. However, at the same time, we are bending over backwards to give the Chinese massive, costly subsidies for their nuclear ambitions in the UK, which will tie the UK into long-term high energy prices and kill off any hopes of a manufacturing revival in this country in the future.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I very much agree with what the noble Baroness said about Trostre. Indeed, Llanwern, Corby and Hartlepool have also been affected today, so it is not just Port Talbot. Our hearts go out to them. We have taken action on Chinese imports. As I said, we voted last July in favour of anti-dumping measures for Chinese imports of steel wire. Again, in November, we voted for anti-dumping measures. We have changed the paradigm and we have raised the issue with Premier Xi. In ongoing discussions on the special status of market economy status, we have made it clear that while we would like to see China get market economy status in due course, it has to abide by the rules and that, if we give it market economy status—which is for the Commission to decide—duties can also be imposed.

Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab): My Lords, it is clear that China is massively dumping and the measures which have been taken so far have manifestly proved insufficient. Those Chinese dumping activities—their industry is largely state owned—impact the whole of the European Union. What further is the European Union proposing to do? What timetable is proposed to stem this manifest dumping by China?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I think I have covered the ground well but there is due to be another summit in February for the EU to look at these issues.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned delays in the Government taking action. Of course, one reason for the delay is the European situation in relation to trade assistance. Can I have an assurance from the Minister that other countries in the EU are taking the same notice of EC rules as is this country? Secondly, in relation to energy costs, why are the Government—as has already been noted—paying the Chinese and the French huge sums of money to build nuclear power stations which will take at least 10 to 15 years to build and, at the same time, are closing down coal-fired power stations, which provide the cheapest form of energy?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, the EU rules on state aid apply to everybody. Where member states do not apply them, they get taken to the European Court of Justice and there are quite significant penalties and financial implications. That is why steel industries across the EU have found it difficult. These state aid rules can be beneficial in other areas. On nuclear power, we are, of course, looking for investment in this vital industry. It is one of the areas in which the Chinese have indicated that they may invest. I see that as different and separate from steel. If there are problems with steel, we should take action in the steel area.

Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab): My Lords, the noble Baroness says that we need investment in nuclear. We actually need investment in steel as well. The Government

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are guaranteeing £92.50 for every unit of electricity produced at Hinkley Point for the next 35 years. The subsidy will come to £20 billion and the plant will cost customers some £4.5 billion. If we have these gigantic figures for the nuclear industry, what is missing for the steel industry? Is it just a lack of resolve on the Government’s part?

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: Of course, we need investment in steel in parallel with nuclear. We should look at how Tata has come in and invested in steel in the UK. There is bad news today but Tata has worked well with us in these very difficult circumstances to try to do the right thing and to really improve our offer for steel that can be used in the UK in our car industry—and overseas—HS2 and in all the other very important uses for steel, because I believe that what we need is a market for our goods. That is what the steel industry needs.

Immigration Bill

Committee (1st Day) (Continued)

5.46 pm

Clause 2: Labour market enforcement strategy

Amendments 6 to 8 not moved.

Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con): My Lords, before I turn to the amendments before us, it may be helpful to explain what the changes the Government are proposing will do to the Bill print. We have brought forward a number of amendments to Part 1. To avoid this becoming unwieldy, on reprint this will be split into two chapters. Chapter 1 will be entitled “Labour Market Enforcement” and will cover that topic, meaning what is currently Clauses 1 to 7 and the material in government amendments numbered between 9 and 77. Chapter 2 will start at what is now Clause 8 and will cover illegal working.

I have taken on board and listened to what was said in Committee on the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, and his role and resources, and the general points that have been made about these government amendments. In the light of what has been said, it now falls to me, in bringing these amendments forward, to explain the nature of the amendments which bring into being some of the issues we have talked about.

I will begin with those amendments that collectively better define the “labour market enforcement functions”,

“non-compliance in the labour market”,

and “labour market offence” that are within the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy that the director is required to create every year. Some of these are substantive, others are technical in nature, but they all go to the core of the purpose of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and what should be covered by the annual labour market enforcement strategy.

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Amendments 9 and 19 to 23 ensure that all the enforcement bodies’ functions contained in the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 are brought within the oversight of the director. Amendment 23 has two key purposes. First, it adds new functions of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority under Part 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to the list. As I hope noble Lords will know from our response to the consultation on Tackling Exploitation in the Labour Market, published on 12 January, and as we will cover when we reach later amendments, the Government wish the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to evolve into an authority that is able to tackle serious labour market exploitation across the economy. As part of this, we intend that the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority will be able to enforce certain parts of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Secondly, Amendment 23 includes the investigation of breaches of the new labour market enforcement orders. As I hope noble Lords will be aware, we are bringing forward amendments to enable a new regime of labour market enforcement undertakings and orders. These will be used to tackle the most unscrupulous employers. I look forward to dealing with this in detail later today but, if it is the will of this House that these undertakings and orders should be added to the Bill, the Government want this regime to be firmly in the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy.

I turn to the abuses in the labour market that we want the director to help us tackle. It is the Government’s intention that the labour market enforcement strategy covers all types of non-compliance by business with the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, whether they are criminal offences or not. Amendments 16, 17 and 24 seek to better define in legislation the non-compliance that is not an offence but should be included. This is: non-payment of the national minimum wage where it does not meet the wilful criminal intention; failure to pay a notice of underpayment of national minimum wage; and breaching a Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority licence condition that results in withdrawal of a licence rather than a criminal prosecution.

The next set of amendments deals with the offences that will be included in the labour market enforcement strategy. The Bill already includes offences under the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004—the three core pieces of legislation enforced by the three enforcement bodies—and offences in Part 1 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Amendment 26 excludes an offence from this core legislation that applies to enforcement officers rather than employers—the offence of improper disclosure of information collected by the enforcer. We think this is not best dealt with through the Director of Labour Market Enforcement but is covered by other mechanisms. Amendments 27 and 30 add to the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy the offence of breaching a slavery and trafficking prevention order where the action against the perpetrator was taken by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. Amendment 27 also adds to the scope

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breaches of the new LME orders that the Government are proposing to create. Amendment 29 adds related offences, such as aiding and abetting, to the list.

The Government believe that this is a sensible remit for the Director of Labour Market Enforcement at this time. However, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the powers currently in the Bill which provide that the Government can add further labour market enforcement functions and labour market offences to the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy. Amendment 17 includes the ability for the Secretary of State to also add further non-compliance in the labour market by regulations. The Government believe it is appropriate for such extensions to be made by secondary legislation to enable us to act quickly if it becomes apparent that changes are required urgently. We believe that making these regulations subject to the negative procedure is the appropriate degree of parliamentary oversight. The power would allow the Government only to add labour market enforcement functions, non-compliance or offences already set out in legislation to the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy, not to create new categories of non-compliance or offences.

I turn to the more technical amendments. Amendment 15 removes the definition of “financial year” from Clause 2, which is now contained, along with other relevant definitions, in a new clause proposed in Amendment 62. Amendments 31, 61, 243 and 244 deal with the regulation-making powers under this Part. As I have said, we want the Secretary of State to have the ability to widen the remit of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement’s annual labour market enforcement strategy, should the nature of exploitation change in the future. This will make sure that the role stays relevant to prevent abuses in the labour market. Secondly, we want the Secretary of State to have the ability to confer extra functions on the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority by regulations for the same reason: if there are new abuses in the labour market that we need the authority to be able to crack down on. The Government believe that the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny for these regulations is the negative procedure. This is because Parliament has approved the regimes and the Government are keeping them up to date. However, were any primary legislation to be amended as a consequence, we believe it is appropriate for the affirmative procedure to apply, as that merits a higher level of parliamentary scrutiny. Thirdly, the ability to add to the list of trigger offences would enable enforcement bodies to request an LME undertaking. Again, this will mean that our labour market enforcement can be flexible to changing non-compliance and criminality in the labour market. Lastly, the list of measures that can be included in an LME undertaking and an LME order are added to.

For these three regulation-making powers, we are proposing that the affirmative procedure should apply. This is because a breach of an LME order is a criminal offence, and we want that to be subject to appropriate scrutiny here and in the other place. In relation to the territorial extent of the regulations, Amendment 61 makes clear that the regulation-making powers can contain only devolved matters with the consent of the Ministers in the relevant devolved Administrations.

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Finally, Amendment 246 changes the Long Title of the Bill to better reflect the functions which have been added since introduction. I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee (LD): My Lords, my noble friend and I have one amendment in this group. It is an amendment to the Government’s Amendment 17, which allows other requirements to be added to the list of roles already set out, and other enactments to be added. The noble Lord said that this does not mean the creation of new offences: I accept and understand that. He also said that it will extend to “non-compliance in the labour market”. That is exactly what I am seeking—

Lord Ashton of Hyde: I am sorry to interrupt. Could the noble Baroness tell me which amendment she is speaking to?

Baroness Hamwee: It is Amendment 18, which is an amendment to government Amendment 17. From the way in which the Minister introduced Amendment 17, I think that he was anticipating Amendment 18. He seemed to glance in my direction at the time as well.

The Minister said that the fourth paragraph of Amendment 17, regarding,

“failure to comply with any other requirement imposed by or under any enactment and which is prescribed by regulations”,

was to deal with other enactments which related to non-compliance in the labour market. My amendment seeks an assurance to exactly that effect: that the Secretary of State could not roam far and wide over the statute book by adding whatever enactment took his or her fancy under that paragraph. I realise, looking at Amendment 18 now, that my drafting is not completely correct—in other words, it is wrong. I have taken out too many words, but I am sure that the Minister and his officials will have understood what I was driving at.

6 pm

Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, explained that he was hoping to make things a bit easier for noble Lords with the reprinting. I welcome that and wish him well with it.

The amendments in this group are all government amendments, with the exception of Amendment 18, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which seeks to amend a government amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, for explaining these amendments. One of the amendments refers to functions that were considered for inclusion. Can he help the Committee by saying what functions were considered and then not included? I would be interested to know that in relation to Amendments 16, 17 and 24.

I can see the value of being able to add further non-compliance matters by regulation. However, this should be by the affirmative and not the negative procedure, as proposed here. Such matters often benefit from a short debate in the Moses Room when additions are proposed. I think that many in the Committee would agree that this legislation is not to the same standard or quality as we saw with the Modern Slavery

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Bill, for example. For that reason, if for no other, we should have the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.

It could be suggested that Amendments 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 better define the labour market functions within the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy, by reference to specific legislation; I can see that point.

Government Amendments 243 and 244 both require the use of the affirmative procedures. That is welcome, but it contradicts the earlier decision to use the negative procedure, which I have referred to on this group. The last amendment, Amendment 246, would take out a reference to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. Yes, that is fine, but I wonder whether the Government should perhaps have taken the whole thing out of the Bill and brought a separate Bill back.

Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB): My Lords, I welcome the greater powers for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, both in this group of amendments and in a later group. The authority has done extremely good work ever since its inception in legislation and I am delighted that there will in due course be powers for its officers to take steps under PACE. I appreciate that that provision is not in the present group, but I want to say that in case I am not here when that point comes up.

I want to put two points to the Minister. First, how far afield is he expecting the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to roam? In particular, does he have in mind either the hospitality or the construction industry, each of which should at some stage be under the control of that authority, or possibly this new director, in a way which is not covered at present? Secondly, if in fact the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is to have further powers, as it will, it is crucial that it has greater resources. That matter should be absolutely upfront because if its officers are allowed to become prevention officers—to be able to arrest and to do much more than they can at the moment—it really does not have sufficient resources to carry that out, let alone anything further that needs to be done.

Lord Ashton of Hyde: My Lords, several noble Lords said right at the beginning of our debate that these government amendments came fairly late, but noble Lords on the opposition Benches are not the only ones to suffer from that. I will therefore have to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her indulgence because I am afraid that her Amendment 18 was not contained within my speaking notes for this group. It is an amendment to our Amendment 17, but I do not have the details of how I should refute it with the power that I normally would. As my noble friend Lord Bates said right at the beginning, and as I think the noble Baroness mentioned, some of these issues may be revisited at times on Report—but I accept that that is not a very compelling argument tonight.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about negative and affirmative procedures. I have never known him to agree that we should have a negative procedure when we could have the affirmative. I do not want to repeat the reasons that I gave, but we have made a distinction between regulations that create new offences or affect

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primary legislation and those which merely deal with existing offences, where we still maintain that the negative procedure is correct.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked how far the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will roam in future. I cannot tell her that today, but I absolutely take on board her point. As I said in my opening remarks, we intend that the authority should evolve. That is the whole point of our changing the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to the new arrangements, and putting it under the remit of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. The only thing we are likely to be concerned about—we have made this point before—is that it will be for labour market enforcement issues and not for other things. However, I take on board the noble and learned Baroness’s point on where it might evolve.

Of course, the Director of Labour Market Enforcement is required to outline a strategy. That is one of the things that we would expect him to do, having used the intelligence hub to work out where the efforts of his three enforcement agencies should best be employed. I also take on board that if we are expanding their role, there will be resource implications. My noble friend Lord Bates has already committed to write to noble Lords about the resource issue, so I would like to leave it there and ask that the amendments be accepted.

Lord Kennedy of Southwark: I assure the noble Lord that I would be very happy to agree to a negative procedure. I have nothing against that at all, but my concern here is that we have not had the greatest time today, with amendments arriving late. It is about my lack of confidence and the fear that we may be sitting back here in some weeks’ or months’ time with problems, only for us to say, “I told you so”.

Lord Ashton of Hyde: I hear what the noble Lord says.

Amendment 9 agreed.

Amendments 10 and 11 not moved.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, Amendment 12, together with Amendments 14 and 38, is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Paddick. The first of these amendments again goes to the relationship between the new director and the other bodies which the Bill concerns, in particular the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. The Bill provides for a strategy to be prepared by the director. Amendment 12 is probing in the sense that I am not sure whether the language is quite right, but the point is clear enough. It would provide that anyone else who is entitled to prepare a labour market legislation strategy under that legislation gets to keep it, so that their strategy cannot just be altered by some diktat from the director. Of course, in real life, one hopes there would be consultation and discussion.

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As we have heard from several noble Lords this afternoon, most recently the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the GLA is a successful body. It has a board and it publishes a strategy. Which strategy takes precedence? In particular, what is the function of the GLA board under the new regime if a strategy is to be handed down by the director? It is important to know how the Government envisage that this will work. We start at the top of the tree with two Secretaries of State, who will have to sort out what was described earlier as “an envelope”. Then there is some sort of trickle-down arrangement. The Government must have thought about how the relative powers and the working arrangements would operate. It is not going to be that easy.

My other amendments are rather to the same point. Amendment 14 is about whether or not the other bodies should be bound by what the director provides. These amendments came before the Government’s mega-tranche of amendments last week. Again, I want to probe the relationship between the various strategies and whether Clause 2(6) affects the GLA board. It refers to:

“Any person by whom labour market enforcement functions are exercisable”.

Is the GLA a “person” for this purpose? Clause 2(6) refers to Labour market enforcement functions being carried out by enforcement officers, not by the employing authority

The last amendment in the group, Amendment 38, is on Clause 6, which provides that the director must set up what is referred to as an “information hub”. The GLA has an information hub. Is that to be superseded? Again, it raises the question of resources. Something like a hub does not just come naturally by shoving some pieces of paper into a file. One thing that will have to be addressed is the funding of the IT infrastructure. Who is to manage the hub? As I said, the Government’s new proposals were published after these amendments were tabled, so they have been rather overtaken—or possibly had their significance magnified—by the new proposals.

This morning on the “Today” programme, the Prime Minister talked, I think in the context of the police, about a country whose Government rely on independent institutions. He said something like, “Independent institutions should be able to exercise independent judgments”. That rather neatly encapsulates the quandary that I find myself in when trying to understand who will be able to be independent within this new regime. I beg to move.

Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to Amendment 12. As I said on the earlier amendments, and as agreed by everyone in the House, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has gained a great deal of expertise and is working extremely efficiently. The concern that I share and would like to ask the Minister about is whether the director is going to give the Gangmasters Licensing Authority a free rein to continue the good work it is doing. Is there not a danger it may be controlled by strategies set out by someone who does not have the same expertise as Paul Broadbent and his

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team? I would be very worried about putting the director over the Gangmasters Licensing Authority without clear instructions that his strategy must be very broad and that he should let the authority get on with the work it has done so well. It would not do it so well if it was confined by any sort of strategy that posed unnecessary restrictions on the work of Paul Broadbent and his team.

6.15 pm

Lord Kennedy of Southwark: My Lords, Amendment 12, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, puts in the Bill a new clause that puts beyond doubt that this part of the Bill cannot be used to permit the alteration of a strategy of a person entitled to prepare a labour market enforcement strategy paper. This is a sensible addition to the Bill and one that I hope the Minister—whether it is the noble Lord, Lord Bates, or the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, who responds—will be able to support, or at least agree to look at carefully and perhaps bring something back on Report.

I am not sure that Amendment 14, also proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would bring much to the clause, although I am not against it in principle. Amendment 38 makes it optional for the Director of Labour Market Enforcement to,

“gather, store, process, analyse and disseminate information”.

I have given thought to the amendment and listened to the reasoning behind it. In fact, it may be quite useful to have this information, but the noble Baroness made some excellent points about resources and the useful work already done by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important area further and to look at the production of an evidence-based, annual labour market enforcement strategy as a key part of the role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. By following a single, overarching strategy with a shared view of risk, enforcement will be better co-ordinated and more effective.

A real concern was expressed during the consultation exercise on labour market enforcement, which has been referred to. The Government have of course responded to that, giving rise to the amendments referred to earlier. In many ways, this touches on the point raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. In terms of responsibility for strategy, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority currently reports up to the Home Secretary. Initially, it was I think part of Defra, but it was moved across to the Home Office because we felt that that was a more logical place for it to sit, particularly in the light of the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act. So the authority refers up to the Home Secretary, while the HMRC national minimum wage team feeds up its strategy to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, as does the Employment Agency’s standards inspectorate. So at the moment there are two different reporting lines. The proposal is that, rather than effectively having two separate reporting structures, there is an initial feed-in

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to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, who then reports to the joint Secretaries of State. That may in fact result in fewer problems.

Amendments 12 and 14 appear to limit the director’s proposed role by not permitting his strategy to alter the strategies set out by any of the other enforcement bodies or by not binding the enforcement bodies to delivering the director’s strategy. The director’s strategy is not intended to undermine or take precedence over the enforcement bodies’ strategies; rather, we expect those strategies to be informed by the director’s strategy as they contribute to tackling labour market exploitation.

The GLA board will continue to be responsible for delivery of the GLA’s functions. What will change is that the delivery of those functions will sit within a wider vision of tackling labour market exploitation, an issue I will address in due course. The Government’s amendments will add the functions of the GLA board to the list of labour market enforcement functions. Furthermore, the GLA board will have a duty to exercise its functions in accordance with the director’s strategy. We believe that this will ensure that the enforcement bodies and the director can work together more effectively.

Amendment 38 brings me to the intelligence hub. Clause 6 as drafted gives the new director the duty to lead an intelligence hub that forms a coherent view of the nature and extent of exploitation and non-compliance in the labour market—something that the consultation and the Committee have accepted as being absolutely necessary. The director will use the information gathered to formulate the annual strategy for labour market enforcement. It is essential that the director have the power to gather information from those involved in labour market enforcement to enable them to set the annual strategy. Without this, the strategy will not be evidence-based and will therefore be unable to improve the effectiveness and co-ordination of enforcement, which is our objective. If the duty on the director to gather information was removed from Clause 6, that would lead to a different role than the Government have committed to creating.

To enable the intelligence hub to work, we intend to create a statutory framework to enable information and intelligence to be shared appropriately, with the necessary safeguards. We will bring forward amendments at Report to achieve this. I reassure noble Lords that the new intelligence hub will not replace existing information-gathering arrangements in the individual enforcement bodies, which I know was a point of concern. They will continue to gather and analyse their own data in order to plan their own operational activity. This will then be fed into the new intelligence hub and the director’s strategic plan, providing an up-to-date picture of areas where workers are at risk of abuse. However, the director’s intelligence hub will be wider. It is important that the director have the power to exchange data and intelligence with other enforcement bodies whose legislation is often breached by the same rogue businesses.

I also reassure noble Lords that we are in the process of identifying what resources, including IT infrastructure, will be required to enable the new information hub to be effective, and that the Government

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recognise this is just as important as creating the statutory framework. I hope my explanation will be helpful to the noble Baroness and that she may therefore feel able to withdraw her amendments.

Baroness Butler-Sloss: I wonder if I could just come back. I am not so concerned with Amendment 12. I am much more concerned with what lies behind it. My particular concern is that a new director who organises strategy should not be organising a strategy of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which knows much more about it than he does. Therefore, this new director of strategy needs to have a light touch when he deals with an established organisation that has been doing very good work with a lot of successful prosecutions. I have not had that assurance from the Minister.

Lord Bates: I will try to be a bit more helpful if I can. I totally share the view of the noble and learned Baroness that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is doing an outstanding job in its present field. That is one reason why we are increasing its powers. It is a recognition that it is an effective organisation and we want to make it even more effective. It is unthinkable that someone could come into this role—co-ordinating and sharpening the overall strategy of labour enforcement—who would not embrace the strategy already in place of such an effective organisation as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

Clause 7 prevents the director exercising functions or making recommendations in relation to individual cases. Decisions about sanctions to be taken against businesses are a matter for the enforcement bodies, which will remain operationally independent. However, the director may consider individual cases when examining the general issue during the exercise of his or her functions. I know that that relates to a previous comment, not to the comment just made. None the less, I hope that those additional reassurances—that the labour market enforcement director is building on strategies, ensuring that they are coherent and joined-up, and in doing so is absorbing best practice from a wider range of organisations involved in enforcement—will be welcomed. If so, the noble Baroness might feel these amendments are not necessary at this stage.

Baroness Hamwee: The noble and learned Baroness expresses my view precisely. I am not particularly concerned with the specific amendments; they were probing amendments. I might enlist her help in drafting something for the next stage. I am not sure—I may have missed it, in which case apologies—whether my question about whether the GLA board was a person for the purposes of Clause 2(6) was addressed, but perhaps that can come later. The board will exercise functions—essentially functions to the director’s priorities. In other words, the GLA board’s role is going to be changed. That is a serious issue for the individuals who will have taken one set of skills to the board and will not be expecting to get involved in something which is essentially more operational.

We are all struggling a bit to articulate the arrangements that we are concerned about and what we think should be in place. That is perhaps because it is quite easy to

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draw some sort of diagram—an organigram—on a page showing the relationships, but that is not necessarily what real life is like. I am afraid that the intelligence hub does not reassure me at all, because it sounds like two lots of overlapping expenditure, if not complete duplication. That may be something that I return to. The nub of all this is the relationship. I hope that I can find a more felicitous way of addressing this at the next stage, but it has to remain on the agenda. For now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

Amendments 13 and 14 not moved.

Amendment 15 agreed.

Clause 2, as amended, agreed.

Clause 3: Non-compliance in the labour market etc: interpretation

Amendment 16 agreed.

Amendment 18 (to Amendment 17) not moved.

Amendment 17 agreed.

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21: Clause 3, page 3, line 3, at end insert—

“( ) any function of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority conferred by section 1(2)(a) to (c) of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004,”

Amendments 19 to 24 agreed.

Amendment 25 not moved.

Amendments 26 and 27 agreed.

6.30 pm

Amendment 28 not moved.

Amendments 29 to 31 agreed.

Amendments 32 to 35 not moved.

Clause 3, as amended, agreed.

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Clause 4: Annual and other reports

Amendment 36 not moved.

Clause 4 agreed.

Clause 5: Publication of strategy and reports

Amendment 37 not moved.

Clause 5 agreed.

Clause 6: Information hub

Amendment 38 not moved.

Clause 6 agreed.

Clause 7 agreed.

Lord Bates: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 40 to 42, 60, 73, 77 and 214. I will allow the sponsors of Amendments 71 and 245 to speak to them.

Government Amendment 39 will rename the GLA the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, reflecting the transformation of its role. Amendment 40 relates to a new schedule, inserted by Amendment 73, enabling the GLAA to investigate labour market exploitation through investigative powers for our proposed new offence and the labour market offences contained in Clause 3. Government Amendment 41 enables GLAA officers to exercise police-style powers when investigating labour market offences, ensuring prompt action to tackle criminal behaviour. Officers will undergo necessary training, meeting College of Policing standards, to exercise these powers.

Other noble Lords will speak to Amendments 41A to 41D. Government Amendment 42 introduces a power for the GLAA to request assistance from the National Crime Agency, the police and immigration enforcement, who will have a similar right to ask the GLAA for assistance. Other bodies can be added by order.

Government Amendments 60 and 77 make consequential amendments reflecting the GLA’s change of name, adding the director to certain legislation, such as the Freedom of Information Act, introducing IPCC oversight for the exercise of PACE powers and retaining the current GLA regime in Northern Ireland.

I will deal with the other amendments in this group when they have been spoken to by other noble Lords. I beg to move.

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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB): My Lords, earlier today a number of noble Lords referred to their misgivings about the changes being made to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. During the passage of the modern-day slavery and human trafficking legislation, I moved amendments on the GLA and queried its ability to meet its obligations because of the resources made available to it—a point referred to earlier by my noble and learned friend and by other Members of your Lordships’ House during our earlier debates. During the passage of that legislation, I moved amendments to enable the GLA to utilise assets from the proceeds of the crimes that it had investigated. In doing so, I reminded the House of the events which led to the genesis of the GLA, notably the 23 Chinese men and women who drowned in Morecambe bay after their Liverpool gangmasters took them to undertake cockle picking. At the time, a local fisherman, Harold Benson, described the tragedy as not only awful beyond words but absolutely avoidable.

In December 2014, during the passage of the legislation on modern-day slavery, I told the House that the lessons of Morecambe bay had not been fully learned. I described a similar incident in the Ribble estuary in which 17 cockle pickers of eastern European origin had been snatched to safety. In those debates, I cited the small number of personnel employed by the GLA, the cut, which I referred to earlier, of around 17% in the GLA’s budget between 2011 and 2014, the small number of convictions—just seven—and the research by the University of Durham calling for the mandate of the GLA to be extended. Instead of seeing an expansion of the GLA’s remit in order to prevent labour exploitation, there are genuine fears that the Government’s amendments that we are considering represent a severe threat to the GLA, with changes to its role, remit and name resulting in a greatly weakened licensing labour inspection regime. If this comes to pass, it would inevitably allow new labour abuses, such as those I have just described, to abound.

The main issue revolves around the creation of what has been described as flexible licensing standards without a requirement for affirmative procedures. Government Amendment 77 to omit the requirement for the GLA to make rules by statutory instrument in effect means that the GLA has power to amend licensing standards and must—this is changed from “may” in the original GLA Act—seek approval of the Secretary of State, but not Parliament. The Secretary of State still retains the power she always has had under Section 6(2) of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act to remove by negative procedure certain circumstances in which labour providers do not require a licence.

In summary, these amendments, taken with existing powers, mean that the Secretary of State could greatly reduce by negative procedure the number of labour providers licensed in a GLA sector, as suggested by the recent consultation response, and could greatly reduce the licence standards to be applied to those who are licensed with no requirement for any statutory instrument. This appears to be what the Government mean when they talk about flexible licensing, which was put forward in the consultation and supported by just 19%—less than one in five—of the respondents.

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The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee published a report on the new government amendments only last Friday and found that these new powers to change rules without parliamentary approval are inappropriate and therefore should be removed from the Bill. Focus on Labour Exploitation states that,

“the GLA is a first line of defence against the labour abuses that develop into severe exploitation and modern slavery. We are extremely concerned that a new ‘flexible’ licensing regime as proposed in these amendments will leave the GLA powerless to prevent widespread abuses and therefore exploitation and instead caught up in police style investigations that absorb a huge amount of time and resources”.

In our debate on the Modern Slavery Act, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, answering for the Government said:

“We need to consider this carefully and ensure that in seeking to broaden the GLA’s remit, we do not undermine the good work that is being done already”.—[Official Report, 10/12/14; col. 1879.]

I entirely concur with that sentiment. We must be very careful indeed not to do precisely that.

The noble Baroness also said:

“The GLA is working with the University of Derby to devise training and to develop an anti-slavery training academy for use by supply chain businesses. This will build on the GLA’s excellent existing collaboration with business in its regulated sectors. The GLA is well placed to tackle the serious worker exploitation that lies between the more technical compliance offences that fall to be investigated by HMRC and the serious and organised crimes that are addressed by the National Crime Agency”.—[Official Report, 10/12/14; cols. 1880-81.]

Presuming that this is the aim of today’s amendments, what are the resource implications? This point was made earlier by my noble and learned friend and other Members of your Lordships’ House. Without the necessary resources, how on earth will this agency be able to do these things? Clearly the Government envisage an expanded role. This will include police-style investigations and powers for offences across the labour market. Alongside this is the proposal to have a more flexible approach to licensing.

The Minister needs to be clear about whether the aim of the amendments published on the very day that the consultation concluded—which hardly demonstrates that there was a long period of reflection—is to remove strict compliance obligations from those businesses which have been compliant hitherto or whether it is to give the GLA more teeth. I wonder what the Minister makes of the minimal support which the flexibility proposal received from the respondents—just 19% out of a total of, I think, 93 respondents to the consultation, who came from academia, charities, trades unions and industry.

Existing GLA licence standards are crafted to give strong protection against exploitation. That includes issues such as working hours, pay, accommodation and safe transport. Clearly, flexible licensing should not mean a reduction in licensing. This must not become a sort of trade-off between licensing as a means of raising labour standards and preventing exploitation and a more flexible approach that could divert time and resources to tackling extreme cases instead. That in turn would create a climate in which rogue gangmasters could flourish and undermine the

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excellent intentions of the legislation we passed on human trafficking and exploitation of people as modern-day slaves.

Furthermore, the amendment removes a requirement for the GLA to make rules by negative procedure—a point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, when we were dealing with the earlier amendments. In effect this will mean that the GLA would have the power to amend licensing standards and must seek the approval only of the Secretary of State and not of this House or the other place. The Secretary of State still retains, and always has had, the power to remove certain categories of labour providers requiring a licence by negative procedure. These amendments mean that the licence standards to be applied to labour providers in a given sector could be significantly reduced or expanded without parliamentary scrutiny. Unless Parliament is engaged in the shaping of licence standards, changes could be made without a clear evidential basis and without proper and full consultation with all stakeholders with expertise in labour sector licensing requirements. GLA licensing rules should not be changed without detailed impact assessments, including worker consultation, which might assure Parliament that any changes would not negatively impact upon the vulnerable workers whom they are designed to protect.

In conclusion, when the modern-day anti-slavery legislation was enacted, it had the benefit of pre-legislative scrutiny and of the forensic examination by both Houses. That is not the case with what is before us today. We would be wrong to treat this avalanche of amendments lightly or to be pushed pell-mell into approving them in haste.

Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab): I, too, want more clarity on the same issue that we have been discussing for the past half hour or so. I refer to the new Schedule, on page 32 of the Marshalled List. Why is some of this necessary? At the bottom of that page, the proposed new subsection states:

“The body known as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is to continue to exist”—

that is very nice—

“and is to be known as the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority”.

Given that the word “Licensing” is disappearing, does that arise in respect of the present functions of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority simply because those are being subsumed in the wider exercise that is mentioned the bottom of the page, where it says,

“the Authority and its officers must carry out those functions in accordance with the strategy”,

which is the wider strategy? The more I think about it, the more I cannot quite believe that this will do anything other than restrict some of the present functions of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Therefore, at the foot of page 32 instead of just saying “continue to exist”, which, as I say, is very nice—a pat on the head, so jolly good—why could we not say “and its functions continue to exist”? Could the Minister clarify why that is not the case?

6.45 pm

Lord Rosser (Lab): I thank the Minister for introducing the government amendments in this group, which set out the Government’s proposals for the new Gangmasters

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and Labour Abuse Authority. We also have an amendment in this group calling for the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the existing, highly successful and effective Gangmasters Licensing Authority, with a view to extending its remit to enforce labour standards and protection wherever it is believed abuse and exploitation of workers may be taking place.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, as the Minister has said, has already expressed its views, through the use of an exclamation mark, on the number of last-minute amendments the Government have submitted. In its speedily produced report on those amendments—for which we are, I am sure, all very grateful—the committee made a number of recommendations relating to the latest tranche of government amendments. It would be helpful if the Minister could say whether the Government intend to adopt those latest recommendations and will therefore be bringing forward appropriate amendments as necessary. It would be very helpful to know what the Government’s position is on that point.

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority, as has already been said, was set up in the aftermath of the Morecambe Bay tragedy in 2004, when 23 Chinese cockle pickers drowned while working there. In the past two years, the GLA has prevented the exploitation of over 5,000 workers. The question that has to be asked, in the light of the changes proposed by the Government and the setting up of a new Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, is whether these changes will address the problem of labour exploitation and abuse across the board, or will the effect be to extend across a broader front a watered-down and less effective version of the current Gangmasters Licensing Authority? If that is the case, this would do little to help eradicate labour exploitation or abuse or, equally significantly, do little to encourage those being abused to come forward.

According to the Association of Labour Providers, which conducts a survey of Gangmasters Licensing Authority licence holders once every two years, this year—as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said earlier—93% of licence holders said they were in favour of licensing, 73% perceived the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to be doing a good job and 67% deemed the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to have contributed to a significantly or slightly improved level-playing field. The point about regulation and achieving a level playing field is important because, as the chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee told the Public Bill Committee in the Commons,

“It takes away the cowboys … and the people who do the undercutting”.—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration Bill Committee, 20/10/15; col. 20.]

The proposed new or revamped authority, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, will have the power to enforce the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Employment Agencies Act 1973 and relevant parts of the Modern Slavery Act of last year across the entire labour market. It will also engage in criminal investigation and enforcement. The setting up of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, as the changed name suggests, will also lead to a move towards what the Government are describing as,

“a more flexible approach to licensing”.

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Before putting forward their proposals on the proposed Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Government conducted a consultation on tackling exploitation in the labour market. In the part of the questionnaire on licensing, the Government asked respondents to say whether they agreed that the Government,

“should introduce a more flexible approach to licensing, based on a risk assessment, judged on a sector by sector basis and agreed by Ministers and Parliament”.

Since, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already pointed out, almost twice as many respondents answered no to that question as answered yes, it looks, frankly, as though the Government had already made up their minds on the issue of flexible licensing before the consultation started. Otherwise, what was the point of the consultation when almost twice as many respondents answered no to that particular question?

Unscrupulous gangmasters can of course also be flexible and simply move to a sector where the proposed flexibility of the licensing arrangements may enable them to carry on their exploitation and abuse in the labour market. What firm assurances can the Government give that this would not happen under a “flexible approach” to licensing? Can the Minister give an assurance that flexible licensing does not mean a reduction in licensing? I suspect that he cannot give such an assurance. If it means a reduction, that could threaten efforts in the Modern Slavery Act to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation and to reduce cases of modern slavery. Will the Minister also confirm that there will be no shift away from licensing towards voluntary schemes? Witnesses before the Bill Committee in the Commons were clear that the enforcement of labour standards across the board is the only way to level the playing field.

The issue raised most frequently by respondents to the consultation related to resources, and comments have already been made on this issue. Having sufficient resources attached to ensure that the new authority had the ability to match its mission was a recurring theme, and overall respondents were clear that any reforms would need to be sufficiently resourced and enforced. No doubt this clear response was in part conditioned by the fact that labour inspection authorities have seen steep declines in their budgets over the past five years, including a cut of more than 20% to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Not only will the GLA, in its changed role, see its remit extended to the whole labour market but it will receive new criminal powers of investigation and enforcement that could require significant resources which, if not provided, could then distract from core licensing and monitoring functions.

However, although this was the most frequently raised issue in the consultation, the Government failed to address it in any meaningful way in their response. Instead, there is a suggestion that the Director of Labour Market Enforcement will help to pool resources between labour inspection authorities. Given the existing budgets on which they operate, though, such pooling could not ensure that the proposed increase in workload was adequately funded. I ask the Minister to tell us, either now or well before Report, in the letter that he earlier undertook to send on resources, what the Government’s estimate is of the resources that will be

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needed by the new bodies that they are creating under the Bill, including, importantly, the new Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, to undertake the role and remit that they are being given in future under the terms of the Bill—a role and remit that, in many cases, are extended over those that currently apply. Presumably, the Government do not set up new statutory bodies or organisations with defined roles and powers without having a view on the resources that will be needed to enable the remit to be carried out, and the powers given to be effectively applied and enforced.

We have also expressed concerns, in the discussions on previous amendments, about the relationship between labour standards enforcement authorities and the immigration authorities. There is a reference in one of the Government’s new clauses to the new Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority having a working relationship with immigration officials and,

“any other person prescribed or of a prescribed description”,

over requests for assistance. Since there is evidence that, the greater the overlap between labour inspection and immigration control, the less likely victims of exploitation are to come forward for identification, could the Minister spell out in some detail what the parameters will be of the working relationship, set out in the Bill, with immigration officials and others undefined, to which I have referred?

The Bill’s provisions also bind officers from, now, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and, in future, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority to the provisions of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement’s strategy. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has already expressed her reservations about that. Why do the Government believe—I ask this despite the previous explanation that the Minister gave—that this is necessary, as opposed to requiring the GLA, and, in future, the GLAA, to have regard to the director’s strategy? What difficulty do the Government see arising if the primary functions and overall strategy of the GLA and GLAA are set by their own board after having regard to the director’s strategy? What is it that the Director of Labour Market Enforcement could conceivably require the GLA to do that that body might not want to do, and thus appear to justify the Government’s proposal that it will be bound by the provisions of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement’s strategy? I hope that the Minister will respond in some detail on that point.

I hope that I am not abusing my ability to speak on this group, but I also invite the Minister to respond, under this group or in the letter that he earlier undertook to send, to a question that I asked in an earlier group about the protections given under the Bill to workers irrespective of immigration status, and what role the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the agencies that he or she will oversee, including the new GLAA, will play in addressing labour exploitation and abuse in the workplaces of those who do not have the required immigration status to be in this country.

As always, I will listen with interest to the response of the Minister, who I hope will be able to reply, either now or prior to Report, to the points made in response

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to the Government’s proposals, including the latest batch of amendments following their consultation on labour market exploitation.

Baroness Donaghy (Lab): My Lords, as the Minister will know, I am a refugee from the employment relations world and the language of immigration is not familiar to me. I know that the Minister himself has a lot of personal experience of employment relations so I hope he will understand that, in supporting my noble friend’s amendment, I have real concerns about why these issues have come up under an Immigration Bill at all. Obviously, I must not be self-indulgent and make a Second Reading speech at this stage, but I echo what has been said that, if this is associated with immigration matters then reporting by vulnerable workers will be even less likely, and that is a matter of some concern.

My other concern is that vulnerable workers can also be British-born. We have heard a lot about how some adults with special needs have been housed in tin shacks and exploited horribly. When I produced a report for the previous Labour Government on construction fatalities, I identified that there were also vulnerable groups of workers who were British-born: the very young, who would not necessarily challenge the authority of their employer, and—how shall I put it?—the quite mature, who were perhaps reaching the end of their working life in construction and thought that they knew rather more about it than they actually did, or perhaps were not familiar with a piece of machinery. So I would regret it if this were seen entirely as an issue of immigrant and migrant labour. Because of where it has appeared in the legislation, there is a danger that that could happen.

I take some comfort from the fact that the consultation exercise was shared between the Home Office and BIS. I look for an assurance from the Minister that BIS will have a very full role to play so that the employment relations aspect of all this—the labour market issues as I know them—rather than immigration issues, will be fully taken into consideration.

7pm

Perhaps I may underline that, when I looked at this issue, I recommended that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority should cover construction. That was seven years ago, so things have changed without all the changes the Government are recommending. In a way, I am rather glad that the powers are being extended, but it is a question of being careful what you wish for. I have a real worry that this tidy little hierarchy, which looks as if it is going to be based in the Home Office, is going to be a dissipated power and there are going to be a lot of misunderstandings about the role of the new authority.

In the year that I studied for the report, there was a lot of discussion because about 12 migrant workers had been killed in the construction industry. Some would say they were the most vulnerable because they were used to tolerating lower standards of health and safety or they were exploited or there was a language barrier that prevented effective communication. I have to say there was no real data to show this. Equally, I saw that many migrants were skilled and experienced and worked in regular groups. They were attracted to

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the industry, which liked their work ethic, and they were paid the agreed industry rates. Some questioned the competence of migrant skilled workers and said their qualifications were not comparable, but there was no evidence to prove that.

I agree with what my noble friend Lord Rosser has said. Can the Minister assure us that the real labour relations issues will not be neglected here and that the good work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will not be dissipated in any way? We should remember that this is not just an immigration issue; it concerns vulnerable workers of all kinds.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, the very fact that the noble Baroness raises this issue coming—and I do not say this at all disparagingly—rather fresher to this Bill than some of us underlines the need to get the answers to questions raised around the Committee on to the record and in such as a place as they can easily be found. It should not just be in a letter in the Library but in the Bill. That becomes all the more obvious. I am glad that the noble Baroness reinforced that. Other references have been made to the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and to flexible licensing, so I will not take the time of the Committee now.

I have a number of amendments in this group. This may be the point at which I emulate the Government Front Bench as I am in danger of losing my place—I hope they will forgive me if I do. My Amendment 40A refers to the importance of resources by providing that the new functions conferred by regulation on the GLAA should be ones for which resources have been made available.

My amendments to Amendment 41 raise some similar points which I will refer to later, so I will deal with them in a rather more general fashion. The first is a probing amendment. Amendment 41 proposes new Section 114B for the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and says that,

“regulations may apply provisions of this Act with any modifications”.

Does that refer to modifications that are necessary simply in order to tweak references to legislation; for instance, so that the legislation being modified applies quite clearly directly or is it something wider? As it is written at the moment I fear it might be wider, which is why I have raised the issue.

I also suggest that regulations should,

“provide for labour abuse prevention officers to undertake specified training and achieve specified qualifications”.

The noble and learned Baroness referred earlier to the extension of PACE powers. One should not extend those significant powers to people who do not know how to use them. Training is needed and possibly qualifications for them to be able to use those powers. I picked that up at a number of points. I also suggest with my amendments that a statutory instrument amending or repealing a provision of the Act is significant.

In new Section 22A of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, to which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred, a relevant person for the purposes of requests for assistance going either way includes immigration officers. That again conflates immigration control and labour market regulation. I am aware that the GLA

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has experienced some frustrations when it might undertake what you might call hot pursuit when it has discovered a likely offence but does not have the power to deal with it. I have heard Paul Broadbent say that it is very frustrating when you have to wait for the police to arrive to deal with something and you cannot stop evidence being removed. I am not sure whether I am making that point at quite the right point in the Bill but I think it comes generally within this area.

My next group of amendments deals very much with training, qualifications and resources again so I will not repeat the arguments, but I think it was again the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who referred to the relationship between the strategies. Under Amendment 77 the GLAA will have to carry out functions “in accordance with” the labour market enforcement strategy. Everybody else involved is left with the lighter obligation of having regard to it, so why the difference? That is my Amendment 77A.

Amendments 77B and 77C are about the relationship with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State’s powers. At the moment, to take one instance, the GLA sets fees after consultation with the Secretary of State, what will the position be in the future? My Amendment 72 would enable the GLA to require information from supply chain. It would give it powers relating to an organisation that takes supplies of goods and services. That seems to have been a lacuna that could do with filling or closing. I am not sure what one does with a lacuna, but it is rather a different amendment from the others we have been debating. Again, it is something we could very usefully address during the course of this Bill.

Viscount Hailsham (Con): My Lords, I apologise for making what I suspect will be regarded as a somewhat pedantic point but I should like to raise some specific questions about Amendment 41. At this point, I am referring to the amendments to the PACE powers.

First, as regards new subsection (1)(1), I notice that the power is permissive and not mandatory. Perhaps the Minister would be so good as to explain why it is not a mandatory power but only a permissive one. Secondly and related to that, I am sure that your Lordships would like to know whether it is the Government’s intention to exercise this power. If so, when and to what extent?

My next point is also brief. In new subsection (1)(7)(b) I find that the regulations may apply to “particular purposes”. I think that your Lordships will be reassured to know that this power is not going to be imposed with regard to particular investigations; rather, that it is more general in character.

My last point relates to new subsection (1)(8), which concerns a very wide power. It is contemplated giving the Secretary of State a power to amend substantive legislation. I have personally always been very cautious about using statutory instruments for such a purpose. Incidentally, I am very glad to see that the affirmative procedure is being used here for that very purpose, but, as I say, I am very cautious about using statutory instruments in this way. I suspect that the Committee would like to know the extent to which the Government are minded to use this power and, if so, for what purpose and when.

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Lord Bates: My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords for speaking to their amendments in this group. I shall try to address as many of the points raised as I can at this stage, but I may have to write to noble Lords on some of the more specific ones.

I want to make one general point, which more or less relates to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Lea. Essentially they are asking what has changed here. The Government are effectively putting themselves in a strategic position to take much tougher action against all forms of labour market abuse. In general terms, although the TUC had some reservations about the detail, which I am sure we will come to, in a broader sense it welcomed the fact that the Government were taking this matter very seriously, wanting to join up different agencies which are all doing a very good job, to give them a stronger strategic position and, of course, more powers. Those powers would include the ability for rogue employers to be jailed. These are serious powers and I will come back to the comments of my noble friend Lord Hailsham on their use, because that is a very important point for us to consider.

It should be remembered that we are extending the base of the resources. In some of the amendments we have covered the additional resources that will be available to the agencies—for example, the Organised Immigration Crime Task Force and the National Crime Agency, which we dealt with in the Serious Crime Act, and there is also immigration enforcement. Organised crime syndicates are massively exploiting this area. Information will be shared and we will be receiving information from different areas. That is part of a big approach that we are taking to nail some of the abuse that has been going on for far too long.

7.15 pm

When it comes to resources—a key point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton—again, it is right that we get down into the detail. I was making a rough note of some figures I had quoted earlier, which I shall have to check. Effectively we are bringing together three agencies and putting in a new Director of Labour Market Enforcement. The Bill sets out that there will be funding to enable the director to do his or her job. Therefore, let us say that that is an additional element of funding. Beneath that, we have the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, whose budget is about £2.48 million, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, whose budget is about half a million pounds—a relatively small sum—and the national minimum wage enforcement function. The latter has by far the greatest number of staff and by far the greatest budget, standing at £9 million last year. Therefore, the total across those three groups for last year was £12 million.

In his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced that a further £4 million would be going to the minimum wage task force, and the regulations, which were prayed against just before we started this Committee stage, provide for additional fines to be levied on employers. The task force’s budget was increased from £9 million to £13.2 million. Therefore, over the past year the overall pot for labour market enforcement has increased from £12 million to £16 million—a 25% increase, which is quite substantial—and there are additional

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powers. I am not saying that a headline figure of that nature is going to answer everybody’s questions but it underscores that we are genuinely putting resources and legislative power behind the efforts to tackle labour market abuse.

I turn to some of the points that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the relationship between the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and immigration enforcement. It is entirely possible that the GLAA will become aware of a situation involving gangmasters that also involves illegal working and the employment of illegal workers. In such circumstances, it is vital that a defined partnership exists to enable the exchange of information while ensuring that roles remain distinct. This already happens and we are taking the opportunity to formulate how that relationship works. This is part of what I referred to earlier. Often—we are told by the prosecuting authorities—when someone is guilty of an offence in one area, they are an offender in multiple areas.

I was asked about GLA prosecutions, and this relates to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Over time, the GLA has undertaken a number of more complex investigations that focus more effectively on serious and organised crime. This reflects a targeted and risk-based enforcement approach by the GLA. This year alone, the GLA has undertaken 92 such investigations—already more than the 72 undertaken in 2014 and the highest level since 2011. Again, I am not trying to escape from the resources point; I am trying to say that the GLA, which we all defer to in admiration, is doing more work more effectively, and we expect it to undertake more investigations.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also asked why the GLAA has to carry out its functions in accordance with the strategy rather than having to have regard to the strategy, as other enforcement bodies do. The GLAA board remains responsible for the delivery of the GLAA functions but it now sits within the wider strategic approach of tackling labour exploitation. Enforcement bodies will be responsible for delivering aspects of the strategy but the legislative difference will be driven by their different legal identities. In practice, the same expectation will apply to all three enforcement bodies—that is, they will now follow the director’s strategy.

On the strategy of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, was making, it is important to remember that such abuse can be investigated across any sector, so it is not restricted to the traditional areas in which the Gangmasters Licensing Authority operated. It can look at labour abuse wherever it is found, including in construction. Again, I would have thought that that would be broadly welcomed.

Lord Rosser: Is it the Government’s position that the resources currently available to the existing authorities will be sufficient to cover the apparently extended role and remit under this Bill of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the GLAA, which, as the Minister has said, will now exercise its function across a much wider front? Do the Government think that the kind of sums the Minister says are being spent at

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the moment will be sufficient to cover what appears to be a considerably enhanced role for this authority in future?

Lord Bates: As I said, they are 25% higher than this time last year in terms of overall labour market enforcement. Are we saying that that is sufficient? No, because what we are focusing on is the strategy. A very important role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement will be to advise the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on what resources are necessary to tackle labour market abuse and exploitation. That is what we are doing, but once we have an overall strategy that says where the focus should be, we would be confident in identifying where the gaps are. We would have more confidence in claims made for increases in resources at that point than perhaps might have existed when we were looking at them in isolation. Again, I would have thought that that would be welcomed.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, rightly asked if we would look at the recommendations made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Of course we will. We take all the committees of this House extremely seriously. I would say in our defence—as has been used in defence against us—that the report is dated last Friday, 15 January, and it is now Monday.

Lord Rosser: I hope the noble Lord will accept that it is dated Friday of last week because the Government were so late in producing their significant tranche of amendments.

Lord Bates: Touché. I get that point. The point I am trying to make is a very serious one: that the Government will of course listen to and pay very careful regard to the recommendations of a committee of your Lordships’ House. I will have more to say on that by the time we get to the relevant section on Report.

Will our reforms make it easier for rogue gangmasters to operate without fear of detection? Absolutely not. Our reforms will ensure that the GLAA has tough new enforcement powers to tackle criminals in any labour sector, not just those that are licensed. Importantly, the number of licences granted for 2014-15 was 82, with 27 refusals and 23 revocations, out of a total of 954 licences in existence. That shows that it is something more than a box-ticking exercise: that genuine work is being done by the GLA in assessing the quality of those licences, and we want that to continue.

I have touched on reviews—perhaps not to the entire satisfaction of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—but I will come back to that issue and set out the position in a letter. The licensing rules contain detailed provisions on a variety of matters, such as what information should be provided by a licence holder to a worker before they start—for example, shellfish-gathering rules on tide, accommodation, record keeping and sector specific provisions. This follows a model set out in Section 7 of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 which allows the Security Industry Authority to set its licensing criteria by publishing a document without any parliamentary procedure but with the approval of the Secretary of State.

I come to the point made on PACE powers—that there is no mention of the new labour market enforcement

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order offence in the proposed new Section 114B of PACE. Amendment 55, which introduces the new clause “Investigative functions”, provides that the enforcing authorities can use the investigative powers they already have for the relevant trigger offence to be investigated in any breaches in LME orders. This means that where the GLAA has PACE powers for the trigger offence, it can use those powers to investigate a breach. I am immediately conscious, as I read that out, that that does not answer the particular point. Staff designated to exercise police-style powers will be subject to the relevant PACE codes and to Independent Police Complaints Commission supervision. As I say, I am conscious that that does not answer the specific question my noble friend asked, and I will undertake to write to him and to other noble Lords whom I have not had the opportunity to respond to in the time available. I hope, with those reassurances, that noble Lords and Baronesses will feel able to withdraw their amendment.

Baroness Hamwee: One of the amendments to which I spoke, which was quite unrelated to any others, addressed the supply chain point for the GLAA. I wonder whether the Minister has an answer to that. If not, could that not get lost in the rather more philosophical issues we have been debating?

Lord Bates: It is one that we listed in the supply chain regulations which recently came before your Lordships’ House. A number of undertakings were given at that time to examine options for a central database and how that will be done. It should also be said that there was general agreement that we had set the threshold for the reporting of those standards at the lower end of the expected threshold, so that more companies would have to comply. That has a concomitant effect upon the size of the database which would need to be maintained in order to carry those statements of transparency in supply chains by the companies affected. I am very happy to undertake to update noble Lords on progress with that in the course of my responses.

Lord Elton (Con): Before my noble friend sits down I plead the excuse of being the Minister who moved the original PACE and took it through this House. I have a sort of avuncular interest, particularly in codes of conduct. I would be most grateful if he copied me in to the correspondence about the bearing of PACE codes of conduct on these new people operating under the Bill.

Lord Bates: I would be delighted to ensure that the noble Lord, as a distinguished former Home Office Minister, is so copied in.

Amendment 39 agreed.

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(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations confer other functions on the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority or its officers.”

Amendment 40A (to Amendment 40) not moved.

Amendment 40 agreed.

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(11) In this section—

“enactment” includes an enactment contained in subordinate legislation within the meaning of the Interpretation Act 1978;

“labour market offence” has the meaning given in section 3 of the Immigration Act 2016.”

(2) In section 18 of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 (obstruction of officers), in subsection (1)(a), after “this Act” insert “or functions conferred by virtue of section 114B of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 84 (application of that Act to Authority officers)”.”

Amendments 41A to 41D (to Amendment 41) not moved.

Amendment 41 agreed.

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(c) the consent of the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, if the regulations prescribe a person who exercises, or a description of persons who exercise, any function in a case where provision conferring the function would be within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly if contained in an Act of that Assembly made without the consent of the Secretary of State.”

(3) In section 25 (regulations, rules and orders), in subsection (5)—

(a) omit the “or” at the end of paragraph (a);

(b) at the end insert “, or

(c) section 22A(8)(e) (regulations adding to the definition of “relevant persons”).””

Amendment 42 agreed.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.30 pm.

HIV and AIDS

Question for Short Debate

7.30 pm

Asked by Baroness Barker

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS Access Denied.

Baroness Barker (LD): My Lords, I thank noble Lords who are about to participate in this debate for their patience. Normally when one does that, it relates to a matter of minutes, but in this case noble Lords have had to wait seven weeks. We were originally due to discuss this matter at the beginning of December, but we were bumped—I believe that is the term—because of events in Syria. I will return to that at the end of my speech because there is an interesting point to be made.

However, there is an upside. It means that we waited over the Christmas and new year Recess and one of the more enjoyable things about new year is to open newspapers and discover what has been released under the 30-year rule. This year, it was fascinating to read about everything that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, did 30 years ago when as Health Minister he had to walk in and explain to Mrs Thatcher why we should spend money to deal with this controversial disease that affected people who we did not particularly like and so forth. Some of us have long suspected that he was something of a hero in the way that he persuaded one of the most formidable right-wing politicians in the world to do the right thing for public health. I want to look at this report today in that spirit.

The report was compiled by members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS—some of us went to India and others went to South Africa—to look at this key question of access to HIV medicines. It is fair to say that there has been a tremendous success story in the world of HIV in the past 10 years or so. Because of international agreements by Governments and the pooling of resources, we have managed to curtail the impact of this deadly disease in an amazing way. In 2015, we reached a milestone of 15 million people on treatment compared with fewer than 1 million 10 years ago. It is estimated that nearly 16 million people are now accessing anti-retroviral

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treatments. HIV-related deaths have fallen to 1.2 million in 2014 from 3.2 million in 2005. Modelling—we have to model these things—suggests that nearly 74 million people have avoided acquiring HIV and 36 million HIV deaths were avoided between 1990 and 2013. That is an amazing global public health success. But across the globe, 60% of new infections are among young women, and HIV remains the leading killer of women of reproductive age. Noble Lords will appreciate that the report covers a number of large and in some cases very technical issues, and I will have to skate through just a few of them and hope that other noble Lords in the debate will follow me in.

The aim of the sustainable development goal is to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. To do that—to bend the curve of this epidemic—the bulk of progress has to take place over the next five years. If we do not manage to prevent young people, particularly women and girls across the developing world, from contracting the virus, infection rates will get ahead of us. The question for us, as a country that has led the international success to date, is: how will we manage to do that in times of austerity?

I want to highlight some of the things we need to do that emerge from this report. First, we must ensure continued access to affordable treatments. The success that has come about in the past 10 years has partly been due to the work of the Global Fund, but it is also because generic drugs are now widely available across the developing world. As noble Lords will know, the development of new drugs is a very risky business. That is why in highly developed countries it is a long and expensive process, although one of the most interesting things that came out of our evidence sessions is that there is no real relationship between the cost that drug companies attach to new drugs and the cost of producing them. They simply make a market decision about how much money they can make from new products.

However, those generic suppliers have managed to do wonderful things. They have managed to get the cost of the drugs to maintain a person in India for a year down from something like $2,000 per annum to $100 per annum. Those drug manufacturers told us that is now impossible to get those costs down even further. Some parts of the pharmaceutical world need more help. There is no great market for paediatric pharmaceuticals. Therefore, drug companies cannot put any more money into getting the costs of those drugs down. They look to Governments and international players for help in finding ways to make sure that they can keep the supply of those drugs coming.

The second thing is to focus on R&D. This Government have a proud record of making contributions to international research and development. Indeed, in the past few months there has been an announcement from George Osborne that there would be funding via the Ross fund for research into new diseases. It is not clear whether that funding will be in addition to existing HIV funding. Will the Minister commit to making a statement about the transparency of the different parts of funding that DfID and the Government are involved in? This is not a time to start robbing Peter to pay Paul. We have to be absolutely clear about the totals of funding and the projected outcomes.

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The third thing that I want to focus on is the replenishment of the Global Fund. As a partnership between Governments, the voluntary sector and the private sector, the Global Fund has done truly remarkable work. One reason why it is so effective is that it focuses much of its work on women and girls. We know that the Government a few years ago led the way internationally by making a commitment of almost £1 billion into the Global Fund. The Global Fund replenishment is due shortly. Will the Government continue to give an international lead to funding that replenishment? It is so important and the most effective way in which to tackle this problem. We need to keep the pressure on other developed countries to continue with their funding and not to let it be dissipated.

I have a final question for the Minister. Middle-income countries have been de-prioritised in terms of UK Government direct aid. We understand the reasons for that. When we were researching the report in India, we heard lots of arguments about how India is now a successful economy that no longer needs to receive UK aid. But as noble Lords are aware, the poorest people on earth live in middle-income countries and the people most marginalised in those societies and most at risk fear greatly that their needs will be missed. I wonder whether the Minister will commit her Government to work with other international donors and funders to find new mechanisms to support those middle-income countries, as they transition away from direct aid from larger countries such as ourselves to a new order in which their own health systems and political systems are better equipped to deal with this ongoing issue. Finally, will the Minister explain to noble Lords where HIV will sit in the DfID strategy from 2016? It seems that it is being folded into a much broader remit on sexual and reproductive health, and there is some considerable concern out there that it is being deprioritised.

If we do not continue to fund public health initiatives such as this one around the world, desperate people will become the migrants that Europe has to help. Please can we maintain what to date has been a very successful track record and not be pushed away from that by the politics of the moment?

7.40 pm

Lord Fowler (Con): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, on her speech and on the work that she is doing in this area. I thank her for her remarks and I agree with all the points that she made. Perhaps I may also pay tribute to the chairman of the all-party group at the time, Pamela Nash, who is much missed in Parliament. Many important points are contained in the report on the availability of drugs, on generics and the rest, but the first part sets out the barriers to treatment.

I want to concentrate on one of those, the third barrier which is noted: the ways that key populations are left behind. Those key populations are injecting drug users, men who have sex with men, sex workers and transgender people. The one feature that unites these different groups is that they all suffer discrimination, prejudice, criminalisation and violence, and they are often given little or no political priority. This goes to

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the heart of the debate, because it all too often defines a position where access to medicine is denied. We are not talking only about developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. When we talk about injecting drug users, we are quite often talking about countries like Russia, for example.

Globally, and particularly in the developing world, an even more formidable barrier is the discrimination against gay people, which takes its clearest form in the criminalisation of homosexuality. Many countries around the world still have laws, regulations or policies which present obstacles to HIV treatment—more than half the countries of the world, according to UNAIDS—and many of them are, of course, in the Commonwealth. The effect of criminalisation on access to medicine is clear enough. It acts as the strongest possible barrier for the people penalised in this way to come forward, and even more, it acts as a disincentive to prevention.

In their defence some officials around the world, particularly in Africa and India, say that the law is not strictly enforced in some countries, but that does not remotely settle the issue for it ignores the fact that the law also sets standards. That is why we have race relations legislation, for example. The standards in this case, however, are much worse. If the law says that certain acts are criminal, it provides an excuse for people generally to discriminate. It gives the green light to persecution. “The law is on our side”, they say. It encourages whole communities to ostracise gay people and for young men to be forced out of family homes, which happens all too often.

Perhaps I should say in passing, in response to something the noble Baroness said at the beginning of her speech, that I was half amused and half irritated to see in the official papers which were recently released that the internal advice from a civil servant at No. 10 to Margaret Thatcher on the AIDS threat was—I shall précis it—“Leave it to Fowler, Prime Minister. You would do better choosing a children’s cause”. I doubt very much whether that distaste for sexual disease has altogether disappeared in this country.

I want to make one last point. Apart from Governments, the obvious people who should be leading in the effort to fight the kind of discrimination that we face are the churches, and it is sad to note that there is precious little sign of that around the world. Uganda is not the only African country where the church is in fact on the side of repression rather than fighting it. Leaving equal marriage to one side, which we have debated in this House several times, not only would it be refreshing but immensely valuable if the Anglican church could back much more explicitly the right of gay people not to suffer from the injustice and discrimination that at present they do. There are some issues we can debate, but surely not the infringement of the human rights of any individual.

A wind of change in attitude is sweeping through many parts of the world, so surely the aim must be to encourage that wind of change to blow through Africa as well, and at the same time to blow down some of the barriers to treatment that are set out in this valuable report.

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7.46 pm

Lord Cashman (Lab): My Lords, before I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the all-party parliamentary group under the chairmanship of Pamela Nash, I want to make a personal statement of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. As a gay man growing up in the 1980s, I think many people on other continents and some in this country thought that we were a group of people who were expendable, but because of the noble Lord’s courage, leadership and determination, we were not seen to be so in this country. There are generations of gay men, lesbians and men who have sex with men, not only here but elsewhere, who owe the noble Lord a deep debt of gratitude, and I am privileged to echo something which, if they had the opportunity to do so, they would say.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for securing this important debate and for her speech, and I will try not to repeat some of the things she has said, but sadly for noble Lords I will repeat much of what the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has said. Unbeknown to me as I sat down and wrote my speech earlier today, the themes are the same: human rights and civil liberties are at the very core of what we do.

Perhaps I may say, as I have on numerous occasions since I joined your Lordships’ House just over a year ago, that given my experience working with NGOs and UNAIDS and my time as a member of the Committee on Development of the European Parliament, I remain deeply concerned about the Government’s decision to direct ODA away from countries which they define as “middle income” countries. In so doing, and by insisting that the Global Fund should also control and curtail its work in middle-income countries, decades of work and investment in those countries are undermined. Once again, that places marginalised communities and vulnerable key populations, along with women and children, at risk. If we are seriously to make AIDS and HIV history, we will not do so by scaling back our work and our commitments, especially when using such questionable factors as GNI to define general income levels, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. South Africa, a country I know only too well, along with India, are two countries where our approach is unhelpful, to say the least.

Outlined in the excellent material supplied by the House of Lords Library, I note—and, sadly, must confirm that I am deeply alarmed and worried about—the criminalisation of homosexuality in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Asia, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, referred to. These attacks are on fundamental human rights, which in turn affects access to treatment, increases the transmission of the HIV virus, and piles on greater harm with stigma and discrimination, and that it is often done in the name of religious belief is even worse. Those people of all people, preaching tolerance and understanding, should extend it and not control it or rein it in. However, in this regard I welcome the announcement of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—Justin Welby—who said that he hoped the Anglican community could lead the argument for decriminalisation of homosexuality worldwide. That is not a direct quote. However, I am deeply concerned at the sanctions

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against the United States Episcopal Church for its open and liberal attitude to homosexuality and its acceptance of same-sex marriage.

My concerns are also, as I said, for other vulnerable groups—men who have sex with men, trans women and trans men, sex workers, women and young children. Access to healthcare, access to medicines and early testing are absolutely necessary if we are to continue the battle against HIV/AIDS, ignorance and stigma. Every year I take the trouble to have myself tested for HIV, and it is incredibly shameful that so many men and women still fail to do so.

We need to create a global research and development fund, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to, and transparency, as she said, is key. Where is the funding coming from? Are we robbing HIV/AIDS Peter to pay Paul? We need to invest our way out of this crisis and prepare for the challenges of the future. We need to give access to first-line antiretrovirals and second and third-line treatments. If we ask people to test for HIV, we must assure them that they will receive treatment throughout their lives.

We have seen great progress, but there is much more to be done. There is a new epidemic among men who have sex with men, and it is vital that we make available the preventive method. I can see that the Whip is getting slightly agitated on the Front Bench, so I will move to my conclusion.

Will the Minister outline the plans her department has to ensure that key populations in middle-income countries are not forgotten and are not left behind? Furthermore, can she assure me that the Government will not prevent the Global Fund operating in so-called middle-income countries? I thank your Lordships.

7.52 pm

Lord Patten (Con): My Lords, of all the issues facing all those concerned with diminishing the spread of AIDS and HIV that are highlighted in this report, one of the most intractable and difficult to deal with is the damage inflicted by stigma. It is, of course, very easy to call for different ways of approaching the problem: more money, for example—the UK is showing a lead in this area, and we should be proud of that—or indeed, bashing the pharmaceutical industry for its charges. I would caution all to remember that these companies are not a public but a private good, however much their drugs may do public good in the end. It is shareholder funds, not government or charitable donations that make such wonderful ground-breaking research possible—going off from paid-for antiretrovirals and spinning off into generics—so we need to work with them, not against them, all the way.

Changing attitudes is just as difficult, expensive and long term as is the research that provides those new drugs and eventually their generic equivalents. This remains a huge challenge, particularly in reaching the poorest and most marginalised, leaving no one behind. Stigma stops people going for HIV tests in the first place, finding support without shame, telling their family and friends or taking the potentially life-saving drugs—all this from the apparent fear of being rejected by those you love the most, of losing your job, of abuse from your community and the rest.

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I am told that we urgently need much more systematic stigma-reduction initiatives, particularly in Africa. Who told me this? Well, I listened during the debate on Syria—the one that bumped the noble Baroness’s debate seven weeks forward into a new year—to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the need to do more to protect Christians and other minority non-Christian faith groups in the Near East, citing as his source the work done on the ground by his daughter. Borrowing from the episcopal book, and listening to what the most reverend Primate had to say, I hope that if it is all right for him it is all right for me to lean on briefings that I have had from my daughter who, ever since she came down from university, has worked with the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. That organisation has been working flat out on trying to help on stigma reduction in Africa since the epidemic began. CAFOD and its partners, of all faiths and none, implement a broad range of HIV-related programmes from providing information on transmission, care, prevention, counselling and spiritual support to those of all faiths and none.

In three African countries—Kenya, Zambia and Ethiopia—back in 2010, CAFOD set up what I believe to be a brilliant and ground-breaking survey into the causes of stigma carried out by local people living with AIDS who, after proper training, asked people about stigma. Its findings were shared very widely. It revealed invaluable information about, say, differences between urban and rural communities or what drives some, rather than taking the antiretrovirals available, to spend what must be to them fabulous sums of money on traditional medicines and on the purveyors of traditional medicines. Our daughter has seen and heard much of the efficiency of this research-based evidence in visits to each of the three countries, going right up to the Eritrean border. She will be there again in March this year, listening and talking in particular to women—Muslim women as well as to Catholic women or those with no religion at all. The more the work of CAFOD and other organisations like it is successful in reducing stigma, the greater will be the parallel reduction in the spread of the epidemic.

Unless stigma is reduced, so that people living with and affected by HIV are helped with advice on how to live—and, most of all, simply how to take their antiretrovirals—then all the money spent and all the scientific advances that are made will be all the less effective. That is for certain. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government take stigma-reduction programmes very seriously indeed.

7.57 pm

Baroness Gould of Potternewton (Lab): My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for initiating this debate as it gives me the opportunity to raise the plight of women with HIV and the particular barriers that they face.

Since the start of the global HIV epidemic, women have remained at a much higher risk of HIV infection than men, with young women and adolescent girls accounting for a disproportionate number of new HIV infections. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, a consequence is that HIV remains the leading

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cause of death among women of reproductive age, yet access to HIV treatment remains low. This lack of comprehensive HIV and SRH services means that women are less able to look after their sexual health and are more at risk of HIV infection—a problem that is often made worse for young women as such services are available only for married women with children.

In Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal more than 70% of unmarried sexually active girls cannot receive contraception due to age restrictions. That is not helped by healthcare providers often lacking the necessary training and skills to inform women on how to protect themselves, and on how to use anti-retroviral drugs. While overall access to HIV testing and counselling is improving it is still far too low. Discriminatory social and cultural norms are translated into laws which stop women and girls accessing HIV prevention treatment, care and support services. Women often face stigma and judgmental attitudes to drug use, sex work and homosexuality, resulting in the denial of healthcare.

The situation is that women are being left behind in terms of access to HIV treatment, exacerbated by the high cost of treatment, which creates weak and insufficient health systems and supply chains. This situation could be improved by community and home-based testing as an effective way of reducing costs. There is a correlation between HIV and poverty. Addressing poverty has shown to reduce sexual risk behaviour. A study in Malawi showed how cash transfers that were conditional on keeping girls in schools reduced HIV and STI prevalence, as well as high-risk behaviour. The World Health Organization states that 30% of women worldwide have experienced intimate partner violence or have been physically assaulted. These women are more likely to acquire HIV. Women experiencing abuse are coerced into sex and unable to negotiate practices such as condom use. Very often it seems that the men who are committing the abuse are more likely to engage in risky behaviour. A woman who depends on her partner economically cannot afford to jeopardise the relationship, even when she suspects that he may be HIV positive.

One hundred and twenty five countries have legislation criminalising domestic partner violence, sexual violence, child sex abuse and sexual harassment, but despite this progress the evidence for establishing the crimes is very weak. For instance, only 52 countries recognise rape within marriage as a crime, again making it difficult for women to protect themselves from such sexual violence or negotiate safe sex.

DfID has identified the needs of women and girls as a clear priority for the UK Government, but to date has not explicitly made the connection between the women and girls agenda and the HIV response. I ask the Minister to clarify the position, for addressing HIV and AIDS is not an additional burden or add-on to DfID’s core priorities—rather, it supports them. Will the Minister confirm that HIV is not being deprioritised and absorbed into other conditions? Surely our target has to be to end the epidemic and to increase focus on protection of women with HIV and AIDS, not the reverse. Additionally, the UK aid strategy makes no reference to HIV and AIDS and gives no indication of how the UK intends to contribute to meeting the SDG target.

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In conclusion, it is widely recognised that gender equality is vital to an effective HIV response. There needs to be renewed political and financial commitment to eliminate gender inequalities and gender-based violence, and to increase the capacity of women and girls to protect themselves from HIV. We cannot forget, as so often seems to happen, that, in the words of the executive director of UNAIDS:

“This epidemic unfortunately remains an epidemic of women”.

8.02 pm

Lord Black of Brentwood (Con): My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, on securing the debate, which is quite literally about life and death, and therefore one of the most important subjects with which this House can deal. The report is extremely compelling and I support without hesitation its recommendations, particularly on the issue of paediatric treatments, which the noble Baroness mentioned briefly. There is something horribly cruel about babies and infants being infected with HIV, which is compounded by the poor levels of care available. The figures from the WHO and UNICEF, which show that by 2020 some 1.9 million children will require HIV treatment, are heart-breaking. The chances of even a majority of them getting such treatment are slender, but, as UNAIDS makes clear:

“Without treatment, about one third of children living with HIV die by their first birthday”.

New energy and focus need to be brought to bear on this issue, and policy and programming given the same priority as the key populations.

The point I want to highlight is one already raised by my noble friend Lord Fowler and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, which we have debated with great passion on a number of occasions in this House: the link between the criminalisation of homosexuality and the spread of HIV. I promise noble Lords that the three of us have not colluded on our homework, but I hope that the message is clear. For, with the best will in the world, HIV treatments, when they are available, are of use only if people are prepared to come forward, get tested and then take the drugs. But in far too many parts of the world—the majority of them, as we have heard, shamefully in the Commonwealth—criminalisation and stigma, which my noble friend talked so powerfully about, mean that HIV spreads more quickly, that safe sex practices never take root because there is no education on the subject, that prevention programmes simply do not exist, that people at risk do not get a test, and that the treatments central to this report are therefore simply not an option.

The evidence is overwhelming, as the Human Dignity Trust and others have documented in compelling work on the subject. The most telling statistic comes from UNAIDS, which found that HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men rises from one in 15 in Caribbean countries where homosexuality is not criminalised to one in four where it is. In countries where homosexuality is unlawful, the risks for the entire community are heightened because trans women and men who have sex with men have concurrent relationships with men and women, with fatal consequences, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, said in such a compelling way.

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As I have said before on this issue, criminalisation kills. We have heard about the sterling and extraordinarily courageous work of the noble Lord in the mid-1980s, when the phrase that very much came to the fore was, “AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance”. Now it would be “AIDS: criminalisation kills”, so, “AIDS: Don’t die of criminalisation”, might be a better way of looking at it. Whether or not there is widespread access to effective treatments, the HIV/AIDS crisis can never be brought under control and the dream of an AIDS-free world by 2030, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker talked about, will remain impossible while consensual same-sex relationships remain criminal in so many parts of the globe.

That has massive implications for public policy and for the brilliant work going on in the area of treatment. The UK is quite rightly investing millions of pounds in managing and ameliorating the HIV/AIDS crisis in the developing world, yet we are still prepared to accept the criminalisation fuelling it. While criminalisation exists, much of this money, invested with the best of intent, is being wasted. Policy needs to be joined up. That needs to start with our leadership role in the Commonwealth since 40 of its 53 members criminalise, in a most shameful breach of human rights. Some 60% of all people with HIV currently live in the Commonwealth, yet it is still a subject which, I say with some irony, dare not speak its name. At a presentation entitled “Getting to Zero” at the Commonwealth Secretariat on World AIDS Day in December, there was not a single mention of the link between criminalisation and HIV, despite the overwhelming empirical evidence, nor even mention of men who have sex with men and trans women as high-risk groups. Progress will never be made while the Commonwealth has its head in the sand, yet until progress is made on this front important issues surrounding access to treatment are, in so many parts of the world, largely academic.

In commending this report, which contains so many vital recommendations that need to be acted on, please let us continue to remember, as we have heard from so many speakers today, that one of the most basic points about why HIV continues to spread and why treatment will never be as effective as it can be is down to criminalisation of gay men and women. Action on treatment will never be sufficient on its own until we make progress on that agenda too.

8.07 pm

Lord Paddick (LD): My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Barker on eventually securing this debate. I have been getting to know a new friend over this weekend and I have been telling him about my life and my experiences. One of the things that I spoke to him about was the fact that, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, mainly because of social pressure, I was dating women rather than men, and in 1983 I married one. Had it not been for that social pressure, for my marriage to Mary and for living faithfully in that marriage for five years, I probably would not be here addressing noble Lords this evening—that, and the pioneering work of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, when he was Health Minister. That is personal for me.

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Thankfully, medical science has moved on from those days when there were so many—too many—deaths in western countries because antiretroviral drugs were in their infancy and not always effective. The problem then was lack of scientific knowledge. Today, lack of funding is causing unnecessary and completely preventable deaths, together with prejudice and discrimination, as many noble Lords have already said.

The way the pharmaceutical sector works is that new and effective medicines are developed at significant cost on the basis that the companies will see a return on their investment through high drug costs. Once the costs are recovered, there is the opportunity to produce generic drugs at lower cost. This is the situation that we are in generally with primary treatment for HIV. In many cases, people can be successfully treated using primary treatment at low cost, as my noble friend Lady Barker said. But the virus develops resistance and sometimes secondary and third-line treatments are necessary—but these drugs are too expensive for many low and medium-income countries to afford.

As many noble Lords have said, the other issue is high-risk groups where HIV is most prevalent: intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men, sex workers and the transgender community—people who not only face the highest risks but, because of society’s prejudice in some countries, are the least likely to get treatment.

I am sure your Lordships will remember the UK Government campaign, “Don’t die of ignorance”, that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, spearheaded. In a different sense, perhaps, people are still dying of ignorance: the ignorance that results in prejudice and discrimination. It is not just these high-risk groups that should have an equal right to treatment. The fact is that they infect others, not least unborn and infant children. As my noble friend Lady Barker said, 60% of new infections are among women. The excellent all-party group report on HIV and AIDS put it so well: this is not someone else’s problem, this is everyone’s problem.

Medical science has come a long way. For those who are being successfully treated for HIV, and whose levels of HIV virus in their bloodstream are so suppressed by medication that they do not show up in tests and whose immune system is healthy, it is almost impossible to pass on the infection to others. It is vital that people know whether the treatment they are receiving is effective, so access to regular viral testing is also an essential part of the solution.

There are new developments all the time. I am currently part of a clinical trial in the UK of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, where a daily dose of medication can prevent HIV infection in the first place. The results of the trial so far show that it is a highly effective way of preventing further HIV infection—but again, whether it becomes available on the NHS is another cost question.

It is Oscar season and again this year the Elton John Aids Foundation will be holding its annual Oscar viewing party to raise money to fight HIV. But charities such as this—and there are many of them—that are trying to raise funds to eradicate HIV, which is now scientifically possible, cannot win this fight alone.

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They need Governments’ financial support and willingness to join them in the battle, which will help such charities to raise funds themselves.

This is an important report at a time when we need to renew our commitment to an HIV-free world. All it needs is the political will to bring this about and I urge the Minister to ensure that this Government show leadership in committing the necessary resources and encouraging others to follow their example.

8.13 pm

Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for initiating this debate. The APPG report demonstrated progress on access to anti-retroviral therapies. The latest figures released by UNAIDS show that nearly 16 million people now have access compared with fewer than 1 million just 10 years ago. However, 22 million people living with HIV still do not have access to ARTs and an incredible 19 million remain unaware of their status.

Since the report’s publication we have had DfID’s new development strategy and the Government’s strategic defence and security review, which alongside the Autumn Statement pledged significant new funding for global health. These strategies highlight the need for better integration between DfID and the FCO to address human rights abuses and, as noble Lords have pointed out, criminalisation of LGBT groups which, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said contributes to access to treatment being denied. Can the Minister outline the process ensuring cross-Whitehall policy coherence so that development needs are not undermined by other political considerations?

SDG objective 3.3 is to end HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria by 2030, and 2016 marks the beginning of the next replenishment phase for the Global Fund. The Global Fund estimates that the combined external funding required to beat the three diseases in line with the SDGs will be $97 billion through to 2019. This will come from affected countries themselves and the countries contributing to the Global Fund, which will need some $13 billion over the period—slightly less than for the last replenishment period. As noble Lords have said, the UK has a proud record on the Global Fund, contributing up to £1 billion over the last replenishment period making it the third largest contributor.

In addition to the Global Fund commitment, I welcome the Autumn Statement launching the £1 billion Ross fund with the Gates Foundation. The Opposition will hold the Government to account on how that co-operation is working in the months and years ahead. That £1 billion includes a £300 million package on malaria and £115 million to develop new drugs and insecticides for malaria and TB. I welcome that attention given to TB and malaria but, as noble Lords have indicated, the funds do not yet specifically cover new tools for HIV and AIDS, either for treatment or prevention. It is crucial that the Government recognise the importance of new and better tools to prevent and treat HIV to ensure that investments in eliminating the disease are ultimately sustainable and successful.

If the aim of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 is to be achieved, the bulk of the progress

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must be made in the next five years, as we have heard. The joint UN programme has accepted fast-track targets. These are that 90% of people living with HIV know their status; 90% of those people are accessing treatment; and 90% of those on treatment are virally supressed. That would significantly reduce the number of onward transmissions. Achieving universal access, however, remains a challenge. As my noble friend Lord Cashman said, affordable first-line generic drug treatments are denied to middle-income countries, which are excluded from licensing deals and are forced to buy at inflated prices, making second and third-line ARTs prohibitively expensive. The Global Fund must be allowed to provide critical bridging finance for middle-income countries. We cannot simply pull out and leave Governments to fill the gap when we know that they will not. So will the Minister commit to looking at providing technical support before funding is withdrawn to ensure that programmes do not collapse after withdrawal?

8.18 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Verma) (Con): My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for securing this debate. I also thank all noble Lords for their excellent contributions. The noble Baroness referred in her opening remarks to the pioneering approach of my noble friend Lord Fowler in ensuring that the debate around HIV/AIDS had considerable resource at a time when it was very difficult to discuss such matters.

As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, rightly said, UNAIDS estimates that nearly 16 million people are now on treatment but, despite this significant progress, 1.2 million people are still dying every year because they lack the essential drugs and prevention services.

As noble Lords have mentioned, the Access Denied report raised important issues. The UK remains committed to addressing these issues, getting to zero and ensuring that no one is left behind. The scale of the UK’s financial commitment is testament to this. We remain the second largest international donor on HIV prevention, care and treatment and over the period 2014 to 2016 have pledged up to £1 billion to the Global Fund—a commitment that is yielding real results, with the Global Fund providing more than 8.1 million people with life-saving treatment.

As noble Lords have said, no child should be born with HIV, and when this happens it is a clear failure of health systems. In response to this, the UK spent £360 million in 2013-14 investing in strong and resilient health systems. With considerable UK support, the Global Fund has reached 3.1 million women with services to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies.

The APPG’s report expresses concern over the affordability of second and third-line antiretroviral drugs. As a number of noble Lords raised that point, I want to assure them that the UK is heavily investing in tackling this important issue through our support to the Global Fund, UNITAID, the Medicines Patent Pool and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. Our support to the latter has helped secure more than

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$1 billion-worth of procurement cost savings. These savings have been reinvested to allow millions more to access treatment.

The report also highlights the importance of viral load testing. The cost of viral load testing remains a major challenge, and so my department is supporting a deal with Roche at $9.40 per test, a 40% reduction for many countries. In low and middle-income countries, this equates to an average price cut of more than 40%. While the agreement is by no means the final answer, it does represent an important step.

A number of noble Lords referred to middle-income countries. We agree with the report that the withdrawal of international financial support must be sensitive to the needs of key populations. At present, approximately 50% of the Global Fund’s resources are targeted at middle-income countries, and we continue to use our place on the board to encourage such countries to focus on key populations. At the same time, we must remember the needs of lower-income countries, which simply cannot afford to provide universal access to HIV treatment and HIV prevention services on their own.

It is clearly unacceptable that every two minutes an adolescent girl is infected with HIV and that 1,000 young women are infected every day, the vast majority of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa. DfID—my department—puts the empowerment of girls and women at the heart of everything we do. Nearly 60% of Global Fund resources are invested in programmes that reach women and children, and we have committed more than £100 million to programmes to tackle gender-based violence.