Justin Madders
MP for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard asked about, will consider the points raised in this debate and whether any of them can be put into future updates to guidance. As was mentioned, good passenger information is central to standards.”
“As the roads Minister, I of course recognise the importance of bus stops and the important effect they have on the streetscape. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard made clear that she is passionate and informed about the importance of bus journeys to everyone.”
“Where responsibility for highways or individual assets sits elsewhere, close and effective working between the relevant authorities is essential. We expect local plans to join up services, infrastructure and passenger information, rather than treating them as separate issues. That will no doubt be music to the ears of my hon.”
“Our guidance encourages authorities to take a strategic approach to stops and interchanges, including keeping an inventory of infrastructure, identifying priorities for investment and setting locally appropriate standards for facilities and maintenance.”
“She is absolutely right that the quality of a bus stop is about more than accessibility, although of course accessibility is vital. Passengers notice whether a stop is easy to find and use, whether it offers shelter or seating where appropriate, whether it is clean, whether the surroundings feel safe and well maintained and, as we have di…”
“That approach reflects a simple principle: local transport authorities know their areas and are best placed to plan improvements across the whole local bus network. That is why the Department’s vision for buses, within an integrated transport system, puts local transport authorities at the centre of delivery.”
The complete record
Every one of 8,481 lines we hold for Justin Madders, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 67 of 170.
“Now that we are done with the forces of nature, I will take Government Members to the edge of panic again with more of what they will consider to be scaremongering—this time, about consumer rights. We are not trying to worry anyone; we are just trying to protect the rules that are already in place. Amendment 75 prevents key consumer regulations and legislation from falling off a legislative cliff edge in a little over a year’s time, and amendment 78 removes them from the scope of the powers to revoke without replacement in section 15 of the Bill. To be clear, neither of the amendments is designed to tie the hands of the Government; in fact, they could be seen as doing the opposite.”
“It just strikes me that the idea of someone coming to their Member of Parliament and saying, “This isn’t what we asked for, and we would like a refund,” is what we are dealing with in the Bill. I do not think that many people who voted to leave the European Union voted to remove all the laws that we are talking about.”
“I think we got a real mix there of things that the Government intend to continue with, but also—I am particularly concerned about how this relates to the Bauer judgment—things that they do not wish to continue with. But the underlying theme, the stock answer or explanation, was that Departments will put forward their delivery plans in respect of these REULs in due course, and that simply is not good enough.”
“Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It has taken us perhaps five or six hours to get to that point. We now finally see why we are right to be concerned about this process, why it is important that we put in proper scrutiny safeguards, and why we want to see certain pieces of legislation exited from the Bill so that they are not lost. Pension protection is an important issue. My predecessor, the late Andrew Miller, did an awful lot in that regard when he represented Ellesmere Port and Neston. An awful lot of people in my constituency have benefited from the Pension Protection Fund. If we are to see a reduction, we will no doubt explore that with the relevant Department. For now, we will do our bit to protect these regulations and the others mentioned in the amendment by pressing it to a vote.”
“I will not speak for long. Will the Minister explain what the procedure will be, particularly for dealing with amendments to regulations under Government amendment 4? That is important. I think I understood the Minister’s train of thought, but if she could explain what that process will be and what opportunity there will be for parliamentary scrutiny, I would be grateful.”
“I beg to move amendment 72, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, leave out “Minister of the Crown” and insert “relevant national authority”. This amendment provides devolved assemblies the power to make the decision to delay the sunset of legislation, and not just a Minister of the Crown.”
“I will not detain the Committee long. We have ventilated a lot of the arguments about amendment 72 already in relation to why the 2023 deadline —or cliff edge—is unacceptable. The amendment would give the power that UK Government Ministers feel able to retain for themselves to extend the cliff edge to 2026 to the devolved authorities. There is no reason why we should have a different approach in the devolved authorities from that of the UK Government. Again, when we get into questions of devolved competency, it is clearly appropriate that those provisions should apply to devolved nations as well. We have already discussed these issues at length so I will not detain the Committee any longer.”
“To follow on from what the hon. Member for Glenrothes has said, I think the Minister misunderstands the point of devolution if her main argument against these amendments is that we cannot have different deadlines and laws in different jurisdictions. The whole point of devolution is that each devolved nation is able to decide the laws that sit within its devolved competence. I will not push our amendment to a vote, but the answers we have received this evening are pretty inadequate.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn . Amendment proposed : 31, in clause 2, page 2, line 8, at end insert— “(1A) Subsection (1) has effect in relation to provision which is within the competence of the Scottish Ministers as if, after “A Minister of the Crown”, there were inserted “or the Scottish Ministers”. (1B) A provision is within the devolved competence of the Scottish Ministers for the purposes of this section if— (a) it would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if it were contained in an Act of that Parliament, or (b) it is provision which could be made in other subordinate legislation by the Scottish Ministers, the First Minister or the Lord Advocate acting alone.”— (Brendan O ’ Hara.) Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“Like every other Member here, I get weekly concerns from constituents about mould in properties. Sometimes we are able to help them and we get there. It takes a long time and unfortunately problems often come back. Sometimes people come to see me who I helped when I was a councillor almost a decade ago and the problems have re-emerged, so there is something far deeper going on here—it is not just about trying to put these things right. The issue is across the whole sector. Every housing association in my constituency has these problems. There are issues of capacity, funding and accountability. I do not think these associations are accountable to the communities they represent. Can the Secretary of State say something about what he can do about that?”
“While they were eventually able to secure a mortgage, it has come at a cost of around £200 a month more than would have been the case had they completed on their mortgage only a week earlier. One might say that was unlucky timing; I would say it is unforgivable incompetence. To provide some context, at the beginning of covid, when the world came to a halt, 462 financial products were removed from the market. When this mini-Budget came out some 935 mortgage products were withdrawn in just one day. On that measure at least, the Government have done more economic damage with their Budget than a global pandemic. Conservative Members should reflect on that, and have a sense of shame that it has come to this.”
“That is not only a sign of a dysfunctional Government; we will be told on Thursday that we are all going to have to pay more tax and that public services funding must be cut, so it is an absolute disgrace that these payments have lined the pockets of people who had only been in the job two minutes—people who have had to resign because of things which, in many cases, if they did them in the real world, would mean they would not get a penny in compensation. Another constituent, who was in the process of moving house at the time of the Budget, was advised that the products from their current lender had been removed entirely, preventing them from porting their mortgage; and, because the number of other products that were on offer was slashed to around 10% of what had been available the week before, they faced weeks of unnecessary anxiety.”
“They do not have to work for two years somewhere before they can claim a redundancy payment or have the right to claim unfair dismissal; they get it from day one—no matter how badly they behave and what rules they break, they get those payments. Those are not the rules everyone else has to adhere to; that is indefensible. Let us go through the catalogue of chaos that has become the hallmark of this Government. We have had four Chancellors in four months, and five Home Secretaries in three years—although two of those were, of course, the same person after they served a massive six days on the Back Benches in penance—and we have had five Education Secretaries in as many months. In total, we have had over 70 Ministers depart since July at a staggering cost to the taxpayer of over £700,000.”
“And now my constituent asks: “Can you please find out how the Conservative Government and their Prime Minister intend to fix an issue they created?” Many of us would like to know the answer to that question, and if any who were in Cabinet at the time of that Budget but have since left would like to donate some of their severance payments to my constituent to help pay his increased mortgage costs, I am sure he would be grateful. On severance payments, this Government have been doing their best to stop ordinary people from obtaining compensation when they lose their job, for example by reducing the number of people who can claim unfair dismissal. We should contrast that with the absolute bonanza of severance payments for departing Ministers.”
“We hear those seeking to absolve themselves of blame for this mess pointing to a pre-existing trend of increasing mortgage rates. While it is not disputed that there was indeed a slight upward trend before the kami-Kwasi Budget, there is no doubt that it is the Government’s reckless actions that have put rocket boosters under that trend, with the result that so much happened so quickly overnight. When the then Prime Minister and Chancellor decided to push ahead with their uncosted tax cuts, did they think for even a minute about what that might mean for people like my constituent who, over the next five years, will be paying an extra £25,000 on their mortgage? Of course they did not think about that; this Budget was not about my constituents’ interests or the interests of the vast majority of people in this country.”
“I have spoken to one constituent whose repayment mortgage was unfortunately being negotiated right at the time the Government began their experiment. His family now face an increase in their mortgage repayments of £410 every single month. That is the sort of eye-watering, almost overnight increase in costs that all but the most well-off in society will have no chance of meeting. What of course makes this worse is that this comes on top of a year in which just about every expense a household will face has also gone up—council tax, energy bills and, of course, the weekly shop. Everyday costs have shot up well beyond any increases in wages, and those factors on their own are more than enough to put most households in trouble, but if we factor in mortgage increases of that degree on top, we reach a position that is clearly unsustainable.”
“There are many significant challenges people face when they are trying to get on the housing ladder, and the last few months have seen that ladder not just pulled up, but yanked away from hundreds of first-time buyers in my constituency. That has also placed many constituents who are already on the ladder in a position where their mortgages are no longer affordable. Let us be clear: all of this was totally avoidable. It is the Conservative Government who have created this situation with their desire to turn the UK into a deranged economic experiment. This has spooked the markets, and while the main protagonists of this folly have gone, the Government remain, but it is the hard-working people who will pay the cost of this stupidity for many years to come.”
“A roof over your head, security at home and the peace of mind of knowing that at the end of the day you have somewhere to return to are the cornerstones of a happy and prosperous society. As we have heard, home ownership is the goal for so many of the constituents we represent and of those I speak with, and for years many have benefited from low and stable interest rates. Indeed, a whole generation of homeowners have taken their first steps on to the housing market knowing nothing other than that situation, which is one reason why I fear this current crisis is going to hit people harder and be more damaging than the previous interest rate rises we have seen. The most immediate effect will be on those who do not actually own their home.”
“The Government also must ensure that any measures cover not just mortgage prisoners but other people who are trapped in their homes. Many leaseholders with unsafe cladding or other fire defects, and those with egregious ground rent clauses that make the properties unsellable, will see their costs increase due to interest rates going up, but they will not even have the choice of being able to sell their properties because a lack of Government regulation has let them down by leaving them in a home that they do not really own but they cannot leave. That is a wrong that it is taking far too long to put right.”
“Through no fault of his own, my constituent is limited in the mortgage products he can access and while the amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill would have capped mortgage prisoners’ SVRs and ensured access to fixed-rate deals under certain circumstances, the Government chose to vote that down. The measures introduced to provide switching options were found to have a limited effect by the Financial Conduct Authority, and with the contraction of mortgage products, hope for mortgage prisoners is now at an all-time low. They have experienced for years the issues that are now widespread in society, leading to frustration from many that their plight was met with little coverage or understanding when it could have been addressed and mortgage rates were historically low. I recognise those frustrations.”
“Other landlords are now considering issuing section 21 notices to their tenants, because they know that if they relet the tenancies they can get 20% to 30% extra on the rents; that will push yet more people into homelessness. Finally I want to say a few words about a group who, sadly, know only too well the impact of high mortgage rates: mortgage prisoners who have been trapped on standard variable rates for years. A constituent of mine is facing the 14th year on such a rate, and in October his mortgage increased once again by £100 a month. In 2021, he was on a fixed rate of 4.54%, double the average two-year fixed rate deal available at the time.”
“Martin Lewis has warned about a ticking timebomb; it is indeed a timebomb and, worse still, this did not need to happen at all. The impact is not solely on those with mortgages. In my constituency, the pressure on the private rental sector is extremely high, which has already contributed to increasing rents. It is now impossible to secure a three-bed family property for less than £900 a month, which is about 50% of the average income in the constituency. I am already hearing from landlords who cannot afford to continue to rent out their properties without drastically hiking the rents, something many of them know is simply not realistic. They are therefore selling their properties, which will reduce the number of available properties in the private sector and push up rents again.”
“Indeed; we are all the poorer for this folly and we will all be paying the price for many years to come. And where was the Prime Minister during all this? He did not say a word; I did not hear anything from him about why this was wrong. He kept silent and kept his cards close, playing the game, waiting for the opportunity to strike. But now it is his responsibility to clear this mess up and he had better do that. While the markets have now begun to stabilise a little, the damage has already been done for many, with those coming off fixed-rate mortgages facing payment increases of five to seven times their current deal and some being shut out of the housing market entirely. Anyone on a fixed rate, and that is many of us, will be looking ahead in despair and fear over the next 12 to 18 months at what their mortgage payments will be.”
“The Bill, by removing everything that is subject to those disadvantages—because the ideal is not the situation at the moment for retained EU law—is an important step towards securing that the ideal is achieved, by forcing the decisions to be made about how this law can be properly integrated into UK law quickly. Things will only get worse if that does not happen. Retained EU law is imprecise because it has been removed from the context needed to make sense of it. That will get worse because the sources become of historical interest only, and the methodologies in the UK system for dealing with EU law will become lost knowledge and of historical interest only. The law will become obscure. The Bill is a useful way to force things to become better.”
“Q Good morning, Sir Stephen. My first question is quite overarching. The Bill is set up to remove EU law by omission, in essence, rather than by a positive decision to retain it; if there is not a decision by a Minister between now and the end of 2023, it automatically falls away. Do you think that is the most sensible way to proceed with more than 2,500 statutory instruments? Sir Stephen Laws: Yes, I think it is. The ideal for the law is that all law can be found from easily accessible sources and relied on to mean what it says without being qualified by complex, obscure or general glosses, or involving complex historical research to find out whether it is valid.”
“The Bill establishes the conventional methods of scrutiny, but they need to be backed up by a parliamentary process decided by Parliament and not set out in legislation, because, as we have learned in the last six years, if you put provisions about parliamentary procedure in legislation, you find yourself in the courts. That is not where the processes of Parliament should be.”
“The first can be achieved, as was the case with the legislation under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, by having a really rigorous system of triaging subordinate legislation made under the Bill to ensure that Parliament picks up the things that are politically salient. The second is achieved in practice already right across the board by random sampling; what keeps drafters keeping the quality of their drafting up is not that Parliament will look at every line, but the fact that they do not know which lines Parliament will look at, so they have to get them all right.”
“Q Are there adequate safeguards for scrutiny of the way in which this legislation will proceed? Sir Stephen Laws: The way in which it is scrutinised is a matter for Parliament to work out. It is not something that you would expect to be wholly within the Bill. When deciding what parliamentary scrutiny there should be, it is important to decide what parliamentary scrutiny is for. There is a sort of myth that Parliament should treat itself as the author of legislation and should look at every line, and that legislation for which Parliament has not looked at every line has not been properly written. That is an unrealistic position. Parliament is a political filter for legislation. It is important that it should identify the bits of legislation that are politically salient, and that it should provide an incentive for technical quality.”
“Q You referred to there being ways to identify politically salient pieces of legislation. How do you see that happening if the Bill becomes law? Sir Stephen Laws: By the support given to the parliamentary Committees that look at legislation, and perhaps by asking the Government to make sure that their plans for legislation are exposed first, so that Parliament has an opportunity to look at the plans and say, “Well, if that’s what you’re going to do, those are the things that we want to look at in particular.””
“Q Would you accept that we do not actually know what the Government’s plans are at the moment? Sir Stephen Laws: Yes, I would, because they have not told you what they aim to do with all this legislation that is going to be repealed. I suggest that you ask them to do that as the process proceeds.”
“If they found an extra 1,400 pieces after the extensive work that Government had done before that, it makes you wonder whether other things are out there. This is the issue with the sunset being the default position. As a default, it will turn off all retained EU law, even if the Government are unaware of what that retained EU law actually is.”
“Q Morning, professors. My first question is for Professor Barnard. You have said in your written evidence that there is a serious risk of mistakes with the EU dashboard. Have you—or has anyone, to your knowledge—done a comprehensive audit of whether everything is on the dashboard that should be? Professor Barnard: Thank you for that question. No, we have not. UK in a Changing Europe is trying to track the changes to retained EU law, but as we have seen from the Financial Times reports this morning, the National Archives has worked with Government and found an extra 1,400 pieces of retained EU law that the Government did not seem to know about until about last week, so it looks like there are about 3,800 pieces of law.”
“Once you have done all that, you can say, “Right, we should consult on those bits of legislation.” I am not in any way advocating, as Stephen Laws suggested, being in stasis and doing nothing—quite the contrary. One of the reasons for Brexit was to think about how we can have laws that are more suitable for the United Kingdom. The trouble is that this slash-and-burn technique means that proper consideration is not given to what a future rulebook might look like.”
“Professor Barnard: On the first point, listing the provisions that will be turned off avoids those bits of legislation that we do not know about—that is, they have not been found, despite an exhaustive search, including by the National Archives—being accidentally turned off, and our not knowing that they have been turned off until they become an issue down the line in some sort of litigation. One way of avoiding error is to have a list of legislation—it looks like 3,800 pieces of legislation have been identified—and to say, “This is the legislation that is potentially subject to the sunset.” If you list all those in the statute, it avoids the problem of the missed bits being caught up by the sunset.”
“Q Thank you for that news; I was not aware that there are another 1,400 pieces of legislation. I hope that the National Archives will send that information to the Minister, if not the whole Committee. It highlights one of our concerns about the Bill. Your report recommends the Bill making it clear which pieces of legislation are subject to the sunset clause; and/or the Government could exempt certain policy areas from the sunset clause. Could you explain to the Committee why you think that would be a good idea?”
“The idea that manufacturers will carry on respecting the law even when they are no longer required to because the laws have been simply turned off is, I am afraid, for the birds. All businesses need to try to cut costs, and they will not necessarily comply with high standards in the absence of legislation telling them to do so.”
“Q Obviously, the vote to leave was over six years ago. Would it be reasonable for the Government to have said by now which laws they intend to retain, and which they intend to remove? Professor Barnard: Absolutely. I am in no way advocating for no change—quite the contrary. However, the trouble is that the rather brutal approach envisaged by the sunset clause, and the lack of clarity about how the delay process in clauses 1(2) and 2 will work, will generate huge amounts of uncertainty for users. Unlike Stephen Laws, I would say that these laws cover things as fundamental as gas equipment safety and food safety—what goes into food and the listing of foods. These are things that people absolutely take for granted.”
“Q Just following up on the burdens issue, obviously lawyers can argue all day what a burden is. For us parliamentarians, whose opinion is it that this is reducing a burden? How would we as parliamentarians establish the basis upon which that decision has been made?”
“Q Good morning, gentlemen. May I ask a rather specific question? I am presuming that you have read the Bill. Under clause 4, there is a reference to removing references to sections 183A to 186 of the Data Protection Act 2018. If you do not know why it is there, that is fine, but are you able to provide an explanation?”
“I am indeed. It is the best type. Tom Sharpe: The honest answer is no. However, your excellent House of Commons research paper does indeed advert to this and describes the justification, which I have forgotten.”
“Q That is fine. I will refer back to that. I seek some free legal advice in relation to subsections (3) and (4) of clause 7, which are about the criteria for departing from retained law. The criteria are slightly different. Could you set out your understanding of the rationale for why that is the case? Tom Sharpe: Slightly different between case law and—”
“All sorts of case law is affected, and some would say infected, by European principles. What this is simply doing is inviting Parliament to say that the breadth of review can be triggered by any impact or any influence. It is really very broad—“determined or influenced by”. I think that is the justification for it, and I think it is sound. What is the point of having an imperfect means by which higher courts can be seized of these matters if they are important enough to go up to the higher courts?”
“That comes out from the TuneIn case, in which the Court of Appeal considered a very unsatisfactory area of jurisprudence by the Court of Justice—a very technical area on communication to the public in copyright cases—and did not feel that it wanted to depart from that law, basically because it thought that to do that you have to almost legislate to fill in what you are replacing the judgments with. Judges are naturally reluctant to do that. My view of these provisions is that they are helpful. They slightly widen the circumstances in which there can be a departure, but are unlikely to make much practical difference. They will mean very few cases that see actual departures. Tom Sharpe: May I add a supplementary? In answer to your specific question, clearly, the case law, which is the second provision in clause 4, is much broader.”
“It gave only a very tiny exception, allowing the Supreme Court and the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland to depart, but only in circumstances where they would depart from their own previous decisions. It was extremely narrow. That was slightly widened by a statutory instrument under the 2020 Act, which expanded that to the Court of Appeal, the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland and the Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland, but it still had a very narrow test. I do not think, even if you got rid of all these restrictions, that the judiciary would actually make very many changes to or departures from legislation.”
“Yes. Tom Sharpe: Shall I kick off? I know that Martin has some fairly strong views on this. What the Department is trying to do here is to provide some illustrative guidance as to the reasons why people can depart. They could have done nothing and left it open to the court, which would have been unsatisfactory. By and large, judges, like all of us, need some help and guidance. As to the differences, the justification is the TuneIn case, Martin, is it not? Martin Howe: Warner against TuneIn, yes. Tom Sharpe: Why don’t you pick this up? It is your area. Martin Howe: One feature of the 2018 Act, as you know, is that it made European Court judgments continue to be binding after exit in the interpretation of retained EU law. I would have preferred to see them just as persuasive authority from the beginning, but that is what the Act said.”
“In our judgment, the Government should take the approach referred to in relation to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, where it looks as though considered, measured changes are being put forward, and there is an undertaking not to change the rules and regulations without consultation with the sector. We cannot understand why financial services are the subject of such a responsible, measured approach, which does not seem to apply to consumer protection, cosmetic and household cleaning product safety, water and air standards, and so forth. If the Government could take the same measured response, sector by sector, that would be a more sensible and less risky way to proceed.”
“I explained that I have no difficulty with change; change is a necessary thing. We all hope there is a sunlit upland where we can find better or fewer rules and regulations in the future. But when I explained about the inherent uncertainty and risks around this, they all looked and me in horror and said, “Why would we do any business with the UK”—until 2024 on the current timescales—“if we don’t know what the rules and regulations are going to be around all these issues?” There is a tremendous problem with this Bill, which was described by previous witnesses as a “framework Bill”, because we do not know what Ministers are going to do and Parliament does not have the opportunity to take control of the process or scrutinise it.”
“Q This is probably a question primarily for you, Mark. At the moment we are in a position where we know several thousand laws will be automatically sunsetted at the end of 2023. We do not know which ones they will be or why the Government will retain, remove or amend particular laws. As we have heard today, it appears that the Government do not even know themselves which laws will be covered by the Bill. Do you see any risks with this approach? Mark Fenhalls: There is nothing but risk. I will tell you one brief anecdote to illustrate this point. Last week I was at an international conference, working with the Ministry of Justice on selling legal services overseas, and talking to lawyers and Bar leaders from around the world. They asked me what this country’s intentions were around its laws following the departure from the European Union.”
“We were taking out references to the European Commission and replacing them with “Secretary of State”—that sort of thing. That was a much simpler task than what we have here, and that took over two and a half years. A lot of areas also have several pieces of amending legislation. In data protection, which is the field that I work in, there are at least three pieces of legislation that amended and then re-amended the statute book—just to get it ready, from a technical perspective, for Brexit. There may be huge policy changes under this legislation, and the end of 2023 is simply not a realistic timeframe for the process.”