Kit Malthouse
MP for North West Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today.”
“I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon.”
“The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death.”
“One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end.”
“I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s expertise in this matter, but, as he has already heard on the Floor of the House, it is perfectly possible for this House to suggest amendments, negotiate them with the promoters of the Bill, place them against the legislation in the House of Lords and then have them come back to this House for…”
“As co-sponsor of the Bill once again, I am acutely conscious that there is more at stake today than merely the fate of those who are facing their end, because the conduct of the other place means that our democracy is also on trial today.”
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“As I said on Second Reading, my view is that he is undermining some of the basic tenets of British justice with what he is attempting to do with this legislation. With this amendment, I am attempting to swing the pendulum back a little in the cause of fairness before the law. As he will know, individuals subject to this power have the right to appeal on a number of bases, and courts will decide whether to allow their appeal. Broadly, there are three areas on which they can appeal: the first is whether the decision was proportional; the second is whether it was procedurally fair; and the third is whether the Minister or the Home Secretary has made a mistake over whether the person has a right to citizenship elsewhere and so may in fact be rendered stateless. As he knows, that is not allowed under the legislation.”
“They want us to make compromises in our legislation that undermine our sense of belonging in our nation and create a division not just between the governed and the Government, but within society. This legislation, I am afraid, starts to do exactly that. On Second Reading I pointed out, as I have possibly already done today—I hate to be repetitive—that this legislation and this power create two classes of citizenship in the UK. There are those who can have the order removed and those who never can have it removed. As use of the power has accelerated over the past two decades, and we are using it now more than we ever did, it creates a feeling of unease among those whose citizenship is conditional. I will explain to the Minister why I tabled amendment 1.”
“Their long game is to force us to twist ourselves in knots around the freedoms that make us different, which they despise, and slowly to erode our standard of living and the atmosphere in which we live, and we have seen that before in this country. The Minister is old enough to remember the evolution of the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, where hearings were held without juries. We dispensed with the basic freedom of the right to a jury trial in Northern Ireland for a while, largely because of accusations of violence towards juries. It was proven later that this was part of a known strategy by the IRA to make the Six Counties ungovernable, other than by military colonial means, so the IRA saw that move as a triumph. What terrorists want in the long term is a twisting of our natural freedoms.”
“Secondly, I say to the Minister, who has a distinguished record of service in the defence of this country and now serves as Security Minister, that much of the Bill is, let us face it, focused on those accused of committing terrorism here or overseas. Terrorists win in two ways: first, by the physical injury that they inflict and the fear of that physical injury that they are likely to inflict by exploding bombs, killing people and all the horrors we have seen in our lifetimes over the past 30 or 40 years, if not longer; and secondly, by a long, slow undermining of our way of life and by sowing division within our society.”
“Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt); and against the children of the former Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden). I am trying to illustrate to the Minister that this legislation is highly discriminatory, and unusually so. He is tampering with some of the basic tenets of British justice through this Bill—a principle has been established in the Supreme Court that he is attempting to reverse—and I want him to have in mind that he is trying to embed that discrimination in law. I hope and believe that that is not his primary motivation, but he must comprehend that before he takes this step.”
“One of the truisms we always utter in this House is that we all stand equal before the law, but I am afraid that where this legislation is concerned, that is just not true. The Minister would be unable to wield against me the powers he is seeking to bring in under this Bill; it would not be countenanced because I have no right to citizenship elsewhere. However, there are Members of this House against whom the Minister could wield that power. Although he could not wield it against me, he could wield it against two of my children, although not against the other one—I have three. He could wield it against the children of the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak); against the children of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon.”
“I am pleased to be opening this debate, although, given the turnout in the Chamber, it seems to be a minority interest among Members of Parliament, notwithstanding the fact that the legislation affects some of our most basic freedoms and rights. Before I address amendment 1, I hope you will forgive me, Madam Chair, if I briefly indulge in a preamble. There are a couple of issues that I want to impress on the Minister in the hope that he will respond favourably and, if not accept my amendment, agree to consider the principles it raises in the other place. Given the number of senior lawyers there, this legislation will be examined by some pretty stringent legal eyes. First, Madam Chair, I hope you will agree that we established on Second Reading that this Bill is highly discriminatory.”
“A judge should then make a judgment—the clue is in the name—on whether they are being efficient in their use of the legal system, rather than, as I am afraid happens from time to time, gaming it to their own advantage.”
“It would be impossible for me to do that remotely in some God-forsaken part of the world where I cannot Zoom in or I do not have the ability to communicate. It would be the same if I am unable to communicate with my legal team. I am sure the Minister can see that it would be unfair to interfere with someone’s ability to mount a proper defence—we should not forget that that person has already won an appeal—through the continuing denial of citizenship. The third ground, which we covered on Second Reading, is the Government’s taking their time, achieving their objective merely by dragging their heels and playing for time, hoping that something, perhaps something untoward, will turn up.”
“First, the judge could say no if there is a real and substantial threat of serious harm to that individual if they were denied access to the United Kingdom. Some of these people will be living or operating from extremely dangerous places. If that person is likely to be killed pending further appeal on the denial of their citizenship, it would seem grossly unfair, their having already won an appeal, to deny them access to the country. The second ground would be if their exclusion from the UK and the continuing of denial of citizenship would be deeply prejudicial to the conduct of their defence in an appeal that the Government subsequently decided to bring. In such a case, it would be impossible for me to defend myself at appeal in person, which should be my inalienable right as a British citizen.”
“As that has been decided by the Supreme Court, the Government cannot put up artificial barriers to our access, such as raising fees or making sure that we cannot physically get to the court. Indeed, as the Minister will know, I have an absolute right to defend myself in person at every stage of legal action, whether that is at first hearing or at subsequent appeal. All those powers or rights that I have as a citizen are affected by the legislation he is attempting to put through. My amendment essentially says three things. If the Government failed to win an appeal, but wished to continue to deprive me of my citizenship pending a further appeal, they must, when seeking leave to appeal from the judge, also ask the judge for leave to continue the deprivation of citizenship. The judge basically could say no in three circumstances.”
“The Minister is a fair man and a fair-minded man. He is quite right, and I am willing to countenance his appeal and give him the benefit of the doubt, and that is exactly what I am asking for the individuals subject to this legislation. He will know that we have certain inalienable constitutional rights as British citizens, which this legislation contravenes. The first is that we have a right to a fair hearing and that any action the Government take must be exercised fairly. That right has been established in the common law again and again, and most recently in 1994, in the case of ex parte Doody, when the court decided that Ministers must exercise their powers fairly. The second inalienable right, which has been decided in the Supreme Court, is that we all have a right to access to the courts, and that cannot be unfairly restricted.”
“Those who perpetrate such heinous acts overseas absolutely should be punished. As my hon. Friend will know, over the past 10 years I have been at the forefront of trying to ensure that as many criminals as possible end up behind bars, whatever the criminality might be, but the fact is that there is a principle in British law—we are all supposed to be equal—and the Bill breaches that principle very significantly. Moreover, what the Government are attempting to do not only reinforces that breach, but aims to twist and skew fundamental tenets of British justice that have been our right for centuries.”
“We currently have plenty of British citizens in high-security prisons who have committed acts as heinous as those committed by people whom we have deprived of British citizenship, but we have decided to deprive them of British citizenship purely because of their heritage and background—purely because they may be second-generation immigrants. As I pointed out on Second Reading, this legislation applies to every single Jewish member of the United Kingdom citizenry. They all have an inalienable right to Israeli citizenship, and as a result, in my view, they all have second-class citizenship. I do not think that that is right. I do not think that it is fair. I think that it drives a wedge into our society, and sows a seed of doubt at the back of everyone’s mind. This is the point that I was trying to make at the start.”
“I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but I would have more faith, or confidence, in his view if it applied to me as well, which it does not. What we are saying is that we can have two British citizens who commit the same heinous acts but receive two different kinds of treatment. One can have his or her citizenship removed and be expelled from the country, but another—say I were to do that—cannot. My view is that this is highly discriminatory, and tramples over some of the inalienable rights that my hon. Friend has mentioned.”
“This is purely because my parents may have come from another country, my skin may be of a different colour, or the country of the origin of my DNA may offer particular rights of citizenship. It is something arbitrary, about which I can do nothing. We might as well have a piece of legislation that says that people with red hair receive different treatment under the law, because there is nothing they can do about that.”
“I am not sure that I accept the hon. Gentleman’s logic. The test of mental capacity in the judicial system applies to everyone equally. If I were being prosecuted for an offence, I would be assessed for mental capacity, just as my hon. Friend would. The court would accept that there might be mitigations for his actions, or a requirement for a different disposal if he lacks mental capacity, but that is an external influence on him. It may come about owing to mental illness or some other kind of disability—who knows? The point is that this comes about through no reason other than birth. My citizenship, or my lack of citizenship, is conferred on me by reason of my birth—my parentage, or my heritage. I cannot do anything about it. I cannot be treated for it, as I can be for mental illness.”
“The hon. Lady has made a very good point. My problem with this legislation is that it places a question mark over certain citizens. I am not suggesting that the legislation is on everyone’s lips every day, but when it is used with increasing frequency, it does place a question mark over people’s status as citizens of the United Kingdom, and that, I think, should be a matter of concern.”
“That is the danger that I am trying to illustrate to him, and this is an area of law where I urge him to tread carefully and to think about the compromises that he is creating against our basic freedoms that we need to maintain, at the same time—I do not dispute his motivation—as protecting the United Kingdom in the best way he possibly can. I am just worried that he is taking a step too far.”
“Given that under the power that is being created people can be expelled on the basis that their presence is not conducive to the public good, we could see its being used in combination with other powers that have been expanded recently. Just last week, in controversial terms, the Minister proscribed a particular organisation operating in this country. I am sure he will be able to explain, but in my experience—I think he referred to this at the time—proscription has been reserved for terrorist organisations. As the Minister has indicated, this power is reserved for those who are terrorists. Could it be used against individuals who are convicted of crimes under that proscription?”
“I understand what the Minister is saying, and, as I said to him on Second Reading, I am not concerned about this power falling into his hands, but we do not know who will be in his position in the future, and we are never quite sure how the power might develop. As I have said, over the years we have seen an acceleration and an increase in what is a very draconian power that we should be taking extremely seriously. To deprive people of their citizenship is a profoundly serious thing to do, which may well—indeed, will—affect them for the rest of their lives. No doubt it will be done in the face of extremely serious offences on the Minister’s watch, but I am not sure that that will necessarily always be the case.”
“To refer back to the intervention by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), would the hon. Lady be interested to comment on this point? My understanding is that, under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, every UK citizen resident in Northern Ireland has a right to claim Irish citizenship. This Bill in effect means that every UK citizen resident in Northern Ireland can be deprived of their citizenship—have it removed by the Home Secretary—if that is conducive to the public good. That is another example of a whole group of people who would have a second class of citizenship.”
“Can the Minister tell the House whether, in his view, given that it is a subjective judgment by the Home Secretary, membership of a proscribed organisation would be prima facie grounds for the deprivation of citizenship?”
“I am very grateful to the Minister. I have just a couple of points to make, if I may. He is quite right that timetables are agreed and there can be case management reviews, but there is nothing the court can do to restore someone’s citizenship even if the Government do drag their heels. If he could explain to us, perhaps in a little more detail, what recourse I would have were I somebody who had won an appeal, was awaiting a further appeal by the Government against me and mounting a defence but the Government were dragging their heels and basically ignoring the case management reviews. I do not think it is the case that the judge would just dismiss the appeal out of hand. The Government could effectively take their time. I have a second question, if I may.”
“In the hope that the Minister will do the right thing, yes. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clauses 1 and 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill. The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair. Bill reported, without amendment. Third Reading”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Along with 6.5 million fellow members, I am a member of the local government pension scheme, through my proud membership of the London Pensions Fund Authority. We are uniquely affected by the Pension Schemes Bill, which we are about to contemplate. I am therefore concerned that it should be a hybrid Bill rather than a public Bill. I seek your guidance, please, as to whether the Bill has been properly certified as a public Bill and whether, in fact, it should be referred to the examiners to decide whether it should go through the hybrid Bill process. If not, and the House decides to proceed today, could the House of Lords independently decide through its examiners whether it is, in fact, a hybrid Bill?”
“I am afraid that essentially what has happened in France and in Canada, and what may happen under this legislation in the UK, is that the pension fund system effectively becomes a tool of Government fiscal policy. Effectively, absent capital spending available directly from the taxpayer, the Government direct capital spending from pension funds—from private money—and plug holes that they create by writing cheques that they cannot fulfil. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to that.”
“Once those assets become controlled and directed into state-favoured investment vehicles, which is what the Government are proposing through this Bill, the temptation for Ministers—not necessarily this Minister, but future Ministers—is to go further and push funds into politically convenient infrastructure projects that may prove to be financially disastrous. If that power had been available to the political team that decided to instigate the frankly financially disastrous HS2, and my pension fund had been put in it, where would I be now? I urge the Minister to think carefully about the responsibility for my retirement and my future. By me, I am referring to myself as a member of the local government pension fund. I am everyman for these purposes.”
“I urge the Government and the Minister please to examine carefully the evidence from the United States and elsewhere that shows that these very large funds do not necessarily produce better returns for investors. They may well be able to reduce costs because of scale, but I am afraid that the evidence is just not there on fundamental investment returns. My second point is on the danger of politicisation. We have seen elsewhere in the world where pension funds have been pushed into the Government’s priorities to their own detriment. In Canada, large pension funds have come under significant Government pressure to invest in state infrastructure. In France, pension fund surpluses have been directed into Government bond-buying programmes effectively against their will.”
“There is plenty of academic and empirical evidence that the picture is much more mixed. Often, smaller funds with better governance and a more focused investment strategy can perform better. These supertanker monopoly funds lose agility, lack accountability and become distant from pensioners and members of the fund. Their investment discretion and their ability to move quickly on investment decisions becomes sclerotic and bureaucratic. In particular, it is true that these megafunds specifically underperform when they invest in exactly the kind of illiquid assets that the Government are hoping to push them into: infrastructure and private equity.”
“If I am being generous, the ambition behind this Bill is to unlock capital that can be invested for the purposes of growth, but the methods it proposes are chillingly dirigiste and make the dangerous assumption that Whitehall knows best and that central direction by the Government can outperform the dispersed judgment of hundreds of experienced trustees managing diverse funds in varied contexts. Essentially, with this Bill the Minister is turning the pension fund industry into an element of Government procurement by the back door. There are three further points that I want to put on the radar on Second Reading. I understand that the Bill will go through, but I hope the Minister will take them into account. First, it is simply not true that megafunds perform better.”
“It is a defined-contribution and benefit scheme, and we have all paid into it. He is the second Minister in the space of 18 months to try to interfere with the local government pension scheme, and I stood in this Chamber and opposed Michael Gove, now Lord Gove in the other place, when he attempted to manipulate the local government pension scheme for political reasons. I urge the Minister to think twice before he does so. Secondly, I believe that this Bill is conceptually flawed. If we are being generous— [ Interruption. ] By all means, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth is free to go—I will not be mentioning her again. She was hesitantly rising to leave.”
“That is the definition of hybridity—if that is a word—so if we are going to stick to the rules in this House, we really should stick to them. I look forward to getting the letter that you promised me, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I know that you have asked me not to refer to procedure in the other place, but this is not the only Chamber that will be looking at this legislation. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who is just about to leave—I am sorry to detain her but will be brief—asked the Minister what the problem is. I repeat her question, but in relation to the local government pension scheme, I also ask what it has to do with him. It is my money, not his, and it is for scheme members to make decisions about how they wish their money to be used. It is not taxpayers’ money; it is my money.”
“I am a member of the local government pension scheme through my membership of the London Pension Funds Authority, and I am uniquely affected by this legislation, as are 6.5 million other former and current public sector workers. My view is that, under this Bill, those people’s rights are being denied, and that through the hybrid legislation process, they or their representatives should have the right to petition the Bill Committee and explain why they feel they are affected by investment pooling, the changes to fiduciary delegation and the asset consolidation. They are uniquely affected by this Bill, which strikes profoundly at the governance of the pension funds they have paid into in a way that it does not for other pension funds in this country.”
“You will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the late, great Frank Field—who was then the Pensions Minister—later called those changes a spectacular mistake that struck a hammer blow to the solvency of British pension funds and drove a dagger deep into the heart of the defined-benefit landscape, resulting in its extinction. As such, I am afraid that must rise to raise some very significant reservations about this bit of legislation—and not just its technical execution, but the political instinct that it betrays. While the Bill is wrapped in the warm words of reform and modernisation, what it actually does is centralise control, unsettle previously settled rights, and risk disenfranchising precisely those people whom it purports to help. To begin with the Bill’s technical aspects, I reiterate my point of order.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) on her speech. I am afraid, however, that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will have to forgive me for puncturing the air of bonhomie and positivity about the Bill, because I am really not content with it. Frankly, I feel it is my duty as an Opposition Back Bencher to be suspicious of consensus, particularly when the City of London is conspiring with a Labour Government to muck about with our pensions. We have seen that before. I am old enough to remember Gordon Brown’s so-called reforms in 1997, which struck a hammer blow to the British people’s pension funds.”
“Given that I have contracted with this pension fund under circumstances made clear to me when I contracted with it as part of my employment or otherwise, it is not necessarily for the Government to steam in and tell me what I should or should not do with my own money. That means I carry a certain element of risk—absolutely—but unless we are going full-throated for the total financial infantilisation of the British people, I cannot see that we have any other way to preserve our financial freedom and autonomy.”
“As I said, the evidence about performance across the population of funds is mixed. Some smaller funds do extremely well, because they have strong governance and a focused and nimble investment strategy. Some megafunds do reasonably well, because they can spread their risk across a variety of asset classes, but it is not a given that a big fund will perform better than a smaller fund. In fact, in certain circumstances smaller funds, because they have better accountability and can have a more focused investment strategy, may well perform better. Frankly, and this speaks to my hon. Friend’s point, it is for me as a member of the pension fund to decide what I want to do, performance or otherwise, because it is my money.”
“There is a larger question for us in this House about how much we have subtracted from the autonomy of the British people, and therefore how much blame attaches to us as politicians when their financial circumstances are not what they expect.”
“That may well be true, but that is a different question. There is a question about financial education and the ability of large numbers of our fellow citizens to understand these financial complexities. We have a large and professional independent financial adviser community, and all pension funds are required to have pension advisers who can speak to members, tell them what is going on and explain the decisions before them. I do think that over the years, such steps have disenfranchised the British people from their financial decisions, yet we hold them responsible for their debts, their mortgages and their future.”
“Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth said, to be solving a problem that does not exist. My third point was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier): who carries the can? What happens when the Minister tells my private pension scheme or the parliamentary pension scheme that it must invest in, for instance, HS2 and it turns out to be a disaster? What happens when whichever ministerial pet project rises to the top of the priority list for pension allocation—what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Whitehall to get its finance—and it all goes horribly wrong? I am sorry to quote Yeats to the Minister, but who will pay when that happens? When there is a deficit in defined-contribution pension funds that have been so directed by the Minister, who will pay for that deficit?”
“Yes, I have. I paid contributions through my employment at City Hall, as did my employer. Admittedly, it was a scheme based on a defined benefit, rather than a defined contribution, but that was the deal done with me on a settled contract, saying that this was what I would be provided for from my contribution. Every year, I review my pension benefit forecast. I am consulted by the fund about how it should conduct its affairs. I am asked to turn up to my pensioners’ conference to discuss with trustees how they are looking after my future. The point is that the Government are steaming in with absolutely no consultation with me as a pensioner and I have no right to be represented, although I am uniquely affected, beyond other pension schemes. I consider that to be high-handed and, as the hon.”
“We must reflect on the fact that an awful lot of investment decisions are made by trustees on their judgment—yes, on advice, but on their judgment—and that is a very hard thing to disprove. I am afraid I feel that the Bill is bulldozing into an area of highly sensitive financial structure, and is not taking care of the interests of those whom it purports to protect. It is reclassifying risk, it is recentralising power, and it is rewriting contracts that have hitherto been extant for many years. It is too important to my future, and the future of millions of pensioners, for us to rush into this consensus-driven Bill without proper examination in Committee, with pensioners and pension funds themselves able to petition, as they should be, under a hybrid Bill structure.”
“I have already given way to the Minister. He said that the Bill contained an opt-out for pension funds, but that is not strictly accurate. It does not create an opt-out for trustees; it creates an opportunity for them to request the ability to opt out from the regulator, with whom the discretion to opt out lies. It also reverses the burden of proof. Even if it is on their own judgment, the trustees must prove, empirically, that investing as the Minister so directs will be to the detriment of their fund. That is not a true opt-out. It is not at the discretion of the trustees. All they can do is request, and all they can do is try to offer whatever evidence they may have.”
“I do not dispute the fact that there are too many small funds that are suboptimal; my question is whether it should be the Government who correct that. If, for example, I am a member of a small suboptimal pension fund and the Government, through the Bill, consolidate it with another pension fund, and it turns out that this reduces my return, who carries the can?”
“I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from. She is keen on Government intervention in our pensions, but does she recognise that that represents a fairly significant transfer of investment risk, and that the Government should underwrite that risk in all fairness to pensioners, who may lose money as a result?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a good point, but does he accept that illiquid investments, by their very nature, tend to be more volatile, and that from a risk-adjusted point of view they therefore represent much higher risk for investors? He mentioned investment in life sciences companies; he will be aware of the collapse a couple of years ago of the fund led by Neil Woodford, which was a significant investor in illiquid private sector life sciences companies and, because of that illiquidity, collapsed. The point is that if we are mandated to do that stuff—I ask the same question as I asked the Minister—who will pay? Who carries the can?”
“My hon. Friend is making a strong speech and some strong points. Does he agree that the alarm bells he is ringing about financial education, the under-provision of pensions and longevity are even more stark and alarming next to the demographic change that means that over the next 30 years, we will see the number of workers per pensioner plummet? We will go from about 3.6 workers per pensioner at the moment to well under three by 2070, which means that even if pensions are not enough, the country will not be able to afford to plug the gap as it does at the moment?”
“I want to be clear—so that the House is clear—about the opt-out to which both Ministers have referred. Is it a correct interpretation to say that it is not an opt-out at the discretion of the trustees of the fund, and that the Bill requires them to apply to the regulator with evidence for the regulator to make a decision to grant them the ability to opt out? The idea that trustees are somehow free to make a decision in the interests of the fund is not actually correct, is it?”
“May we please have a statement, so that MPs can understand why the numbers are so small, why applications have been refused, and what the Government will do to increase the number? If we cannot have a statement, may we at least have a meeting between the relevant Minister and a cross-party delegation of MPs to discuss what more can be done to help these children in dire need?”