House of Commons
Prayers
09:34 - The House divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 34 - The Speaker declared that the Question was not decided because fewer than 40 Members had participated in the Division (Standing Order No. 41).
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163).
Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill
Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
As there have been no amendments and as the Bill received good and quite thorough debate in Committee, I do not intend to speak for long.
The Bill is an important measure that allows the Football Licensing Authority to provide advice about sports ground safety to other sports and organisations. The authority was set up in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster and over subsequent years the FLA and its key personnel have gained an extremely high reputation for their expertise and experience in football ground safety. They are the authors of the “Green Guide”, which has rightly been described as the leading publication in the world on sports ground safety. Indeed, there is no other organisation quite like the FLA in the world; yet despite building a world-class reputation, and with expertise that is relevant to all sports grounds, the authority remains restricted by statute to offering specific advice and guidance for domestic football stadiums only. Over the years, several sports bodies, organisations and clubs, and other countries, have approached the FLA to get the benefit of specific safety advice, but have had to be turned away.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
If my hon. Friend’s Bill becomes law and the authority takes on a wider remit, will it change its name to reflect that?
Jonathan Lord
It will indeed; it will become the Sports Grounds Safety Authority. I will mention that later.
Most important at present, the organisers of our 2012 Olympics would like to benefit from the full range of expertise and advice that the FLA has to offer.
The Bill will not change the safety regime that relates to football or, indeed, other sports grounds, and the authority’s licensing functions will continue to relate only to football grounds. It will simply allow other sports and organisations to seek advice should they wish to do so, and to reflect that wider remit the Football Licensing Authority will be renamed the Sports Grounds Safety Authority.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I know of the excellent work done by the authority and its expertise, because there is an excellent football ground in my constituency at Gillingham, whose team will be promoted this year. Have the other bodies to which my hon. Friend refers been consulted to ensure that they want to continue such work?
Jonathan Lord
Yes, there has been a lot of consultation, and that was covered thoroughly in Committee. Indeed, I should like to thank colleagues for the cross-party support that the Bill has received so far.
I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and other hon. Members from Merseyside and Sheffield for their support, given that the FLA was originally set up to try to ensure that a Hillsborough-type tragedy could never happen again at one of our football grounds. The grief that resulted from that terrible day can never be fully assuaged, and even now, after more than 21 years, we continue to salute the fortitude of those who survived and those who lost loved ones.
It is entirely fitting that other sports should henceforth be able to access the good practice and improved safety that the authority has helped to ensure for football over the past two decades.
As we prepare to welcome the nations of the world to London and our other venues for the Olympics and to host the most prestigious sporting event in the world it is surely only right that we take every measure possible to ensure the safety of our guests and spectators. This Bill will help in that endeavour, and I commend it to the House.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) on his Bill. To legislate so early in his parliamentary career is indeed a step that he has undertaken effectively, well and eloquently. I am pleased to say that, bearing in mind of course the emphasis that he gave to safety, which must override all our approaches to such matters, the Opposition are very happy to support the Bill.
I have discussed the Bill with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), and I believe that he has discussed it with the hon. Gentleman. Of course, all such legislation is coloured by the dreadful events at Hillsborough. I should like to align myself with his comments about the Hillsborough families, their continued fortitude and their importance in all considerations that relate to sports grounds, as we must now say—not just football grounds—and, of course, it makes good sense to use the expertise and experience that we have acquired over the years to the benefit of sports grounds not just in the UK but anywhere.
It is important that the sporting lead that this country will show in the next year and, we hope, beyond will bring experience to bear for all those countries across the world that can learn from our strong sporting tradition. So I say well done to the hon. Gentleman for proposing the Bill and for speaking this morning. The Bill has our full support.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) on promoting the Bill. He has made a terrific effort in coming to Parliament with the idea to improve safety and taking it forward. I have played a lot of sport, including cricket for Kent schools and in football trials for Chatham Town and Sittingbourne amateur teams.
Sport plays a key part in our history and culture, and it absolutely right that the safety of those who go to watch it is of paramount importance. In my constituency, there is a fantastic football club, which is in division two, and about 5,000 people attend every match. The authority’s first-rate safety work is of the utmost importance. It is only right and proper that other organisations and sporting groups can share its skills and expertise, especially, as my hon. Friend said, given the upcoming sporting events such as the Olympics, cricket test matches year on year and a host of others.
The key thing is people’s safety. Ensuring that people can attend such events safely is of the utmost importance. This is about making sport a family event—and it is becoming that. It is a key part of our culture that families go to watch sporting events, and people want to know that, when they do so, their loved ones will be safe. Therefore, when an organisation has a proven track record of providing such safety expertise, it is completely illogical to have a statute that stops it sharing that expertise. It is right and proper to deal with the issue with the utmost importance and swiftness. On that basis, I fully support my hon. Friend and will do everything that I can to support the Bill, because it provides a good way to move forward.
The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) for his leadership and hard work in progressing the Bill. As other hon. Members have said, it is quite an achievement to get legislation on to the statute book inside one’s first year in Parliament. Most of us fail to do that in any way, shape or form over a considerably longer period. It is a remarkable achievement, and I say well done to him.
May I put on record our thanks to the Opposition? The Bill has its genesis in the previous Government, who tried with private Members’ Bills and a Home Office Bill to get such legislation on to the statute book. I am grateful to the Opposition for their help and support in achieving that for this Bill.
Unsurprisingly, the Government strongly support the Bill, as we want to allow the FLA to build on its important role in football ground safety, without compromising the safety function in any way.
I want to make a few quick comments about the FLA. It has played a crucial role in transforming spectator safetyat football grounds over the past 20 years. It receives grant-in-aid funding of just under £1.2 million a year—a relatively small sum for such an important task—to carry out its statutory functions, including advising on spectator and venue safety issues at football grounds in England. It is a pretty lean and efficient organisation, and it offers excellent value for money. It has nine inspectors, who are based in the regions and who work tirelessly with football clubs and local authorities. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House will have come across them in some way, shape or form. It is a world leader in sports ground safety. Indeed, it is the author of the world’s leading sports safety publication, which I imagine you regularly take to bed with you,Mr Speaker, called the “Green Guide”. In short, its expertise is valued and respected nationally and internationally.
Governments of all colours have accepted, however, that it is important to recognise and, vitally, to build on that success. The Bill gives us an opportunity to raise the profile of the FLA’s work. Crucially, it is also gives us the opportunity to share that knowledge and experience with other sports and other nations. We are absolutely committed to maintaining the services and standards provided to football, but there is a unique opportunity to extend the FLA’s reach and remit for wider benefit. Of course, the London Olympics will be upon us in 18 months’ time, so it is important and timely to do this today.
I am glad that the Bill has enjoyed wide cross-party support. It has been about 10 years in the making. It is greatly to my hon. Friend’s credit that he has brought it to fruition, and I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
This modest Bill seeks to amend the law of succession in England and Wales in three instances: first, where a person disclaims—that is, rejects—an inheritance, or secondly, where a person is disqualified from receiving an inheritance by virtue of the forfeiture rule. The rule is defined in section 1 of the Forfeiture Act 1982 as meaning the rule of public policy that, in certain circumstances, precludes a person who has unlawfully killed another from acquiring a benefit in consequence of the killing. Thirdly, the Bill addresses the anomaly in the present law whereby the children of a minor who is entitled to inherit an interest in the estate of an intestate person, but who dies unmarried and without entering a civil partnership before the age of 18, are unable to inherit their parent’s interest in that estate.
The Bill is not expected to impose any additional burden on the Consolidated Fund, and no change in the work load of any Government Department or agency is anticipated on its implementation.
Clause 3, as I said, corrects an anomaly in the law that discriminates against certain minor children. At present, children who are alive when their grandparent dies intestate will not inherit any share of their grandparent’s estate if their parent dies unmarried or uncivil-partnered before reaching the age of 18. Under my Bill, the children will be able to inherit their parent’s share. However, I wish to make it clear that the clause is narrow in its impact.
The minor grandchildren who will benefit are those who are alive—that includes any child en ventre sa mère—at the death of the intestate grandparent. I do not think the Bill is in any way ambiguous, but I wanted to place it on the record that the change in the law being made by clause 3 merely corrects an anomaly. It does not rewrite the policy of the statutory trusts, which limit beneficiaries to those alive at the date of death. Therefore, a child conceived after the death has no entitlement under the intestacy rules, and my Bill does not seek to alter that position. If it were to do so, it could create a new anomaly in attempting to resolve an existing one.
I am most grateful for the support that I have received from all parts of the House, particularly the courteous and helpful assistance that I have received from the Minister and his departmental team. I would like to mention a few people to whom I am most indebted: Mark Ormerod, the chief executive of the Law Commission; Joel Wolchover, who is also with the Law Commission; Paul Hughes and his team from the Ministry of Justice; Sarah Davies in the Public Bill Office; my hon. Friend the Minister; the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), who led for the Opposition thus far; the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who is with us today in his stead; and my own researcher, Matthew Thomas. I am indebted to them all and I am grateful to the Justice Committee, which has indicated its support for the proposal.
The Bill is intended to make our law fairer by removing technicalities that run contrary to the general policy of the law of succession. It will allow direct descendants to inherit ahead of more distant relatives on intestacy. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) on his presentation of the Bill throughout. As he said, I come late to it, but having read the earlier proceedings, I know that it was extensively and fully debated on Second Reading, but that the Committee stage lasted some eight minutes. Both of those are testament to the fact that the Bill has been thoroughly and professionally presented, in a way that avoided controversy. The important point, as was said at those stages, is that 200 people a year will be affected by the changes. For those people, it will make the law fairer. As has been noted, its provisions will do so at a time of great tragedy for some people.
The merits of the Bill have been sufficiently discussed, so I shall not restate them. My colleagues in the shadow Ministry of Justice team, my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who supported the Bill from the outset, and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), who helped ensure its smooth passage through the Second Reading and Committee stages, have reminded me of its merits, and I am in full agreement.
The Bill introduces provisions that the previous Government had intended to introduce following the 2009 Law Commission report, which highlighted the unfairness of the current law. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South, who said that we were disappointed that the civil law reform Bill that we had intended to introduce was abandoned by the Government in January this year. It incorporated similar recommendations to those that we are now passing. In that sense, the Bill has done what the Government would not do, but I note that it has the Government’s support, which I welcome.
In conclusion, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his success with the swift passage of the Bill so far. It is a timely Bill, supported on both sides of the House, and it focuses on an issue in the law with great skill, making it a template for the successful private Member’s Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) on his success in steering his Bill to Third Reading without amendment, and clearly with considerable support from all parts of the House. I hope this success continues.
The Bill, as has been said, is a narrow but worthwhile piece of technical law reform that will make the law fairer. It overcomes the problem that, where an inheritance has been disclaimed or forfeited, people claiming through the person who disclaimed or whose inheritance was forfeited cannot inherit. The Bill allows them to do so by introducing a deemed predecease rule. It achieves a similar outcome where a person loses a benefit on intestacy by dying a single parent under the age of 18. In this case the Bill allows his or her children living, or at least conceived, at the death of the intestate to inherit the benefit that he or she, their minor parent, would have received, had he or she lived long enough.
These changes will bring the law of succession more into line with the general policy that, in the absence of a clear intention in a will, descendants should be preferred over remoter relatives. The Bill implements, with modifications, recommendations of the Law Commission. I am grateful to the commission for its work in developing the reforms and for its continuing support for the Bill.
Let me consider the Bill in a little more detail. Clause 1 applies where a person dies intestate or partially intestate. In these circumstances, after the deceased person’s debts have been paid, his or her estate or, in cases of partial intestacy, such part of it as is not distributed by the will, is passed by the personal representatives to the persons entitled to inherit under the intestacy rules. These rules, which have been amended from time to time, were introduced by the Administration of Estates Act 1925. They are intended to give effect to what it is thought the deceased person would have specified in his or her will had he or she made one. This is clearly a very general aspiration, as no one can know what the deceased person would have specified had he or she made a will, but we can be reasonably confident that closer relations are generally more likely to be left something than more distant ones and that direct descendants are likely to be preferred over collateral descendants.
Therefore, the general policy on intestacy is that, once the interest of any spouse or civil partner has been satisfied, the property of the deceased should pass to closer blood relatives before more distant ones. The children of the deceased, for example, should be preferred to siblings of the deceased. This general policy is overridden if a person is convicted of the unlawful killing of another, or of aiding, abetting or counselling another to do so. In such cases, he or she is automatically disqualified from inheriting from the victim under the forfeiture rules. This is a rule of public policy that states that a person cannot inherit property from someone whom he or she has unlawfully killed. It applies in murder and manslaughter cases. However, persons convicted of lesser offences than murder may be permitted relief to inherit the victim’s property by the court under the Forfeiture Act 1982.
Clause 1 is necessary because in 2000 the Court of Appeal decided in re DWS deceased that where a person forfeits an inheritance on intestacy because he or she has killed the person from whom he or she would have inherited, his or her children will also be disinherited. This is because the relevant intestacy rules provide that a grandchild can inherit from a grandparent only if his or her parent—the grandparent’s child—has already died. In that case, the parent had not died but had forfeited his inheritance by murdering his parents. The decision in re DWS deceased is inconsistent with the general policy underlying the law of intestacy. It is unfair that the grandchild should be disinherited in these circumstances. The same situation arises in relation to disclaimer, which is the legal term used to describe the situation where a beneficiary under a will or intestacy rejects an inheritance. The children of a person who disclaims an inheritance on intestacy cannot inherit through him or her because he or she is still alive.
Subsections (1) and (2) of clause 1 solve these problems by introducing a deemed predeceased rule into the intestacy rules. The rule is set out in new section 46A. The effect of the new section is that where a person forfeits an inheritance because he or she is convicted of murder, for example, he or she is deemed, for the purposes of the intestacy rules only, to have died before the victim. Similarly, new section 46A deems the person who disclaims an inheritance to have died before the intestate. The legal device of deeming a person to be dead, which is set out in new section 46A, enables the children of the person who has forfeited or disclaimed the inheritance to inherit their intestate grandparent’s property in accordance with the intestacy rules.
Before moving on to the remainder of clause 1, I will comment on subsections (3) and (4) of new section 46A. These make it clear that the deemed predeceased rule is not intended to prevent the offender from inheriting where the court, in the exercise of the discretion it is given by the Forfeiture Act 1982, decides that an inheritance is not to be forfeit. Section 2 of the 1982 Act, to which subsection (3) of new section 46A refers, gives the court the power to modify the effect of the forfeiture rule where the offender has not been convicted of murder, for example by allowing the killer to inherit all or part of the estate.
Mr Djanogly
My right hon. Friend makes a fair remark that gets us back to the core of what we are debating: introducing fairness into the process.
The rule introduced by new section 46A gives way to any order made by the court under section 2 of the 1982 Act. Subsection (4) of new section 46A defines what is meant by the forfeiture rule for the purposes of the Bill. It does so by adopting the definition of the forfeiture rule in section (1) of the 1982 Act, which provides that the forfeiture rule means the rule of public policy, which in certain circumstances precludes the person who has unlawfully killed another from acquiring a benefit in consequence of the killing. For these purposes, references to a person who has unlawfully killed another include a person who has unlawfully aided, abetted, counselled or procured the death of the other person.
Subsections (3) and (4) of clause 1 make two consequential amendments to the intestacy rules. Subsection (3) amends section 47(1) of the 1925 Act, which is quite a complicated provision defining the statutory trusts for descendants on intestacy, because section 47(1) currently provides that no grandchild or more remote descendant may inherit under the statutory trusts if his or her parent is still alive when the intestate grandparent dies. This is perfectly sensible in the generality of cases, but it would frustrate the intended operation of new section 46A, which, where it applies, treats the offender as having died before the deceased so that the offender’s children—the victim’s grandchildren—can inherit. Clause 1(3) removes this potential inconsistency by making section 47(2) of the 1925 Act subject to new section 46A.
Clause 1(4) also amends section 47 of the 1925 Act by inserting new subsection (4A), which states that subsections (2) and (4) of section 47 of the 1925 Act are subject to new section 46A. The change is necessary because subsections (2) and (4) of section 47 cover some of the same ground as new section 46A. Section 47(2) provides that where no descendant of the intestate attains a vested interest by reaching the age of 18, or marrying or entering a civil partnership under that age, the estate is to be distributed as if the intestate had died without issue. Section 47(4) applies a similar rule to the statutory trust for siblings of the intestate or issue of such siblings, so that only those members of that class who achieve the age of 18, or marry or enter into a civil partnership under that age, will be included.
The new subsection (4A) of section 47 of the 1925 Act, inserted by clause 1(4) of the Bill, ensures that any duplication with section 47(2) and 47(4) is avoided. Clause 1 implements the recommendations of the Law Commission in its 2005 report on the forfeiture rules and the law of succession. The clause does not, however, contain exactly the same provisions as the equivalent clause in the draft Bill that was published with the Law Commission’s report in 2005, and indeed replicated in large part in the draft civil law reform Bill published for pre-legislative scrutiny by the previous Government in December 2009.
The difference is that those earlier draft Bills contained specific provisions intended to ensure that in forfeiture cases the killer was prevented from gaining any benefit from the inheritance that would, under the terms of the draft Bill, pass to his or her children. Those special trust provisions attracted a good deal of criticism from witnesses to the Justice Committee and from people who replied to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the draft civil law reform Bill, including the Bar Council and the Law Society, which represent the majority of legal practitioners likely to have to advise on that area of the law. The overall view of those two respondents was that legislation already exists to protect an infant beneficiary’s inheritance in forfeiture cases if such protection were needed.
Both organisations referred to section 116 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, which provides the court with a discretion to pass over any prior claims to a grant and to appoint someone else if, by reason of any special circumstances, it appears necessary or expedient to do so. The Bar Council also mentioned section 114(2) of the 1981 Act, which provides that, wherever a minority interest arises under a will or on intestacy, a grant should be made to a trust corporation or to two individuals, unless it appears to the court to be expedient that there should be a sole personal representative. The Bar Council concluded:
“On balance we consider the [provisions safeguarding an infant after forfeiture] to be unhelpful, and likely to lead to an increased expense in the administration of estates in circumstances which are bound to be tragic but are otherwise unpredictable.”
We considered those criticisms carefully and discussed them with the Law Commission and chief chancery master Winegarten, who would, with his fellow judges in the chancery division, have to administer the provisions. We concluded that the special trust provisions would be unnecessary, problematic and expensive to operate. The existing law, which already imposes a trust for the benefit of minor children and gives the court power to supervise the administration of estates, gives effective and adequate protection.
Both the Law Commission and chief master Winegarten were content with the omission of the special trust provisions from the Bill, and we welcome my right hon. Friend’s decision to remove them from it. Clause 1 will, as he said in his earlier intervention, make the law fairer, and we wish that part of the Bill very well.
I thought it might be helpful for hon. Members to have some idea of how clause 1 will work in practice. We are dealing with forfeiture on intestacy. In this particular situation, John has murdered his father Bob and is disqualified under the forfeiture rule from inheriting his estate. Bob did not leave a will, so his estate will be distributed under the intestacy rules. John is one of three children whom Bob had with his late wife, Janet. In this situation, John would have been entitled to a third share of Bob’s estate, but the operation of the forfeiture rule in succession prevents him from inheriting.
John has two children, Rosie and Ben. Under the current law, Rosie and Ben cannot inherit John’s share of their grandfather’s estate, because although John is disqualified from inheriting under the forfeiture rule, he is alive, and the intestacy rule provides that, for a grandchild to inherit from his or her deceased grandparent, his or her parent must have pre-deceased the intestate. Clearly, in the forfeiture situation the offender is still alive when the killing takes place.
As a consequence of the interaction of the forfeiture rule and law of intestacy, John’s interest will go back into the estate and pass to Bob’s other blood relatives or, if there is none, to the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duke of Cornwall as bona vacantia, under the law relating to ownerless goods. Under the proposed new rule, however, John will be deemed to have died immediately before his father, enabling his children, Rosie and Ben, to inherit his share of his father’s estate. A similar outcome will be achieved when an interest on intestacy has been disclaimed or rejected.
So, if I can, Mr Speaker, I shall move on to clause 2, which amends the Wills Act 1837. The amendments make analogous provision to clause 1, which deals with intestacy in the cases where the deceased leaves a will and an inheritance is disclaimed or forfeited by the intended recipient. Clause 2 is necessary because section 33 of the 1837 Act provides that, where a child of a testator dies before the testator, leaving grandchildren who are alive at the death of the testator, the gift to the child takes effect as a gift to the grandchildren. To give effect to the testator’s wishes, which is the paramount principle of the law of wills, clause 2 inserts new section 33A into the 1837 Act. In all those cases, however, if the will indicates that the testator had different intentions, it will prevail.
Having explained in some lesser or more detail clauses 1 and 2, Mr Speaker, I think it appropriate now—
Mr Speaker
Order. The House is attending very closely to the development of the Minister’s thesis and is, I think, indebted to him. If, however, he were under the impression that there was an obligation upon him to treat in detail each component clause, I would want to dispel any such misapprehension. He is not obliged to do so, and if he felt inclined to move towards a conclusion to his thesis I do not think that there would be vociferous objection in the House.
Mr Djanogly
I am very pleased, Mr Speaker, to hear that the House would have no objections to my moving on. In some ways, you have pre-empted my thoughts on the matter, and to that extent I am delighted to wind up my speech. Just to say, finally, that from the Government’s point of view we wish the Bill very well on its further progress.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
13:51 - The House divided: - Ayes: 3 / Noes: 33 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is a Bill to make provision to require all institutions of further and higher education in receipt of public funds to allocate places on merit, something that I understand my right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for universities and higher education very much supports. I hope, therefore, that the Government will support the Bill today; and if they do not I hope that the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who I am pleased to see on the Front Bench, will spell out in detail exactly why not.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
I am delighted that my hon. Friend has given way at this early stage. There is no doubt about our shared commitment to the principle that people should advance on the basis of merit. It would clearly be precipitous for me to say more about the Bill, but I give him the absolute assurance that that principle guides all that we do in the Department, and that it is a view shared by all Ministers who have responsibilities in this area.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is obviously demonstrating that he has an open mind on this subject, which is more than I can say for the Government in relation to another Bill that I have on the Order Paper, the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Bill. Yesterday, before he had even had a chance to the listen to the arguments for that Bill, the Leader of the House said that the Government would be against it. I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has an open mind on this issue.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that there is a lot of confusion at the moment, among universities in particular and other institutions of higher education, because the Government seem to be at sixes and sevens in developing their policy in this area. Originally, the Government said that they would publish guidance to the Office for Fair Access by the end of January to enable it to give guidance to universities by the middle of February on their admissions policies for the academic year starting in 2012. Despite full guidance having been issued in the middle of February, with the Minister for Universities and Science saying in a press statement at the time that OFFA would be able to advise universities by the end of February, as of now, in the first week of March, there is still no information from OFFA on the principles that universities should apply for next year’s admissions.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
On the subject of guidance, may I ask why my hon. Friend has, unusually, not published explanatory notes and guidance to his Bill?
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. The reason is that I thought that my Bill was exemplary in putting forward an argument in simple language that everyone should be able to understand, and that it did not need any guidance. I will come to the detail of the Bill shortly. I hope that, having read the Bill, he accepts that it is plain about what it seeks to achieve.
Mr Chope
My right hon. Friend has just succeeded in getting his Bill through its Second Reading, Committee stage and Third Reading very fast. I hope that my Bill will make similarly rapid progress. That is why I look forward eagerly to hearing what the Government’s attitude to it will be. As a general rule, I am not sure that the length of the explanatory notes, or the fact that there are explanatory notes, is a good guide to whether a Bill will make progress. If I recall correctly, the Wreck Removal Convention Bill, which was brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and which we will discuss in a fortnight, has quite extensive explanatory notes. I am not sure that that is necessarily an indication of how much time will be spent discussing it.
I return now to one of the principal reasons for my concern about the guidance. The full guidance that was issued by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Minister for Universities and Science to the director of fair access in February was based on the draft guidance that was issued on 7 December 2010. Paragraph 6.1 of the draft guidance was very clear:
“There have been no changes in the legal constraints on your powers as Director of Fair Access. You are not empowered to interfere in institutions’ decisions about the admissions of students and you may only set conditions that clearly relate to promoting participation and access.”
When the final guidance was issued last month, that paragraph was omitted. I tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister for Universities and Science, asking why it had been omitted. Unfortunately, the fact that I received a holding reply rather than an immediate substantive reply makes it obvious that he had to think about why it had been omitted. Eventually, he came back with an answer pursuant to the holding answer of 16 February:
“Paragraph 6.1 was unnecessary as it provided no new information.”—[Official Report, 17 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 981W.]
I am not convinced by that and remain very suspicious. Indeed, the full guidance is more extensive than the draft guidance. The full guidance is some seven and a half pages long, whereas the draft was only five and a half pages long. That clearly expressed paragraph is omitted from the final guidance.
I share the concern of many people in universities that the Government are trying to increase regulation and interference to tick boxes on social engineering and social mobility, and that that is ill conceived.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
In the guidance—I am not sure on what date the guidance I have was published—have not the Government directed OFFA that it must be “fair, transparent and evidence-based” in all that it does? Does my hon. Friend have an issue with that? It seems quite clear from the guidance that I have read.
Mr Chope
Well, we will have to see what happens. If one looks at the detailed guidance—I do not have the paragraph to which my hon. Friend is referring to hand—one can see that it is full of contradictions. The director of fair access said that, based on the guidance, he would issue advice to universities before the end of February to meet their tight time scales. The fact that he has not yet done so perhaps indicates that he is finding it a bit problematic.
This issue even appears in today’s newspapers. In The Times, there is a letter from John Foster, a former chairman of the council at the university of Leicester, expressing strong concern about the Government
“digging itself into an ever-deeper hole”
over universities and student fees. In particular, he states that the Government
“now proposes to penalise some universities that wish to charge the maximum level by cutting their student numbers and diverting thus-frustrated applicants to lesser institutions.”
He states:
“Many will regard this as confirmation that the Government is viscerally opposed to students in general and to higher education in particular. Others will interpret it as a deliberate discouragement to excellence and a reward to mediocrity. I have no doubt that it will weaken the international standing and competitiveness of some of our finest universities.”
Such comments are coming thick and fast from people on the front line in higher education, and they reflect the concerns of, for example, the Russell group of leading universities. It issued a press release on 10 February commenting on the Government’s guidance to OFFA, which made a number of good points and emphasised that
“admission to university is and should be based on merit, and any decisions about admissions must also respect the autonomy of institutions and maintain high academic standards.”
That is four-square with my Bill, because clause 1, which is headed “Duty to allocate places on merit”, states:
“It shall be the duty of all institutions within the further or higher education sectors in receipt of public funds to consider applicants domiciled in England for any course of study below post-graduate level on the basis of merit alone unless the circumstances in section 3 apply.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend explain why that applies to people domiciled in England, but the Bill would have effect in England and Wales?
Mr Chope
Yes, I will explain that to my hon. Friend. It is because under our conventions, it is not possible to have an Act that applies exclusively to England. Acts have to extend either to England and Wales, to England, Wales and Scotland or to Northern Ireland as well. Although my Bill has to extend to England and Wales, it would actually apply only in England, because the issues that are the subject of it are reserved matters for the Welsh Assembly. I did not think it would be right for the House to interfere with the Welsh Assembly’s discretion on them.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
But does that mean that a Welshman who applied to Oxford could be admitted not on merit, but an Englishman who applied would have to be admitted exclusively on merit?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is very good at interpreting the words in the Bill, and that is obviously a factual situation. He will know from his constituents who apply to universities outside England that they are sometimes concerned whether they will be accepted purely on merit or whether, for example, a different set of criteria applies to students from Scotland compared with those from England applying to Scottish universities. I recognise that that is a potentially contentious matter, and I thought it would be better to limit the scope of the Bill in the way that I have.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
As vice-chairman of the all-party group on universities, I hope to speak a little later.
Does my hon. Friend feel that a higher, philosophical question that should be uppermost in our consideration of the Bill is the importance of underpinning the freedom of our universities? It seems to me that they are crucibles of free inquiry, free speech and the freedoms that we as a society cherish. Although I recognise the intent behind his Bill, I worry about any Bill that places more burdens on our universities. Does he agree that the principle of freedom should be sacrosanct?
Mr Chope
Absolutely, and my Bill is designed to promote the freedom of universities to decide the issues in question for themselves and to restrict the Government’s ability to interfere in the governance of our universities, many of which are international institutions of high repute. They are expanding and raising their standards in the global higher education context, and they are highly respected. They do not need an interfering Government, who are pledged to reduce regulation, increasing the regulatory burden on them. However, that, of course, is exactly what the Government’s current policy seems to be.
Julian Smith
As I understand it, one of the biggest problems that the Government are trying to solve is that people of merit from socially disadvantaged backgrounds have not been getting to good further and higher education institutions. Does it not concern my hon. Friend that the Bill could restrict such people’s ability to get into our universities?
Mr Chope
Looking at the Bill, I do not see how that can be the case. I define merit in clause 2 as
“academic ability, potential and aptitude as assessed by the institution of further or higher education”,
thereby emphasising not just academic ability as reflected in exam results but potential and aptitude, to be assessed exclusively by the institution in receipt of an application. That emphasises the importance of giving institutions the freedom to make the judgment themselves.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman explain what would happen if, once the Bill had been passed, an institution did not admit students on the basis of merit?
Mr Chope
That institution would be in breach of a statutory duty, so all the remedies that flow from such a breach would be available to anybody who wished to challenge it. Putting a mirror to what the hon. Gentleman says, I believe that the same problem is writ large in the guidance to OFFA. It looks as though it will tell universities that are considering charging more than £6,000 a year in fees from 2012, “Unless you come forward with an access agreement that we support, you will not be able to charge those higher fees.” What will happen if a university applies to charge fees above £6,000—we have read in the newspapers in recent days about some that intend to do so—and OFFA tells them that they cannot? What will the sanction be? Ultimately, the less interference there is in the process, the better.
It is a pity that it is necessary to encapsulate in a Bill such as this something that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science has said is already as plain as a pikestaff in legislation—the idea that the Government cannot and should not interfere in universities’ access arrangements. My problem, and the problem of a lot of people involved, is that although the Government say that, the whole rationale of OFFA’s director seems to be to interfere rather than leave judgments to the universities themselves.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
One must consider the concept of interference alongside the concept of fair access to universities for people from less privileged backgrounds, because there is a difference between the two. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that such people can go to the highest-performing universities, and if we can assist in that through legislation, it is right and proper to do so.
Mr Chope
The essence of what my hon. Friend says is in the phrase “if we can assist in that”. I do not believe that the Government can assist in that. The premise of what he says is that the universities themselves do not want to facilitate wider access or ensure that the best people can gain access on merit. All the evidence that I have seen suggests that they want to achieve that aim, but they resent the fact that the Government are using OFFA to try to impose additional criteria on them. That is certainly the view of the Russell group and other universities.
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend’s perspective and the Government’s are close. We have a perfectly proper desire to widen access in the way that has been described, but we differ on the admissions system. I shall speak at some length about that when I reply, but he needs to address it too.
Mr Chope
I shall certainly address that, and I look forward to responding at the end of the debate to the Minister’s comments.
Perhaps one way to address the issue is to look at what the Russell group says. It states:
“We share the Government’s commitment that every student with the qualifications, potential and determination whatever their background has the opportunity to gain a place at a leading university”,
but emphasises that
“the most important reason why too few poorer students even apply to leading universities is that they are not achieving the required grades at school.”
If the main reason why students do not apply is that they do not achieve the required grades, why do the Government, who are responsible for almost all primary and secondary education in the country, not concentrate on that problem, rather than interfering in an area of education in which they have not hitherto interfered? That is a typical approach of the Government: rather than focus on their failure to undertake their responsibilities, they try to introduce more regulation for things that run perfectly adequately. That is the difficulty.
Rehman Chishti
I was here for the universities debate when the Government made it quite clear that through the pupil premium and other support, they will help to ensure that students from less privileged backgrounds get access to universities and improve their grades. I agree with my hon. Friend that we must ensure that those from less privileged backgrounds are given the opportunity and support they need to ensure that they get those results. I was the first in my family to go to university and I went on to become a lawyer and an MP. People like me need such help, but the Government have already committed in the universities package, which includes the pupil premium and other support, to support those from less privileged backgrounds.
Mr Chope
It is one thing to make a commitment and another to deliver on it. I hope the Government can deliver on that one, but my response to my hon. Friend is that if they concentrate on delivering on it through the pupil premium and other measures, they will not need to interfere in the right of the universities at the other end of the system to choose people on merit.
My point remains: there is something desperately wrong with how many our schools operate. They do not allow the full potential of their pupils to be realised in the form of exam results, which is one barrier to access.
The Russell group states:
“The main problem is that students who come from low-income backgrounds and/or who have attended comprehensive schools are much less likely to achieve the highest grades than those who are from more advantaged backgrounds and who have been to independent or grammar schools”,
and points out that
“this gap in achievement according to socio-economic background is getting wider. Too many students don’t choose the subjects at A-level which will give them the best chance of winning a place on the competitive courses at leading universities.”
That is why everyone in the House, including the Minister and the shadow Minister, will be pleased with the Russell group’s informed choices initiative. It tries to ensure that students choose the right subjects at A-level for the courses they are thinking of taking at university.
My daughter is studying veterinary medicine at university. Had she not discussed her preferences with her teachers before choosing her GCSEs, she might not have made the right subject choices. She made those choices on the basis of information provided to her, but quite often people who aspire to take veterinary or medical courses at university do not take the hard subjects in their preceding exams to enable them to do so.
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend once again hits on a key reason for the failure of many students to achieve their potential—the lack of advice and guidance. I hope he will take this opportunity to welcome the Government’s commitment to an all-age career service to deal with some of the disparities he describes.
Mr Chope
Absolutely—I am not pouring cold water on that initiative. The Government have demonstrated over the past several months that they share many of our concerns about the failure of the education system to deliver.
The statistics show a desperately serious situation. In the last 15 years, the proportion of A-level students at comprehensive schools who achieve three A grades or more has increased from 4.2% to 8.2%, while the proportion at independent schools has increased from 15.1% to 32.3%. That is a commentary on the previous Administration’s lack of achievement. Anything that can be done to put that right would be a good thing.
Ian Lucas
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but the statistics that he has presented are grossly misleading, because they take no account whatever of the restrictions on admission to many fee-paying schools, which do not apply to schools in the comprehensive sector. He should at least recognise that when he presents such figures.
Mr Chope
They are not my figures—they are from the Department for Education, but they speak for themselves. However, if the hon. Gentleman wants more figures to confirm what a miserable failure the previous Government were in that respect, I should tell him that 29.9% of all students who got three A or A* grades at A-level in 2009-10 were at comprehensive schools, which was 8.2% of the total taking A-levels at comprehensives, but that those comprehensives accounted for 46.7% of all A-level students. That shows that the comprehensive schools just did not deliver on the potential of the students whom they taught.
Mr Hayes
I recognise, and indeed acknowledge, that prior attainment, as well as advice and guidance, is a key factor in subsequent achievement. My hon. Friend might remind the shadow Minister that, as C. S. Lewis said:
“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”
It is a long road for the Opposition and many finger posts.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend the Minister is great with quotes, and I notice that the shadow Minister does not wish to respond to that one yet—he will have the chance to do so later.
Let us not think that the universities are doing nothing. They are trying to encourage people to apply and are engaging in outreach initiatives. The Russell group alone is investing £75 million a year in initiatives designed to help the least advantaged students to win places at university, which is quite a lot of money.
George Freeman
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. Does not the fact that the universities, whose only interest is in academic excellence, find it necessary to make such investment, tell us everything we need to know about the lack of need to regulate them further?
George Freeman
I am sorry; I did not make myself clear. I meant regulating universities further through my hon. Friend’s Bill, which would further complicate the matter and require them to be guided by the words in the Bill. If it became law, it would place on them a duty to choose only on the basis of merit, as he has defined it. Can we not just trust them to work with the Government? Does not the fact that they already invest such sums in outreach give us all the reassurance we need that they believe that it is important and that therefore it must be?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is trying to attack my Bill as a regulatory measure, when in fact it is a deregulatory measure. It aims to prevent the burden that the Government are trying to place on universities in a less than transparent way—using the Office for Fair Access—and which is increasing regulation on universities. That would be prevented by the Bill, because it would be at odds with the duty to allocate places on merit other than in accordance with the exemptions set out in clause 3. He stands four-square with me in saying that we want to reduce the burden on these universities. However, at the moment the burden is being increased by the Government under their measures to try to bring about social engineering in a rather partisan way.
Julian Smith
Is the key fact not that, whether it was the fault of universities or the previous Government, there has been a failure to get people from disadvantaged backgrounds into our better universities? A piece of research by Martin Harris concluded that
“while there have been substantial increases in participation among the least advantaged 40 per cent of young people across higher education overall compared to the mid-1990s, the participation rate among the same group of young people at the top third of selective universities has remained almost flat over the same period.”
Is it not morally right that the Government are trying to address this issue?
Mr Chope
There might be an issue there, but Sir Martin Harris has a vested interest; he is the director of the Office for Fair Access and obviously has to keep himself in a job. He is saying that there has been an increase in admissions to universities from people from poorer backgrounds, but that that has not yet percolated through to the top universities. He is therefore seeking a mandate to have more powers to interfere in those top universities. I am trying to put the point of view of the Russell group, which is a representative sample of those top universities. It points out that it has made enormous progress without that sort of interference. Indeed, it thinks that the Government’s ideas—and, by implication, Sir Martin Harris’s ideas—on this will be dangerous and counter-productive by being too prescriptive.
The Russell group has commented on the question of how we are going to measure success in improving access. It is the same with all these principles: if we cannot measure it, we cannot control it. It says:
“Any measurement of universities’ progress in improving access must be undertaken with great care. The investment of Russell Group institutions into outreach activities benefits the sector as a whole, with many students being inspired to study at other institutions as a result of our widely targeted work with potential candidates of many ages and backgrounds. We believe our universities have a role in helping all students to fulfil their potential, not simply widening access to our own institutions.”
That demonstrates how difficult it is to judge an individual university’s outreach programme solely on the basis of how many students it has brought into its own university as a result of that outreach programme, because that programme might have enabled students from poorer backgrounds to apply to, be accepted by and go to other universities. Obviously, the next question that arises is, how will we possibly measure that? It would be very complicated. That takes me back to the point that we do not need to have all this regulation. Why can we not trust these universities to carry on doing as they have been doing up until now.
Rehman Chishti
My hon. Friend referred to the Russell group’s saying that £70 million will go towards ensuring that people from less privileged backgrounds can go to university, but if I remember correctly—from the universities debate—the Government were looking at providing £150 million for widening access. Surely it has to be a good thing that more money is made available to allow more people from less privileged backgrounds to have hope and aspiration.
Mr Chope
Absolutely, but the £150 million is going towards scholarship funds. At the moment, the Russell group, which represents only about 20 universities, is already investing more than £75 million a year. Pro rata, it is already investing more than the Government are promising to invest in the future, yet the Government are saying that if a university wants to raise its fees to anything beyond £6,000, the Government will, through the Office for Fair Access, interfere in its ability to do so and exercise their own judgment on the level of the fees because they are concerned about improving access. I am saying that these universities should be trusted. Many of them are international centres of excellence and should be trusted to make their own judgments. There is no reason to criticise anything that the Russell group universities have achieved, or indeed what some other universities have achieved.
I suspect that at the heart of all this is a feeling on the part of some elements of the coalition Government—I will not spell out, following the Barnsley by-election, which elements I have in mind. [Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) says, it is the part of the coalition not represented in the House today.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think we should get back to the subject, rather than discus the Barnsley results.
Mr Chope
Certainly, Mr Deputy Speaker. It would ill-behove either you or me to bask in any glory as a result of that by-election result. It is a pity, however, that there is no Liberal Democrat representative in today’s debate to discuss these very important issues.
I turn to the measures being taken already to improve access. There is going to be a measurement system under the proposals for assessing the ability or willingness of OFFA to allow universities to charge higher fees. The system for measuring the success in improving access needs to include—it does not at the moment—access to other institutions as a result of the work carried out by a particular university. The Russell group welcomed
“the Government’s guidance that institutions should set their own targets and measures of progress”,
but was concerned that
“existing…widening participation benchmarks are unsuitable as targets against which institutions’ progress can be meaningfully measured.”
It quotes Lord Browne—the guru on this issue, who produced his report last year—who found that
“the benchmarks do not provide a sophisticated enough picture of the student population actually qualified to meet the entry requirements of many courses. For example, they take no account of the fact that someone with 4 A*s at A-level might have a high tariff score but would not have a strong chance of being accepted on a Medicine course if these A-levels are in the wrong subjects…Moreover, financial penalties for not meeting these targets would be unfair and unhelpful to our aim of investing in ways to help poorer students win a place at our universities.”
Mr Knight
We are having a very interesting debate, but underlying it is the question of whether we should support the Bill. I have to say to my hon. Friend, however, that the more I look at his Bill, the less I think of it. I do not see how it can achieve anything, because clause 3 on exemptions blows a hole in clause 1, under which a decision has to be made on the basis of merit alone. Clause 3 states that a course can be advertised where there are
“criteria additional to or in substitution for the criterion of merit”.
To use an extreme example, if this Bill was the only arbiter that universities have to follow, they could advertise a course for aspiring gentlefolk where the only requirement is that someone can pay the high fees.
Mr Chope
Exactly, but my right hon. Friend fails to appreciate the transparency of the measure. If an institution of higher or further education is going to give places on a particular course on criteria other than merit, it should make that clear when people are considering applying to that university. For example, if it offers a sports science course, and welcomes in particular people who are proficient at playing soccer, it should say so in the application so that people who cannot kick a ball at all will not apply, or understand that if they do so it is unlikely that they will be accepted. Clause 3 tries to make sure that where universities give places on criteria other than academic merit those criteria are spelt out openly and transparently. I am surprised that my right hon. Friend is concerned about that. Perhaps he will accept that his interpretation of the clause is incorrect.
Mr Chope
I believe that it is pretty transparent, although some academic work has been done that shows that, inevitably, subjectivity is involved in assessing people’s suitability for going to university. There is no way in which someone who has been refused a place at a university can find out the specific reasons for that decision, although it is normally possible for them to obtain informal feedback from the university through their school or college.
I am not suggesting that the current system is completely transparent, which is why it would be better for it to be plain as a pikestaff that admissions should be made on the basis of merit. There is a feeling, borne out in research for Oxford university, that some admissions tutors for that university are inclined to choose pupils who do not come from independent schools, because they believe that independent school pupils have an unfair advantage and they wish to discount that advantage. They do so on the basis of subjective judgments, which very much runs against the principle of transparency. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point. A problem with the speech by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science on 17 February was that he misquoted some of the evidence from the Ogg, Zimdars and Heath report for Oxford. He used that evidence to suggest that there was a bias in favour of pupils from private schools, when a proper reading shows quite the reverse, with a bias against pupils from private schools.
With all these issues, the problems that concern me are problems of definition. If we are going to try to categorise schools, whether they are independent or private on the one hand, or state schools on the other, how do we categorise those pupils who move from the independent sector into the state sector in the last two years of their course, or perhaps leave an independent school and go to a tertiary college to resit their exams and apply to university? There are quite a lot of independent schools with pupils who came originally from the state sector, often with bursaries. Will those pupils be penalised when they apply to university—or do the universities accept those pupils?—because their last place of education was an independent school, even though they started off in the most difficult circumstances? Many pupils at independent schools are in receipt of education maintenance allowance, which may surprise the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), and it may cause some people to say that that is another reason why EMA is ill-targeted. However, there are many pupils at independent schools whose backgrounds would be regarded as poor or disadvantaged in the context of the higher education access arrangements that the Government are discussing.
Mr Knight
I am afraid that my hon. Friend has not convinced me. It is quite clear that clause 3 is so wide as to blow a hole in clause 1. In response to my earlier intervention, he appears to accept that it would be quite possible, if the Bill were the only arbiter, for a university to decide that it wanted to take unintelligent people with money. It could advertise a course for aspiring gentlefolk when, to use a colloquialism, all that it is interested in is money from rich thickos.
Mr Chope
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has read today’s press reports about the London School of Economics and one of its erstwhile postgraduate students from Libya. I am not sure whether his remarks would apply to that particular happening. If a university chooses to have a closed scholarship arrangement, as some do, there is no reason why that should not continue under the Bill, provided that it is set out transparently. Ultimately—this is why the desire for ever more Government regulation is ill conceived—why can we not trust those universities to do what is best for them in the great marketplace? No self-respecting institution wants a reputation, to use my right hon. Friend’s example, for taking on a lot of thickos who will not perform at university, because that will push the university down the league tables, and will affect its ability to attract research grants and the brightest and the best. The Government cannot second-guess all those decisions—they have to be made by universities or other higher education institutions themselves.
George Freeman
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way yet again. Everyone in the House will agree that the educating of thickos, rich or otherwise, is not the role of our universities. However, does he believe that an important role for universities is to develop leadership? In that education sector, are we not sometimes in danger of over-emphasising purely academic criteria? Would we want clause 3 to be used by universities to encourage a wider definition of leadership in society? That is something that our universities have always done, and it is not purely academic.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. My view is that we should allow universities to do that if they want to, and clause 3 would enable them to do so, and would give them that freedom. The debate centres on the overt desire by the coalition Government for more bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to the top universities. It is likely, however, that the consequences of the access arrangements that they are seeking to impose will be counter-productive and certainly discriminatory.
Someone said to me the other day that merit is almost the last taboo in terms of discrimination; that we have outlawed discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, gender and all the rest, but we still allow discrimination on the ground of merit, and the Government are really keen to do away with discrimination on the ground of merit. The Bill is designed to ensure that that does not happen, and that the Government’s arrangements for access to further and higher education will not be allowed to be at the expense of merit.
Rehman Chishti
My hon. Friend talks about various forms of discrimination, but the recent education legislation tackled another form of discrimination. For a long time there was discrimination against part-time students, who were unable to get funding on the same scale as full-time students, and who often tended to be mature students. On that basis, it was absolutely right and proper for the Government to put that package through, so that mature students could have their aspirations fulfilled. The Office for Fair Access guidelines mention
“the scale and nature of outreach activity to be undertaken to attract mature students—including work with local communities”.
That must be absolutely right and proper, and this Government have already committed to it.
Rehman Chishti
If my hon. Friend is saying that he does not agree with the Government’s regulation and the OFFA guidelines, some of which I have just read out, and if his Bill goes against giving OFFA a number of different guidelines and the option to make sure that more mature students can go to university, then of course it is at odds with his Bill.
Mr Chope
If those students are going to go to university on the basis of something other than merit, or on some basis other than the exemptions that are set out in clause 3, but my understanding is that the Government want to open up opportunities for part-time students but not on the basis of anything other than merit. If I am wrong about that, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will correct me.
I have been speaking for longer than I intended, so I shall briefly outline how I think the problem can be dealt with more effectively. Hon. Members will be aware of the Social Mobility Foundation. Sir Terry Leahy, the outgoing chief executive of Tesco, has now joined the board as a trustee. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said:
“The Social Mobility Foundation provides an exemplary service to help academically-talented disadvantaged students achieve their potential. I and many other Cabinet Ministers have been delighted to host SMF students”
and he encourages others so to do. It seems to me that that is the way forward. If we want to encourage the brightest and the best to be able to get access to our universities, we can give support to worthy organisations such as the Social Mobility Foundation.
What is interesting is that even the Social Mobility Foundation has to set eligibility criteria for those who apply to it for assistance. To join the aspiring professionals programme, students have to be in year 12, in receipt of education maintenance allowance or free school meals, and, significantly, in possession of at least five A grades in five different subjects at GCSE and predicted to obtain at least an A grade and two B grades at A-level. Even the Social Mobility Foundation is accepting that academic performance has to play a part in deciding whether people are appropriate to be taken on for help from that foundation.
Julian Smith
My hon. Friend must know that leaving this issue to institutions such as the Social Mobility Foundation will not have anywhere near the same effect as the Government taking a stand and saying that we will select young people on merit, and we must get more people of merit from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. He must know that Government involvement is the only way to deal with that.
Mr Chope
I am afraid that I am completely at odds with my hon. Friend, because I think that getting the Government involved will be—even more so than it is already—a disastrous policy, and it would be much better to improve the quality of education in our mainstream schools.
I want to quote a final statistic. In 2009, only 232—4.1%—of students in maintained mainstream schools who are known to be eligible for free school meals achieved three or more A grades at A-level. It is a matter not of trying to get more of those students into higher education but of trying to increase that cohort of students, from 4.1% to maybe five times as many. That is the problem. I am not sure that anything that the Government are proposing to do in interfering in this area will help that problem; instead, it will exacerbate it.
There is a mass of literature on all these matters. I was looking—some hon. Members may say, surprisingly —at a couple of articles in The Guardian. One was headed, “Grammar schools do not improve social mobility for working-class. Study shows little difference in work prospects for poorer children who attend grammar schools and comprehensives.” Earlier this week, on 1 March, there was an interesting article by Mr Owen Jones, headed, “Social mobility is a dead end. Our society relies on working-class jobs—dangling a narrow ladder for moving up is a diversion from tackling inequality.” I do not know whether those are articles on which my hon. Friend the Minister intends to comment in his response.
Mr Hayes
I had not intended, given the breadth of the material that I shall have to address, to deal with that matter particularly, but I will do so in the form of an intervention, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to allow me to do so. Grammar schools pertain in my Lincoln constituency. I went to a grammar school myself and I hope that my young sons, if they are bright enough, will go to one too. I think that explains my views on grammar schools pretty clearly.
Mr Chope
Good. I am glad that I have given my hon. Friend the opportunity to put that firmly on the record.
I was looking at the access agreement 2010-11 for the university of Exeter. The university has been criticised in some quarters for announcing, this week, that it is going to charge £9,000 fees—subject, of course, to being able to get approval for that. Yet that university has achieved an enormous amount in recent years in increasing access to those who are from less-favoured backgrounds. I cannot understand why the Government wish to interfere in the right of that university to charge whatever level of fees it wishes up to the maximum, when it already has a very good record of increasing access to the university. There has been a significant increase in the number of students from state schools and from lower socio-economic groups.
The problem, I think, is that the Government realised that it would not look good if they allowed some universities to have no limit on the fees that they charged, so they introduced a ceiling of £9,000. They then allowed the loan system backing that scheme to be fixed in such a way that it is actually adding significantly to the potential burden on the Exchequer. The Minister for Universities and Science has said that if universities charge more than £7,500, that will add to the costs to the Exchequer, given the generous loan scheme and the fact that the Government expect a third of loan applicants never to pay anything back.
As the Treasury has looked at the figures, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has realised that it has to try to put the brakes on allowing universities to increase their fees to £9,000. It is using the threat of access restrictions and sanctions against those universities to try to get them into line. However, courageous universities, such as those in the Russell group and the university of Exeter, are saying that their first duty is to maintain academic standards in their universities and that if students pay higher fees, it is because they want more investment in the services that they receive. Those universities are not prepared to allow the Government to threaten them with sanctions if they exercise their freedom to take such decisions. My Bill would prevent the Government from interfering in universities any more and effectively forcing them to put quotas on the numbers from different backgrounds who should be admitted. The Minister has told the House that quotas are illegal, but ways short of express quotas are being used to threaten and cajole universities, and the Bill would prevent that from happening.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am an enormous admirer of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who usually speaks the greatest sense in the House. I often find myself in agreement with him but, on this occasion, I am sorry to say that I do not.
Let me start at the beginning on access as it has been for many years. Let us think of a young man: the son of a butcher in a country during a time of civil war who goes to his local school, wins a scholarship to Oxford, goes to Magdalen college, gets to the top of his profession, and sets up his own college—now arguably the greatest Oxford college. That man was Cardinal Wolsey and the civil war was the wars of the roses. He went to Magdalen college in the 1480s and then set up Cardinal college, which was later turned into Christ Church by an envious and jealous King.
From the 15th century onwards, although I am sure that we could go back even further, it has been possible for people of great ability to get to our country’s highest and grandest universities, and to have the basis of education that allows them to go on to achieve great things. Cardinal Wolsey could have become Archbishop of Canterbury or Pope, but other than that, he had every great job that was open to him. He was the King’s First Minister, the Lord High Chancellor, a cardinal and the Archbishop of York. We see throughout our history that there has been social mobility through education and that universities have been free in the way in which they admit people for most of that time.
As an aside, I mention the admissions process of my own college—Trinity college, Oxford. It kindly admitted me, although it knows better than I do whether that was on merit or for any other reason. In the 18th century, Trinity managed to admit our greatest Prime Minister and our worst. It admitted Pitt the Elder, who founded a great empire and won all those wars—mainly against the French, actually—in Canada and India, and it later admitted Lord North, so admissions policies do not necessarily work. We might wish that Lord North had not been admitted to Trinity and that we still had the American empire.
Mr Hayes
While my hon. Friend was describing universities in an earlier age, I was reminded of “The Concept of a University” by Kenneth Minogue, with which he might be familiar. The book states:
“the prestige of universities in the Middle Ages was enormous, and rested on an admiration for education.”
The book states that that admiration, in our present age of universal literacy, is difficult to recapture. It says that mediaeval men seem to have thought of universities in a way an impoverished craftsman regards a brilliant child for whose education he is making sacrifices.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Minister makes an absolutely brilliant point. The prestige of universities ought to be great. In fact, it should be very difficult to get into the best universities because they provide such opportunities and a career path for the ablest in our society.
Let me move on to more modern times and come to the great lady—perhaps the greatest peacetime leader of this country in the past 100 years or more—Margaret Thatcher. She was not the daughter of a butcher—unlike Cardinal Wolsey, the son of a butcher—but the daughter of a shopkeeper who was born and who lived over a shop. She got a scholarship to Oxford and transformed this country. It was not only in the 15th and 18th centuries that university admissions policies allowed great people to get to university, to be enormously successful and to transform their nation’s success as a result. That is a thoroughly good and worthwhile thing, and it was all done without the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I have agreed with everything that my hon. Friend has said thus far, but does he not agree that all that happened without the Bill because the Governments at those times did not try to stop universities from recruiting people on merit?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
It is very depressing when we get to a state at which there is a bit of legislation that we do not like, about which we have doubts and that we think ought to be changed, and yet instead of arguing to get rid of that legislation we say that the clever thing to do is to have yet more legislation. We go on and on legislating so that the British people are weighed down with a mass of rules, regulations and complications that mean that they do not know where they stand. If the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is that we should scrap the controls in place, he should argue for that and his Bill should be a repeal Bill, which might then be supported by other hon. Members.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think the Bill should have said that in the first place. I am even more suspicious of the new Labour approach of a Bill that says one thing initially and then does something completely different.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I stand corrected, but I am not quite sure that I can go along with that monstrous slur on our coalition partners.
We must have Bills that do what they say, not ones that set off in one direction, hare off in another in Committee, and then say something that was never intended or given a Second Reading by the House.
Let us consider the question of merit. My right hon. Friend for a Yorkshire constituency—I forget precisely which—talked about how clauses 1 and 3 operate.
Philip Davies
It was my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight).
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend. Yorkshire is a big county. It is almost as good a county as Somerset, but Somerset is particularly favoured by God.
If we are considering the basis of merit alone, how do we define merit? The Bill defines it as
“academic ability, potential and aptitude”,
but that is desperately woolly. Ability can be measured, but do we think that all exams correctly measure a student’s further success? I knew, as I completed my physics O-level, that I knew no more physics than that and that that was the limit of my ability in physics. I actually got an A grade in my physics O-level, of which I am rather proud, but if I had gone on to do physics at A-level, I would have sunk like a stone. I am sure that that is true of people doing other examinations. They might apply to university, but the university has to determine whether he or she has taken the subject to the limit of their ability and whether they would therefore find that they could go no further.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I absolutely accept what the Minister says in his helpful intervention. I know how tall I am, or was, in terms of physics. Just as many people shrink as they get older, I feel that as I get older I begin to shrink in my ability to do physics, and cannot remember much of it. Universities need to take in people who can go further, and do better than the ability yet measured. To consider the Minister’s comparison and talk about how high people grow, we do not necessarily know how high a 16-year-old will be at 18. One has to make a judgment on it, and that judgment becomes subjective—it has to be, by its very nature.
Is it not always dangerous to put legislative constraints on subjective judgments? How does one then take them through the courts? How do they become justiciable? It is simply replacing one person’s judgment with another’s, and we cannot tell who was right until after the fact. I therefore have my doubts about the early definition of merit. Potential is even more subjective. We may think that the person whose height we are considering will grow to be a giant; we may be wrong. We cannot guess the qualities that we are talking about from an interview or a series of examinations.
We can, however, get a broad feeling or understanding, and a tutor can understand whether a person is someone whom they can teach. That is obviously important, because some dons at Oxford—I tend to stick to Oxford because I know it, but I am not speaking to the exclusion of all other universities—want to be able to get on with the people whom they are to teach. If a person comes for an interview and the tutor dislikes them at first sight, they may find that teaching them for three years would be neither to the pupil’s nor the tutor’s benefit, because it will be a constant battle of wills, with hostility and difficulty, without the tutor being able to express their knowledge to the pupil, or the pupil being able to learn from the tutor. The question of potential is even more deeply subjective than that of ability, and aptitude is, in a sense, the same.
Ian Lucas
The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech, and I speak as an Oxford graduate, so my experience is, in that respect, somewhat similar to his. He has touched on an interesting issue as far as the attitude of the tutor, and his resistance to someone different, is concerned. Does that not support a transparent admissions policy, in which the student, and the institution presenting the student to the university, are aware, before the student applies, of the criteria that will be used?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. That is absolutely right. Transparency is, in a sense, everything. As long as people know where they stand, they will be able to see what they ought to do. It is a tremendously beneficial reform for the Russell group to have said which subjects it views as being proper subjects, because now pupils from across the country can say, “If I do history, classics and double maths, I have a really good chance of getting in, if I do well; but if I do knitting and photography, I won’t have a very good chance of getting into the top-rate universities. My chances and opportunities will be limited.” It is absolutely right to let people know at an early stage the way that they ought to be going. Understanding the interview process when one applies to a university is also extremely helpful. If one is going from a public school to Oxford, one will be very well trained in what to expect in the interview, and that should be made as widely available as possible to people from other schools and backgrounds. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his point on transparency.
We have, I think, established that in terms of merit, the Bill has a lot of waffle in it. What it says is fundamentally subjective, cannot work in practice, and, if taken to the courts, would be impossible to adjudicate on. It is hard to see where the Bill is going, in that respect. The exemptions are glorious, because they are so splendidly old-fashioned. By and large, I rather like things being old-fashioned, and I do not normally use it as a term of disapprobation, but in this case it means that one could reintroduce the closed scholarships. At New college, Oxford, which has a close connection with Winchester, places could be reserved for Wykehamists. People may think that that is all fine and dandy, but as an Etonian, I would feel that I was being prejudiced against, and that it was wrong to give places to Wykehamists rather than Etonians—or, more seriously, to deny them to people from all over the country. Allowing the reintroduction of a system of closed scholarships cannot be what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is really trying to do. That cannot be an advance for universities, and it does not make this a sensible Bill to pass.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
We should always deal in the realms of reality, and not assume that people would be so barkingly eccentric as to run off down that route. Universities want to be places of great academic excellence, and they want to be able to have a system that admits people fairly and freely. We are sometimes too suspicious of people’s motives. I accept that the Bill applies to publicly funded universities, but most universities receive public funding of one kind or another, if only via their charitable status.
That helpfully moves me on to another point—the key point of money. Money is always relevant to our discussions, but it is one of the most dangerous things with which Governments have to deal. We give money to an independent institution—great universities—and say, “Now we’ve given you some money, we must decide how you spend it,” and then, “Now we’ve decided how you should spend it, we must take a little more control”—and it becomes more and more control, until independent bodies become agents of the state. The Bill continues that process. Instead of our saying that the money will now come from students, and universities will become more independent of the state, the Bill is an effort to claw back state control. We see in the charitable and university sectors that when Governments spend money, they always want their pound of flesh, and the pound of flesh is interfering in the day-to-day running of organisations, denying them their freedoms. In some cases, that does not really matter, but it is crucial that academic freedom, as a fundamental good, be maintained as an absolute priority.
Let me carry on dealing with the details of the Bill. I raised this matter in an intervention: I am very much against passing Bills that are slightly absurd—I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for being so harsh as to use that term. To have a Bill that applies to England and Wales only, and also only to people domiciled in England, does not seem to work. Surely, the universities in England should admit on the same basis anyone who comes along. To say that they will admit English people on merit but that they can admit the Scots, Irish and Welsh and people from the Commonwealth or European Union not according to merit does not make any sense. If we are to pass laws of this kind, there must be the same principle of application and entry for everyone who is eligible to enter subject to public funding. One might say that it is a good idea to take some overseas students because they can pay a vast fee that will subsidise some of the rest of the university’s operations, although after the Gaddafi affair one might not think that quite such a clever idea, but one really does not want to say that people from Scotland can be taken in on a completely different basis from the people of England.
I am also concerned about the term “domiciled in England”, because I am not quite sure, legally, where it comes from. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will explain it. I understand that with tax laws for which domicile is relevant, it is United Kingdom domicile that matters, although that may change with the Scotland Bill. I am not convinced that there is an agreed English domicile classification.
I want to elaborate a little more on academic freedoms. What is it that allows thought to develop? What allows us not just to produce people who can go into the workplace, fill jobs and earn a living, but allows that great development of thought that we have had in this country for hundreds of years? Whom should we go back to as our earliest notable philosopher? One could argue for Shakespeare or go back even further and argue for Chaucer, although one might think of them more as literary figures. One could start with Hobbs and Locke and the development of thought in which this country has been so powerfully involved. When talking about science, one could mention Boyle and Newton, both of whom had strong associations with our great universities. How did they achieve that? Yes, they sometimes got Government money: Chaucer was sponsored by the King and so was Shakespeare. Newton was the Master of the Mint and got an income from his service that allowed him to afford his academic studies. So, there is a connection between the state and academic excellence, but it is not a control: it is not the state saying, “You may do only these things or you must educate only these people.”
We must be very wary of putting constraints on our institutions. I hope that the Minister will consider this point in relation to the current state of legislation rather than just in regard to this Bill. Our institutions need to be free to take in the people whom they think best even though we might not agree that they are the best—indeed, they might seem to us not quite up to the mark. Our institutions might decide to take a bet on someone who has no academic qualifications, because they have been failed by their secondary school—such failure has been a problem—but who appears absolutely genius in quality. They might decide to take people who have that spark of intelligence and thoughtfulness that makes them interesting and exciting and means they can push on the great development of thought.
Many areas of university life are not covered by the academic subjects that are done up until A-level. There are developments that people need to take with a philosophy, politics and economics qualification.
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. Is not that the paradox that lies at the heart of the paradigm set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch? He argues that universities should be free to select on the basis of merit but not free to select otherwise.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am in complete, almost sycophantic, agreement with the Minister on that. We really do not want to put on such constraints. Freedom is tremendously important.
I return briefly to the insidious argument that once one takes the Government’s shilling, one has to do what the Government say. It is very hard, as the recipient of the shilling, to say, “No, I am not going to do what the Government say.” It is much easier for a Government who love freedom, who believe in our ancient freedom and who see how strong this country has been because it is a free nation, to say, “We will give you this money—we will allow it to come to you through the students—but as we do so, we will take the shackles off and allow you to stand or fall by your own brilliance—your own success in admitting people.” We must assume that universities want to take the cleverest, the brightest and the best—those who will give the university glory when they go on to their future careers, those who may stay and ensure that its research is of the highest quality, or those who will become, like Cardinal Wolsey, so rich that they can establish new parts of the university.
In that way, our universities can have the freedoms enjoyed by some of the American universities, which have endowments running into tens of billions of dollars, allowing them a freedom from the American state and a freedom to take the best and the brightest from around the world and to fund them through their studies. Surely, that is what we must aim for. We must aim for an ambition that returns our universities to the status they had in the middle ages when they were places that people looked at with envy and when people who went to them, who could be supported in doing so, felt that attending them was the highest possible achievement.
Rehman Chishti
I always follow my hon. Friend’s speeches with interest; they are fantastic. He was making a point about students wanting to meet their aspirations. In line with that, the policy of the previous Government that 50% plus should go to university was completely wrong, because we all have different skills and abilities that need to be nurtured. That is what our Government are pushing; those who want to go to university should have the right support, but the previous Government’s 50% plus policy was wrong.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Yes and no, if I may sit on the fence. We should aim for excellence for everybody, and for as many people as possible to go to university, but university will do different things for different people. Not all higher and further education needs to be the same; we want to get the most from everybody, but the 50% target became a bit of a box-ticking exercise. Box-ticking exercises are a mistake. They do not lead to what we ought to focus on, which is not ad hoc bits of legislation that deal with—
Mr Hayes
Before my hon. Friend draws his introductory remarks to a conclusion and moves to the main thrust of his remarks, would he reflect on this? He calls for a return to a mediaval view of universities, but the truth is that in the middle ages illiterates were seduced by the mystery of book learning, because most people were illiterate. It may not be possible for us to return to that spirit, given the state of our age.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank the Minister for that intervention, although I must say it was rather depressingly negative and uncharacteristic of him. What we really want to be thinking about is lifting people’s spirits. In the middle ages, people saw the joy and virtue of learning.
Ian Lucas
Most people did not. Many people did not achieve, not because they were stupid but because there were not enough scholarships. I went to Oxford, but I did not have a scholarship and if I had not received a grant and had my fees paid I could not have gone to Oxford and I would not have achieved. That is progress, and although I am a great admirer of the past, I think the hon. Gentleman needs to see that sometimes progress can be made.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I am sorry that we appear to be confusing two things. I am not for a moment suggesting that we ought to go back to the standard of living of the middle ages, or the level of literacy. That is not what we should aim for. It would be bonkers. What I was saying, and I thought I was agreeing with the Minister, is that I would like the status of education to be as high as it was in the middle ages, and to be something that people love and rejoice in. Of course, we want it to be open to everybody rather than only to the narrow, broadly clerical, class that it was open to in the past.
To think of education as a great and exciting thing is tremendously important, and we do that best by allowing the universities their freedom. The less control the Government have, the better. One of the great things about tuition fees is that they will follow the student. Although the Government will provide the money initially, eventually it will be paid back. The Government are beginning to retreat from the financing of the universities, so universities will have greater freedom because they will not be so subject to the Government’s interference.
Mr Chope
I am concerned that my hon. Friend accepts too much at face value what the Government say. In paragraph 5.4 of the “Guidance to the Director of Fair Access”, the Government make the point:
“The subsidised loans that Government offers students represent a significant cost to the public purse.”
That is then used as justification for interference. Surely, that is inconsistent with my hon. Friend’s vision, which I share, that universities should be free to charge whatever fees they wish.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
We have to evolve. We have to move to a position where freedom is re-established. We are going from a position where most university funding is state-controlled to one where a large proportion of it will come from individuals. The Government would be in a ludicrous position if they were getting students to pay what was the Government’s money. That would not make sense. We have a wise, good and forthright Government, made up of some of the best brains ever born in this country. We are lucky. We know where we are going in terms of tuition fees; we have a well-thought through plan that will aid the independence of universities, particularly once we move through it and we find that the money is being paid back, the loan book can be run profitably and a major cost can be taken off the Government’s balance sheet. I am all in favour of student loans, which will help to achieve the Bill’s aims—the admission of people whom universities want because they have the ability to attend them.
Let me draw broadly to a conclusion.
Mr Hayes
Before my hon. Friend does so, I wonder whether we can bottom out the issue of the mediaeval attitude to university. The point that I made—I hope that I can make it a little more clearly now—is that it is hard to reproduce the magic of learning that prevailed in the middle ages because of the secrecy of literacy that then prevailed, too. That is not a pessimistic view—I believe in the power of learning, as he does—but in celebrating the middle ages’ perception of university, we must be realistic about how that magic has changed.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Minister says, “hard to reproduce”, and I accept that, but hard is not the same as impossible. We really ought to aim for learning to be held in the highest regard, because it will lead to our fundamental success and prosperity as a nation.
I should like to broaden the debate for a moment. We are facing decades of competition from countries that we could ignore for hundreds of years—countries that were so corrupt and broken that we could ignore them as we grew rich on manufacturing and services. Now, those nations—China, India, Brazil and Russia—are at the forefront of economic development. Their costs are lower than ours, and we see ourselves as a nation being overtaken. We can compete only if we have the best education in the world—an education that inspires millions of people and leads them to do great things with their lives and to come up with productive ideas.
Mr Hayes
Now we are finding common cause—are we not?—as my hon. Friend eloquently makes the case for the power of learning to change lives by changing life chances. Perhaps he might add to that by acknowledging what I think we share: a reverence for the past, for only the past can change the prism of our memories.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am in complete agreement with the Minister on the remark that we learn so much from the past. It gives us an understanding of what we ought to do in the future, and it helps us to avoid making mistakes. Many mistakes were made in the past, and we can sensibly avoid repeating them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is noble in his principle. He is noble in wanting to ensure that education is free from the dead hand of state control, but I am sorry to say that his Bill goes about it the wrong way. Instead of getting the dead hand of state control and throwing it on the bonfire, he has severed the dead hand from the arm of state control and is leaving it lying, rotting on the university funding scheme. I say, “Get rid of this dead hand! Remove this dead hand. Get rid of it, finger by finger. Bury it a 1,000 feet deep. Free up our universities; free up the British people!” Let us have a system that is free from state control, where students and universities can do brilliant things, so that our country can be the success that it deserves to be.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
It is always a delight to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is, without doubt, one of the finest orators in the House. I find myself in the familiar position of being equally persuaded by him and by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). It is a familiar position because they are usually on the same side of the argument, and it is therefore easy to be equally persuaded by them both. Today, I am in the unfamiliar position of being equally persuaded by them when they appear to be on different sides of the argument. That can be explained by the fact that they both seek the same or, at least, a very similar outcome, but appear to differ on how best to achieve that.
Notwithstanding the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, I support the thrust of what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is trying to achieve, which is extremely important. It is quite depressing that the dead hand of political correctness has become so entrenched in society that we must argue, in effect, about whether or not people should be given places at university based on merit.
I apologise for arriving slightly late for the debate, which is partly explained by the fact that I could not see how anybody could argue with the principle that people should be given jobs or allocated places at university on merit. I had assumed that that was so self-evident that everybody would readily agree and there could be no controversy about it. It is depressing that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has to work so hard to make the case for something that most people in the country would consider blindingly obvious—that such things should be determined on merit.
Philip Davies
As the Minister knows, I am his greatest admirer, which probably has not done a great deal for his career prospects. However, it has been widely reported in the media, whether or not there is any substance to the reports, that leading universities will be encouraged or forced, one way or another, to take quotas of students from state schools in exchange for the power to charge tuition fees of £9,000. That seems to fly in the face of the assertion that the Government have a policy based on merit, and merit alone. It appears to be the exact opposite.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made clear, the problem arises from the fact that our state education system is failing far too many people. Rather than addressing the root cause and dealing with the problems of the state education system, perhaps because the Government think that will take too long now that those problems are so entrenched—in other words, instead of going for the real issue, which might be more difficult but is the most important one—they have filed the problems of the state education system under “Too difficult” and gone for the easy solution.
The true way to get more people from state schools and more people from poorer backgrounds to go to the best universities is to raise the standard in state education so that they can get there on merit. But the Government know that that is very difficult and that the problems in the state system are deeply entrenched, so they go for the easy solution, which is to circumvent all that and force universities to take people from those backgrounds, whether or not they have earned their place on merit. Then the Government can say, “Look, isn’t the world marvellous? There is now X proportion of people from state schools or X proportion of people from deprived backgrounds going to university,” hoping that everyone will turn a blind eye to the fact that those people have not got there on merit. That is the depressing situation in which the country finds itself.
All the typical arguments are trotted out as to why we should not give people places on merit. We are told that one of the reasons why getting rid of grammar schools was such a good idea is that certain people do not peak at the age of 11, so it is unfair on those who mature a little later to judge their performance at the age of 11. It seems that the argument has moved on. Now we are told that it is unfair to judge people’s academic performance at GCSE level because they may not have peaked at the age of 16: it is unfair to test them at 16, so we should not look at their GCSE results.
To be honest, it is now utterly pointless to look at people’s GCSE results because one has to work pretty hard to fail at GCSE level. The idea that everybody passes means that nobody passes, so GCSEs have become a worthless qualification. We are getting to the stage where we are told that we cannot judge people’s performance at A-level at the age 18, because there are those who have not yet peaked at the age of 18. These are arguments for scrapping exams altogether. We have to make some kind of judgment at some point and although there are imperfections in all these things, somebody’s performance at A-level is one of the best guides to whether they have a chance of succeeding at university. If we completely ignore people’s A-level results, the whole A-level system becomes utterly pointless. My problem with the idea that people’s exam results do not really matter because they will be given university places irrespective of how well they perform is that it demeans people’s hard work and their achievements.
Why would we want to send the message to people in state schools and from deprived backgrounds that they should not worry about how hard they work for their GCSEs and A-levels or about spending every hour they can becoming an expert in a particular subject, and that if they do not get the best possible grades they can the state will ride to their rescue anyway, saying that it is not their fault they went to a state school or came from a deprived background, and that we will rig the rules to get them into a particular university? That seems the most appalling message that this House can send. Surely the only message that we should send to young people is that it does not matter what their background is, what school they go to, what race they are or what orientation or gender; if they work hard and get the best possible results, they will be first in line for a place at the university they want to go to. It seems obvious to me that places should be given on merit.
As a country, we are trying to impose some kind of social engineering on university education, the same social engineering as was introduced in the state education system when grammar schools were abolished. Let us be absolutely clear: grammar schools were not abolished and replaced with comprehensive schools in order to increase attainment in state education; it was simply a form of social engineering, and it has proved a disaster. I am appalled that the Government seem to be following the previous Government in wanting to introduce that same kind of social engineering into our university system, where it will prove just as disastrous.
Mr Hayes
I have already put on the record on one occasion my personal views about grammar schools, but let me make a broader point. While my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) is Prime Minister, while my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is Secretary of State for Education, and while I live and breathe, grammar schools in this country will be under no threat whatever from this Government.
Philip Davies
I do not particularly want to get sidetracked—I am sure that you will not allow it, Mr Deputy Speaker—but the Government’s position on grammar schools, which is pertinent to my point about merit, is frankly a nonsense. Basically, they are saying, “If you’re lucky enough to have grammar schools in your area, that’s fine and you can keep them, but if you poor swine in Bradford want a grammar school system, you aren’t allowed it.” The Minister’s support for grammar schools extends only so far as those areas that already have them, and those of us who would like them cannot have them. That is lukewarm support—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has been sidetracked. I am sure the Minister did not want that because I know that he is very interested in higher education in this debate, rather than grammar schools. I am sure that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), as he suggested, will want to come back to the topic of the debate.
Philip Davies
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker; I was indeed tempted by the Minister to go down a route that neither you nor I want us to go down.
I will keep my remarks brief because I am intrigued to hear what the Minister has to say. I want to hear some kind of confirmation, not only that while he lives and breathes he will support grammar schools, but that while he is the Minister and while our right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) is the Prime Minister, he will ensure that universities recruit people on merit alone and that people are not allocated places simple because of their background, the school they went to, the socio-economic environment in which they live or the wealth or otherwise of their parents. If we started going down that route, it would be a disaster for this country. The idea of positive discrimination, which lies behind such proposals, is a disaster. Positive discrimination is discrimination, and we should not advocate it, because it demeans people. Many parents make terrific sacrifices to send their kids to private schools. People who cannot ordinarily afford to do so make the most amazing sacrifices, because they understandably want their children to have the best start and opportunities in life.
My parents made terrific sacrifices to enable me to go to a boarding school that they really could not afford to send me to, and I am immensely grateful to them. I do not see why this Government, in particular, or anybody for that matter, would want to say to such parents, “Well done. You’ve made these sacrifices to help your children get the best possible start in life. What we’re going to do now is rig the rules to make sure that all your sacrifices have been in vain, because we’re going to stop your daughter or son having the opportunity to go to the university they deserve to go to, based on the hard work that they put in, as you don’t meet the criteria, you’re not from the right socio-economic background or they didn’t go to the school we would have preferred them to go to.” What an appalling message.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. Does he share my concern that the Government, in their desire to bring about social engineering, are going to penalise people who pay off their loans early— perhaps with the help of their parents making the sort of sacrifice to which he refers? Does he condemn that as a gross interference?
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As it happens, I voted against the Government on tuition fees for the simple reason that I did not want people from poorer backgrounds to be denied the opportunity to go to the best possible universities. Tuition fees are being increased to pay for more and more people to go to university, and the argument is that if we want more people to go to university, students are going to have to pay a higher price. That is a perfectly logical argument, but I do not want more people going to university. Too many go to university; I want fewer to go. I want universities to be the bastion of high standards again.
In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) inadvertently touched on that point when he asked, “Shouldn’t people who want to go to university have the opportunity to do so?” My answer to that is no. It should be a question not of whether someone wants to go to university, but whether they have the aptitude and have reached a high enough mark to do so on merit. That should be what determines whether they go.
Otherwise, it is like asking athletes whether they would like to compete in the Olympics—I am sure they all would, but surely nobody is advocating that any athlete who happens to fancy a crack at the 100-metre sprint should be allowed to compete at the Olympics. Most people accept that athletes have to reach a certain level before they are even considered for the Olympics, and the same should apply in education: people should not go just because they want to; they should go because they have reached the level in their education that allows them to go. That is the whole point of merit and, as I see it, of this Bill.
All the other factors that people are trying to introduce into the system can only devalue our education system—dumb down the standards. Then the Government will say, “Isn’t it marvellous? Haven’t we been good for education, because now X% of people have a degree?” Well, no it would not be marvellous—not if the result had been achieved only by dumbing down standards.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
My hon. Friend notes that fees have gone up to £9,000, and I, like he, opposed that measure. He says that they are going up to allow more people to go to university, but are they not going up, at least in part, to pay for students from the European Union to go to university? EU students go to university for free in Scotland, while students from England have to pay. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) supports loans, but 46% of EU students who take out such loans are not paying them back when they should be. What does my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) have to say about that?
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As he knows, I share his robust opinion on the merits of being in the European Union—that is, that there are no merits of being in the European Union. One problem with allowing more and more people to go to university and increasing tuition fees is that the people who go there on merit end up paying over the odds to subsidise those who do not go there on merit and who will not end up paying back their loan. That is, in effect, the system that the Government have introduced. I think that that puts a penalty on merit. I do not see why people who go to university on merit should subsidise those who are not going on merit.
Philip Davies
I sense that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset is cranking into action.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend. I do not accept his description of the Government’s loan programme, because one would not be able to get the interest rate that will be paid by students in the market for an unsecured loan. Therefore, there is no penalty for those who get to university on merit.
Philip Davies
I take my hon. Friend’s point, but my point is that people who go to university on merit would not be expected to pay £6,000 or £9,000 if it were not for the fact that the Government want to get more people to go to university. They are being penalised in that sense. If the Government restricted the proportion of people going to university to 30% or 40%, there would be no move to increase tuition fees. It is in that sense that people are paying over the odds, or more than they would if the Government were not pursuing this strategy.
Mr Hayes
I wonder whether, in developing his argument with his usual penetrating insight, my hon. Friend might reflect a little on the need to balance the magic of exclusivity, which he seems to be attracted to, with the absolute need to ensure that people from humble backgrounds get their chance for glittering prizes. He seems to be making the case that exclusivity is more important than that social mission. That is not the case for me, because I am a Conservative.
Philip Davies
This is rare, but I do not follow my hon. Friend’s logic. I am as committed as anybody to ensuring that people from the poorest backgrounds have the opportunity to go as far as they can within the education system. My view is that the education system should allow them to do that on merit, not that the Government should rig the selection criteria so that they can go to university whether or not they have achieved that objective on merit. The challenge for this Government is to undo all the damage that has been done to the education system in this country over the past 40 years or so by both Conservative and Labour Governments—neither side has a great track record on the state education system. The Government should concentrate on that and not be seduced down the easy route of trying to achieve the same outcomes by more dodgy means.
Mr Hayes
I understand that point, but my hon. Friend made a second case. I have freely accepted his first case about merit. The second case he was making was about exclusivity. As I understood it, he was arguing that too many people were going to university and that fewer people should have the opportunity to do so. That is the case that I was beginning to explore with him. I wonder if he would expand on it, because in practice it would mean limiting opportunity for some of the people who have the merit that he celebrates.
Philip Davies
I do not accept that, because we have ended up with a system whereby people go to university because they have been put on a conveyor belt to university by the state, which has encouraged people to go down that route. Many people go to university who are not best served by doing so, and who would be far better served by vocational education. We seem to be obsessed with education in this country. One of the places where one can learn an awful lot is at work. I learned more in my years at Asda than I ever did at university or school. Rather than spending three years at university, many people would be better served by getting three years’ work under their belt and learning the skills that are learned in the workplace.
I object to the idea that everybody should be on the conveyor belt of university, because I do not believe everybody is best served by it. That is demonstrated by the fact that I believe 20% to 25%—I am sure the Minister will know the figures better—drop out of their university courses. They have clearly gone to university and discovered the hard way that it was not the best thing for them. How many more stay on their degree course while probably realising in their heart of hearts that it is not right for them? They are stuck on a conveyor belt, when better alternatives for them exist.
It is a mistake to think that going to university is a panacea for everybody. For some people it is absolutely the right thing to do, and we should allow those people to go to university irrespective of their background and where they have been educated. We should say to others, who are not best suited to university, that that is no disgrace at all. We should raise the value of vocational qualifications and careers and allow people to pursue what they are good at. Everybody is good at something, and we need to find out what people are good at and allow them to develop in it. That does not always mean that they have to go to university to develop their expertise.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that even if people choose to go into business to pursue their ambitions, there is now a suggestion that we should select directors based on their sex rather than merit? Does he agree that we should put an end to such creeping social engineering?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are not going to go down that line. We are going to stick to the subject in hand. As tempted as Mr Davies will be, I know he will restrain himself.
Philip Davies
I will follow your guidance as always, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is fair to say that you know my opinion just as much as my hon. Friend does. We can leave it there. I must say in passing that my hon. Friend is probably the best person in the House to speak about job opportunities, because of his marvellous work in his constituency helping with jobs fairs and trying to get people into work. He will have seen at first hand in his constituency the skills that people need to get jobs, and he will know that a university education is not always essential for a person to get the right job. He should be commended for what he has done, and we should listen to his advice, because he knows more about the matter than most.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, because he has raised an important matter, notwithstanding what I would describe as the technical opposition to the Bill offered by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. Whether or not we agree with the Bill, I think we all agree that the Government should not feel it necessary to stick their nose into university recruitment. They should allow universities to do what they have always done, which is to recruit people on merit, and merit alone, irrespective of their background, gender, race or any other factor. Those things should be irrelevant, and people’s ability alone should be decisive.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
First, I commend the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for initiating this interesting and wide-ranging debate by introducing his Bill. I agreed with him at the beginning of his speech when he said that the Government’s higher education policy was mired in confusion and that the Government were at sixes and sevens. I also agreed with him at the end of his speech when he talked about the difficulties that the Government are having because of the decision by an increasing number of universities to charge £9,000 a year for fees under the rules passed before Christmas. That is causing the Government increasing financial difficulties, because their approach to higher education was predicated on the basis that the fees would be rather less than that. Perhaps that explains why, as we have heard, the higher education White Paper, which should be a framework for discussion, has been deferred again. The opportunity for us to discuss the matter has therefore been delayed. More importantly, those students who are in what I still call the lower sixth who are planning to go to university in 2012 will be looking at a menu with no price list, and no description of the dishes on offer, which is a great abdication of responsibility by the Government.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair. The previous Government, of whom he was a member, commissioned the Browne review, agreed its terms of reference and fixed the timetable. The hon. Gentleman could hardly have expected this Government to come to office when the Browne review was still considering its recommendations and immediately introduce a White Paper, still less legislation.
Ian Lucas
The Government told us initially that the White Paper would be published in March this year, but made the decision not to abide by their timetable—the timetable was theirs, not that of Her Majesty’s Opposition.
The Bill states that admissions to universities should be on the basis of merit, but frankly, that is a truism with which no hon. Member would disagree. The difficulty is that there is so little agreement on what constitutes merit in a student. That lack of agreement exists not only among hon. Members, but among universities, which use very different admissions criteria.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) interestingly focused on A-level grades, which are an important reflection of the academic ability of those who are seeking to go to university. In very many cases, universities look at those to determine whether someone will be a successful applicant for a course, but they are not the only criterion that universities currently use. The advantage of the A-level is that it is transparent. The student is aware when he applies and is given an offer of what he needs to achieve to gain admission to a university course. However, the grades that are now expected of applicants are extremely high. For example, I am personally aware that the leading universities in the country offer mathematics applicants two A* grades and an A grade, or two A grades and a B grade or three A grades.
That is a transparent process, but some universities have a standard offer—an offer made to all applicants, no matter what school or further education college they come from or their background. The standard offers are also high. One university makes an offer of two A* grades and an A grade for the subject in which it has a very high reputation.
The sixth term examination paper exam, which is additional to A-levels, is increasingly being relied on by universities when they consider whether to admit candidates. I do not know whether hon. Members are aware of that, but the Minister should take note of it. STEP exams require a particular type of teaching, and commendably, some universities have recognised that and are providing support for students who come from institutions that do not provide such teaching, to give a fair chance to individuals who have the academic ability to achieve the results they need. Many schools, particularly those from the fee-paying sector, provide preparation for STEP exams that is not provided in many state schools, and that prejudice is, I am afraid, working against the chances of talented individuals—including today’s Cardinal Wolseys—achieving admission to universities on the basis of their A-level and STEP-level results.
The system as it stands disadvantages applicants from schools and institutions that do not have good provision for the teaching of STEP exams. STEP exams are a very recent innovation—I happen to know something of them because I have children at the age when these applications are made. I would like to hear whether any consideration has been given to introducing STEP exams into offers made to individuals, and whether the Minister has looked at the provision in place in institutions and schools for teaching in that area. It is an area of great concern to me.
Philip Davies
What puzzles me is that the hon. Gentleman seems to feel that after 13 years of a Labour Government pumping so much money into the state education system, people in the state system still cannot compete equally with people who go to private schools, and therefore an adjustment is needed. If what the previous Government did to the state education system was so marvellous and raised standards so high, why cannot we just have fair and free competition between the state and private sectors?
Ian Lucas
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is bringing party politics into the debate, because I am trying to approach it in a measured way. I am talking about offers made by universities to talented students, including in his constituency, who happen not to have the provision in their own institution, whether in the private sector or public sector, to support their applications to university. I think that the Government should be looking at support for that.
This is relevant now, as opposed to when the Labour Government were in power, because back then the requirement for STEP exams when university offers were made had not been implemented. This year, there is a particular issue relating to university applications: an enormous number are being made to universities owing to the prospect of fee levels next year. There has been a huge rush of applications, but fewer offers are being made by universities. Furthermore, higher offers are being made this year than I think will be given next year, because so many more people are applying.
I also want to touch on issues of transparency and merit. I raised this point in interventions earlier. Transparency is a great quality, particularly when one is looking at the very complex process of applying to universities. There are lots of different universities and lots of different courses, and it is a big job for any individual student, or parent advising a student, to deal with the complexities of the university admissions system. It is particularly difficult when the admissions system is not transparent. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) at times suggested that the current system was transparent. In my view, it is not transparent when not based on admission by academic performance, and it is not based on academic performance when it is based not on A-level or STEP results, or any other exam results, but on an interview. The disadvantage of an interview process is that, if a student achieves the required grades, passes the exam and is called for an interview, but is then rejected, they do not find out why they have been rejected.
Mr Hayes
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. What is emerging is a certain unity of view between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). He seems to be saying that he wants to curtail universities’ freedom to take into account other circumstances that might prevail in precisely the same way as my hon. Friend. The freedom of universities, which we cherish, is under assault.
Ian Lucas
How profoundly ironic that the Minister, who has proposed the restrictions to which the hon. Member for Christchurch vociferously objects, should suggest that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I agree that admission to university should be made on the basis of merit, but I disagree with the assumption that the system is currently based on merit. In fact, the system discriminates against students from non-fee-paying schools.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made an interesting aside in his very interesting speech. He raised the subject of individuals at, for example, Oxford university, who conduct the interviews that I have just discussed, and who meet applicants who challenge them. They may feel uncomfortable with discussions at interview, and they may not like the prospect of teaching them, not because of their academic potential or achievement but because of their own preconceptions. The disadvantage of the interview process is that it allows that to happen.
It is therefore important that we have a transparent admissions process. It is very important indeed that we have independent universities and that we use all the potential that we have in our schools, whether fee paying or in the state sector. What is the best thing for Britain is that everyone with potential should realise their potential through school and bring it to fruition at university. The tragedy is that, for too long, too many people with the ability and the potential have not been taken through university because of the ivory towers and walls that exist.
Mr Hayes
I should like to elicit from the hon. Gentleman his precise position. On the one hand, he says that he believes that universities should be “independent” and that people should be able to fulfil their potential but, on the other, he seemed to suggest—and we need this on the record—that he was against universities interviewing candidates. Would he make it illegal? Is he suggesting that it would be entirely forbidden were he ever to hold the position held by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science?
Ian Lucas
The Minister, having given his personal views on grammar schools at the Dispatch Box, even though he speaks as a Minister, could not possibly tempt me to make binding commitments from the Front Bench in a way that I might have done had I been on the Back Benches.
There was a great expansion of the university system under the Labour Government, and there was great investment in it. The continued independence of the university system was cherished under the previous Government, and that sat alongside the fact that there was increased state investment in the system. I am afraid that as fond as I am becoming of the hon. Member for North East Somerset, we part company on the important role that the state plays in our university system. I think that it is a good thing that more people go to university. It is a good thing that people who have the potential to go to university should realise that potential. I do not believe that if the state stood aside entirely and did not provide support, either through a grant system or another form of system, that would be a good thing for the United Kingdom, because fewer people with the potential to go to university would do so. That is why the grant system was originally introduced, and that is why I went to university. I went to Oxford university—and my father left school at 14, as did my mother. If I had been limited, as Cardinal Wolsey was, to securing a scholarship, I am afraid that my intellectual capability would not have enabled me to go to Magdalen college, and indeed to found my own college. That may be something for the future.
The issue that sits between those who support the Bill and myself is merit. No one disagrees on what constitutes merit. Our difficulties lie in how we define the procedure by which that is identified in applicants. The hon. Member for Shipley talked solely about A-levels. Some universities are currently choosing systems that are not transparent, and which do not disclose the criteria that apply. When one couples that with the fact that the price list on the menu is very unclear for students who want to go to university, particularly for the year after next, it is virtually impossible for students to make sensible, informed choices about their future.
When I speak to business people in my role as shadow industry Minister, they often tell me that they want more engineering graduates. They also want apprentices, and I defer to no one in my admiration for apprenticeships and foundation degrees, but they do want graduates of the highest quality, in science, maths and engineering. We need a system that ensures that everyone who has the potential to secure a future—to expand and extend their skills as far as possible—achieves that potential. That clearly requires a role for the universities, who have their own skills in identifying those candidates, but it also requires a role for Government, because the Government invest in the university sector, and it is important that public money is used in a positive way and for the benefit of the country as a whole.
It is at that stage that I disagree with the hon. Members for North East Somerset and for Christchurch, because I believe that means we have a responsibility in the House to hold the Government to account on the use of public money. I want as many young people and students as possible from my constituency to go to the best universities. I happen not to have a private school in my constituency, so if a young person living in my constituency wants to attend some of the best universities in the country, the facts and figures show that they are less likely to be admitted to those universities than if they went to a fee-paying school. I regret that. The current system is not fair. We need to devise a system that takes into account and re-establishes the position of the universities as independent institutions, but also recognises the legitimate role of Government in ensuring fair access to them.
Rehman Chishti
In terms of the responsibility to ensure that those from different backgrounds can go to university, the role of OFFA and the criteria that it applies to ensure that those universities—the top end, the Russell group—can get people from less privileged backgrounds have to be right. The hon. Gentleman said that some people from schools in tough catchment areas may not have the right experience for the interview process at Oxford, but in the OFFA criteria,
“the scale and nature of outreach activity to be undertaken (singly or in partnership) with local schools and colleges—such as mentoring,”
will be taken into account, as will targeting schools in tough catchments. Therefore, what the Government have put forward in the wider package for higher education, along with the role of OFFA, which will certainly help to ensure that people from less privileged backgrounds get that assistance to go to some of the high-performing universities, have to be right.
Rehman Chishti
The hon. Gentleman refers to the figure of £9,000, but he needs to consider the overall package. He must accept that it is right and proper that there are no up-front fees, which would have deterred a lot of people from less privileged backgrounds—I put myself in that category. It must also be right to increase the threshold from £15,000 to £21,000.
Ian Lucas
There have not been any up-front fees since the Higher Education Act 2004 was passed under the previous Labour Government, so that is a complete red herring. The existing system is being continued, but the difference is that this Government are tripling the debt that students will take on, with which I profoundly disagree. I voted against the 2004 Act—I was a Labour Back Bencher at the time, and I continued to be a Back Bencher as a result—because I disagreed with the concept of fees.
Rehman Chishti
The hon. Gentleman talks about finance, but he must accept that we are in a difficult financial situation. The Government have inherited one of the worst financial situations in the G20 and one of the worst structural deficits in the G7. He responded to my point about up-front fees. The fact is that the Government could have considered introducing up-front fees, but they ruled them out categorically. The overall package is good for part-time students and helps mature students. He must accept that there is a real problem with discrimination against children with disabilities and learning difficulties who wish to go into higher education, and the package will improve their situation, too.
Ian Lucas
The Government are tripling student debt in the years ahead, but that is profoundly wrong. Their policy will deter individuals from poorer backgrounds from going to university, so I shall continue to disagree with it.
I am with the hon. Member for Christchurch on the question of merit, but I am against him on exemptions, so I will not be able to support his Bill. The existing situation is unsatisfactory because insufficient students are admitted to university on the grounds of merit. Many people are frustrated because some universities are sending them the message that if they do not go to the right schools, it is not worth their applying, so as a consequence they do not apply. That is why there has not been the progress that should have been made. Young people should be able to achieve their potential, but they need support. We need a fair system that supports individuals who want to go to university and, above all, ensures that every individual achieves their full potential.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
Benjamin Disraeli, the greatest Tory Prime Minister, said:
“A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.”
Our debate, albeit a short one, has given us the chance to explore some of those concepts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for bringing forward the Bill because it has provided the opportunity to debate an extremely important topic.
Further and, in particular, higher education have attracted a great deal of debate in the House in recent weeks and months, and indeed they have been debated elsewhere, too. Key to that debate was the central issue, which the Bill addresses, of university access and admission policies, and learners’ opportunities for progression from further to higher education.
Let me say this, for if I did not, the House would wonder why, given the publication of the Wolf review yesterday: we should not confuse higher education with higher learning. It is absolutely right to say that our society and economy need people to aspire to higher learning. Britain’s future chance of success lies in being a high-tech, high-skilled nation, and because of that, we need to invest in the human capital of our work force through higher learning, although that may not always take place at a university. Opportunity may be found in the workplace and in our further education colleges to obtain the higher learning that will fuel economic success, which is the component part of our chance for growth and prosperity.
The short time available to me does not give me the opportunity to speak on that subject at as great a length as I would like, but I want to put on record that spreading that kind of opportunity—an opportunity to which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch drew the House’s attention—will necessitate, in my view and that of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science, teaching more higher education and higher learning in our further education colleges. FE colleges are the unheralded triumph of our education system. They do immense good work, and of course they teach a great deal of higher education already. Their cohorts typically reflect the communities of which they are a part and are, by and large, more widely drawn than the cohorts that one typically finds in our universities. The private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, inasmuch as it deals with access to those kinds of opportunities for higher education, draws our attention to where and how that might be provided, as well as to how people might obtain it.
I think that it is a matter of public record that I am no more a social engineer than my hon. Friend. Social engineering was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies); I almost rose to intervene on him, but I did not want to interrupt the flow of his oratory, so I shall take the opportunity now to say that social engineering is on neither my agenda nor that of the Government of which I am part. I am a firm believer in meritocracy and the principle that people should be rewarded according to their efforts and abilities, whatever their circumstances or background. That principle is at the heart of the Government’s approach.
I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that merit is the driver of access, in the Government’s view. The reason for that is both practical and philosophical. The principle that people should prosper on the basis of their assiduity and talent lies at the very heart of the philosophy of the party to which we both belong—it is a bigger philosophy than that, though, and I will speak about that in a few moments. However, it is also a practical matter—a matter of ensuring that we harness the best talents in the interests of the nation—for also central to our mission is the promotion of the common good and the national interest. The national interest would hardly be served if we let any Giotto remain among the hill shepherds, to use Ruskin’s words. Every talent must have its opportunity to shine, and every kind of person must have their chance of glittering prizes.
That takes me to the middle ages, which we heard a great deal about earlier in this short debate, courtesy of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). We enjoyed a brief exchange, but what did not emerge from it was the fundamental feature of the feudal and mediaeval appreciation of universities. That has been lost to some degree, because we have largely come to regard “feudal” and “mediaeval” as pejorative terms, but in fact my hon. Friend shed light on the interesting elements of the opportunities available then, which found their form in universities. Universities were then broad, liberal, rather radical places to which many people from many backgrounds were able to go. Far from being exclusive, they were rather inclusive. My hon. Friend mentioned Wolsey, who was a butcher’s son. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is the son of a butcher, but I had my chance to go to university and I am from a family for whom universities had previously been almost unknown—a distant and detached thing. Though that was certainly the case in the middle ages, later, universities became rather different things, but at the time, which might be described as a golden age, they were inclusive in the way that he described.
The other important philosophical principle to which I want to draw the House’s attention is something that is at the very heart of conservatism but is sometimes neglected—the elevation of the people. Benjamin Disraeli, whom I am determined should get at least two mentions in my short speech, laid out the tenets of conservatism in his Crystal palace speech and identified the elevation of the people as being central to them. That is why I am driven by a desire for social mobility and social justice, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is. When considering the elevation of the people, we should properly consider their chance to gain learning as a way of progressing.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will know, Alan Milburn was commissioned by the previous Government to consider these matters in considerable detail. He produced a report that looked at a series of inhibitors to social mobility, one of which, interestingly, was graduate recruitment. He observed that there was a time when someone could join a firm of lawyers or accountants and rise from being the tea boy to the top of the firm, but that is no longer so. It is interesting that graduate recruitment has, arguably, inhibited the social mobility that we all wish to see. It is certainly true that under the previous regime little was done to improve social mobility.
In those terms, the Milburn report is something of an embarrassment to the Labour party. It identifies access to education and educational opportunity as being critical to the mission I have described, but makes the point clearly that prior attainment limits people’s chance to progress into further and higher education. That point has been made at length. We cannot discuss admissions to universities without looking at applications, and all the evidence suggests not that the admissions system is prejudiced against people from under-represented groups but that too few of those people apply to university because of their prior attainment. We really have to get our schools system right if we want to drive the kind of social justice that lies at the heart of the Conservative party’s mission. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has put in place a wide range of plans to do just that—to drive up standards, create opportunity and deliver the kind of outcome that I am describing. However, you would not let me speak about those too much, Mr Deputy Speaker, because it would be going a little off the subject. As part of our mission to elevate people, it is absolutely right to consider how we can get more people whose tastes and talents take them in the direction of higher learning to achieve their potential.
Now, let me draw attention to the core of what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has said today. It is not just the Conservatives who are committed to social justice, although we are peculiarly committed to it. The whole coalition Government completely support the admirable principle that universities and colleges should offer places solely on merit. The Government seek to make far-reaching reforms of the further and higher education sectors, but there are some elements that we do not seek to change. Like other nations with outstanding higher education systems, we recognise that universities and colleges must continue to recruit on merit.
When I look at the issues that the Office for Fair Access must take into account in respect of access, I see no dichotomy between that commitment to merit and the list of considerations that universities are asked to take into account in respect of admissions. They are few but important and it is worth exploring them, because they are salient to our deliberations. The first is
“the scale and nature of outreach activity to be undertaken (singly or in partnership) with…schools and colleges—such as mentoring, school visits, student buddying”—
Not a word I would have used, Mr Deputy Speaker, but there we are—and
“master classes in schools.”
Is any of that incompatible with the principle of merit, I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch? It does not seem so to me.
Secondly, universities are asked to look at
“the scale and nature of outreach activity to be undertaken to attract mature students—including work with local communities.”
Can that be reconciled with the desire to see merit as the key determinant of admission? I think it certainly can.
The third component is
“the scale and nature of summer school programmes”
or similar initiatives in which universities are asked to engage. Is that an unhappy marriage with the nature of merit as a driver of access to university? Certainly not.
The fourth consideration is the number of financial waivers the university will offer, and the fifth is the requirement
“to participate in the new national scholarships programme, with bids match funded from…a university’s own resources.”
That will build on the long-standing tradition in our universities of bursaries, exhibitions and scholarships that have done a great deal to allow people from less advantaged backgrounds to achieve what they wish. None of that seems outside the scope of what the Bill seeks to secure.
The sixth consideration is
“targeting pupils with potential (use of contextual data, targeting low achieving schools) and improving aspiration and attainment through outreach.”
Let me say a word about that. I understand why someone might think that such targeting would be incompatible with the objectives of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, but I disagree. Universities have always used interviews, for example, to determine someone’s potential. Many hon. Members are university graduates, and a number of them will have been interviewed before obtaining their place. Those interviews have for a long time been used as means for a university to get a more rounded impression of an individual’s potential, tastes and personality. Is that unreasonable? It does not seem unreasonable to me. It is certainly time-honoured, and you will understand, Mr Deputy Speaker, for you know my instincts and sentiments as well as anyone, that anything that is time-honoured holds a special place in my heart.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I share the Minister’s sentiment about things being time-honoured, but does he agree that interviews are central to a tutorial system, because the tutor and pupil need to be able to work with one another over an extended period?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
To continue, Diogenes did not enjoy that relationship with Alexander, which is why he was unwilling to talk to him.
Mr Hayes
Now my hon. Friend encourages me to go down a classical road, which might be of interest to the House but certainly would not necessarily be relevant to the Bill, and I will not be encouraged to do that.
A consideration of potential has always been at the heart of the relationship between the teacher and the taught in the business of deciding where a person might go, having been admitted to an institution. I will not say that I was shocked—it is hard to be shocked in the House—but I was surprised by what the shadow Minister said. He might want to correct this—I do not want to damage his career unreasonably, although it will be in opposition of course—but he at least appeared to suggest that the Opposition’s policy was hostile to the very business of universities interviewing students. That would require unprecedented prescription over independent universities. It would be a curious Government and a curious Minister who told universities that they were forbidden to use what they had used successfully, perhaps for generations, as a means of choosing who was best suited to their institutions.
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that correction. I will not say that it was a U-turn—that would be too strong—but he seemed to clarify his remarks in a way that is helpful to us all in considering these matters in a balanced and measured manner.
The principle that I have described in respect of merit linked to a consideration of potential is time honoured. The other things that OFFA suggests that universities should take into account are no more frightening than those that I have already identified:
“progress towards benchmarks…published by HESA and others more immediate targets and measures agreed”
in respect of those less well represented groups. Targets agreed and measures suggested and agreed do not form the frightening perspective that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch described in his opening remarks, although, of course, I celebrate the fact that he has given us the chance to explore these matters because I want to put on the record what I have told him previously: I agree with him about merit.
Mr Hayes
They would be irrelevant were it not for the fact that we know—do we not?—that many high-performing students from state schools do not get to some of the universities that they might get to if they had the wherewithal that is available to people such as he and I and will be available by proxy to our offspring. I have not finished my list, but that brings me conveniently to advice and guidance.
We know—do we not?—from what Lord Browne and Mr Milburn said in their reports that part of the problem in matching the abilities of the under-represented in higher and further education to the institutions that might best serve their tastes and talents is that they do not have the wherewithal to get to where they might want to go. What I mean by that is this: we know that social networks and familial understanding are the basis on which those who are already advantaged cement their advantage. It is not aspiration or ambition but wherewithal that limits working class people from achieving what they might.
This is a difference between the two sides of the House. There has been a bourgeois left misunderstanding of working class culture. Lord Mandelson is a case in point—he felt that there was lack of ambition. Aspiration, we are often told, is what the working classes lack. That is completely untrue. Working class parents and grandparents seek exactly the same for their children and grandchildren as middle class people. What they lack is the means to achieve those ambitions because of a gap in wherewithal. They do not have the social and familial networks that understand the process by which their talents might be turned into actuality through higher learning.
That is why the Government are introducing an all-age careers service from this autumn that will balance the advice that it gives in an empirical and independent way. The Education Bill that is going through the House will place a duty on schools to secure that independent and empirical advice because we know that learning is a key driver of social mobility, and social mobility is a critical component of social justice. I would go as far as to say that a free society, which is by its very nature an unequal society, can be legitimised only when social mobility prevails. The inequalities that are the natural bedfellow of freedom can be ethically justified only by social mobility. That is why social mobility and social justice are so central to our mission.
I return to the requirements published by OFFA in respect of access and admissions, which universities must take into account, as that is a subject that has been raised repeatedly in the debate. The list of requirements goes on to identify
“the support offered to students once enrolled on courses—for example additional study support, mentoring, pastoral support, help with basic skills; and the range of programmes the university will offer which could be easier for under-represented groups, particularly mature students, to access—part-time courses, distance learning, two-year degrees, intensive, accelerated degrees, supported foundation year.”
Why is all that so important? We know that when the rhythms and patterns of study match the rhythms and patterns of many more kinds of people’s lives, they are likely to engage in learning, and that for a mature student, for someone working to fund their study, for someone with caring responsibilities, the traditional three-year degree course, full time, at a leafy campus is not an option. By being more creative about modes of learning and access points to learning, we can engage many more kinds of people.
I gave a speech on broadening access to higher education—I know that you will be familiar with it, Mr Deputy Speaker, but others in the House may not be—some time ago at Birkbeck college in London. I have a copy for anyone who would like one. I am prepared to sign them for particular fans and admirers. Birkbeck college is the embodiment of the principle that I have just outlined. At Birkbeck, the idea of taster courses, first years which allow people to move on to a degree, and the very business of part-time study are intrinsic. It is central to the college’s mission, as it is to the Open university. I was with the Master of Birkbeck college and the vice-chancellor of the Open university briefly yesterday, as I was anticipating this debate. The Open university, too, shows us that by changing the way people study we can change the level of engagement of those who are typically under-represented in higher education. I have mentioned further education, where part-time study is generally the norm, rather than the exception, which is one of the reasons why we want to expand HE in FE.
To return to the Bill and the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, the real issue is that OFFA’s requirement that universities must use a range of programmes, including distance learning, part-time study and taster and foundation courses, far from being malevolent, is extraordinarily virtuous in achieving the mission that he and I share, which is that those who have the ability should be able to access higher education.
Mr Chope
I do not want to get between my hon. Friend and Pope John Paul II, but if a university court, for example, is to have the freedom to decide what is best for its university, why can we not trust the universities themselves to do what is best? Why are the Government prescribing this set of requirements through OFFA?
Mr Hayes
My right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science, when dealing with those issues in the House, has made it clear that universities are indeed independent institutions that will make their own judgments on precisely how they deal with those matters. It seems perfectly reasonable, based on our desire to spread good practice as far as we can, to draw to their attention those salient matters that might affect their ability to give opportunities to those people with merit who typically do not do as well as those with equal merit from advantaged backgrounds. I do not think that that is unreasonable. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would not want to inhibit in any way those who are under-represented in higher education, but who have talent and merit, from prospering. I give him absolute assurance that merit is the basis on which universities should choose students, and we are not in the business of dictating to independent institutions on how they go about meeting the requirements, which seem to me very reasonable, set out by OFFA.
We believe that freedom is central to the concept of a university. Indeed, a free university linked to academic freedom and freedom of thought seems to me to be important elements of a civilized society, as was mentioned earlier. I qualify that, however, by noting that John Paul II said that freedom has its merit when it is exercised to pursue truth. I do not want to leave on the record any misunderstanding that freedom is intrinsically of value, separated from truth, because that could misrepresent my views on the character of freedom.
That takes us to Cardinal Newman’s “The Idea of a University”, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will have read before the debate. Newman’s idea of a university was that by definition it should be distinct from instruction, vocation or a profession. That is one of the tenets he sets out in his discourses concerning what a university should comprise. That is no longer the case in Britain. Pursuing a university career in Britain might, indeed, still be about studying something peculiarly—solely—academic, but it might also include studying something that is highly vocational or practical in character, and so it should. I admire Cardinal Newman immensely, but on that matter I disagree with him, which might be because we live in different times. For that reason, however, the business of access to university, tied to what is studied and how, needs to infuse all we do regarding admissions and access. That is why I take a rather more lateral view about the character of higher study: how, where and what people study all seem to be linked when we consider the matter of access.
My hon. Friend fears that we are engaged in social engineering, but I can absolutely assure him that, far from that, the independence vested in universities by their very nature remains unaffected by the Government’s determination to pursue an agenda that will widen access as I have outlined.
My hon. Friend will know, and it has been discussed today, that the Government have been looking at how universities are funded. The changes in fees and funding will put universities on a more sustainable footing, and, as he argues, part of that will involve universities deciding what they charge their students. There are those who think that that will inhibit our plan to widen access, but I absolutely believe that it is not admissions or fees that are central to spreading opportunity in that way, but, as I have said, prior attainment, advice and guidance, what people study, access points to learning and modes of learning.
For example, the Government’s response to Browne, which accepts his recommendations on part-time funding, will, I believe, in a short time have a more dramatic effect on widening access to higher education than any change to the admissions system could ever have. We already know that part-time learners tend to be drawn from a wider cohort than full-timers, and the change has been widely welcomed by the universities sector, in particular in the House yesterday by the Open university and Birkbeck college and, indeed, by others. I know that it is welcomed also by the Association of Colleges, Universities UK and the Million+ group, and it is going to be an essential component in allowing us to achieve our objectives to broaden access.
My hon. Friend seeks to prescribe in law the circumstances by which people might be admitted to university, but my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset suggested—and I was able to help him through an intervention in making the point, I hope, even more clearly—that in doing so my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would prescribe not merely what universities chose to do, but what they chose not to do, because universities that use interviews as a way of assessing students would, I guess, be prevented from doing so.
Mr Hayes
That is a helpful intervention, because a student with less prior attainment, for all kinds of variables that we do not need to expand on now, might well be admitted to a university as a result of an assessment of their potential at interview, whereas a student who had achieved strong results and so had strong prior attainment might not be. I am glad that my hon. Friend is not saying that there is rigidity in these principles. He displays an understanding of merit that is rather more liberal than I had imagined. I assure him that the Government’s understanding of merit is equally liberal. I do not usually like to use the word liberal in a positive way, but we are now in a different world so I will do so. The Government are absolutely clear that it is for universities to make decisions about who will best benefit from their provision, and not for us. We do not want to dictate that any more than I have now learned my hon. Friend does. Universities are, as the Minister for Universities and Science has made perfectly clear in this House, independent institutions, and long may they remain so.
The principle of institutional autonomy is enshrined in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which I happen to have with me. My hon. Friend will know that that Act—from memory I think that it is in section 62 or 63—makes it absolutely clear that universities are autonomous institutions. That limits the power of the Secretary of State. The Act, which I hasten to add is unchanged by this Government, limits the Government’s power, subject to certain terms and conditions. For the benefit of the House, I will read the provisions because I do not imagine that everybody has the Act to hand. Section 68(3) states:
“Such terms and conditions may not be framed by reference…to the criteria for the selection and appointment of academic staff and for the admission of students.”
That could not be clearer. It could not be more plain that the Government, in leaving the Act unaffected by any changes that we are making to fees and funding, are absolutely confirming the independence of our universities in those terms. That principle has been observed for a very long time and we do not wish it to be challenged or amended.
Institutional autonomy, whether in further or higher education, remains a central tenet of our system, and it is a key theme in our current considerations. Perhaps I should add that in respect of further education colleges the Government are going even further. We are determined to lift much of the bureaucratic burden that they have endured for too long. To unleash the human capital in our further education colleges and to build on their excellent work, we will free them from some of the target-driven, centrally micro-managed and directed edicts that emerged from the previous regime. In those dark days, further education was undervalued by Government; it is not now. As we have moved from the shadows into the light, so has further education in the United Kingdom. The Education Bill that is currently making its way through this House rescinds some of the requirements that were placed on further education colleges late in the previous Government’s life. It will increase their powers to borrow and invest, and make various other changes. The principles of institutional freedom that I have described will be retained.
Although I understand the reasons for doubts about what OFFA has said about admissions, I do not believe they are well founded. I have given a firm commitment on behalf of the Government to the principle of merit, but I wish to say a little about how we might move ahead in agreement.
To help identify individuals with the greatest potential, institutions may want to use data about the context in which a young person has achieved their qualifications. The Government believe that that is a valid and appropriate way for institutions to broaden access while maintaining excellence, as long as individuals are considered on their merits and institutions’ procedures are fair, transparent and evidence-based.
That is not a change from previous good practice, it is what universities and colleges have always done. Many universities already take into account a range of such contextual information in considering whom to admit. The sector has taken steps further to develop its use of such information, and the sector-led supporting professionalism in admissions programme already has as one of its key themes the use of contextual data to support fair admissions. Good practice principles on the use of such data have been developed.
Comments have been made about the proportion of private school pupils who go to university. We have no policy view on the number of privately educated students entering HE. The Government’s policy view is that access should be on the basis of merit, irrespective of background. It would be wrong for the Government to suggest that the number of people from private schools going to our universities should be limited, and we have no intention of doing so.
There is no chance of the Government interfering or setting quotas. Our recent guidance letter to the director of OFFA makes that point, stating that universities will select their own performance measures and set out, in their new access arrangements agreed with OFFA, the progress that they expect to make in widening participation and access. The Government are quite clear not only that quotas are undesirable, but that as I have explained, legislation simply does not permit us to interfere in university admissions in such a way.
I am inclined to move to my summary now, although I know the House would like me to speak at greater length. The Government fully support the principle that universities and colleges should admit students based on their academic ability, potential and aptitude, as assessed by the institution in question. That is precisely the aim of the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch articulated with his usual flair. We believe that his concerns about accessing educational opportunities on merit do not need legislation. I hope that given my firm assurances from the Dispatch Box, he agrees with that, particularly as I have illustrated the legislation that already exists to protect the very interests that he has mentioned.
Chesterton—we have heard too little about him in this debate, have we not?—said:
“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”
In passing on the soul of society, we need always to be conscious of the fact that the relationship between learning and opportunity is profound. It would be inappropriate, but worse than that unethical, for a Government not to focus on how we can spread opportunity as widely as possible. That is one reason why I championed vocational education so vociferously in my time as a shadow Minister and now as a Minister. Many people’s tastes and talents will take them down a vocational pathway, which must be as navigable, progressive and seductive as the academic route. Notwithstanding my support for apprenticeships, to which the Government are devoting unprecedented levels of funding, the tastes and talents of many other people from the kind of backgrounds that I come from will take them towards an academic career in a university. Our duty is to ensure that they too get their chance of glittering prizes.
We believe that my hon. Friend’s objectives do not need legislation, as I said. We know that good sense and good government demand that universities remain free to make those judgments about their future. Accordingly, while recognising the worth of his intentions and admiring his ambitions, and frankly, being envious of his perspicacity, the Government are bound to oppose the Bill.
Mr Chope
With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to thank everybody who participated in this debate, which has now extended beyond three hours. This fraught subject commands enormous interest both outside and inside the House, and I hope that as a result of the debate, we have collectively flushed out a bit more of the Government’s thinking.
My hon. Friend the Minister, whom I thank and congratulate on his contribution to the debate, identified section 68(3) of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 as the reason my Bill is not needed. Under that provision, the Secretary of State is not allowed to interfere in the role of universities in deciding their admission policies for students.
On the face of it, that is the end of the matter, but of course, clever Governments try to find alternative means of achieving their objectives. Using the Office for Fair Access, this Government have come up with a clever scheme. They are saying, “We will allow universities to increase their fees to up to £7,500 or £9,000 a year, but we will give OFFA a veto over them if they wish to increase fees beyond £6,000. The veto can be exercised on the basis of advice that the Government give to OFFA.”
That is an attempt to control access arrangements. Obviously, the Government can say ultimately, “It’s nothing to do with us that university X or Y has decided to increase its fees to £9,000, but in return for the privilege”—as it is seen—“of doing that, there will be restrictions on its ability to admit students purely on the basis of merit.” There is a subtle agenda behind that—the policy is designed to put pressure on universities that want to charge the highest fees, and to introduce constraints on their admissions policies, which they cannot freely decide. Whether as a result of intended or unintended consequences, undoubtedly universities that wish to be able to increase their fees to £9,000 a year in exercise of their sovereign power will not be able to do so unless they get the permission of OFFA. However, OFFA will not give permission unless the conditions set out in the regulations are met and complied with. That is why a lot of universities are worried about this meddlesome interference and increased regulation in the system.
During the debate, I was attacked by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) for being far too left wing and interventionist. I am prepared to take the criticism on the chin. However, I pray in aid my plea in mitigation, which was in a sense anticipated by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies): if there was not already interference by the Government in the freedom of universities to decide their own admissions arrangements, and if they were free to chose the level of fees that they charge without interference from OFFA, there would be no need for this measure. The Bill is a response to the Government’s meddlesome regulatory interference in higher education and in the ability of HE institutions to set fees at the level that they want. I accept that criticism, therefore, but my mitigation is that the Bill has been made necessary by the Government’s attitude.
When one listens to and analyses what my hon. Friend the Minister has said, and if one reads paragraph 6.1 of the Secretary of State’s new guidance to OFFA, it is clear that
“In the new Access Arrangements, institutions should agree with”
the director of fair access
“a programme of defined progress each year… The access performance indicators relate to the percentage of students admitted…from state schools or colleges,…from lower socio-economic classes, and…from low-participation neighbourhoods.”
What is the purpose of introducing such criteria, if ultimately the Government do not want to interfere in universities’ freedom to choose their own students? Ultimately, if we trust our universities—my hon. Friends the Members for North East Somerset and for Shipley made this point—they will come up with the right results, particularly if we set them free, and leave them accountable to themselves, their student bodies and the wider public. We have seen in today’s news about the director of the London School of Economics an example of the exercise in practice of such accountability, independence and freedom. There was no interference from the Government. That institution took responsibility for the consequences of its own decisions, and I am sure that that will be widely welcomed.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) for his contribution. We agree about a lot of these issues, although perhaps not interviews. My daughter’s experience when undergoing interviews for veterinary medicine showed that there is more to going on some of these courses, whether veterinary medicine, medicine or other courses, than academic qualifications alone. Students also have to demonstrate an aptitude, and the people who conduct the interviews are good at identifying that aptitude. For example, an aspiring veterinary or medical student who does not like the idea of going to an abattoir or seeing a dead body is probably not heading in the right direction for their career, however good their exam results. That sort of thing can be found out in an interview, but it cannot necessarily be ascertained on the back of an exam paper.
There is an important role for interviews in the admissions process, but I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Wrexham about the delay in putting the higher education White Paper before the people. I share universities’ concern about the fact that time is running out if they are to be able to draw up access arrangements so that students can know where they stand in relation to fees and other things from the 2012 academic year.
I hope that, in the spirit of belt and braces, the Bill is given a Second Reading so that it can go into Committee. If, in the end, we find that I am wrong and my hon. Friend the Minister is right, and there is no covert interference in university admissions policies through OFFA, the Bill will be nugatory, but I fear that the Government’s agenda, egged on by the minority party in the coalition, is one of interference and trying to achieve social engineering. If one wants evidence to back up that suspicion, I can do no more than cite the fact that the Government are intent on penalising people who pay back their loans early. What could be more ludicrous than that? I hope that the Bill receives a Second Reading.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury appears to have made an announcement this morning on seeking a 5p reduction from Europe in the cost of rural fuel. Will you give advice on that, and say whether the Speaker’s Office has received representations from the Treasury on the subject?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for notice of that point of order. I have not received notification that any statements are to be made today, but I am sure that if Members on the Treasury Bench wished to give such notification, they would do so through the normal channels.
Parliament (Amendment) Bill
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill follows on from a ten-minute rule Bill that had the support of the House earlier this Session. Although I say it myself, the timing of this Second Reading is perfect, because it follows Royal Assent being given to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill; the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill is still being discussed in the other place; and the Government have not yet produced their draft Bill on reform of the other place, although they keep saying that such a Bill will be introduced imminently.
My Bill would ensure that the number of people sitting and voting in the other place did not exceed the number of elected Members in this place. As a result of the passing of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, from the next general election, anticipated to be in May 2015, there will be only 600 Members in this House. That reduction was made not least to save public money. I see no case whatever for the other place having more than 600 unelected Members.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said about the timing of his Bill. He referred to the Government’s proposals on House of Lords reform, which are being drafted and which we will publish shortly. Is it not therefore premature of him to have brought forward his proposals about numbers? Given that his Bill has no mechanism for achieving those numbers, would it not be better for him to participate fully in the scrutiny of our draft Bill to achieve the effect that he desires?
Mr Chope
I hope to be able to do that as well. My hon. Friend will not have failed to notice that my Bill would come into force on 1 May 2015, so it is forward looking, like much of the material that I bring before the House. I do not think that his is an adequate objection to the Bill. I hope that the measures in clause 1 will be in the draft Bill that the Government talk about bringing forward; I would have thought it unconscionable for the Government to propose that the other place have more than 600 Members. I hope that, on reflection, my hon. Friend will be prepared to accept clause 1.
Clause 2 deals with the number of Ministers in the House of Commons. Under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, the maximum number is 95. As has been accepted by the Government—this point is supported strongly on both sides of the Chamber and in the other place—if we reduce the number of members of the legislature, we should also reduce the number of members of the Executive; otherwise, the balance between the Executive and the legislature gets out of kilter. Indeed, that was a recommendation of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, of which I am privileged to be a member, in our report last October. We said:
“It is self-evident that a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament will increase the dominance of the Executive over Parliament if the number of Ministers sitting and voting in the House is not correspondingly reduced. This is a matter of constitutional importance that goes to the heart of the relationship between the Executive and the House.”
This very day the Government have responded to the Committee’s recommendations. Cmd 7997 states:
“The Government remains committed to strengthening Parliament in relation to the Executive…We have been clear that we accept the principle that there is a link between the legislature and the size of the executive.”
So we are making progress.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a sound argument, which I totally support. May I draw his attention to the business listed for Wednesday 7 September 2011? It includes the Second Reading of my House of Commons Disqualification (Amendment) Bill, which would remove a number of Ministers at a stroke, and they happen to be in the Whips Office.
Mr Chope
I had the privilege of listening to my hon. Friend when he made a very powerful speech introducing that Bill under the ten-minute rule. Nothing in my Bill cuts across or undermines anything in his Bill, which I hope will make swift progress when it comes before the House.
The Government’s argument against clause 2 of my Bill is given in paragraph 91 of today’s Command Paper:
“There is no immediate need to resolve this issue, since the provisions relating to a reduced number of MPs will not take effect until 2015. The Government therefore intends to reflect on the arguments made during the passage of this Bill”—
the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—
“and set out its plans once there is greater clarity on the composition of the second Chamber, including how many Ministers could be drawn from there.”
It seems as though the Government are moving in the same direction, but clause 2 of my Bill would be a bit more of a nudge in that direction. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to confirm that the matter will be resolved during this Parliament. I certainly remain concerned about that.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Government and now the Boundary Commission are pressing on speedily with reviewing the legislature. Indeed, the Boundary Commission has, also today, published its new electoral quotas and confirmed the numbers of seats for each of the countries in the United Kingdom. It has also said that it intends to produce its provisional recommendations this autumn. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government are pressing on so quickly with the reduction in the legislature, they should at the same time look at the Executive?
Mr Chope
I agree with the hon. Gentleman completely. This is very important because we do not want the issue of how large the Executive will be to be left to the Executive to decide after the next general election. I think that the balance between the size of the Executive and the size of the legislature should be for the legislature to decide. If we are to have a smaller legislature, we need to impose a smaller Executive well in advance of the next election.
Mr Bone
Is not one danger of having a smaller number of MPs to scrutinise the Government while also having an ever-increasing Executive that there will be more and more demand from people to split the powers and take the Executive out of the House of Commons? That would be a wrong move, but it is a danger because of the direction in which the Government are heading.
Mr Chope
As so often, my hon. Friend is probably on to a good point; one can almost read between the lines of the Command Paper to which I referred, which seems to suggest that the Government might increase the number of Ministers in the other place as a quid pro quo.
We need to put limits on the number of Ministers in this House. I suggest 80. At present, the maximum is 95. If we can have a leaner civil service and public sector, we can also have a leaner Government in terms of the number of Members who hold ministerial office, so I commend clause 2 to the House.
Clause 3 deals with Parliamentary Private Secretaries. At present, there is no limit on their number. Bearing in mind that they are used as lobby fodder, have responsibilities to their Ministers and are appointed by the Prime Minister and that if they step out of line by so much as supporting one of my Bills on a Friday their career as a PPS is at an end, we should give them recognition in statute and limit their number. I suggest that
“no more than 25 persons being the holders of the office of Parliamentary Private Secretary shall be entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons at any one time.”
That would be roughly one PPS to each Secretary of State, which would be more than ample.
The provision would not stop the Government doing what they do at the moment, which is to appoint people who are not given the title of Parliamentary Private Secretary; they are advisers, deputy chairmen or vice-chairmen of the party or they have a special responsibility in this or that Department—all part of the patronage system. The Bill would not stop that, but it would at least prevent the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries from increasing as it is at the moment. A side-effect of my proposal is that we would have to put on the public record who the Parliamentary Private Secretaries are and where they are; at the moment, that information is not easily available.
Clause 4 deals with ministerial office in the other place, to try to ensure that we do not end up with a bloated Executive there after any reforms that may be introduced. Although the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, tells us that there will be a draft Bill, who would be so bold as to put their money on its being enacted before the next general election? I suspect the odds might be similar to those on Ireland beating England at cricket the other day.
Clause 4 is important because the provision that states that
“Not more than 10% of those persons who are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords at any one time shall be the holders of Ministerial offices”
will apply even if there has been no reform of the other place before the next general election. I thought 10% was a generous quota; if there were 600 Members, there would be a maximum of 60 Ministers in the other place.
Of course, there is no point in limiting the number of Ministers if we cannot also limit the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries in the other place, so clause 5 would provide that not more than 3% of those
“who are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords at any one time shall be holders of the office of Parliamentary Private Secretary.”
This is a short, straightforward, easily understood and transparent piece of legislation.
Mr Bone
I think my hon. Friend is about to reach a conclusion. Before he does so, will he tell us whether he has had a letter of support for the Bill from the Prime Minister? The measure is entirely in line with the Prime Minister’s very powerful speech of 26 May 2009—“Fixing broken politics” .
Mr Chope
I have not got a copy, but I am sure that if we give the Minister a chance to speak he will quote from the Prime Minister’s letter of support. I am sure that the Prime Minister is on our side. We are members of the legislature; he is, for the time being, the leader of the Executive, but he recognises the importance of the legislature having a bigger role in holding the Executive to account, and the Bill is designed to achieve that.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to speak to the Bill, which has many interesting features and merits. It originates in its recent form from a new clause that was proposed to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. [Interruption.] Yes, it is now an Act. I am being heckled already, which does not bode well for the rest of these proceedings.
Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends and I voted for that new clause, which was moved by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) on 25 October last year. Speaking for the Opposition on that occasion, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said:
“if the Government plan to cut the number of seats in the House of Commons and do not plan to cut the number of Ministers, surely that will increase the influence of the Government—the Executive—over Parliament. I wholeheartedly support the argument that the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) made this evening.”
Indeed, he added quite eloquently that
“if we are going to cut one group, we should cut the other. That is entirely in line with the new clause.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 114-117.]
Unfortunately, despite the assistance of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and a number of his colleagues, that new clause was defeated by 241 votes to 293, and it led the next day to his proposing his ten-minute rule Bill, in which he commented on the Government’s attitude towards the new clause and, indeed, his Bill. I found it quite distressing to read that he talked about his hon. Friends who supported the new clause being
“dragged away to the Whips Office to be dealt with.”
I am glad that that sort of thing would never happen in the Labour party.
I realise that the Bill would go further than the original new clause, but the spirit of that new clause is in the Bill. If changes are to be made to the legislature—we strongly disapprove of those changes—it is only right that we address the issue of the Executive at the same time, and I note in reading the Library paper on limiting the number of Ministers and the size of the payroll vote that, over the past 13 years, Government Members have made several attempts to do so. Whether it is significant that they made those attempts when they were in opposition I do not know, but they include figures as illustrious as the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
While the hon. Gentleman is developing his point, will he include in his remarks the view that the Labour party took when it was in government about those attempts to shrink the Executive?
Mr Slaughter
The Minister is tempting me, and we only have relatively few minutes left. I am sure that the House would wish to hear the Government’s response to the hon. Member for Christchurch, so I will not go through the list of attempts and Bills and the response to them, as I am not sure whether that would profit us much. I thought that it would be uncontroversial to say that the hon. Gentleman is following an honourable tradition of Government Members who have addressed this issue. I, like him, would be surprised if the Minister does not warmly welcome the Bill and, indeed, say that it has the Prime Minister’s support.
This certainly is not the time to revive the discussions about the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, save to say that the basis of that shoddy constitutional legislation and compensatory gerrymander was a tawdry deal done between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives when they asked, “How many seats are we getting off you? How many seats are we going to take off them?” But that Bill had, as all such pieces of cloak and dagger legislation are likely to have, consequences, whether intended or unintended. When the boundary commissions for the four constituent countries publishes their target seats, excepting the little favours being done to Liberal Members in the north of Scotland and Conservative Members in the Isle of Wight, it is likely that we shall have reduced numbers, and the necessary measures for that are to be rushed through in great haste, so it seems only fair and logical that the issue of the Executive is addressed at the same time.
I referred to the speech that the hon. Member for Christchurch made on his ten-minute rule Bill on the subject, when he alluded not only to the overall reduction in the legislature—that is, this House—but to the plans by the Government to go on increasing the number of Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers. By the hon. Gentleman’s estimation, that would mean that it was the coalition’s
“policy to increase the number of Members of the House of Lords by no fewer than 250, which is absolute lunacy”—[Official Report, 26 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 201-204.]
Again, it is a method of increasing by unstraightforward measures the influence that a party or parties have in the two Houses. From the Opposition’s point of view, that seems to be grossly unfair, and the consequences should be addressed.
I could go on a lot longer, but in view of the time, I shall allow the Minister to start his remarks, although I expect that he will not finish them today. It would be useful for him to say why he would not be prepared at least to allow the Bill into Committee so that we could have an open discussion about the power, the role and the size of the Executive, as he and his colleagues forced the House to have about the legislature.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on bringing this Bill, as well as the Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill, before the House on one Friday. Thinking back to the time when he and I were in opposition, I do not remember him being as keen for private Members’ Bills to make progress as he is when his own name is attached to them. I seem to remember that he was keen for them to make little progress.
The speech from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) was probably the shortest Friday speech that I have ever heard from him. He used to wax lyrical on Fridays.
One of my hon. Friend’s key points in his opening remarks on the Bill was how widely those views were shared. I note that his Bill has 11 supporters on both sides of the House. I looked carefully around the House as my hon. Friend was setting out his case. He may correct me if I am wrong, but I did not manage to spy a single one of the 11 supporters of the Bill who had troubled themselves to attend the House today to lend their support in person. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is looking at me askance, but I look carefully at the names on the Bill and I do not see his name among them.
Mr Harper
I take my hon. Friend’s point, but if he is correct—I have no reason to think otherwise—about the incredible support for the Bill, it is surprising that of the 11 Members who beat him in getting their names attached to the Bill, none of them have troubled themselves to be here. Given that my hon. Friend has taken the trouble to be present, he might want to have a conversation with some of those who supported the Bill.
Mr Harper
No. Those were simply my opening remarks. I have many excellent points of substance, to which I shall now turn.
I will start by picking up on the points that my hon. Friend made on these exact subjects during the progress of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. He started very generously by referring to the number of Ministers in this House and accurately quoted the Government’s view, which is that we had said—
Business without Debate
Hon. Members
Object.
Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 11 November.
SECURED LENDING REFORM BILL
Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Hon. Members
Object.
Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 10 June.
PARLIAMENTARY STANDARDS (AMENDMENT) BILL
Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
False Self-employment Status
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Before starting my speech, I should declare an interest: before being elected to this august House, I practised for more than half a decade as an employment law solicitor, and advising on these issues was very much my bread and butter. I thank the GMB union, of which I am a member, and UCATT, a construction workers union, which I am proud to say is headquartered in my constituency, for providing me with valuable information and assistance in my preparation for the debate. I also thank the fine national newspaper, the Daily Mirror, which is running an excellent ongoing campaign against false self-employment. It, too, has been most helpful.
At the outset, I ought to explain for the record what I mean by self-employment. The law makes a distinction between contracts of employment and contracts for service: in the former, the individual is, obviously, employed, and in the latter they are not. There is no set test in law for an employment relationship to exist—I know this because it has created a huge amount of litigation that has kept my profession in practice for some time.
The courts take into account a number of factors, some of which are given more credence than others. First, of particular importance are features in the relationship that are consistent with there being employment—for example, an obligation on the individual to do the work personally and exclusively and the obligation on the employer to pay wages. Secondly, the degree of control exercised over the worker by the other contracting party is also quite significant—for example, control over when, how, where and to what standard the service is provided. Finally, one factor that has become increasingly important is the mutuality of obligation between the contracting parties; there is an obligation on the employer to provide work and on the worker to do it.
Why does this all matter? It is hugely important, because employment is an individual’s passport to a plethora of protections and rights that have been put in place over the years to afford people protection in our market-based economy so that it works in a more balanced way, not just for the rich and powerful, but for everyone. Many of those rights and protections were introduced at the behest of the Labour movement. When people talk down our trade unions in this country, they would do well to reflect on how they have helped deliver for working people over the decades.
Some of the key rights and protections include the right to claim unfair dismissal; the right to a redundancy payment; the right to maternity, paternity and parental leave, which various Prime Ministers have taken advantage of in the past couple of Parliaments; the right to a minimum period when leaving employment; and the right to protection on the insolvency of an employer, which has been particularly relevant during the recent recession. I cannot emphasise enough just how important these rights and protections are—I know that from practising employment law—but many people take them for granted.
In my experience, the majority of employers running businesses do not wish to deprive employees of the rights and protections that I have discussed, yet one attraction for employers, in avoiding the employment relationship, is that they as an employer avoid all the accompanying obligations. Furthermore, financially, if they avoid the employment relationship, they avoid having to pay employer’s national insurance.
Admittedly, there are employees who seek to avoid employment, and historically some have sought to do so to avoid paying income tax, but in my experience they are very much the exception to the rule. What is becoming clearer by the day is that we in this country have a problem with a substantial minority of employers falsely declaring their staff to be self-employed to avoid their obligations to them. That is why I call it false self-employment. Others refer to it as bogus self-employment, but I do not like the phrase, which is why I prefer to refer to it as false self-employment.
The problem is particularly pronounced in the construction industry, and I know that partly through practice, I suppose, but also through the information and evidence that UCATT has given to me. About 50% of construction workers are self-employed in this country, about twice the proportion of workers in the construction industries of other western industrialised countries. In fact, self-employment in construction in this country is between two and three times higher than that in any other advanced country’s building industry, including in the famously flexible US labour market. UCATT estimates that about half of those employed in construction in this country—possibly up to 1 million workers—are in false self-employment.
Other sectors in which false self-employment features highly include retail, cleaning and aviation, and in factory and agricultural workplaces. Last year, the previous Government estimated that the Exchequer could be losing up to £350 million in taxes as a result of such practices. In fact, research by the university of Essex suggests that that is a gross underestimate. It thinks that in reality the fiscal loss is far in excess of £1 billion per year, and that is extremely relevant in the context of the Government and hon. Members on both sides of the House wanting to reduce our public sector debts.
Let me give just one example: Ryanair. I have no doubt that many Members will have travelled on a Ryanair flight. I have, and perhaps I should not go into my other views on the airline, but the Daily Mirror reports that up to half of Ryanair’s pilots are not on the staff roll but are hired by an agency called Brookfield Aviation International, based in Epsom, Surrey. One self-employed pilot there tells of how he spends all the 900 hours that he is legally allowed to fly for Ryanair in the cockpit, how he works when he is told to, and how he has to take holiday when the airline lets him, but the company treats him as self-employed, and he says that he is afraid to challenge that state of affairs, because in his words:
“If you rock the boat you can be shown the door.”
A more widespread example, which we see all around us whenever we are out and about in London, is that of courier drivers. Daniel, who goes under a different name in the Fair Work Coalition’s paper on the issue, which I urge the Minister to read, is one such courier. He is married with two children, and until his job finished abruptly he was a driver for a courier firm making deliveries throughout the UK. He was dependent on the firm for his vehicle, and the company dictated the hours that he worked, but he was told that he was self-employed and responsible for his own tax and national insurance. His hours were long, unpredictable and unsociable, and he was often paid at well below the minimum wage rate that he was promised.
There is so much that I could go over, because this is a massive topic, but I do not have the time. I should be grateful, however, if the Minister could respond to a few questions. Generally, what is the Government’s approach to the issue? What is their assessment of the current situation, and what action, if any, are they willing to take to end false self-employment in Britain today?
More specifically, in relation to the enforcement action that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs takes against employers seeking to avoid their tax and PAYE obligations as I have described, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury said in answer to a parliamentary question in January that HMRC employs just 39 employee status inspectors. Given the scale of the problem, surely that number has to be increased drastically. I imagine that the extra revenue would more than cover the associated costs of doing so. If the Government had that extra revenue, perhaps they would not have to impose all their austerity measures. Does the Minister agree?
The previous Government consulted on proposals to introduce legislation so that workers in the construction industry would be deemed to be in receipt of employment income for income tax and national insurance purposes, unless certain criteria were met. Will the Government take forward those proposals? If not, why not?
The previous Government set up the Gangmasters Licensing Authority in 2005 to protect and enforce workers’ rights in the agricultural, horticultural and shellfish industries. Its functions include ensuring that false self-employment in those sectors does not proliferate. Are the Government prepared to explore an expansion of the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to include other industries such as construction?
Many people think that the employment agency standards inspectorate, which exists to protect agency workers, is an inefficient regulator. What is the Government’s view of that, and what action will they take on the matter?
This issue is of such importance because many of those who are forced into false self-employment work in low-paid professions and need the protection and rights that are afforded by employment. Many of those people are my constituents. It is also in the interests of businesses, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises, to clamp down on this practice, because false self-employment gives an unfair competitive advantage to businesses that disregard their PAYE and national insurance obligations by engaging workers in this way. Of course, there is a corresponding disadvantage for businesses that properly engage their workers and employees.
Before I wrap up, I want to say something to the Minister. When discussing almost any issue, Government Members and Ministers raise the point with Labour Members that the previous Government did not take sufficient action in a certain area. Although the previous Government achieved a lot, I will not pretend that they fully resolved this issue before losing power. However, I think the Minister will agree that what my constituents and working people up and down the country who are listening to this debate will want to know is what the coalition Government who are now in power will do about this problem. I urge this Government to get a grip of the situation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
I thank the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) for raising this important issue. Like him, I think it is important that we debate this matter, so I congratulate him on securing the debate.
I make it clear to the hon. Gentleman and to the House at the outset that the Government do not condone false or bogus self-employment. If an individual is wrongly categorised as self-employed when they are a worker or an employee, it has implications for the individual, the employer and the Exchequer, as the hon. Gentleman explained. As self-employed people effectively pay a lower rate of tax and national insurance, and because engagers pay no employers’ national insurance, there will always be those who try to present an employment relationship as self-employment.
The terms and conditions of any employment should reflect the reality of the employment relationship. The true economic activity undertaken by an individual should determine how they are taxed. Those who are working under employment terms should be taxed as such. That ensures that people receive the appropriate employment rights and contributory benefit entitlements, and that they pay the right tax and national insurance. It is not a matter of making a choice about someone’s employment status; their status should reflect the reality of the relationship between the parties.
Employers should be aware that anyone who incorrectly treats a worker as self-employed is liable for that worker’s tax and national insurance contributions, and may be liable to penalties. An individual worker can also pursue a claim for employment rights through an employment tribunal or an enforcement body, as appropriate.
Of course, there is guidance on employment status in relation to tax on the website of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and guidance on employment rights on the direct.gov and Business Link websites. The direct.gov website includes pen pictures of key groups, to help people understand their own status. We have also made information and guidance available through the ACAS helpline. I believe that greater awareness of obligations, penalties and rights for both workers and employers is the best mechanism to avoid abuse, along with an effective enforcement regime.
I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is for businesses to decide the most appropriate arrangements for engaging workers. The Government should not promote a particular approach but should ensure that they have the right enforcement mechanisms in place.
Mr Umunna
I completely agree with the Minister’s points about public awareness of the issue. One of my questions to him should have been what the Government were doing about that, and I am encouraged by what he has said.
In practice, I was aware of the existence of much of what the Minister has talked about, but I found that clients often were not. Will the Government consider advertising in newspapers and magazines and on the television the information that is available? Although it exists, I believe there is a lack of awareness of where it is.
Mr Davey
I have to say that people who want to find it can find it very easily, but I think some people may want to avoid finding it. Indeed, that was the message of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. There is great availability of information—I have mentioned a number of websites, but there are other sources of information for people to turn to. I agree with him, however, that raising awareness is important.
It is essential that we do not lose sight of the fact that legitimate self-employment is a key part of the UK labour market. I know that the hon. Gentleman does not disagree with that. Nearly 4 million people in the UK are self-employed, which reflects the UK’s tradition of entrepreneurship. The legal and institutional features of the UK, including its competitive markets and employment framework, have delivered diversity and dynamism in the labour market, which allows more people to find a job that suits them. That has contributed to the UK having higher employment, at 70.6% of the total working-age population, than most other OECD countries, whose average is 64.8%, and still lower unemployment, at 7.8% compared with an 8.6% OECD average.
Like all other forms of employment, self-employment consists of a wide variety of individuals with a range of activities and capacities. The spectrum ranges from individuals working for themselves to people running multinational businesses and employing a substantial number of employees. The self-employed are not generally covered by employment legislation, because they are their own boss. They do, however, benefit from key protections such as the right to work in a healthy and safe environment and protection under discrimination legislation. The rights and responsibilities of the self-employed are governed by the terms of their contract with their client or customer.
Self-employed people are usually identified by the fact that they are in business for themselves and provide a service to multiple clients. They are generally more independent workers than others, and they have far greater control over how and when to deliver a service and who delivers it. They are usually better able to protect their own commercial interests, although they bear any financial risk from the business that they operate.
A self-employed person must register with the tax authorities, submit an annual tax return and account for their own tax and national insurance payments. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of such requirements from his previous work. Taxation is clearly a matter for the Treasury and HMRC, but as I said earlier, any employer who incorrectly treats a worker as self-employed is liable for their tax and national insurance contributions. If they do not meet those liabilities, they could be subject to penalties. That is the law at the moment, and it is a strong one.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that the Government recognise that false self-employment exists—it is difficult not to do so. As I think he said, in July 2009 the previous Government undertook a consultation, through the Treasury and HMRC, on the problem in the construction sector, to which it is considered particularly relevant. Officials are currently in the process of reporting back to Treasury Ministers, so I do not have an announcement for the hon. Gentleman, but I know that those Ministers are examining the matter.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the Government should extend the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to cover construction. We had a long debate a few months ago on the Gangmasters Licensing (Extension to Construction Industry) Bill, which the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) promoted as a private Member’s Bill, in which I explained to him that the Government did not think that such an extension was a good idea. Licensing bodies should be considered only when certain conditions are met. There must be evidence that existing regulation is inadequate and evidence of significant abuses of employment rights; confidence that the licensing system would be a proportionate and effective way of tackling the problem; and any scheme must be practical, enforceable and affordable. In that long debate, I set out why the proposals for extending the GLA to the construction industry did not meet any of those key conditions.
The hon. Member for Streatham suggested that the employment agency standards inspectorate is not seen as an effective regulator, but I think it does a good job—it is a key part of regulatory safeguards. Employment agencies, as other businesses, must comply with the national minimum wage regulations, which are rigorously enforced by HMRC. As an indication of that, I can tell him that in 2009-10, HMRC identified more than £4.4 million in arrears for more than 19,000 workers. It is making full use of new penalty powers to fine businesses that are in breach of the regulations. In the first 10 months of this financial year, HMRC issued 761 penalty notices, which is an average of 76 each month—HMRC is playing its role.
Employers must adhere to the special employment agency regulations enforced by the employment agency standards inspectorate of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which both responds to complaints from agency workers and undertakes proactive, risk-based inspection, increasingly in partnership with HMRC. The agency has powers to prosecute and prohibit individuals from running agencies. Since April 2010, nine individuals have been prohibited from doing so, and more cases are in the pipeline. The regulatory framework, therefore, is active and working, and it is bringing bad employers to book.
Mr Umunna
The Minister spoke of my request for the remit of the GLA to be extended to cover construction. I sense from his comments that there is a problem in that industry. If he accepts that the status quo is not particularly satisfactory—he has made the Government’s position on extending the GLA’s remit clear—what does he propose to do about that industry?
On HMRC, does he think that 39 inspectors are sufficient given the scale of the problem? Will he expand on the Government’s assessment of that? Does he think that the £350 million fiscal loss estimate given by the previous Government is correct, or does he believe that it is a gross underestimation, as many trade unions do?
Mr Davey
When we debated the extension of the GLA to the construction sector—I urge the hon. Gentleman to read the Official Report for that debate—I explained and set out how there had been an awful lot of health and safety and other improvements in the construction industry. I am aware that false employment status in the industry is seen as a problem—that is why the Treasury is considering responses to the earlier consultation— but I believe that extension of the GLA would be disproportionate given that record of improvement.
Let me be clear, however, that the Government are not complacent—further improvements to the EASI and other enforcement bodies are possible—which is why I announced, as the hon. Gentleman may be aware, a review of the Government’s workplace rights compliance and enforcement arrangements. I want to establish what further scope there is to streamline such arrangements and make them more effective. The arrangements for enforcing the national minimum wage and the 48-hour average week are within the scope of the review, along with employment agency regulation and gangmaster licensing. I expect to publish a statement of initial findings and intended next steps later this year in the context of the rolling employment law review that I am co-ordinating on behalf of the Department.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the number of inspectors focused on employee status, and referred to a parliamentary answer given by the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Gauke) in which he noted that there were 39 employee status inspectors. However, we need to be clear about where they fit in to the overall compliance regime. HMRC status inspectors provide technical support in more complex cases to a larger number of HMRC compliance staff, who are responsible for reviewing whether employers have complied with their tax and national insurance obligations. It is wrong, therefore, to see the status inspectors by themselves. In addition, technical support is available to both HMRC staff and employers via the online tool, the employment status indicator. One needs to see those 39 inspectors in that context.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this issue, and I can assure him that we take it very seriously: the Treasury takes seriously the loss-of-tax issues, on which he rightly focused, and BIS takes seriously the employment rights issues, which is why we are reviewing workplace rights compliance and enforcement arrangements. I know that, with his experience and knowledge, the hon. Gentleman will continue to contribute to this debate. I welcome that, because we have very similar objectives.
Question put and agreed to.
Petitions
Education Maintenance Allowance
Further and Higher Education Funding
Charge on Single Use Carrier Bags
Written Ministerial Statements
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Political and Constitutional Reform Committee's Report (Government Response)
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee published its report on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill on 7 October 2010. I am pleased to inform the House that I have today laid the Government’s response to the Committee’s report as a Command Paper (Cm 7997). Copies are available in the Vote Office and Printed Paper Office.
Single Payment Scheme
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
In my statement of 16 December, Official Report, column 120-21 WS, I promised to keep the House informed of the Rural Payments Agency’s (RPA) progress towards its 2010 single payment scheme (SPS) payment targets set by the previous Government.
The first target, to make payments to 85% of eligible claimants by the end of December 2010, was met with 85.5% of the eligible population paid at that date. The second target is to pay 95% of the total value of eligible payments by the end of March 2011. As I made clear in my earlier statements, this target is particularly challenging given the legacy of system and data problems that need to be corrected before accurate payments can be made.
The previous years’ achievement of targets has been at the expense of accuracy resulting in EU fines (disallowance) and a massive backlog of cases where it is believed overpayments or underpayments have been made.
The RPA oversight board which I chair decided that this state of affairs could not continue. It therefore decided to ensure the RPA makes full use of all options open to us to reduce the backlog of error cases by not pursuing those where the farmer could not reasonably have been expected to identify an error. Nevertheless there remains a substantial backlog of cases which need to be reviewed for potential errors. The board also set a priority to ensure that this year’s payments are accurate so that a line can be drawn under past failures and farmers will know their precise entitlements going forward.
Given the complexity of the existing systems and the inadequacy of the IT systems, speeding up payments is not simply a matter of increasing resources. In the last six months some 140 “fixes” have been made to the IT system which now allows us to be more confident in the accuracy, but does not significantly speed up the process.
The consequence of that, I regret to inform the House, is that the RPA will not achieve the target of paying 95% of claims by value by 31 March 2011. The estimated figure will be nearer to 90%.
We are therefore looking at the possibility of making manually validated payments to those who would otherwise be unlikely to be paid on the system before 30 June. However we need first to ensure that such payments would meet the required standard of accuracy in order to avoid further EU fines (disallowance).
I am very conscious that for many, if not all, farmers the further potential delays could involve considerable hardship or costs. We already make manual payments to hardship cases referred to us by farming charities and representative bodies. However if the RPA is finally to put the legacy of chaos, errors and disallowances behind it we need to ensure that payments made this year are based on accurate data so that we can move forward.
I met with the RPA chief executive and farming industry representatives to discuss this earlier this week. The representatives were told of the situation and have asked us to give urgent consideration to making partial payments to those farmers who are not likely to be paid soon. I have undertaken to examine this option and will continue to keep the House informed.
Learning Disabilities (Government Support)
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
I am today making a number of announcements confirming continued Government support to help improve the health and lives of people with learning disabilities.
The Department has today decided to extend its existing contract with the University of Bristol Norah Fry research centre (Norah Fry) for a further two years to March 2013 to carry out a time-limited confidential inquiry into premature and avoidable deaths of people with learning disabilities.
In parallel, I can confirm the Department has decided to continue to support for a further two years to March 2013 the provision of a time-limited public health observatory (PHO) service in relation to the health and health care needs of people with learning disabilities. This service is currently hosted by the North-East Public Health Observatory (NEPHO).
I am writing separately to the project teams at Norah Fry and NEPHO to confirm the extension of their work with the Department, and the funding arrangements going forward, so they can plan accordingly.
I can also confirm I wrote separately on Monday 21 February 2011 to the chairs of the National Forum of People with Learning Difficulties, and the National Valuing Families Forum, to confirm continued funding by the Department for their work in 2011-12.
In addition, I can advise that the Department published on 1 March 2011 an updated version of its handbook “Positive Practice Positive Outcomes: A Handbook for Professionals in the Criminal Justice System working with Learning Disabled Offenders”. The handbook originally dates from 2007 and now reflects recent developments in the field. The handbook has been placed in the Library. Copies are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office.
The Department is also preparing publication later this month of a suite of practical tools and materials that will help local authorities and other partners drive employment for people with learning disabilities.
All of this demonstrates the Government’s ongoing commitment to maintain momentum in delivering improved life outcomes for people with learning disabilities.
My announcements today on the inquiry and PHO service follow an open competitive procurement process in 2009-10 that resulted in contracts being awarded on 23 March 2010 to Norah Fry to run the inquiry; and NEPHO, leading a partnership involving the Centre for Disability Research at Lancaster University, and the National Development Team for Inclusion, to provide the PHO service.
Both these contracts were originally awarded for an initial period of 12 months, with the intention to extend them for a further two years until March 2013, subject to satisfactory evaluation of the work carried out in the first year and availability of funds. They took forward the Department’s commitment to implement the recommendations in the report of the independent inquiry headed by Sir Jonathan Michael into access to health care for people with learning disabilities “Healthcare for All” to establish a learning disabilities inquiry and PHO.
National Health Service Charges
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
Regulations have been laid before Parliament to increase certain national health service charges in England from 1 April 2011.
There will be an increase in the prescription charge of 20p from £7.20 to £7.40 for each quantity of a drug or appliance dispensed.
The cost of a prescription prepayment certificate (PPC) will rise to £29.10 for a three-month certificate. The cost of the annual certificate will remain at £104. PPCs offer savings for those needing four or more items in three months or more than 14 items in one year.
Regulations have also been laid to increase NHS dental charges from 1 April 2011. The dental charge payable for a band 1 course of treatment will increase by 50p from £16.50 to £17. The dental charge for a band 2 course of treatment will increase by £1.40 from £45.60 to £47. The charge for a band 3 course of treatment will increase by £6 from £198 to £204.
Dental charges represent an important contribution to the overall cost of dental services. The exact amount raised will be dependent upon the level and type of primary dental care services commissioned by primary care trusts and the proportion of charge-paying patients who attend dentists and the level of treatment they require.
Charges for elastic stockings and tights, wigs and fabric supports supplied by hospitals will be also be increased.
The range of NHS optical vouchers available to children, people on low incomes and individuals with complex sight problems to help with the purchase of glasses remains unchanged in 2011-12.
Details of the revised charges are as follows:
New Charge (£) | |
|---|---|
Prescription charges | |
Single item | 7.40 |
3-month PPC | 29.10 |
12-month PPC | 104.00 |
Wigs and Fabric Supports | |
Surgical brassiere | 25.10 |
Abdominal or spinal support | 37.90 |
Stock modacrylic wig | 61.85 |
Partial human hair wig | 163.80 |
Full bespoke human hair wig | 239.65 |
Dental Charges | |
Band 1 course of treatment | 17.00 |
Band 2 course of treatment | 47.00 |
Band 3 course of treatment | 204.00 |
Voucher values continue at the rates effective since 1 April 2009, which are:
Type of optical appliance | Value |
|---|---|
A. Glasses with single vision lenses: spherical power of ≤ 6 dioptres, cylindrical power of ≤ 2 dioptres. | £36.20 |
B. Glasses with single vision lenses: spherical power of > 6 dioptres but < 10 dioptres, cylindrical power of ≤ 6 dioptres; spherical power of < 10 dioptres, cylindrical power of > 2 dioptres but ≤ 6 dioptres. | £55.10 |
C. Glasses with single vision lenses: spherical power of ≥ 10 dioptres but ≤ 14 dioptres, cylindrical power of ≤ 6 dioptres. | £80.60 |
D. Glasses with single vision lenses: spherical power of > 14 dioptres with any cylindrical power; cylindrical power of > 6 dioptres with any spherical power. | £182.00 |
E. Glasses with bifocal lenses: spherical power of ≤ 6 dioptres, cylindrical power of ≤ 2 dioptres. | £62.70 |
F. Glasses with bifocal lenses: spherical power of > 6 dioptres but < 10 dioptres, cylindrical power of < 6 dioptres; spherical power of < 10 dioptres, cylindrical power of > 2 dioptres but ≤ 6 dioptres. | £79.70 |
G. Glasses with bifocal lenses: spherical power of ≥ 10 dioptres but ≤ 14 dioptres, cylindrical power of ≤ 6 dioptres. | £103.30 |
H. Glasses with prism-controlled bifocal lenses of any power or with bifocal lenses: spherical power of > 14 dioptres with any cylindrical power; cylindrical power of > 6 dioptres with any spherical power. | £200.10 |
I. (HES) Glasses not falling within any of paragraphs A to H above for which a prescription is given in consequence of a testing of sight by an NHS Trust. | £186.40 |
Scotland Bill (Scottish Parliament Committee Report)
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Michael Moore)
On behalf of the Government I welcome the publication on Thursday 3 March 2011 of the report of the Scotland Bill Committee in the Scottish Parliament.
The Committee was established by the Scottish Parliament in December 2010 to review the Scotland Bill, introduced in this Parliament on 30 November 2010.
The Scotland Bill delivers the Government’s coalition commitment to implement the recommendations of the Commission on Scottish Devolution. The commission was originally established by the Scottish Parliament and supported by the then UK Government with its remit as:
“To review the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 in the light of experience and to recommend any changes to the present constitutional arrangements that would enable the Scottish Parliament to serve the people of Scotland better, improve the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament, and continue to secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom.”
The Commission, under the chairmanship of Professor Sir Kenneth Calman, produced a detailed and well-evidenced report, which was welcomed by the main UK-wide parties and those who contributed, cross-party groups, unions, businesses and civil society. This Government made an early commitment to deliver the commission’s recommendations in the Queen’s Speech after the 2010 general election.
The Scotland Bill and the Command Paper “Strengthening Scotland’s Future” (Cm 7973) published alongside the Bill, provided the Government’s response to the commission’s recommendations. The package of measures included in the Bill build on the success of Scottish devolution since 1999, strengthen the settlement, empower the members of the Scottish Parliament and in particular increase the financial accountability of this institution.
Under the terms of the Sewel convention—the convention established since devolution that the UK Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament—the Scottish Parliament established a committee to review the measures within the Bill. This committee, under its convenor Wendy Alexander, has thoroughly assessed the Bill, drawing upon expertise from witnesses covering the whole range of topics included within the Bill.
I am delighted that today the committee in the Scottish Parliament has published their report on the Bill. The Government warmly welcome this report, copies of which have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses, the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office. The first and main conclusion of the committee is that the Scottish Parliament should support the Scotland Bill. We welcome this clear endorsement of the Bill and will now take the opportunity to consider carefully the recommendations included in the report.
We will respond to the views expressed by the Scottish Parliament, as well as the views of both Houses of Parliament, as we take the Scotland Bill through its remaining stages. I look forward to the plenary vote in the Scottish Parliament on the Scotland Bill next week.
House of Lords
Dog Control Bill [HL]
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for his constant championing of a better control regime for dogs over many years. He has worked tirelessly with all the organisations in this area and has brought forward this Bill in conjunction with the Dangerous Dogs Act Study Group, which consists of nine high-profile organisations including the Dogs Trust, the Kennel Club, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, Blue Cross, the BVA and many others.
While it is appreciated that private Members’ business will often proceed at an extremely gentle pace, I remind noble Lords that the Second Reading of this Bill occurred on Friday 9 July 2010. The Bill was scheduled to have its Committee stage on Friday 21 January, but, unfortunately, that day became filled with other business. We on this side of the House wished to take this Bill on that date, and our amendments were not intended to wreck the Bill. They were, as are appropriate to Committee on a Bill such as this, probing amendments to trigger debate. They should not be described as wrecking. Furthermore, most of the amendments were from the author of the Bill.
That the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said what he did on that day has been taken extremely seriously, especially as we have tried over many days to meet him. We spoke with his office and left several messages, including yesterday, but no response has been received. I should like the noble Lord to withdraw his remarks when he comes to reply.
We have asked for our amendments to be grouped with this stand-part debate to present our approach to the Bill. We share the noble Lord’s concerns that dog control legislation is not working effectively. We understand the anxieties of the public as each week brings further reports of dog attacks. Several consultations on dog control have been undertaken in the recent past. The most recent consultation was conducted from 9 March to 1 June 2010, which was one month prior to Second Reading. We are now 10 months on without the Government coming to Parliament to say how they wish to proceed.
It is important that everyone works together to agree and support the best way forward. I have commended the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for his work with the Dangerous Dogs Act Study Group. Unfortunately, the results of the consultation reveal that the police and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are not united behind his Bill. In its submission, the RSPCA has said that the Bill is “fundamentally flawed”. It stated:
“We believe updating and consolidation of the law is long-overdue. However, this Bill is unlikely to improve the situation and we are extremely concerned it may actually make matters worse”.
Those are strong words.
What is the response of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and his group to these remarks? Does he agree that the best way forward is one that can be supported by all the enforcement and animal welfare organisations? Will he await the outcome of this consultation? Will the Minister convene a meeting with all interested parties to find the best way forward?
How the Government respond to this situation is crucial and needs to be carefully considered alongside the Bill. We understand that the Government wish to review the workings of the anti-social behaviour orders and that they might bring elements of dog control into those new arrangements. We would like the Minister to explain the thinking in his reply. What cross-government discussions have there been with other interested departments such as the Home Office? We note that the Permanent Secretary, Dame Helen Ghosh, has recently transferred to the Home Office. Will the noble Lord and the Minister advise us on any discussions that have taken place?
We have tabled Amendments 19 and 20 to underline to the Minister and the Government that they must engage and contribute in bringing forward improvements to dog control.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, perhaps I may say at the outset that, like the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Redesdale for drawing our attention to the need for the proper control of dogs through this Bill and for the considerable amount of time and effort that he and others have put into it. He will be aware from the speech made by my noble friend Lord Henley at Second Reading that the Government are unable to support it. I can, however, assure him that the Government are concerned about dangerous dogs, are well aware of public concern and are very keen to promote responsible pet ownership.
As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, the previous Government launched a public consultation exercise on dangerous dogs legislation last year. I can assure noble Lords that we are firmly committed to taking forward the issues raised in that exercise. We have received more than 4,000 responses from a wide range of individuals and organisations.
We are currently considering all the comments received and are discussing the issues raised with the relevant people. They are complex issues and we need to consider our approach very carefully. It is very important that we make the right decisions, but we hope to make an announcement on the Government’s proposed way forward shortly. I can inform your Lordships that we are considering a number of different options, which range from legislative changes to guidance and working with local authorities and the police at a local level.
We are also working with other government departments—in particular with the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government—on other initiatives that affect dogs. For example, we have been working with the Home Office on its current public consultation exercise on tackling anti-social behaviour, in which dogs are regrettably often involved.
We are keen to ensure that departments are working together properly to deal with this important and complex issue. I hope the noble Lord will accept that it would not be right for the Government to give this Bill their support at this stage, although, as I said, we are grateful to my noble friend for his work on the Bill and to other noble Lords for their contributions to the debate.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, has a chance to respond to this clause stand part debate, I was on the opposition Front Bench when we discussed a Bill concerned with marine matters. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, was critical of the Opposition for what he considered were wrecking amendments to his Bill. I was not able to respond to that because, interested as I am in the control of dangerous dogs—I have some sympathy with the noble Lord and his Bill, and we have discussed these issues in the past—I was not at all briefed at that stage because we were dealing with other matters. Consequently, I was obliged to accept what the noble Lord said in his criticism of the Opposition. I checked it out immediately, of course, and I considered his comments to be completely and totally unjustified. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will today withdraw the position that he adopted on that day.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, before I answer some of the points that have been raised I want to say that the purpose of this Bill, as has been set out already, is that we have a major problem with the control of dogs in this country. While I am devastated by the Minister's response, I have brought forward so many Private Members’ Bills that I am hardly surprised at the position that the Government are taking at this stage. The reason for bringing this Bill forward is that the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 has created a situation in which people own dogs for the wrong reasons.
Some dogs are now owned by young men purely for the status that they give and to cause fear among other people. Many people will have heard stories about people feeling threatened by dogs that they suspect might be pit bull-type dogs that are off the lead and out of control. The purpose of the Bill is to try to look at that serious problem. The problem has massive cost implications because of the number of people who have gone to hospital with dog bites and the number of dogs that have been attacked. I was at a reception the other day with the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, which said that the number of guide dogs that are attacked by other dogs has risen year on year. That is unacceptable, and is the purpose of the Bill.
I will deal with the amendments and then come to the accusations that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, and why they were brought about. The Bill has the support of most of the major dog organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said that the RSPCA and ACPO are against this legislation. I noticed the other day that the noble Lord was being briefed by the RSPCA. I can answer his accusation very simply because the RSPCA originally drafted the Bill. It supported the Bill and then on the intervention of ACPO changed its position, as opposed to all the other dog organisations that carried on with their support.
I am particularly concerned about the position of ACPO. I talked to the organisation and was shocked to be hear, “Is it the role of the police to deal with dogs?” Anti-social dogs are a major cause of concern on the streets. It is incredible that ACPO has taken this position. Rather than try to say why the RSPCA should be listened to on this issue, I would ask why the RSPCA, having drafted this legislation and having worked with me over a number of months when I originally tabled this Bill, has suddenly changed its position. Nothing has changed except that it has decided to go down a different route.
I am sure the noble Lord will have noticed that the RSPCA lobbied him on dog licensing. Dog licensing has failed almost everywhere. There is dog licensing in Northern Ireland, but only a quarter to a third of people take it up. This is not about making more legislation for the people who are responsible; it is about targeting people who are irresponsible. I am glad that the noble Lord said that this was a probing amendment and that he will not press it.
On the second point, this Bill was unfortunately, as were many Private Members’ Bills, held up by the AV Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said that I acted improperly. However, when the Bill was last scheduled to be heard on the Friday, the noble Lord had not tabled any amendments. I was going to talk to him about that, but no amendments were tabled until 5.30 on the Thursday night before the Friday sitting. It was quite clear that business time was stretched. Noble Lords had been sitting throughout the night and were unhappy about sitting late on a Friday, so the Whips Office felt that it had no option but to cancel the business. It was not my decision; it was taken by the Whips’ Office, and I think it was perfectly proper.
However, the issue that I am slightly perturbed about is that Private Members’ Bills are a way of expressing an interest in a situation. I had to cancel a large number of radio interviews and the organisations concerned had to cancel the press releases that they were doing to get the message across to the public.
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord briefly. I did say that I had made several attempts to have a word with his office. I even had a word with the Defra officials to see whether I could contact him in order to explain our position, debate our approach to the Bill, and see whether we could find a way forward together. However, that contact was not forthcoming, so we were left in the position of having to go straight ahead. I might also say that it is not unusual for amendments to be tabled rather late in the day, as indeed some of the noble Lord’s were last night.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, my amendments were not tabled last night, but they ended up on the Marshalled List then because of the way in which they went through. The noble Lord’s amendments were tabled at 5.30 in the afternoon. That is why I was slightly surprised. I apologise to the noble Lord for not getting back to him that week. I think that that week was slightly disrupted because we had been going through the night.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, asked why I made the remarks that I made the next morning. Private Members’ Bills are quite hard. It is very easy to take lightly the amount of work done by a large number of people. I know that he would not take that position, but I do know that there were some very unhappy people and that I had to talk to a large number of them to explain the position.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, just a second; I am coming to the point which the noble Lord raised. I then sat in on the amendment that he was talking about. He was berating the Government for the late tabling of amendments. On that basis, I raised this issue myself because there are few opportunities to do so when legislation goes through this House. I thought it appropriate to do so.
I also raised the issue of wrecking amendments because the proposal that Clause 1 should stand part goes to the very heart of the Bill. If that amendment had been passed, it would have destroyed the Bill. The noble Lord has said that this is a probing amendment. I take his word for it, and if my words were inappropriate, I apologise for them. However, I was put in a position that perhaps many noble Lords find themselves in; they have done a great deal of work and then, because of what actually happens, they find that they have to do the work yet again. It was not entirely a criticism of the noble Lord, and I apologise if he took it as such. We have worked on this issue on a number of occasions and I have nothing but respect for that position. However, tempers were raised by the AV Bill, because obviously we had been going for quite a long time on it, and then all private legislation was pushed back.
This is something that I am particularly exercised about. I have had hundreds and hundreds of letters on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said that the results of the consultation initiated under the previous Government have come in. An analysis of the people who responded in writing to the consultation—it was a very large one, and I understand Defra will have difficulty getting through and analysing the information properly—shows that 70 per cent are actually in favour of this legislation. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his Motion that Clause 1 should not stand part.
Lord Redesdale
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 15 and 16. The reason for these amendments is quite clear. A number of issues were raised at Second Reading. This is a complicated matter with many unforeseen circumstances, and it was during the Second Reading debate that I came to believe that it was important to try to address some of those real issues. It was put to me that we should retain the concept of an aggravated offence and set more severe penalties for it. It seems entirely reasonable that the penalty for allowing your dog to bite someone should be greater than allowing it to show unprovoked aggression. It also seems entirely reasonable that allowing your dog to cause severe injury to or occasionally the death of a person should be treated as a serious offence with serious consequences. That is what these amendments seek to achieve.
Amendments 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 make it a more serious offence if the dog causes actual injury to the person and, in effect, mirrors the current offence set out in Section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Amendments 15 and 16 deal with the penalties, and again mirror those in the existing legislation. They allow for someone accused of the aggravated offence to be tried in a Crown Court with the increase in penalty that that implies. I beg to move.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I declare an interest as a dog owner and I regret not having taken part in these proceedings before. As a dog owner I welcome the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, to remove the words “aggressive or” from line 13, but he has left in the words “dangerously out of control”. Who decides what “dangerously out of control” is? For instance, if a dog were to bark at a stranger on, shall we say, a public footpath in the country, the dog might only be saying hello in the way that some dogs do. But the person who has been barked at, especially if they have young children with them on an enjoyable stroll in the countryside, might regard that as a dog being dangerously out of control. My question to the noble Lord is this: is that an offence in the eye of the receiver? How is it to be decided? This seems to me to be very important because there really is enormous scope for confusion on the issue.
Lord Redesdale
This is one of the major problems of legislating in this area. However, the Bill provides that an authorised person brings the control notice and would be the person to whom the offence would be reported. This would probably be an official of the local council or a police officer, and it would be someone with knowledge of the issues.
The issues surrounding the phrase “dangerously out of control” are quite important. If a dog is on the street without a lead, or if it is a certain breed of dog without a muzzle on, which you would expect, or if it snarls at a person, then those are circumstances in which the dog is dangerously out of control. Obviously there are circumstances for which the phrase would not be appropriate, such as when a dog is barking. Indeed, a later amendment clarifies that if a dog is being kept under control in a garden with secure fences and a warning has been given, if it then barks, that is normal for a dog and therefore would not be taken into account here. The problem is that in our inner cities, in many instances, fear is generated by people walking dogs over which they have little control and it can be shown that the dog is causing a problem. That has to be taken up with the authorised person who will have training for these circumstances, and a degree of common sense will need to be used.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I accept what the noble Lord says about dogs in cities, on leads and all the rest. Is he therefore saying that a dog that merely barks at a stranger on a public footpath in the countryside would not fall foul of this Bill?
Lord Redesdale
Yes, my Lords. However, I shall cite an occasion when I was in my own woodland and someone was trespassing with three Alsatians, which surrounded me. The person, who had not been there until that moment, walked up and found it amusing that these dogs were growling at me in a stand-off position. I did not know who the dogs belonged to or what their intentions were. I would count that as a situation in which the dogs were dangerously out of control. Subsequently I found out that one of them had bitten a postman on the drive and really should not have been off the lead in the first place.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and I accept his assurance that the example I have given is very different from the one that he gave and that my example will not be caught by the Bill.
Lord Skelmersdale
That said, my Lords, in the instance that my noble friend has just given, surely the dogs were out of control but not dangerously out of control. They might have become dangerous later. Therefore, what is “dangerously” doing in line 14?
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, if they cause fear that is a situation. However, we should take this in context. If noble Lords would read the Bill, its purpose is not to go down the route of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 so that any offence leads to the dogs being taken away and destroyed. If a control notice is given, it might be that it implies only that the owner should keep the dog on a lead in public places. It might imply that the owner should muzzle the dog or that the owner should undergo training. Many of these notices would stop all the problems that then go forward. Many of the dogs that attack children have a reputation for being out of control. Many dogs that attack other dogs go on to attack people. The purpose of this Bill is to bring about an early intervention at that point so that a control notice can be introduced which is appropriate to the situation.
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, this group of amendments by and large improves the drafting yet there may still be one or two problems, as have been raised today by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. From our Benches, we wish only to draw attention to Amendments 3, 6 and 7. Would Amendment 3 cover adequately the situation where gang members may encourage dogs to be intimidating perhaps only by their presence, by being with the dog and exhibiting the body language of aggression? We wonder whether that would take account of that situation. Would Amendment 6 criminalise every incident, however minor? We have concerns there. Amendment 7 clarifies that guard dogs could still be used, but would that leave the postman as a potential casualty?
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, on the issues raised we believe that these would be proportionate responses. The issue of postmen is covered in a later part of the Bill, especially regarding private land.
Lord Richard
My Lords, before we leave this subject, does the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, not accept—he should accept it—that the construction of the Bill depends upon the courts, not upon what he says in this House? Therefore, on the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the magistrates might take a totally different view from the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. The highest that he can put it at this moment is that it is his view that, properly construed, the Bill means X, Y or Z. He certainly cannot give an assurance that that is the way in which the courts would interpret it.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I am certainly not arrogant enough to assume that I could dictate to the magistrates how they should look at the provision. They will do it on the evidence that is placed before them. However, the magistrates might take the opinion that a dog out of control on one occasion could be stopped from being out of control by being put on a lead. They would therefore go with the minor but effective measure of making sure that the person keeps the dog on a lead. If the person does not do that, it is a secondary issue and the situation will therefore become far more serious on a second offence. This was looked at particularly because of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, raised when I brought the Bill forward the first time round. I hope that he will take comfort from the fact that it was his intervention that first time which caused many hours of dispute on this subject. That is why many of the amendments have been drafted in the way that they have.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I do not want to prolong the proceedings, but the noble Lord has already admitted that a dog on a lead that is barking at someone at close quarters could be regarded as being aggressive.
Lord Redesdale
Yes, my Lords, but a dog on a lead is not dangerously out of control. A dog off a lead would be dangerously out of control but a dog on a lead is under control.
Lord Redesdale
Lord Redesdale
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, there was seen to be a problem with the original drafting of the Bill, which would have made it an offence to allow a dog to show aggression to any animal. That could include allowing a dog to chase a wild animal, even—I have to raise this issue—a squirrel, and that seems unreasonable. This issue was raised at Second Reading and it was one on which we said, “Ah, we got this one totally wrong”. The effect of the amendment is to restrict the offence to allowing a dog to be aggressive or to intimidate protected animals. The term protected is already defined in the Bill as that in the Animal Welfare Act.
What would happen is that this would give a dog the freedom to behave like a dog and to chase wild animals without any fear of the owner being prosecuted. However, it would remain an offence to allow your dog to attack another dog or domestic animal. There has been much publicity recently, as I said earlier, about Guide Dogs for the Blind being attacked and unable to continue to work as a result. I beg to move.
Lord Richard
My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord a question. He has taken out “aggressive or” from Clause 2(1)(a) but has left those words in Clause 2(1)(b). Is that intentional or should those words come out of Clause 2(1)(b) as well?
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I will have to look at that. There is obviously another stage of the Bill and I will look to make sure that that is not an error in the drafting.
Lord Redesdale
“A person responsible for a dog that injures any person shall be guilty of an aggravated offence.”
Lord Redesdale
“( ) the person or protected animal was in a place where they were not permitted to be which was enclosed by adequately maintained and substantial boundaries which would reasonably be expected to be capable of restraining a dog and which was clearly marked to warn such persons against entering; ( ) the dog is being used for a lawful purpose by a person licensed by a body established by the Private Security Industry Act 2001 or a person who complies with BS8517-1;”
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the purpose of Amendments 8, 9 and 18 is to clarify the situations in which it is reasonable for a dog to show aggression. The Bill protects a dog’s owner from any prosecution if the dog bites a burglar or a mugger. It seems right to me that any dog’s owner should feel secure in the knowledge that his dogs will defend him and his house against someone threatening him or breaking into his house. It has been put to me that a dog in its owner’s garden with a good secure fence surrounding it, with clear warning signs that a dog is within, would be expressing only normal behaviour if it should show aggression to someone entering the garden.
It has also been pointed out that, in addition to dogs used by the Crown to protect property, there are now private security companies providing similar protection services. Those companies are licensed by the Security Industry Authority and there is now a British Standard that covers their training and use. Dogs are also used for similar purposes as part of displays. Those dogs compete against each other at trials to demonstrate their ability to control someone who is dressed as an intruder and wearing appropriate protective clothing. I believe that it would be unreasonable to prevent the continuation of such displays.
Amendment 8 seeks to allow the dog to behave naturally and for the owner to be protected if he has taken reasonable precautions to ensure that his dog is properly under control. The second part of the amendment seeks to protect those companies while they are being used at work. Amendment 18 defines the companies. Amendment 9 seeks to exempt dogs being used at such trials. The real effect of these amendments together is to broaden the number of situations in which a dog may lawfully show unprovoked aggression to include dogs kept under control on private properties, dogs used as commercially registered guard dogs and dogs at work trials.
The amendments have taken many hours of negotiation with a number of bodies. The great value of a Private Member’s Bill is that certain issues can be brought forward so that, if this Bill ever goes forward to another place or is accepted by the Government in another form of legislation, many of these issues will already have been aired. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, the noble Lord referred in passing to the Security Industry Authority. Is he aware that late on Monday night we had a debate on the Public Bodies Bill where it was clearly the intention of the Government to abolish the statutory basis of the authority? For clarification, I should like to know whether, if it no longer had statutory authority, that body could perform the role that the noble Lord envisages in this legislation.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, asks me to tread on difficult and prickly ground. That is beyond my pay grade on these Benches. There has been much discussion about the Security Industry Authority’s roles and responsibilities. It is one of the organisations that will be carrying on for a while, and I am sure that its responsibilities will be passed on to another organisation. It might not have to be regulated to deal with this role.
Lord Grantchester
Amendment 8 would allow for guard dogs with adequate safeguards to be outside the scope of the noble Lord’s Dog Control Bill. Is that enough? He mentions that the RSPCA has swung behind the police, as if the RSPCA had not come forward with concerns about other areas in its briefing. This is one such area where it has expressed concern; it could lead to a flood of “Beware” signs going up all around the countryside, as if that would somehow allow due defence for dogs undertaking aggressive actions in people’s gardens and properties. The society draws attention to possible situations involving children. What would be the definition of adequately maintained boundaries, when we all know that fences between one person’s garden and another can become very insubstantial? Would the amendment now also allow guard dogs to be held by doormen in front of establishments such as nightclubs? Would that now be a permitted defence and use of dogs?
On Amendment 9, also in this group, the RSPCA has also drawn to our attention its concern that the Bill, particularly Clause 2(3), allows a lot of leeway whereby responsible dog ownership is somehow being neglected while the Bill merely focuses on attacks. Perhaps the noble Lord could comment on that.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I am slightly surprised. I do not think that the Bill gives any leeway for guard dogs outside nightclubs. That would not be seen as acceptable by anyone going into the nightclub, and I would be surprised if any nightclub owner actually employed dogs outside their club. I do not think that that is an issue.
The second issue is that I am surprised that the RSPCA is worried about a plethora of signs going up. I have been lobbied quite heavily by the Communication Workers Union, representing postal workers, because one of the largest numbers of attacks by dogs is on postmen. It would be only appropriate that those people who have dogs that could lead to an attack should make the postman, above anyone else, aware that there is a dog inside the garden that might bite him so that he could leave the post in the post box outside.
It is not just postmen who have to beware. Many noble Lords, though not all, have been in the situation that I have when we have been out at elections on the stump and have had to exit a property rapidly because of a small dog that is intent on ripping large chunks out of people. It is not just large dogs that people have to be aware of; in a recent study, conducted almost across the world, miniature dachshunds were mentioned. If you get bitten by a miniature dachshund it is slightly more amusing than being bitten by a Staffordshire bull terrier, but I think that I should raise the issue.
The purpose of the Bill is to say that dog owners should be responsible. We are not saying that a dog should not be in the garden, but if a dog is in the garden then warning should be given.
Lord Redesdale
“(5) In this Act an “authorised officer” in the context of any provision, means a person appointed to be an authorised officer for the purposes of that provision by—
(a) the appropriate national authority;(b) a local authority; or(c) a police officer who complies with subsection (6).(6) In appointing any person to be such an authorised officer for the purposes of this Act, the appropriate national authority, local authority or police authority is to satisfy itself that the person is skilled in the control of dogs and has the capacity to instruct and advise others in matters relating to the control of dogs.”
Lord Redesdale
I shall speak also to Amendment 10A. I apologise to noble Lords; on reviewing the amendments, it was realised that a section of Amendment 10 had been left out, which would have caused a problem. That was spotted only this week, and it is why this amendment has been added.
The police have made it clear to me that they need to be able to issue dog control notices where dog owners are behaving irresponsibly and encouraging their dogs to be aggressive. This is particularly the case with regard to gang members, the issue that the noble Lord raised. These are the so-called status dogs about which there has been so much in the press in recent months.
Amendment 10 enables an appropriately trained police officer to issue a dog control notice in addition to an authorised local authority officer. The ability to issue a notice is limited to police officers who have shown their competence when dealing with dogs, and I intend here primarily officers from dog sections or the dog legislation officers that were introduced as a result of guidance issued by Defra in 2009. This goes back to a question that was raised earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. Amendments 11, 12 and 14 are subsequent to Amendment 10 to ensure that the records to be kept by local authorities are comprehensive.
If the police believe that they need the power to issue dog control notices, it seems correct that they should be allowed to do so. However, not all police officers are knowledgeable about dog behaviour, so limiting the power to specifically trained officers is reasonable. They should therefore be competent to issue appropriate notices. The local authority would retain the responsibility to keep the records of all notices, and consequently the police would have a duty to inform the authority of any notices issued.
I should add that the purpose of the Bill is not to give a great deal more responsibility to the police or to be a burden in these financially straitened times. We believe that the Bill would save a great deal of money because not every dog will cause a problem; 99 per cent of dogs cause no problem to anyone at all and their owners are responsible. It would allow the police to target particular individuals—in this case, I suggest, people who deal in drugs, as in a case I came across recently in Newcastle where a person was not carrying a knife because that would have led to action by the police but had two extremely aggressive dogs to be used for exactly the same purposes, to cause fear and raise the status of the individual—and those dogs. I beg to move.
Lord Richard
My Lords, I do not want to turn this debate into a drafting session, but there is a phrase in this amendment that I do not think that I have ever seen before. It says that,
“the appropriate national authority, local authority or police authority is to satisfy itself”.
I have seen wording saying that something “must” satisfy itself or that it “could” satisfy itself—I have even seen the words “should” satisfy itself—but I have never seen, “is to satisfy itself”. I wonder what it means.
Lord Redesdale
The noble Lord’s eye for detail is legendary in this regard. I will look again at the wording at a later stage and, if it is not fit for purpose, I shall bring back an amendment.
Lord Skelmersdale
When the noble Lord is looking at these two proposed new subsections to Clause 3, perhaps he could look again at subsection (5)(a). I note that it means any local authority or police officer, within the proviso given by subsection (6)—but what on earth is an “appropriate national authority” in this case?
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the wording of this amendment is to try to give as much latitude as possible but also to ensure that the area is dealt with by those with knowledge. There is a grouping within local authorities that understands present dog legislation, just as there are groupings within the police that understand the legislation. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that that knowledge is used so that we do not end up with a situation in which any police officer at any point can bring about an action that might be inappropriate.
Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am afraid that my noble friend has misunderstood my point, which I may have abbreviated a little too much. I am looking at proposed new subsection (5)(a), which talks about an “appropriate national authority”. I am not sure what makes a national authority appropriate in this case but, in any event, the word by definition must be restrictive.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the appropriate authority is the one that would be the most logical home in any area for this information to be taken, because there have been changes and not all authorities are constructed in the same way around the country. I shall look again at the wording and question whether it is appropriate.
Lord Richard
I am a bit surprised that that is the noble Lord’s intention. I thought that “appropriate national authority” meant the reputable doggy quangos—that sort of thing—or the RSPCA. That type of authority would seem to me to be appropriate. I am not sure what the noble Lord has in mind.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the RSPCA would not take on the role of an enforcement agency on this, and doggy quangos would I imagine be first on the list in the Bill mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. We are looking at local authorities and such groupings that will act on their behalf.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
If the noble Lord will forgive me, my noble friend is totally right. You cannot have a statute which involves penal provisions implemented in different parts of the country. This is an absolute nonsense.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, under the present enforcement of dog legislation, there are a number of different bodies in different parts of the country. For example, in London there is a status dogs unit in the Metropolitan Police. That is not replicated in the same way anywhere else, so I do not think that you could say that one appropriate authority is taken on by a number of different organisations.
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, this area highlights the very nature of dog legislation to encompass all the technicalities. It has only highlighted the very great difficulties that we have in trying to get control of the situation. These amendments are redrafted amendments in light of the criticism that this Bill was transferring dog control from the police to local authorities. The noble Lord has sought here to try to share the responsibility in some way. However, it is not entirely clear where responsibility will lie between the police and local authorities and who will be the appropriate supervising overall authority in this situation.
We understand that ACPO is not generally in favour of repealing Section 1 at the moment. It wants to get control of the situation, as it is concerned about the large number of dogs which are in the wrong hands and about public safety. So how exactly the responsibility between local authorities and the police will be divided is still largely unclear to me. Will the change be to local authorities, keeping present police officers as merely dog wardens? How will they be funded when given this new responsibility? The noble Lord spoke about the pressure on local authority budgets. We are far from convinced that there will be the savings that he suggests.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the approach of the Bill is not to bring about savings, and I am rather surprised by the position taken by the Opposition on this. Anybody who has ever been in a situation when an out-of-control dog has caused them fear would find it unacceptable that there is a lack of ability for enforcement in many situations. An attack actually has to take place for anything to happen. I was contacted by letter by a very concerned person who said that down their street was a Rottweiler that was out of control on many occasions; it had been reported to the police, who said that they had no powers to act until the Rottweiler had actually bitten somebody. They wrote to me later and said that, now the Rottweiler had actually bitten somebody, the police had taken it in hand. We should be in a position to act at a much earlier stage, so that the police can deal with these situations before they become far more serious.
On the point about savings, Section 1 has cost the Metropolitan Police £10 million over three years by taking the dogs off the street so that they have then to be kept in kennels, where they become even more desocialised. Many of those dogs, because it is so difficult to prove that they are pit bulls, are returned to their owners. I find it incredible that we are taking the dogs off the street and then nobody points out that they are going back to their owners. The legal costs are enormous. If that £10 million was spent not on enforcing Section 1 but on the provision of this Bill, it would pay for the measures in this Bill and bring about a saving.
Lord Redesdale
“( ) Any authorised officer serving a dog control notice must notify the appropriate local authority.”
Lord Redesdale
Lord Redesdale
“( ) Where a court so orders the destruction of a dog under subsection (2)(b) P may appeal against the order to the crown court.”
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, the purpose of Amendment 13 is that a court may issue an order for the destruction of a dog. It seems reasonable that when such drastic measures are to be taken, the owner must have the right to appeal to save the life of the dog. In many circumstances, a dog that may or may not have shown aggression is someone’s beloved pet, and the owner deserves the right to appeal a death sentence on that dog. The amendment introduces an appeal procedure when a destruction order has been made by a court. The amendment will allow natural justice by allowing an appeal against the most drastic sentences for the dog. I beg to move.
Lord Redesdale
Lord Redesdale
“( ) on summary conviction other than for the aggravated offence, imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale;( ) on summary conviction for the aggravated offence, imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or a fine not exceeding the statutory minimum, or both; or( ) on indictment for the aggravated offence, imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine, or both”
Lord Redesdale
“( ) the Dangerous Dogs Act 1989;”
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, Amendment 17 repeals the Dangerous Dogs Act 1989. The Act amends the Dogs Act 1871, which is already repealed under my Bill. This is an important measure because it tidies up pieces of legislation. From the Government’s point of view, we are not introducing an additional piece of legislation; we are introducing one but repealing three. That is totally in line with the purpose of the “one in, one out” rule. I beg to move.
Lord Redesdale
Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I notice that paragraph 3 of the Schedule says that the,
“database operator must … provide the information in section 6 free of charge to authorised third parties during all normal working hours”.
That sounds perfectly reasonable. However, if you go on to sub-paragraph (3)—I am referring to a point I made about the word “appropriate” in a debate on an earlier clause—it says, “any police constable”, or, more importantly,
“any representative of the Secretary of State; or .. any representative of the local authority”.
If a national authority has to be “appropriate” in one part of the Bill, surely it should be “appropriate” in the other. I believe that it should be appropriate in neither.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I have given an undertaking to look at the word “appropriate” again. I will obviously discuss this with the noble Lord. The purpose of the Schedule is to ensure that the provision is not limited to those who are appropriate who can undertake this action.
Lord Richard
My Lords, before we leave Committee, I have a simple thing to say. The noble Lord will have realised from his experiences at Second Reading and the consultations that he has had—and, indeed, from this Committee—that this is an extraordinarily complex and rather technical matter. I have restrained myself in terms of the drafting of the Bill with, I am bound to say, commendable zeal in the past half hour or so. I wonder whether the Government should not perhaps take this issue over, look at it, and produce their own legislation. The matter needs to be dealt with. I am not sure that the Bill is an appropriate way of doing so.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I think my words in the clause stand part debate at the outset of the Committee were very clear on that point.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. It would be excellent if the Government took over this legislation and moved forward with it; that would be the answer to my dreams. The noble Lord will know that this is a very complicated area. Some of the questions that have been raised over the drafting are due to its complex nature. This has not just been thrown together. It has been worked on by a large number of people. Sometimes the intent of the words is the result of an enormous amount of debate on extremely emotive issues.
No piece of dogs legislation would be perfect. Nobody is going to be happy. I have noticed this from the large number of letters that I have now received, including “My dog should be allowed to bite anybody who comes anywhere near my property” and across the board. This has been an extremely difficult issue to work on.
The noble Lord has given me an opportunity to sum up briefly before the Bill goes forward. This area needs to be addressed. I quite understand that there are difficulties with the legislation. The former Government undertook a review, and the present Government are looking at the review. It would be irresponsible not to deal with this issue considering that the number of dog attacks has risen year on year, and that the number of children killed by dogs which fall into a category that did not exist 20 years ago has increased year on year.
The purpose is not just to bring another piece of legislation before the House and Parliament. This issue affects people around the country, day by day. I have known from the letters I have received, some of which are quite harrowing, how people’s lives can be ruined by the fact that somebody else has a dog of which they are terrified, such as old people who are terrified of going out to the shops in case they meet dogs of this nature. That situation has to be addressed.
The whole purpose of this legislation is not against dogs. I have owned dogs in the past. I do not own one at the moment; my children are desperate for us to own one in the future. I am keen on dogs being owned responsibly. However, there are two problems. First, there is a group of people who are causing a problem in the ownership of dogs. Secondly, responsibility must lie not with the dog itself, because tens of thousands of dogs have been treated badly and de-socialised, and have to be destroyed, which is an animal welfare issue. The responsibility must rest with the owner, and that is the purpose of this Bill.
Live Music Bill [HL]
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I believe passionately in live music. I went to the Brits recently in what I hope will be its permanent new home, the O2. It was a stunning experience which confirmed my totally unbiased view that British musical talent is the best in the world and that we must do everything we can to encourage its development. Clearly, this view is shared by the coalition Government, who pledged in the coalition agreement to cut the red tape involved in live music performance. However, I am afraid to say that the Licensing Act 2003, introduced by the previous Government, created a bureaucratic minefield which has stifled creativity and prohibited innocent and innocuous live music events taking place. Even the provision of musical instruments without a licence became a criminal offence. However, despite some encouraging discussions with the Minister, my honourable friend John Penrose, we are still awaiting the outcome of interdepartmental discussions on how to achieve the objectives of the coalition agreement. I welcome the fact that John Whittingdale MP, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, who is as impatient as I am for reform, has now tabled an EDM in the other place asking for an exemption for small venues to be introduced without delay.
I move the Second Reading of what I believe is a new and improved Live Music Bill, designed to reduce the red tape surrounding the performance of live music, particularly in small venues, in the hope and expectation that it will receive an explicitly positive response from my Government. In 2002, the previous Government introduced the Licensing Bill and promised that it would make it much easier to host live music. At the time of its passage, Ministers were confident about the likely impact of the Act. Lord McIntosh of Haringey, then DCMS spokesperson in the House of Lords, who we remember so well, told this House:
“My view is that there will be an explosion of live music as a result of removing the discriminatory two-in-a-bar provision.—[Official Report, 26/11/02; col. 736.]
In fact, the Bill significantly increased entertainment licensing control over live music. Among other things, it abolished a “two in a bar” rule—a long-standing exemption in pubs and bars for two performers. In effect, this became a “none in a bar” rule. Under the Bill, most public performances and many private performances need a licence.
Liberal Democrats opposed these changes on the grounds that separate legislation was already more than adequate to regulate most small-scale performances, and that criminalising such performances, unless licensed, was unnecessary and disproportionate. I am very glad to see my noble friend Lord Redesdale in the House today taking part in the debate. We forced defeats on the Government in the House of Lords, creating exemptions for incidental music and certain small-scale performances. Naively, perhaps, in the subsequent ping-pong, we accepted a new clause to the Bill—Section 177—which the Government put forward, which appeared to be an exemption for live music in certain small venues. In 2003, the Bill received Royal Assent and became an Act of Parliament. As feared, the Licensing Act has not delivered an increase in live music, despite these promises. Back in July 2007 the Live Music Forum, which had been set up in 2005 by the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, published its findings and recommendations on the impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on live music. The LMF concluded that while the new law had a broadly neutral effect the Act harmed certain small local venues, and recommended an outright exemption for these. The LMF also reported a huge disparity in local authorities’ interpretation of the law when issuing licences, and that the promised increase in live music had not occurred. In fact, it found that 29 per cent of smaller establishments that had previously operated without a public entertainment licence, but used the “two in a bar” exemption to put on live music, did not apply for live music provision when the new Act came into force. In particular, the Live Music Forum called for the reform of Section 177. The LMF argued that the wording contained in the Act is convoluted and in many respects totally impenetrable. The forum was unable to find a single example where Section 177 was actually used by licensing officers or venue owners, so it recommended new exemptions for small gigs as a matter of some urgency.
The LMF’s report was followed in December 2007 by a BRMB survey commissioned by the DCMS on the impact of the Licensing Act on live music, which concluded that there had been a 5 per cent decrease in the provision of live music in secondary live music venues since the benchmark MORI survey of 2004. However, the figures for restaurants and cafes and church halls and community centres showed a drop of 12 and 24 per cent respectively. As a result, the then Secretary of State, James Purnell, pledged to explore exemptions for some venues. But despite assurances by the Government, this was put on the back burner. In July 2008, the House of Commons DCMS Select Committee launched an inquiry into the Licensing Act. In May 2009, it concluded in its report that the Act hampered live music performances, especially by young musicians. The committee recommended an exemption for venues up to a capacity of 200 and the reintroduction of the “two in a bar” exemption, which existed prior to the 2003 Act. As the chairman, my honourable friend John Whittingdale, rightly said:
“Young musicians often get their first break through performing live at small venues”.
However, the then Government continued to put their faith in the minor variations procedure. But as I made clear in the debate on 15 June 2009, on a Motion to regret the Government’s decision to proceed with the draft legislative reform order, minor variations to an existing licence are no substitute for a new small venues exemption under the Act. Indeed, the DCMS itself in its evidence to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, included in the committee’s second report, warned that many live music applications would not qualify as a minor variation. My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising rightly pointed out at the time the burden on social and sports clubs and the fact that the words “adverse effect” could be used by local authorities unreasonably to reject applications. The minor variations process is extraordinarily bureaucratic. In the event, the minor variations order has failed to benefit the thousands of events in venues that are not already licensed under the Act.
The absurdities and inconsistencies of the Licensing Act generally in respect of live music are manifest. The interpretation varies widely from local authority to local authority with some taking a lenient view of incidental music and others a much more restrictive approach. There are many examples of licensing authorities imposing, or allowing to be imposed, absurd restrictions on live music; for instance, the number of musicians allowed to perform, the genre of music or the type of musical instrument they may play, restrictions on those under 18 listening to live music, the days of the week they may perform and the frequency with which they may perform. Some premises are required to leaflet the surrounding area, warning residents of impending live music events, and some local authorities have issued no premises licences for public spaces, effectively banning live music in public.
Many of us recall the fact that the provision of 30 pianos in London streets under the Play Me I’m Yours scheme was caught by the Licensing Act as the provision of an entertainment facility. Without a licence from the local authority, the organisers could have committed a criminal offence. More recently, we had the ridiculous situation where Westminster City Council told Tate Britain to get an entertainment licence for Susan Philipsz’s Turner Prize-winning sound installation. Ms Philipsz’s prize-winning exhibit features a recording of her singing “Lowlands Away”, a traditional folk song, played through two loudspeakers. Westminster’s legal department ruled that the Act’s incidental music exemption could not apply in this case. Even more absurdly, the morris dancing exemption under the Act could have offered Tate Britain an intriguing way round Westminster’s licensing requirement. It allows unamplified live music if it is an integral part of a performance of morris dancing or dancing of a similar nature. If Susan Philipsz, or another vocalist, were to sing “Lowlands Away” unamplified in the gallery to some morris dancing or dancing of a similar nature, this should be exempt. Of course, that is entirely her choice.
As we can see, the Act has had the effect of criminalising the showing of a prize-winning piece of art by one of the world’s leading art institutions, a range of musical and other performances, and the provision of facilities for them that could not conceivably produce anti-social levels of noise. I could come up with myriad examples of the idiocies of the Act. Contrast that position with the freedom to show large-screen broadcasts of football matches in pubs without a licence under this legislation, because that form of entertainment is explicitly exempt. In addition, think how many premises have permission for a DJ but not for live music.
At the end of 2009, a very effective demonstration in aid of live music was held in Parliament Square by the MU and Equity. The demonstration coincided with a full debate in Westminster Hall on the Select Committee’s report. At that point, the previous Government suddenly seemed to wake up and make proposals for an exemption for a capacity of 100. They launched yet another consultation on this issue, close to the general election, when they had absolutely no hope of implementing any proposals. Mr Feargal Sharkey, the CEO of UK Music, the umbrella organisation that represents a large proportion of the music industry and strongly backs deregulation for live music, calculated that there had by then been nine consultations, two government research projects, two national review processes and a parliamentary Select Committee report—yet still no action.
The desire to nurture creativity, cut back bureaucracy, save costs for small venue owners and eliminate the inconsistencies and absurdities of the Licensing Act explains why I am once again bringing forward a Private Member’s Bill on live music. This is somewhat different from the previous version, but I hope that this Bill is even more effective than the previous Bill I introduced this time last year.
My Live Music Bill amends the Licensing Act 2003 in five main respects, including an exemption for live music in small venues for audiences of up to 200 that are licensed under that Act. This exemption is conditional on a new Section 177, which could be triggered to review a licence and make live music in that venue licensable if complaints by local residents are made.
The Bill reinforces the rights of residents by allowing conditions to be placed on the premises’ licences, following complaints upheld under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Unamplified live music is exempted anywhere between 8 am and midnight on the same day, but this can be disapplied in alcohol-licensed premises if complaints are upheld. Conditions could then be applied.
A broad exemption is introduced for any premises not already licensed under the Licensing Act that qualify as a workplace for the purpose of health and safety legislation. This covers not only hospitals, schools et cetera, but factories, offices and any place covered by the workplace definition. This is an important new addition to the Bill.
Then there is the removal altogether of the entertainment facilities provisions. There would no longer be a separate requirement to authorise the provision of musical instruments such as the piano for a school concert open to the public.
There is a new exemption under the Bill to allow live and recorded music to accompany morris dancing, which I am sure my noble friend Lord Redesdale will approve of.
The rationale for this approach is as follows. The Licensing Act 2003 creates and regulates the three licensable activities: the supply and sale of alcohol, regulated entertainment and provision of late-night refreshment, subject to the operating schedule that forms part of every premises licence issued. Live music is classified as regulated entertainment under the Act and, therefore, without an exemption, small premises are bound by the same legislative burden and costs as larger premises in relation to being able to provide live music, which can be disproportionately prohibitive.
The 2003 Act created the review process as a safeguard to residents and other parties who are subject to noise and other disturbance. The Live Music Bill preserves this right for residents and businesses in the vicinity of licensed premises, and explicitly allows for the exemption to be removed in circumstances where premises operating under the small venues exemption are found to undermine the licensing objective of prevention of public nuisance.
A further exemption for unamplified music at venues of any size, regardless of whether they possess a licence or not is again a proportionate solution, because it allows, for example, cafés to put on such entertainment without the cost of applying for a full licence.
The final exemption for hospitals, schools and colleges would permit such institutions to host live music entertainment without the additional cost and administrative burden of a licence, subject to a reasonable limit on the number of people attending. My proposals are not set in stone. The Bill can be amended as it moves through its stages in this House; but let us remember that the Select Committee recommended that the appropriate figure was 200. This figure is backed by the MU, Equity, UK Music and the Incorporated Society of Musicians. I look forward to the debate on the Bill, which I very much hope the Government will support, and that we hear some encouraging words from the Minister at the end of today’s debate.
The pub trade is particularly concerned about the health of live music. There are 39 pubs closing every week. This form of live music exemption could give a great boost to the economy of the pubs and I commend my honourable friend Mike Weatherley’s Rock the House campaign, which will set up live music competitions in constituencies right across the country. Perhaps we should add to them a competition to see who can find names of pop songs with “dog” in them as many times as possible.
I hope that the Government will respond positively today. I am delighted that we have so many speakers in today’s debate. In particular, I look forward to the maiden speech of my noble friends Lord Grade and Lady Randerson. I am delighted that they are taking part. I beg to move.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth
My Lords, that late and much loved comedian Harry Worth may not have been in the top flight of the 20th century’s great philosophers and thinkers, but he had some sage advice for anyone foolish or brave enough to speak in public. Harry said with great insight, “Never worry if the audience walks out during your performance—the time to worry is when they walk towards you”. Well, thanks to one of the many great traditions of this House, there are Doorkeepers deployed throughout this Chamber to deter your Lordships from walking in any direction while I offer these maiden words. That is a great relief to me, if less of a comfort to your Lordships.
It is customary to thank all those who work in this House for making new Peers —and I am no exception—so very welcome and I do so wholeheartedly now, but with one small caveat. Those who patrol the doors and corridors of your Lordships’ House to such great effect have brought me, quite late in life, to a stark self-realisation: I have absolutely no sense of direction whatever. Each time I step out of one Room or other in this great Palace, the nearest staff member is quick to anticipate the glazed look in my eyes and tactfully steps in to save me from my fourth fruitless lap of the Chamber. So I have more reason than most to be grateful for their support and direction. As Blanche DuBois might have said in one of the greatest curtain lines ever written for the stage at the end of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, I have always put my trust in the kindness of strangers.
Still on a personal note, I would like to be allowed to record how proud I feel to be following in the footsteps of my two late and noble uncles, Lords Grade and Delfont. They gave me so much to live up to, not just by their achievements in the entertainment industry but, more importantly, the immaculate reputations and the good will they engendered throughout their careers. Along with my late father Leslie, these three remarkable brothers really taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, they did not teach me everything they knew, so I am still working for a living.
And so to the Bill under debate this morning. Let me state from the outset that I speak in full support of my noble friend and erstwhile colleague Lord Clement-Jones in his legislative quest to repair the unforeseen damage that the Licensing Act 2003 has caused. There is overwhelming support for the proposed reform of this Act, since it threatens musical life in our nations at its most fragile point—grass-roots level.
No doubt in the case of the 2003 Act, the road to these unintended consequences was paved with good intentions, with or without musical accompaniment along the way. I can certainly understand the need to give the authorities the necessary powers to curtail public nuisance and noise disturbance caused by unruly and unlicensed events of scale. No one wants a Glastonbury-style rock festival to explode on the local allotments but in the event the Act contains such wide powers that, as we have heard today, it threatens to criminalise even small groups of unlicensed music lovers huddled together in a public place, giving pleasure to but a handful of innocent lovers of live music. In the iPod and headphone world that we inhabit today, surely we should be doing everything to encourage and promote live music.
I have had a long career nurturing and spotting talent. If I know anything—I hasten to say that this is not a question I should like to see the House divide on—it is that fledgling talent needs somewhere—anywhere—to find an audience. Stars have been spotted as buskers, bus drivers, at amateur talent contests, village halls, pubs and social clubs—anywhere where they might find an audience to help them practise their talent and hone their skills. Rightly, we are proud in these islands of our great musical tradition, whether your Lordships’ taste is for Gilbert and Sullivan or Gilbert O’Sullivan, The Beatles or Benjamin Britten, Sir Simon Rattle or the Singing Postman of blessed memory. They all had to start somewhere. I am certain that wherever they did start, they were not burdened with the redundant bureaucracy of filling out forms to apply for a licence for a harmless pursuit.
Under the current Act, without a licence, you can tune up and get banged up. I admit that there are some purveyors of alleged modern music that I would happily see locked up—preferably in a sound-proof cell. But, as your Lordships especially understand, hard cases make bad law. The 2003 Licensing Act is bad law. It is beyond the credible to argue that the legislators’ intention was actually to stifle the small pleasure of sharing live music with a small audience in any public space.
I hope that one or two of your Lordships may recall, with me, that the age of rock and roll was spawned by what became known as the skiffle era—Lonnie Donegan, and all that. Tea chests, a broom handle and a line of string made a double bass, and Mum’s old washboard and thimbles sufficed for percussion. That DIY musical movement liberated generations of kids who found that they could make their own music at virtually no cost. All they needed was an audience. It spawned a great British musical tradition and movement which put Britain in the forefront of live popular musical culture—a tradition that continues today.
In those days, no one had to care if halls and rooms above the coffee bars were licensed or not. From this amateur beginning, Britain gave the world the Stones, the Beatles, the Who and a whole hall of fame of music industry legends. As they set out on their roads to world fame, they performed anywhere they could find a public room and a few people—no licence required but a licence to inspire.
I ask your Lordships to consider how many of those legends who have brought such benefits to Great Britain plc would have had these opportunities had the 2003 Licensing Act been in force in those days. This Bill does not offer a simplistic anything-goes antidote to the 2003 Act. It does not propose going from the heavily prescriptive requirements of the Act to a free-for-all. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has presented a Bill that contains some very well thought through protections and checks that offer real powers to the authorities where there is unacceptable abuse. These, I believe, are more appropriate and better fit the original intentions of the 2003 Act. I support these reforms wholeheartedly.
In conclusion, I offer my grateful thanks to your Lordships for your patient attention and for resisting the urge to walk in any direction. One last question: when I exit the Chamber for the Peers’ Dining Room, do I turn left or right?
Lord Colwyn
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend and pleased that he has been able use the occasion of his maiden speech and long experience in the media and entertainment business to show support for the Live Music Bill which concerns the promotion of live music entertainment and consequent support for many thousands of musicians.
The noble Lord has a long and distinguished career in media which started at the Daily Mirror in 1960 and progressed to London Weekend Television in 1973, the BBC, Channel 4, the BBC again, and most recently as executive chairman of ITV in January 2007. He stood down as chief executive to become non-executive chairman at the conclusion of regulatory reviews into advertising contract rights and digital television in April 2009. Many noble Lords will have seen his programme last Monday on BBC4 recalling the days of music hall and variety which has many similarities with your Lordships’ House.
For a time, the noble Lord joined the family business as an agent and was responsible for booking acts and planning variety running orders. Of course, in this House, persuading noble Lords to perform and planning a running order is the job of the Whips—agents are not involved. If the acts are put in the wrong order, the show can be destroyed. This has been very obvious in the past month or so when old jokes and stories have been repeated ad infinitum by the same comedians and the shows have overrun by several hours at each performance. The noble Lord will be comfortable with a speakers’ list despite the fact that there is no bill matter. A brief description of the intended speech might be a very good idea for contributions in the House. Today he is designated “maiden”. For noble Lords who are unfamiliar with theatrical bill matter as opposed to matters concerned with Bills, it was the description that acts gave themselves. Max Miller was the Cheeky Chappie and Spike Milligan was the Performing Man. I am delighted to welcome the noble Lord as another performing Peer.
At speaking position number 2 my noble friend is top of the bill this morning, perhaps sharing the position with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I congratulate him on his delightful maiden speech. It was informed and interesting. I am sure that we will look forward to many further contributions but must remind him that jokes about playing the Palace of Westminster, comments about the size of the audience and the use of props are not appreciated.
My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones covered most of the issues this morning. Under the current law, the performance of live music is regarded as regulated entertainment and must be authorised either by a premises licence or a temporary event notice. There are certain exemptions for religious music and music played which is incidental to some other activity which is itself not regulated. Until 2005 the exemption known as the “two in a bar” rule allowed one or two musicians to perform at premises where a justices’ licence was in force. Small venues did not need a public entertainments licence for live performances by up to two musicians but they did need a licence if the two were joined by a third musician or if a succession of musicians performed individually during the course of an entertainment. That allowance was so important for thousands of musicians, many of them young, who under the current legislation find it increasingly difficult to find venues in which to practise and perform their art.
I have campaigned on behalf of musicians for many years and again declare my interest as a member of the Musicians’ Union, a very part-time musician and co-chair of the All-Party Group on Jazz Appreciation, and member of the Performers’ Alliance parliamentary group. Live music licensing has been discussed for many years.
On 25 February 1988, Douglas Hogg wrote to me from the Home Office. He said that,
“the laws on entertainment are there to ensure adequate control, specifically in terms of safety. In places of public resort. Licensed premises are exempt from these laws for small scale entertainments primarily because, when granted a justices licence, the license will have shown that his premises are structurally suitable for the sale and consumption of alcohol, which by necessity includes adequate health and safety provisions. For entertainment on a larger scale, such premises may not be suitable and a further inspection under the terms of a public entertainment licence is deemed necessary”.
Musicians believed that common sense would prevail but it has proved impossible to find a solution to this problem.
I will not take up your Lordships’ time by going over the old ground of Section 177 of the Licensing Act which, as a last-minute compromise, was intended to protect certain forms of live music in small premises. The whole process exposed the Act's absurd overregulation of the most innocuous live music against the light touch for canned entertainment such as big-screen sport and recorded music. The restrictive legislation had serious implications for musicians, who were prevented from performing and learning to play to a live audience. Many of our biggest selling British artists started out by playing gigs in pubs. Section 177 has proved to be a complex, unworkable provision. There is no exemption from holding the required licence and the Government at the time considered that such exemptions were not necessary to protect live music, but were forced to compromise in this House to secure the passage of the Bill.
In May 2009, the Culture Select Committee considered the Act's impact on live music and concluded that live music in smaller venues was decreasing. It recommended that the Government should exempt venues with a capacity of 200 persons or fewer from the need to obtain a licence for the performance of live music. The committee also recommended the reintroduction of a “two-in-a-bar” exemption for non-amplified music. In their response, the former Government rejected these recommendations. However in October 2009, they indicated that they were now minded to consider an exemption for live music in small venues with a capacity of less than 100 and would launch a public consultation on the issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has covered most of the key differences between this Bill and the previous one. I am sorry to see the “two-in-a-bar” rule go, but understand that performers did not agree with it. Blanket exemptions can be unhelpful. Two musicians playing loudly and attracting a large crowd might not require a licence, but three unaccompanied singers would have to be licensed. I am pleased to see the removal of the definition of minimal amplification. The situation for amplification of instruments which are silent unless minimally amplified was never clarified during discussion on the Licensing Act or the noble Lord’s previous Bill.
Under the new Bill, unamplified live music—I hope that this includes minimally amplified—will be exempted anywhere between 8 am and midnight on the same day, but can be removed in alcohol-licensed premises if complaints are upheld. The Bill also redefines the exemptions for live music in schools, colleges or hospitals and removes entertainment facilities provisions altogether.
After the election, the coalition agreement for the new Administration undertook to,
“cut the red tape to encourage the performance of more live music”.
In January, DCMS Minister John Penrose said:
“The Government are currently considering options to remove red tape from live music and other entertainment. I hope to be able to announce our conclusions, including the timetable for reform, shortly”.—[Official Report, Commons 31/1/11; col. 507W.]
I support the Bill and John Whittingdale's Early Day Motion, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned.
Baroness Bakewell
My Lords, I support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, with all the energy I can. I am aware how important it is. I declare an interest: I was for eight years the chair of the National Campaign for the Arts. As such, I thought of addressing your Lordships with a poem:
“We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems”.
The Government of this country are the movers and shakers, and we here are movers and shakers ourselves who have a duty to the music-makers of this country.
The National Campaign for the Arts was inundated from the moment that the original Bill, which became the 2003 Act, went into operation. We have hundreds of members, and they all, in small groups, seek to find a voice through the National Campaign for the Arts to speak for their interests. It quickly became clear that the Act was not working. Like other speakers, I shall address the problem from three points of view: that of the musicians, the audience and the venue.
Musicians in this country have the benefit of an outstanding musical education, if they go to college. If they get together in small groups, they are often better. The noble Lord, Lord Grade, has already spoken of the emerging music of the 1960s. When the Beatles came to public knowledge, they had already been part of a group of musicians in Liverpool at a time, from 1960 to 1962, when there were 300 groups in that city alone. How could they have survived under this law? They met in small places, playing to friends and family. They were in cellars and attics everywhere. Young people were completely moved by a tidal wave of what we can only call musical inspiration. We must not let that kind of inspiration be stifled by the amazingly bureaucratic nightmare of the Act. Young people need to appear together in small places where they can be appreciated by their peers, reviewed, meet each other, talk and compare instruments, music and opportunities. Musicians need our help.
Audiences need our help. We live in a world in which music is intrinsic to our lives in every nook and cranny, but too often it is coming from iPods and is not a real live activity. Anything that can move the enjoyment of music to a live event with a space between the music and the audience seems to me valuable. That exchange between the performer and the audience is about more than the music. As the poem suggests, it is about a whole relationship of creativity, as was demonstrated so well in Liverpool.
Small audiences need to go to small venues. Young people are often in awe of the larger music venues, not to mention the cost of going and the distance. Small venues that are local, familiar and congenial are an enormously important element in inspiring music-making and music appreciation. Rites of passage—birthdays and celebrations of all kind—are often occasions where small musical groups, whether informal or groups of friends, perform in venues where alcohol is consumed. They are not an appropriate subject for the 2003 Act.
As for venues, we are all aware of and saddened by the decline of the English public house. Publicans have suffered enormously from the smoking ban, as we know. Many now feel that small groups for music-making—jazz or folk—will make a difference to their survival. The PRS for Music commissioned research in December 2009, and found that 80 per cent of pub managers said that music would help them survive the recession. Pubs with music are three times more likely to stay in business.
The Licensing Act 2003 is an Act with unintended consequences. We have already heard how the Tate was required to have a licence for a Turner Prize-winning piece of sound installation. In 2009, a Northamptonshire school had to scrap a production of “We Will Rock You” following a warning from the licensing officer. As a consequence, the head of the council's licensing committee resigned in protest, saying that, soon, people would need to apply to host wine and cheese parties in their own home because selling alcohol for a good cause would need licensing permission. The current provision is not working and it calls out for revision. The movers and shakers, of whom I am now proud to be one, back the Bill.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones on introducing this important Bill, which of course I support. I declare an interest as someone who started off at the age of 12 singing live music with a small band in small venues.
Nowadays, if you were to ask a child or young person about what type of music they like, the vast majority would answer with a list of the most current pop singers and groups. If you asked them where they sourced their music, they would more than likely answer that they downloaded it from the internet on to their computer or MP3 player.
This clearly demonstrates that young people usually access music at arm’s length, in a sort of detached way. Many of today's most popular performers are acts and groups made famous by television talent shows, but, for me, one of the most worrying aspects of these performances is the absence of performing musicians in vision. In the vast majority of cases, the audience is treated to a dazzling display of dancing, lighting effects and highly produced soundtracks, but nowhere to be seen are the musicians who make the music which backs the singer or group. It is as if the music just magically plays as a backing track behind the performers.
My concern is that many youngsters are growing up never seeing or enjoying the performances of talented musicians. As the daughter of a jazz saxophonist and a singer, I find it both sad and disturbing that many of the nation’s children believe that the music which backs their singing idols is produced electronically in a distant studio and played as a backing track.
I went to a concert recently at which some of today’s biggest stars, pop groups and boy bands were performing. I saw not one real musician playing on stage; they all used backing tracks. In contrast, last year, I hosted a concert at the Royal Festival Hall where children and young people performed live music—some were as young as seven. The performers included Sahana Gero's 51st State Band—100 young musicians who played saxophones, flutes, trombones, trumpets as well as percussion and guitar instruments.
Many of the performers were from disadvantaged backgrounds who might otherwise have found themselves drawn to gangs and street crime if it were not for the opportunity to learn an instrument and play in a band. It enabled them to focus on something positive; it taught them to be disciplined, to show consideration to others; it built self-esteem and confidence as well as helping them to be creative and use their imagination. However, my concern for them is that if they decide to branch out and form a small group in the hope of being discovered, the places and opportunities for them to perform are limited because of the existing live music legislation.
As a teenager in the 1960s, I grew up performing with my father's jazz band in pubs, at weddings and parties, and at town halls and private functions all over London and beyond—we even performed in a prison once, which was quite an experience. In those days, there were no restrictions on what we did or where we could perform. Of course, our instruments were unamplified and so caused little nuisance. Mind you, we once experienced some restrictions, when we arrived for a gig at an Irish-run pub on St Patrick's Day. The landlord asked whether we played Irish music. My father replied, “No, we play jazz!”. To which, the landlord said, “Well, you’d better leave quickly before the customers hear you”.
With the progress and growth in the popularity of pop music and the introduction of amplifiers, it became less acceptable to allow a free-for-all in the performance of live music in venues without stringent licensing controls and legislation. Obviously, today's audiences can go in their thousands to see live music at expensive music festivals and large venues up and down the country. However, the Licensing Act 2003 went too far and had a negative effect on the performance of live music in small venues, especially by small groups playing unamplified music. My biggest concern is the shift away from live music performances in these types of venues and the lack of opportunity that young people have to see grass-roots musicians playing in cafes, bars, restaurants and other local venues and to enjoy listening to a live guitarist or jazz trio playing in the corner of their local pub. The Act stifles the opportunity for audiences and aspiring musicians to get together and enjoy and revel in the performance of live music, music which brings joy and happiness to the human soul and feeds the human spirit in these difficult and unhappy times. The power of music stimulates the brain; it does not just help us to feel better but assists us in our thinking and emotions.
I therefore wholeheartedly support my noble friend. Let us amend the Act and allow more freedom for musicians and venues to provide live music and create a much needed feeling of well-being—because, as I said, music is food for the soul.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I must begin by thanking your Lordships for the warmth of the welcome that I have received here. I wish in particular to thank my sponsors, the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, both of whom have provided me with valuable advice. I also thank the staff of this House, who have been unfailingly helpful and have, quite literally, steered me in the right direction on many occasions—indeed, I think that my fitness has improved since I came here because of my needless laps of the Building and fruitless climbing of the wrong stairs.
I speak in this debate with a mixture of emotions: pride, humility and considerable trepidation. I am one of a growing number of Members of your Lordships' House who have been Members of the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments. In my case, I remain a Member of the National Assembly for Wales, but only for the next four weeks.
It has been a great honour to represent my constituency of Cardiff Central for the past 12 years. Cardiff is a beautiful city with a strong and distinctive culture. Of course, there have been, and are, several Members of your Lordships’ House from Cardiff. However, I believe that I am the first Liberal or Liberal Democrat Peer from Cardiff since DA Thomas, who was briefly MP for Cardiff in 1910 and became Baron—later Viscount—Rhondda in 1916. He survived the sinking of the “Lusitania”, so I hope that I have survival skills here.
I am, of course, a member of a political party, the Liberal Democrats, which until recently was in opposition for many years. I believe that it was my noble friend Lord Ashdown who once said about those years in opposition, “The first 60 years are the worst”. However, we have in the mean time been part of coalition Governments in Scotland and Wales. Indeed, I was honoured to be the Welsh Minister for Culture from 2000 to 2003, and it is that experience that I shall draw on in today’s debate.
As an historian by training, I am more than a little intimidated by the history and traditions of your Lordships' House. In contrast, in the Welsh Assembly, we have literally been creating our own history during the past 12 years. Speaking on the day when the votes on the referendum on further powers for that Assembly are being counted, I hope that there will be the opportunity to create even more tradition there.
Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that one of the disciplines that I learnt in the Welsh Assembly was that of brevity, so I shall proceed rapidly to the topic of this debate—I thank my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones for bringing forward the Bill today.
I come from what is popularly known as the land of song. However, the Licensing Act 2003 has made it considerably more difficult for that for that song to be heard by an audience. As Minister, I introduced a culture strategy, Creative Future, which emphasised the importance of music in the cohesion of communities and for our tourist industry and economy in general. We planned to increase opportunities for professional musicians, and to reinvigorate amateur and semi-professional community music organisations such as choirs and brass bands. We planned to strengthen the infrastructure of small venues for the performance of all types of music. However, the Licensing Act 2003 proved a hindrance to those ambitions.
Your Lordships will be well aware of the reputation of Welsh National Opera and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. What your Lordships might not be aware of is that those renowned organisations also tour extensively in Wales, in small groups to small venues—to churches, village halls, schools and youth centres. They are funded by the Arts Council of Wales to do so to inspire our young people, provide community cohesion in deprived areas and provide entertainment in rural areas that get very little else by way of entertainment. The Arts Council of Wales has a very well established and highly respected scheme called Night Out, which helps to fund professional organisations in community buildings.
However, these initiatives have had to work against the grain of the Licensing Act. The time, cost and bureaucracy involved in getting a licence for a small venue when you are likely to hold only two or three such events a year is simply not worth it. Remember, those venues are almost invariably run by volunteers, who have neither the time nor the expertise to go through that bureaucratic minefield. Geographically, Wales is 80 per cent rural and characterised by a network of village and church halls. The entertainment that they can host has been curtailed by the 2003 Act.
Your Lordships will also have heard of the National Eisteddfod. That internationally famous music festival is underpinned by a network of local festivals and eisteddfodau. The national youth Eisteddfod, the Urdd, holds preliminary competitions in every part of Wales and almost every school participates. The tip of the pyramid, you see, is underpinned by a very wide base. It is the community venues that provide the opportunities for a performer’s first step in performing music. Without that first step, they will not take the second, which is to consider earning their living that way. This means that you lose your source of income for creative industries and the cultural tourism sector suffers. Those are enormously important to the Welsh economy; approximately 5 per cent of the economically active workforce works in the cultural sector in Wales. In Cardiff, that figure rises to 13 per cent.
Like the rest of the UK, Wales has suffered from the reduction in the number of premises licensed to sell alcohol that have sought a licence for live music. There has been a reduction to about one-quarter of those premises seeking a licence. That means that the opportunities are very much lower for those wishing to participate. Many of those licences, as my noble friend has indicated, already contain other restrictions. Therefore, I urge your Lordships to look at the evidence very carefully. The live music scene appears to flourish, but it is the upper end and the middle that are flourishing; the small-scale venues are suffering and declining. As the poorest part of the UK that is often overwhelmed by the culture of its much bigger neighbour, Wales has a particular need to develop its own culture and identity, and has suffered disproportionately from the impact of the Act.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, it is my duty and privilege to congratulate my noble friend on her wonderful maiden speech. People coming into this House are often overawed by being in this situation, although the atmosphere is not always as exciting as it has been in the past month or so. However, my noble friend Lady Randerson has been in politics for quite some time. She became a councillor for Cardiff in 1983, and her career in local politics culminated in her becoming the first Liberal Democrat Minister for any national body. That is a position that, I am happy to say, is now commonplace. We have many Ministers among our colleagues in another place. If the Bill for five-year terms is passed, probably almost all our female colleagues in the Commons will emulate my noble friend Lady Randerson in the coming years.
My noble friend’s expertise will be extremely helpful, especially as her career in teaching and lecturing will bring such knowledge to debates on education. Particularly pertinent to this debate was her introduction of Creative Future, a cultural strategy for Wales, and Iaith Pawb—I knew that that would be embarrassing, and I will get letters about my pronunciation being wrong—which means “a language for everyone”. This is particularly pertinent because, just as the Welsh language is a cultural indicator, I would argue that music is of incredible importance and has been terribly undervalued.
In their maiden speeches, the noble Lord, Lord Grade, and my noble friend Lady Randerson talked about the difficulty of finding out about this place. As they have many years yet to come in this place, I suggest that they spend a couple of days wandering around. You find many new Peers in strange Corridors, saying, “I just thought I’d take a day to wander around”. I suggest the cellars. Most people have not been to the cellars; I spent a week there and was thrown out many years ago. What makes up this Building is incredible. I just leave noble Lords with that.
This is a Private Member’s Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is to be congratulated on bringing it back. I say that because he gave me the same accolade. Private Members’ Bills in this place over the past few years have tended to be about either live music or dogs. I hope one of us will break the deadlock.
I am speaking in this debate because I was heavily involved in the 2003 Act. What I find depressing is that most of the complaints that we get about the Bill were expressed at the time. We worked out that there would be a major effect on the provision of live music. One of the problems is that, at the time, we were running a campaign to get rid of the “two in a bar” rule for being too repressive. The noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, as a publicity stunt, was in the Red Lion across the way. We had two people playing and, when he tried to blow his trumpet, he was immediately thrown out of the pub because he was breaking the laws, which were extremely strictly enforced by Westminster Council. There were occasions when, if members of the audience took part in a sing-along, it was seen as having more than two in the bar. Cases were brought against organisations. We thought this was terribly restrictive but, looking back, we should have been campaigning for the retention of the “two in a bar” rule. Many places that used to keep to it now simply do not bother because of the paperwork. The situation now is far worse than it was then.
I declare an interest. I am chairman of the national committee of Best Bar None—an organisation for pubs and clubs that tries to improve the situation for the night-time economy by raising standards. I have been all around the country to award ceremonies and have seen best practice in many pubs and clubs. I have often asked those running them about the provision of music and they have replied that their business is dying because of the amount of bureaucracy instituted by the 2003 Act. There are 36 pubs closing a week.
I declare an interest as the owner of a pub, the Redesdale Arms on the A68. It is a very fine pub if you happen to be going between Newcastle and Jedburgh or are on your way to Edinburgh. It has sleeping accommodation and very fine food, although I am obviously not advertising here. I understand that at the moment publicans have a real issue in trying to keep their pubs going. My own pub was particularly hit by the fact that announcements kept being made on the radio that the A68 was closed, even though it was not. That has an effect on your trade when you have a pub on that route. Publicans are having a real difficulty in keeping going at the moment. Of course, live music is helpful but not if you have to fill in an enormous amount of paperwork, and that leads me to the second point to be emphasised, which is that you do not go down that route if you think that, by instituting live music, there will be a review of your premises licence. That is a real threat to an organisation and, unfortunately, due to the 2003 Act, it is one that licensees are not prepared to take.
I believe it is a human right to have unamplified music, and I moved an amendment during the passage of the 2003 Act to say that that type of music should not be included. The problem was that the Government were totally opposed to it. At the time, they said that there was a danger of outbreaks of violence because of live music. Lord McIntosh, who, sadly, is no longer with us, was very clear on that point. I took it to a Division four times and beat the Government, and this House threw it back at the Commons four times in ping-pong. I would have taken it further but no one has ever taken an issue to a fifth Division, so it would have been breaking new ground and I was told by my Whips that I had to give up at that point. The Government did not offer me anything, even though we tested opinion on the issue so many times. They were keen to get the legislation through, so on the fourth occasion, at 10 o’clock at night, Tessa Jowell offered me a concession. She offered me morris dancing, which was fantastic, as I am a great supporter of morris dancing. Noble Lords laugh.
Lord Redesdale
No, we do not have an entertainment licence, although morris dancing is exempt. There are 14,000 morris dancers in the country but the legislation could have destroyed that activity. Every time there was a morris dancing event, it would have needed a temporary event notice, which would have cost £15 a time, plus all the time needed to fill in the paperwork. That would have killed off a traditional dance in this country, which would have been devastating. I very much hope that when the Minister answers some of the questions today she will be up there at the front saying that morris dancing should be included in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games as an indicator of how important it is to the culture of the nation. We foresaw the problem and it was extremely lucky that morris dancing was exempted. The amendment referred to morris dancers and their like, so I have never understood why jazz singers have not called themselves “morris jazz singers”. You could also have “pop morris”. It would fall under the Act and it would be up to the licensing authority to prove that they were not morris dancers. However, I should have thought that if they put a couple of bells around their ankles, they could get away with it.
What is so ridiculous is that large-screen TVs are exempt under the Act. You can watch football matches on large-screen TVs because that is not going to cause an uproar. You could even have three people performing next door to a pub, with their performance beamed on to the large-screen TV in the pub at exactly the same volume. That is legal, but it is not legal to have the people actually inside the pub.
This matter really needs to be addressed. It was often said that the legislation would be proportionate and would not be misused. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said that if you have a cheese and wine party and sell alcohol, you might soon need a licence. The noble Baroness should be aware that, if she has advertised, she already needs a licence to do that. It falls within the Bill. It is ridiculous but that is the case. The legislation has stopped the performance of music in hospitals, schools and village halls, and has been a massively destructive element in our society.
The Minister might say that this is a problem that we need to look at, but we have put off doing so again and again. It really needs to be dealt with, and I very much hope that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is taken up by the Government and that this problem in our society is dealt with.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I am going to risk the mood of the House because I am going to start by speaking in defence of the iPod. The iPod, or MP3 players, have been mentioned a couple of times. They did not exist when I was young and became a great enthusiast of popular music, yet just before I came into the Chamber I checked my iPod and found that I have 1,269 different tracks on it of what I believe is the best music in the world. An iPod or MP3 player means that, when I am mowing the lawn, doing my ironing—which I do—and doing mundane tasks, I can listen on shuffle to an extraordinary mixture of music in a way that was never possible before, whether it is Manfred Mann and the Doors through to Spandau Ballet and Level 42, or even Kasabian and the Gorillaz. That may be considered to be a rather narrow taste in music but it is fantastic that we are able to listen to music in this way.
My noble friend Lady Randerson, in her fantastic maiden speech, mentioned the Welsh Assembly. I was also part of an Assembly—the European Parliament—that had more than one language, so there was an excuse for putting on earphones during the parliamentary sessions. However, no one knew what you were listening to. Perhaps one of the tragedies of this House and the other place is that we do not have that excuse. Of course, at that time I always listened on my iPod to Radio 4 podcasts, rather than music, as well as the debates. However, that is only one section of music. In December, I went to the O2 Arena for the first time to attend a fantastic large live music event. On that occasion, there was a performance by the Scissor Sisters, to whom I listen with my eldest daughter. It was a fantastic event, but those are only two dimensions of music.
I have a reason for wanting to take a small part in this debate. My road to Damascus—or, in this case, my road to Donegal—was when we went on holiday for a week to the Republic or Ireland a couple of years ago. We went for the scenery, to see friends and relatives, to experience the culture and to enjoy the Guinness of Dublin. However, what I remember most is visiting the villages of rural Ireland and the towns of western Ireland in the evenings in particular. What rang out and struck me most strongly, and what has left me with those memories, was that a huge proportion of the pubs, restaurants and other places where people gathered had a huge range of different styles of live music performed by local people. It was that memory that made me ask myself, on returning home, why the United Kingdom is so barren in that form of creativity and entertainment. Of course, one reason is that this country has a prohibitive licensing structure that has to be surmounted and passed through in order for live music to be performed legally.
One thing that I believe to my soul is that music is one of the greatest things that we as human beings enjoy. It is a liberation. It can take us out of troubles or things that we are thinking about and into a different world. There is no better way of experiencing that with friends, children and colleagues than being able to perform and to have live music in small venues. That is why I am delighted to speak in this debate and to support the purposes of this Bill. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones on having introduced it to this House again.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, I rise in the gap to support this Bill strongly and to give the Government a warning from history. Cromwell banned music and frivolity and closed a lot of inns and theatres, but look what happened. After five years of his military dictatorship, everyone was so fed up that they welcomed a king back with open arms and they had fun—look at the Restoration comedies. People do not like too much puritanism and Cromwell was a strong puritan. The frightening thing about the Act is that the fact that the regulations would stifle innovation was foreseen in the debates and therefore, I assume, must have been intended. In other words, we have a lot of puritans somewhere behind the Government. We have to remember the definition of “puritan”. A puritan is someone who has a haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves. Do we really want to be run by those sort of people? That is the warning that I want to give. I finish by saying that I was highly amused by the juxtaposition of the two Bills today. Perhaps we should think of the words of Florence and the Machine and hope that the “Dog Days are Over”.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, this is the second time in just over a year that a Bill on this topic has come before your Lordships’ House. Indeed, those who spoke in the earlier debate must be pinching themselves to make sure that this is not some sort of weird déjà vu. Or is it worse? Your Lordships’ House may recall the movie “Groundhog Day”. Are Bill Murray, now played by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and Andie MacDowell, now played by the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, doomed to find out that everything that happens on Friday 4 March plays out exactly as it did on 15 January last year, with an endlessly repeating time loop? Well, it could be true. As in the movie, the settings are the same, albeit in mirror image; the time of day is, eerily, the same; and many noble Lords who graced the debate in January 2010 have returned to give admittedly different speeches today—and we are all the better for that.
So how will the movie turn out this time? Of course, the parallel is not exact and keen movie buffs will have quickly picked up that the first time round the debate was not so well adorned as it has been today by the three categories of person that we must consider, in the words of my noble friend Lady Bakewell: the performers, the musicians and the venue owners. She said that we are the movers and shakers—I like that. We have had comments from performers and players, such as the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. We have had poetry, which is now a performance art, from my noble friend Lady Bakewell. We have even heard from publicans, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and his second attempt to publicise his wares to the House. Indeed, the noble Lord showed his entrepreneurial spirit in his suggestion that we should open up the cellars and make them into a venue for the music that he likes to hear—or was it for morris dancing?
We also had two excellent and assured maiden speeches, by the noble Lord, Lord Grade, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. Those who know Michael Grade, whom I still count as a friend, will not be surprised that he spoke so wittily and well. It was as if he was “to the manner born”, which I suppose he was, given his distinguished family. He brought to the debate real knowledge and experience of our topic. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, explained her connections with Wales and the Assembly and was able to add valuable insights to our debate, particularly about the situation on the ground in the land of song.
We have learnt a lot about the live music scene in this debate and we have been on a trip down memory lane, given the many groups and bands that have been mentioned. We heard some useful facts; I did not know that there were 14,000 morris dancers in the country. They all seem permanently to be performing in my local pub, but now I know why that is the case.
I reassure the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, that I am not a puritan and that on our side we do not take that view on this matter. I should say at the start that I agree with Feargal Sharkey that, particularly in the midst of recession and with an increased emphasis being placed on our creative industries to stimulate the economy, it is paramount that we should be creating opportunities for and not stifling our creative talent. As he said:
“Live music can have a hugely positive economic impact both locally and nationally”.
As a nation, we produce many of the world’s best musicians, as we have heard, and Britain is home to some of the most innovative music entrepreneurs, the vast majority of them being small companies and therefore to be cherished. Music is a growth industry. It attracts millions of users to high-tech services—we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about his iPod—it attracts people to want to work in the industry and, like all the creative arts, it drives tourism. We should all back live music and we should do so to the hilt.
I was not involved in the Licensing Act 2003 but I am happy to admit that we got it wrong. However, we have heard only one side of the story in the debate so far today. Clearly, we want to support live music and we want it to happen with the minimum of bureaucracy and the minimum of cost, but there is another side to this. There is a concern for everyone who lives next to a pub or venue and we should not curtail their liberties to enjoy a peaceful life. Clearly, it is difficult to get this to bottom out, but I do not think that we should duck it.
There are two competing freedoms. First, we should bear in mind that live performance carries with it a downside in terms of the impact that it has on others. People may wish to allow others to perform live but they may also feel the consequences when there is an impact. Secondly, there is no doubt that the unintended consequences arising from the sensible but ambitious approach taken to merge nine different licensing schemes into a single premises licence in the 2003 Act have created the main problem that we face. As we have been reminded, the Government said at the time that that approach would lead to an increase in live music. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Pretty much any performance of live music, no matter how small, now requires a licence, the bureaucracy and cost of which has reduced, not increased, opportunities for live music.
There is a third point, however. The main purpose of the 2003 Act was, of course, not just about music; it was also about alcohol and, in particular, the potential to allow premises to open for flexible periods. Then as now, we still have split responsibilities within Whitehall. The Home Office is responsible for alcohol and DCMS is responsible for regulated entertainment. If you then add in the fact that responsibility for enforcement lies with DCLG and local authorities, you have the absolutely classic Whitehall problem—a three-way crunch, with all that that implies for the difficulty of trying to make progress. I suspect that that is behind a lot of this and I will be interested to hear the Minister talk about that.
Clearly, a good response to that sort of blockage is to provide evidence, which is why we have the Live Music Forum. We have heard what it found about this. It is important to recognise that the research carried out by MORI has been influential. The fact that 29 per cent of smaller establishments that had operated without a public entertainment licence did not apply for live music provision when the Act came into force should have rung strong alarm bells for those responsible. It is worth recalling the figures given by my noble friend Lady Bakewell: 80 per cent of pub managers felt that music would help them to survive the recession, while pubs with music are three times more likely to stay in business. We must have regard to the venues and, as my noble friend Lady Bakewell said, to something that is so intrinsically a part of our national life.
As we have heard, a campaign is going on. In 2009, the influential Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee reported on the Licensing Act and said that, to encourage the performance of live music:
“We recommend that the Government should exempt venues with a capacity of 200 persons or fewer from the need to obtain a licence for the performance of live music. We further recommend the reintroduction of the ‘two-in-a-bar’ exemption enabling venues of any size to put on a performance of non-amplified music by one or two musicians”.
That, as well as some lobbying and demonstrations, led the Government to introduce an exemption for small live music events performed for 100 people or fewer in licensed and unlicensed premises. Of course, as we have heard, that has not been satisfactory.
The truth is that we are stuck because, much like the film, we seem to be in a continual loop. A formal consultation has taken place and UK Music has analysed the submissions of all respondents to the consultation and found that 74 per cent were in favour of an exemption for small music venues, including some local authorities. For example, Oxford City Council, in welcoming the proposal, said:
“We believe that the proposal fully reflects the need for small venues to provide live music should they choose in order to generate much- needed streams of revenue and provide much-needed diversity. The measures proposed to uphold the licensing objectives seem to be both proportionate and fair”.
You cannot really say much more than that.
Although the previous Government were intending to move on this, the general election intervened. As we have been told, rather surprisingly perhaps, the coalition agreement includes the following undertaking:
“We will cut red tape to encourage the performance of more live music”.
We have had some recent experience of the determination that the Government have to see coalition measures forced through without amendment and with minimum delay, and with scant regard, perhaps I may say, for the conventions and courtesies of this House. But that is not happening as regards red tape encouraging the performance of more live music. Why is that?
The public responses were published in June 2010. In a response to Don Foster MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for DCMS, John Penrose, as has already been quoted, in June 2010 said that,
“we are committed to moving as fast and as positively as we can towards better arrangements for the performance of live music in small venues”.
In response to Mr John Whittingdale, that same Minister floated the idea that there might be a broader and potentially more radical solution to the problems which this Bill is intended to address. Perhaps that is another reason why we are having continuing delay, which seems rather odd at this late stage in the process, after there has been so much time, so much lobbying and so much unanimity, as we have heard, around the industry and the users for a more radical solution.
However, going forward to January 2011 the Minister said:
“The Government are currently considering options to remove red tape from live music and other entertainment. I hope to be able to announce our conclusions, including the timetable for reform, shortly”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/11; col. 506W.]
In correspondence with the Live Music Forum, Mr Penrose said that,
“finding an answer which solves the problems without opening unwanted public safety loopholes elsewhere isn't easy”.
The same press source reports that,
“the Local Government Association has been lobbying against any loosening of restrictions, arguing that it could cause disorder”.
I think that we can guess where this is being held up.
In June 2010, the Government were committed to moving as fast and as positively as they could with a minimum of further consultation, but it is now March 2011. So we are hardly setting the heather alight, even on the A68. Perhaps I am right that we are in “Groundhog Day”.
Will the Minister please inform the House when the coalition agreement’s commitment to cut red tape will be enacted? Can she give us even an outline timetable for a proper response to the extensive consultations and pretty convincing case put by UK Music and others for action in this area? Can she throw any light on what Mr Penrose meant when he said he was considering radical solutions? Despite the convention of maintaining a neutral stance on Private Members’ Bills, will the Government consider picking up the Bill introduced by the noble Lord and, if not, will the Minister say specifically why that cannot happen in this case? If we are going to make progress with this, it would be helpful to know which version of the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the other points that have been made around this debate the Government prefer.
UK Music, which is the representative body for the commercial music sector, has argued persuasively that live music needs to be nurtured at grass-roots level. Without the hundreds of small bars and music venues developing young raw music talent up and down the country, there would not be a music industry. The worry is that the unintended effects of the Licensing Act have harmed and will continue to harm the grass roots British music movement. With this Bill there is a chance to prevent the harm from continuing. The Government talk about developing an economic growth strategy: what better way than by starting with this Bill?
I leave noble Lords with this thought: at the end of “Groundhog Day”, the two main protagonists—noble Lords will recall that in our version the heroes are played by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the Minister—get together and the loop is broken. The next day, when they wake up, they can get on with their lives together. That is all fiction of course, although film buffs will say that if you look at the film in critical detail it covers 39 days of continuous loop. We have been stuck in this loop for rather longer than that.
As I leave the film set to the noble Baroness for her response, I leave it with a heartfelt request to put the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, out of his groundhog misery.
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, first, I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on securing a Second Reading for his Bill. It has been a fascinating, constructive debate with much unanimity and I welcome and add my congratulations to my noble friends Lord Grade and Lady Randerson on such excellent maiden speeches. My noble friend Lord Grade’s witty, wise and wide-ranging speech was a treat. Of course, we look forward to many more occasions on which to hear his wisdom. However, it will be of no consolation to him that after many years in your Lordships’ House I still go around in circles, but no longer do I dare ask my way. My noble friend Lady Randerson enchanted us with all her Welsh connections and experience in cultural matters. She will be a huge asset to your Lordships’ House.
It is a good, although rare, occasion to follow the opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and to agree with most of what he said so eloquently and so clearly. The case for change relating to the regulation of live music has been well made by most noble Lords here today, and both inside and outside this House. The Government are in agreement with my noble friend on the need for reform and we are committed to delivering change. The coalition agreement states:
“We will cut red tape to encourage the performance of more live music”,
and we are keen to deliver this promise. This does not preclude the use of my noble friend Lord Teverson’s iPod. We have a clear, unequivocal intention to free performers from unnecessary regulation and to return the right of performers of all ages to perform.
For all the good intentions of the Licensing Act 2003, it is clear that there are many instances where the public and voluntary organisations that make up the fabric of our society have been adversely affected by unnecessary regulation. There were countless representations from musicians, teachers and many charities during the passage of the Licensing Bill in 2003. This still continues.
We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, about her experience that the licensing regime deters schools, hospitals, village halls and community centres from putting on events for the benefit of the local community or in support of charitable activities. My noble friend Lord Colwyn has been involved with live music petitions for many years and was involved with the Licensing Act 2003. He envisaged an explosion in the number of gigs in small places, but that has not happened, as he rightly said. He stressed that live music is thriving in larger venues, but smaller events have been cancelled because of licensing requirements, or because expensive and restrictive conditions have been imposed. All these obstacles reduce the scope for new talent to get started, because small-scale venues find it harder to stay open with all the extra red tape.
There is also the role played by public houses in local communities, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Redesdale. There is evidence that public houses that have diversified to include activities other than drinking are better able to survive the recession. It is important to make it easier to put on live performances that can provide an important source of new income to struggling businesses such as public houses, restaurants and hotels.
In 2009, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee recommended that the Government consult on permitting live music for low-capacity audiences, which the previous Government took forward last year. In recent days, we have seen another Early Day Motion in support of live music deregulation garnering support in another place. We agree with my noble friend that reform in this area is necessary and that it is the right thing to do to help local communities and boost the big society, as well as helping businesses. We must do so in a manner that at the same time ensures appropriate public protections are in place to cover issues such as noise nuisance, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said. We are pleased to announce that it is the Government’s intention to be supportive of the Live Music Bill.
I must, however, add a number of caveats before we can offer unreserved support. First, we would support my noble friend in examining the technical aspects of the Bill to make certain that the legislation operates as effectively as possible and has no unintended or adverse consequences in the way that it amends the Licensing Act 2003. Secondly, we wish to explore issues relating to the time limits for live music performance. The previous Government’s public consultation on the removal of restrictions for live music was predicated on a cut-off point of 11 pm, rather than midnight, as currently outlined in the Live Music Bill. This is an important point, and we wish to work with my noble friend to amend the Bill to reflect this, and ensure our continued support.
Thirdly, we will need to explore with my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones issues such as what the effect of the provisions of the Bill should be on conditions imposed by licensing authorities prior to such time as the proposed legislation comes into force. Those things aside, we are clear that we wish to support my noble friend’s Bill. We are pleased that the Bill retains key local protections, including the right for licensing authorities, local residents and other interested parties to request a review of a premises licence where there are concerns about the licensing objectives of preventing crime and disorder, public safety, prevention of public nuisance and—as my noble friend Lady Benjamin will appreciate—the protection of children from harm. It is important that licensing authorities, local residents and businesses retain this right, and that robust controls remain in place to deal swiftly and effectively with problem premises. As part of the discussion process within government, we will be conducting a full impact assessment on my noble friend’s Bill that will be subject to agreement from the Regulatory Policy Committee.
We see the Bill of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones as being an important and complementary part of any reform and will do all that we can to help the Bill reach the statute book, if appropriately amended. We can offer support for the Bill today. These are wider, active discussions that we will have within government on the wider issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and others.
I offer my congratulations once again to my noble friend on his Bill, and reiterate the Government’s general support, qualified as I have outlined earlier, for the measures. We wish to see the Bill amended to take account of the 11 pm noise cut-off for unlicensed live music performance, to make certain that he has continued support. We would like to explore consequential drafting and other amendments with my noble friend in Committee. We are delighted to see that the Bill retains the key protections from the Licensing Act 2003, while making certain that low-risk community events are no longer prevented, or overburdened, by red tape and bureaucracy. The consequences of the Licensing Act 2003 have been to disadvantage many of the cornerstones of local life. It should not be the role of government to restrict creativity and community interaction, but to promote it.
This has been a most constructive and uncontroversial debate, with passionate speeches from noble Lords who obviously care about and love live music. I hope that I have addressed most of the points mentioned. If I have missed out anyone, I shall of course write to them with the further points that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, raised. I congratulate my noble friend once again and wish the Bill a safe and swift passage.
Lord Clement-Jones
I am delighted to see that the Bill has received such a positive reception from all those around the House, including some very encouraging words from the Minister. I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate, in which there were many inspirational words and entertaining speeches. In particular, I thank my noble friends Lord Grade and Lady Randerson, who made their excellent maiden speeches today. My noble friend Lord Grade mentioned skiffle; I think that my first record was Lonnie Donegan’s “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)”, so that reference was spot on. As someone who has lived with my noble friend Lord Grade in the past, I can tell noble Lords that life was never dull—and I do not think that it will be dull around him in this House.
As for my noble friend Lady Randerson, I am delighted that she brought in the Welsh dimension. I was born in Neath, the home of several bards and the host of the Eisteddfod on many occasions, so there is a connection there that I value very greatly.
It has been a very good debate. We started off with the difference between recorded and live music. Of course the iPod is an incredibly useful thing to have and it is wonderful to have a collection of music that one can access so easily. I shall compare tracks with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, any day of the week. But live music was what we were talking about today. It is absolutely crucial; without those young performers getting that start in life and a chance in small venues, we will not see the big bands who are able to sell their records and have downloads on iPods.
We heard all about the very long history of the attempts to deregulate the licensing of live music. The noble Lords, Lord Colwyn and Lord Redesdale, are the two musketeers who have been working on this since 1988—something that I had not appreciated before. Then there is the interesting saga of how the morris dancing exemption came about. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, made the vital point that music is central to our lives, and we have a duty to the music makers of this country. She reminded us of what she called a tidal wave of music inspiration in Liverpool and the value of small venues in that context.
My noble friend Lady Benjamin talked about how she grew up playing live music and how participation in live music is so important. That is where small venues have an incredibly important part to play.
My noble friend Lady Randerson talked about the frustrations caused by the Licensing Act when trying to encourage live music initiatives, and how they were curtailed by the requirements of the Act, even with the small venues and the preparations for the Eisteddfod. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, has engaged in similar initiatives across the country and talked about the similar frustrations when trying to encourage live music in pubs.
My noble friend Lord Teverson spoke about the Irish experience. Does it not appear extraordinary that they have such a different regime from ours in this country? It reminded me of that great movie “The Commitments”—one of the best movies of all time, which showed how a small Irish blues band made it by starting off in the pubs and clubs around Dublin. It was fantastic.
I also want to address the wonderful confection made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Perhaps I should call it the Groundhog Day fantasy. I very much hope that we are not in Groundhog Day and I took considerable comfort from what the Minister had to say. I also took strong comfort from what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said about the positive economic benefits of live music. I thought that I should quote not Harry Worth but perhaps another comedian on the metamorphosis of moving from government to opposition, “before your very eyes”. Many people will pick up that reference to another comedian.
To address the point about residents which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, picked up, the Local Government Association and others have commented on that and it is the reason why these proposals have sometimes got rather stuck in the pipeline. I do not believe that this Bill will adversely affect local residents. The Bill explicitly safeguards residents from public nuisance caused by noise from live music, by allowing licence conditions to be imposed as part of the process under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. If these exceptions under the Bill are not granted we may well go backwards, as the coalition Government’s Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill proposes changes to the Licensing Act 2003 that are aimed at dealing with alcohol-related crime.
Two proposals in particular may have the unintended consequence of stifling live music. The vicinity test for making representations is proposed to be removed, so that any party can now object to a live music event even if they are not located in the licensing authority area. Also under the same proposals, “necessary” will be replaced with “appropriate” in the powers given to councils when imposing licensing conditions. In 2009, the DCMS Select Committee rightly expressed concerns about the automatic association between live music and public disorder, so if we are not careful we will very much be again in the area of unintended consequences of combining the two forms of licensing: alcohol and music. That will not produce an effect which will advance the cause of live music.
I listened carefully to what the Minister said about three particular areas which any impact assessment would look at: examining the technical aspects so that there were no unintended consequences from this Bill, the question of time limits and the effect on conditions imposed by licensing authorities. I have always said, both on the previous Bill and on this version of it, that I am more than happy to talk to the Government about amendments if they are necessary and proportionate. I believe that this will be a way to make sure that all are comfortable with new forms of licensing.
We have been inspired during this debate by the description of the key role played by live music in all our lives and how we want it to make an even bigger impact on them. The Live Music Bill aims to rebalance the Licensing Act and restore some fairness to the treatment of live music and musicians by the licensing authorities. I hope that noble Lords will support it as it goes through the House and I request that it be given a Second Reading.
Building Regulations (Review) Bill [HL]
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Harrison
Lord Harrison
My Lords, I apologise to the Chair for taking my glasses off in order better to read my speech. I hope that the Bill and its amendment also will be live music to the Government’s ears, although I fear not.
The Government’s first duty is the safety and protection of its citizens. The Bill and its amendment today are a simple, good and effective measure. The title “Building Regulations” conceals the ambition for sprinklers to be inserted into new-build residences under 30 metres in height. I emphasise, though, that we are asking for better research to be produced so that we can make that claim and implement the hope and ambition of introducing sprinklers in this way.
This is not new legislation but an extension of existing legislation, as the measure is already in place for new buildings over 30 metres in height. What are the Minister’s concerns about the current legislation that is in full operation?
I believe that the Bill will save lives. We have computed that something like £7 billion is lost every year to fire, and of course lives are tragically lost. With regard to firefighters, and I think that all of us in this House have unstinting admiration for those who fight fires on the public’s behalf, the Bill would cut injuries not only to them but to the public, who can be maimed as a result of unexpected fire. It would save property; of the £7 billion that I said would be saved if the Bill were implemented, we may compute that one-third of that, £2.5 billion, is from the saving of property. This measure would also save the environment, since there is concern about excessive run-off water from appliances putting out fires that pollutes the drainage system and causes other environmental degradation.
It is right to give a bit of the narrative of the progress of the Bill. Some 15 months ago I had the pleasure of introducing a Bill that asked the Government to implement forthwith the application of sprinklers in new residences under 30 metres high. In the course of time and conversations, this changed and the emphasis moved to having secure and better research in this area. I am grateful to the former Minister, my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, who responded to our desire to have a meeting with all those who had contributed to Second Reading. We got around the table; the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, was there from the Conservative side, while the noble Lord, Lord Best, who I see in his seat, contributed with his experience, and we had representation from the Liberal Democrats. We resolved to go forward with the idea of improving our knowledge and the research associated with the ambition to change, develop or extend the Bill in the way that we have accepted. It is this Bill that I have now brought back as a result of the change of Government, and it comes before us today with an amendment.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for introducing the Bill, particularly the amendment to which he has spoken. The Bill seeks a review. I note that the period that is sought is 30 months, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said. Thirty months for carrying out a review is much better than 12 months. I was not a Member of this House when the original Bill was produced. I would love to say a lot more about it but I will keep my remarks short.
A lot of work needs to be done as regards fire suppression systems. However, wired-in smoke alarms have been a great boon. Of course, water sprinkler systems do not stop oil fires happening in kitchens. As the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said, there is a Welsh dimension to the measure, as in the previous debate. On 16 February this year, the Welsh Assembly voted for it to become law in Wales that sprinklers be installed in all new residential buildings. In, say, 30 months—which is the period mentioned in the Bill—some worthwhile information will come from Wales on how effective sprinklers have been in dousing fires and saving lives, and on whether the cost of installation affected the level of new build in Wales; installing water systems does not mean just putting in a pipe and a sprinkler, it means putting in water tanks and providing a heavier structure in the buildings to carry them.
We have no objection to an increase from 12 months to 30 months, which is the point of the amendment, but I remain doubtful whether such a review is needed, at least until the results of what is happening in Wales is made known to us all. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for bringing this matter before us once more.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Harrison and wish to pick up on a couple of his points.
Sadly, this yet another story of UK buildings and accommodation that are of a somewhat lower standard than in the best continental countries. In many of those countries not only water sprinklers are used, but fine-spray systems that are set off by smoke. One of the extraordinary things about the 9/11 event was that huge numbers of sprinklers did not operate, because those of a classical nature operate on temperature, not smoke. It is perfectly possible to install a system that starts to spray a low level of water when there is smoke and then a higher level of water when there is a high temperature.
It can be demonstrated in a lab. I was so appalled by the situation that I went to Holland, carried out some experiments and then tried to get companies involved. However, the UK is the old UK and that did not work. The Building Research Establishment does not seem to have produced this kind of adaptive technology. Perhaps if there is now an initial programme in Wales, although we should watch it, we should also, as my noble friend Lord Harrison said, make use of international research and, I hope, develop the capability in this country to install flexible systems.
Huge amounts of water such as those needed for classical sprinklers may well be unnecessary if there are smoke alarms, as now, and water spray systems. It may well be a cheaper and faster method that should certainly be looked at. I endorse the amendment.
Lord Best
My Lords, I support the amendment and the Bill. I declare my interest in the building of new homes for older people as the chairman of the Hanover Housing Association, which is the country’s largest builder of extra care apartments.
At previous stages of the Bill and in its previous incarnation, I congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on his interest and expertise in this subject and strongly supported the idea of a comprehensive review of this aspect of the building regulations. I know that some of my colleagues in the housing world are concerned at the potential cost of fitting sprinkler systems in residential premises, and a full cost-benefit analysis should reveal whether or not those worries are well placed. Some of those colleagues have had non-financial concerns.
One chief executive of a major provider of new apartments told me that the policy of his organisation was that in the event of a fire alarm being set off, residents should stay put in their flats, each of which is secure against fire, for long enough to await the fire being put out—or, very exceptionally, for them to be rescued. He felt that sprinkler systems in the whole building would lead to residents vacating their flats, perhaps in a panic, and placing themselves at greater risk in the corridors and stairways outside. I am not at all sure that these fears are justified, and if a fire is started within a flat, as it so often is, it can be extinguished only inside that flat, which is where the sprinklers would be so valuable.
A positive reason for the installation of sprinkler systems in older people’s housing, one that appeals to me, is the possibilities that this opens up, apart from the potential for saving lives, of increased flexibility in the design of new buildings—the internal design. In other countries it has been possible to do without a lot of clumsy lobbies and internal walls which are required for fire protection but which can waste space and give a boxed-in feel to the environment. Sprinklers can liberate an open-plan design, sometimes with dividers to separate living, sleeping, cooking and eating areas, without enclosing and confining the whole space of the apartment. I think that sprinklers may have some spin-offs in terms of the design of apartments, some of which are in themselves a saving of the capital cost of those new homes.
Incidentally, I was pleased to note that fires started by cigarettes left burning, perhaps because a smoker falls asleep, are less likely in the future not only because fewer people smoke but because cigarettes will be required to no longer smoulder but to go out if left to their own devices.
All those considerations can be brought together in a review, and it seems entirely sensible for that to proceed now in the hope that it will shed light, and perhaps lead to important changes to the building regulations. On the basis that a review is more likely to be acceptable to government if the timescale is not too constrained, I support the noble Lord’s amendment and hope that the Government will accept that a review should proceed.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I want, briefly, to reinforce the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I do so as a former patron of the national fire sprinkler campaign and former chair of the Fire Safety Council. That was some years ago now and I do not currently have any interest in that area. When I was Schools Minister I ensured that the attitude towards sprinklers in schools was shifted significantly so that only the very lowest-risk schools in terms of fire would be exempt from installing sprinklers. That took a lot of ministerial heavy lifting when officials were giving contrary advice, so I urge the Minister to adopt such a policy if he is hearing all the reasons why not to do something when the case made by my noble friend Lord Harrison has been so strong in respect of the views of fire officers.
In the work that I have done over the years with fire officers—I pay tribute, in particular, to Peter Holland the chief fire officer at Lancashire—they have consistently said, “This is about saving lives for probably the cost of installing carpets in a building”. For that cost a huge amount is to be gained. Once you get into residential installations you are starting to achieve the sort of scale that can drive innovation. The noble Lord speaking from the Liberal Democrat Benches talked about the cost of tanking. Tanking systems are often but not necessarily used. If there is good enough water pressure—negotiation needs to be had with the water companies there—it is possible to go ahead with a small sprinkler system without using a tanking system.
Similarly, there may be other ways of scoring innovations. There has been some discussion about using the piping within a central heating system in a residential dwelling, and indeed using the water pump from the central heating system to supply a sprinkler system. Such innovations can be tested better, as they are in Wales, when we start to do residential systems. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Best, about design freedom should be taken into account by the Department for Communities and Local Government—and not just design freedom within properties where some of the passive protections that can be quite frustrating to homeowners can be removed. Indeed, many of us have seen fire doors propped open which means that all the effectiveness of those passive measures is lost. There is also potential design freedom within new estates where the risk assessment from the fire authority is such that you might not need quite the same turning circles for large fire vehicles because the risk around fatalities in fires is so much reduced by having a sprinklered estate.
I urge the Minister to be sympathetic to my noble friend’s very modest proposal. I draw his attention to the first word of Clause 1—“Within”—and I hope that if he accepts the 30-month proposal, the drive is still on to get it as soon as possible. We should have in mind the story of the fire officer related by my noble friend Lord Harrison. As you wait an additional 18 months the lives of yet more fire officers and residents will be at risk.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Briefly, I support my noble friend's Bill and the amendment and pay tribute to his persistence and dedication on the issue of fire safety. I support the amendment with reluctance, because the Bill is perfectly adequate as it stands, but my noble friend has gone the extra mile by extending the time.
Given that extension, what assurance can the Minister give us on funding for ongoing community fire safety activity, which has been at the heart of driving down the number of deaths from fires in this country? Since we last debated this at Second Reading, we have had the CLG publication, Future Changes to the Buildings Regulations—Next Steps. In Part B, on fire safety, it states about the consultation:
“However, this exercise has not produced any significant new evidence on the health and safety benefits of greater sprinkler provision that would alter the cost/benefit analysis and the basis of the current approach. The Department will not, therefore, be considering this as part of next year’s programme of work”.
It seems an odd position to take that the Government do not want to engage in or encourage new research but are happy to rely on current research, which has been a bone of contention—we debated the BRE research previously under the Bill—as the benchmark to say that there is no new evidence. That is a rather perverse way to proceed.
On the summary of work to be taken forward from the consultation exercise, I am certainly pleased to see that Part P, to do with electrical safety, will be in next year's work programme, because there is interrelation with issues of fire safety. About 8,000 deaths in the home are caused by inadequate electrical work. I would hope that that will focus on greater use of competent person's schemes. Paragraph 3.4 states:
“Finally, there is also a third group of issues that we believe currently lack clear evidence to support regulation in 2013, but which we would not wish to definitively rule out. This includes whether to expand the provisions for radon gas protection and whether flood resilience/resistance should be incorporated into regulations”.
My second question for the Minister is: where does that leave the review of Part B? What is the programme for review in Part B, or will the Government continue to oppose the Bill and the research that it seeks and rely on the status quo of research, therefore closing their minds to further review of that important part of the building regulations to deal with fire safety?
I support my noble friend and his amendment, although I think that the Government should have been more encouraging and not have required him to seek this extension.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I support my noble friend Lord Harrison’s amendment and his Bill. At the Dispatch Box in our previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to “Groundhog Day”. A number of us in the Chamber today feel the same sense that we have been here before. I pay enormous tribute to the tenacity and commitment of my noble friend Lord Harrison for the work that he has undertaken to drive this forward. He has not been prepared to let the issue drop. He wants to continue purely in the interests of public safety. The same goes for my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, given his former role at the Dispatch Box and his commitment. My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth will remember many discussions on the way forward on this when I was the fire Minister and he was an education Minister. As he said, I am pleased that we were able to make such progress.
I support the amendment—with some reservations, like my noble friend, Lord McKenzie; but it will get my support. I am not sure that it is necessary, but if the Minister thinks that it helps and if that is what it takes to move the issue forward, get the research and assessment we need, I am happy to support that. I am grateful to the Minister for the meeting between his officials and my noble friend Lord Harrison, because that is what led to him proposing the amendment.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the Government recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has in his amendment extended the period for commencement of a review, as prescribed in his Bill, from 12 to 30 months. However, our reservations remain the same as those I set out at Second Reading. We must focus on the priorities at hand, and it would be difficult to find any Government who would be willing to support a statutory commitment of their resources in the way that the Bill proposes. I must gently remind the Committee that the question it must consider is: for how long do the Government need to consider this review?
Therefore, I will not be drawn into some of the technical issues that I have recently studied. The noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, raised some of the plumbing issues, which I have discussed with the House Builders Federation. I did sanity-check some of the advice that I received. I asked, “Can you plumb sprinklers into the central heating system?”. I was advised that it was much more complicated than that. If you want a sprinkler system, you need a separate pressure supply that bypasses the house’s water meter. I also challenged why it costs £3,000 to £5,000 to install a sprinkler system.
We recognise that work is in hand, sponsored by industry, to refine and update the available evidence base that exists on the costs and benefits of sprinkler protection in residential premises. Clearly, we would need to consider any new information as and when it becomes available. Indeed, I have personally undertaken to read and understand the report currently being prepared by the Building Research Establishment for the Chief Fire Officers Association. I do not know how big that report will be.
I am grateful for the comments of many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, who made a very useful contribution, and those of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Best. The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about design problems and design flexibility. The building regulations already include the facility to vary the design of buildings where sprinklers are provided.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked me what I was worried about with regard to extending sprinklers to all houses. We are not aware of any problems with this provision, and the recent review of building regulations concluded that the excellent provisions for fire safety did not need to be changed. I am advised that the cost of carrying out a detailed review, as set out in the Bill, would be in the order of £250,000 and that it would divert departmental resources away from other government priorities. If you keep spending £100,000 here and £100,000 there on every single problem, eventually you run out of money, and that is more or less what has happened.
The noble Lord asked me what items under paragraphs (a) to (i) of Clause 1(1) caused me anxiety. I cite as an example paragraph (f), which refers to,
“the evidence for and experience of automatic fire suppression systems already available both in the UK and internationally”.
I am sure that my officials would enjoy going round the world looking at the international experience of fire suppression sprinkler systems, because that is what they would have to do.
Just before Christmas, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the department, Andrew Stunell, published his plans for taking forward the outcome of a recent review of building regulations. The review included looking at any changes that might be necessary to ensure that the regulations continued to operate effectively in the future. During the review, a number of respondents called for the introduction of regulation to increase the provision of sprinklers in buildings. However, the review did not produce any significant new evidence of the benefits of greater sprinkler provision.
Sprinkler protection is recognised as a highly effective measure, and provisions for its use have been in place in building regulations for many years for buildings where the fire risk is high. However, when you consider that all new homes are already provided with hard-wired smoke alarms, it is difficult to justify further increasing the regulatory burden with a measure that will impact only on new buildings.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and perhaps others asked about the recent vote in the Welsh Assembly. Parliament has given the Welsh Assembly the power to adopt such a measure if it chooses to do so. By the end of the year, it will also have the necessary powers to set its own building regulations. However, this debate is about England, and what the Welsh Assembly does is a matter for the Assembly.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the review of Part B, relating to the fire safety building regulations. We have made no plans to review the fire safety aspects of building regulations. No doubt they will be reviewed at some point when it is considered to be necessary.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned reducing spending on the fire service, suggesting that sprinklers could help. However, if building regulations changed tomorrow, only homes built after that point would be affected, and it would take decades for this to have a meaningful effect on the building stock. If there was a real concern that the service was under-resourced, I think that a more rapid solution would need to be found.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, made several interesting comments, some of them relating to technical matters. I should have liked to engage on them if I had known that he was going to ask those questions. He suggested that Ministers and policy are controlled by officials, but I assure the noble Lord that Ministers determine the policy with advice from officials, not the other way round.
Prevention is much better than cure and an example of a more effective and innovative approach is the introduction of fire-safer cigarettes, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Best. We have actively supported the European Commission’s efforts in developing a safety standard for reduced-ignition cigarettes. We estimate that this standard, once introduced, will save with almost immediate effect between 25 and 64 lives per year in England alone, not just in new buildings but across the board.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked why the Conservative Party has changed its policy now that it is in government. I gently remind the Committee that I answer for Her Majesty’s Government, not for the previous Opposition. Where noble Lords have raised wider issues, I will write if I have something valuable to add to my comments.
In summary, while we agree with the desire to answer the questions set out in the Bill, we must express strong reservations about the provisions in it for a statutory commitment for the Government.
Lord Harrison
My Lords, that was a lame reply to all the contributions that have been made to the debate this afternoon. I know that colleagues who have been here today to support the Bill have other urgent things to do so, in thanking them, I take the opportunity to say to the Minister that we will return to this issue; we will write to him and point out where we believe the deficiencies are in his reply. I still hope that we can make some changes but, in the interim, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.