House of Commons

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

Monday 4 April 2011

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the likely change in the provision of services by local authorities as a result of reductions in the level of Government funding to such authorities.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

We have given councils much greater flexibility and the financial autonomy to manage their budgets. If they share back-office services, join forces to get better value for money, cut excessive chief executive pay, and root out waste and fraud, they can protect key front-line services.

[Mr Watts]

I thank the Secretary of State for his response, but does it not demonstrate that he is miles away from the reality of what is happening in the streets? My local authority, which is one of the most efficient and a four-star authority that has frozen its council tax for four years, is faced with 500 job losses, massive cuts in most of its services and a £28 million loss in spending in its local economy. What is he going to do about that?

[Mr Pickles]

I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has many duties in this House, but perhaps he should have spoken to his council leader, Councillor Marie Rimmer, who says:

“most job losses”

will be

“achieved by not filling posts, early retirement and voluntary redundancies”,

which is hardly the position that he paints. It is also telling that Sally Yeoman, the chief executive of Halton and St Helens Voluntary and Community Action, blames the drop in funding on the ending of the working neighbourhoods fund—a fund that the Labour party had decided to end in March.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating councils that have protected front-line services through creative and innovative thinking about their budgets, such as Medway council, which has halved its funding to trade unions and given that money to fund library books instead?

[Mr Pickles]

I do indeed congratulate them. My hon. Friend points out to those on the Opposition Benches a way in which money can be directed towards the front line. I hope that the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) will send out requests that Labour councils similarly look towards trade unions and reducing their costs.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has described his cuts as progressive, fair and protecting the most vulnerable. Last Friday, Conservative-led Birmingham city council inflicted the biggest cut in local government history of £212 million. Some 4,000 people face losing their care packages, including some of the most vulnerable, many of whom are in ill health and in the twilight of their years. Is that progressive, fair and protecting the most vulnerable?

[Mr Pickles]

Let us be absolutely clear: these are Labour cuts. The Labour party was planning £14 billion-worth of cuts, all of them front-loaded. At least we changed the formula to help the most vulnerable. We find ourselves in a position where we know perfectly well that the Labour party would have inflicted even greater cuts on local government.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential benefits to Kirklees district of the new homes bonus.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of the potential benefits to Rugby of the new homes bonus.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made of the potential benefits to Gloucester of the new homes bonus.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on regions in England of the new homes bonus.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

Today, I have announced the final allocations to local authorities under the new homes bonus for 2011-12. All parts of England will receive significant funding from the scheme. Kirklees will receive £1.3 million, Rugby £435,000 and Gloucester £782,000. The funding is completely un-ring-fenced and councils will be able to use it according to the wishes of their local communities.

[Jason McCartney]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he confirm the protection of the green belt and will he consider the suggestion from the Campaign to Protect Rural England perhaps to have an enhanced rate of new homes bonus for brownfield sites to encourage regeneration?

[Grant Shapps]

I looked carefully at the new homes bonus and at where there should be an uplift and I came to the conclusion that the only uplift we would give would be to those who built additional affordable homes, and that is a block grant of £350 per home. The green belt is entirely protected; that is in the coalition agreement and we stand by that position.

[Mark Pawsey]

The local authority in my constituency of Rugby has been quick to recognise the benefits that come with the new homes bonus and it has ambitious proposals for new housing development. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that planning authorities across England recognise the lead of authorities such as Rugby and allocate land for the new homes that are so badly needed?

[Grant Shapps]

In many ways, authorities such as Rugby have led the way by being so keen to produce housing. The difference is that now every single one of our constituents gets to benefit from new homes being built. There is £200 million on the table that is being distributed today. I note that the Opposition seem to be against their own authorities receiving the money.

[Richard Graham]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), may I ask my right hon. Friend whether more could be done, perhaps on the paperwork, in order to attract developers into constituencies such as mine, which are entirely urban and therefore have only brownfield sites to offer?

[Grant Shapps]

One of the changes that we have made is to enable local authorities to set their own targets for brownfield sites. I have been to my hon. Friend’s constituency and I know that there are many good sites available. Rather than housing being built on sites where the regional spatial strategy seemed to insist that it went, housing can now go where it is required. Much of that will be on the brownfield land that I went to see. That is one of the features of the Government’s policy, and of the new homes bonus in particular.

[Heidi Alexander]

Last week the Minister for Housing and Local Government wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and claimed that the new homes bonus will not penalise deprived areas to favour more affluent ones. Can he explain to me why his figures differ so widely from those of the National Housing Federation, which estimates that the four northern regions of England will lose £104 million, whereas the five southern regions will gain £342 million?

[Grant Shapps]

It may have escaped the attention of Opposition Members that the new homes bonus rewards the authorities that build homes. That is why it is called the new homes bonus. Of the five areas that are building the most homes—the five top councils to receive the new homes bonus—three of them are in the midlands and the north.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Government’s stated objective is to ensure that more new homes are built than were being built before the recession. I am sure that it is an objective with which we can all agree. However, if the new homes bonus does not incentivise individual authorities sufficiently so that the sum total of all the individual parts does not meet the Government’s objective, what is plan B?

[Grant Shapps]

The point about the new homes bonus is that it is just one element in a series of steps that we are taking to ensure that house building goes ahead. The hon. Gentleman is right to mention that it slumped to the lowest level since 1924 under the old top-down targets. The new homes bonus will ensure that £200 million is distributed today, but it does not stop there. We are also proposing build now, pay later. We are slimming down some of the many regulations that prevent house builders from getting homes built faster, and we are encouraging them to renegotiate section 106.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

It is getting worse.

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady says that it is not working, but we have already seen an increase in the number of homes planned and starting to be built.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Ansty technology park is in Rugby and the Government announced on Friday that they would sell it off. That was an important job-creation opportunity brought into existence by the old regional development agency which was scrapped by the Government. Would it not be preposterous if Rugby gained from the new homes bonus through developing such a site for housing?

[Grant Shapps]

The new homes bonus is entirely flexible to allow local authorities to decide how the cash that comes in is spent—those hundreds of millions of pounds being distributed today—so that they can take it and use it for their own objectives. There is a conversation to be held locally rather than nationally about how that money is used in Rugby.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

4. What assessment he has made of the likely effect on the community and voluntary sectors of reductions in the level of Government funding for local authorities.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

Spending decisions are a matter for local councils, but no council should make disproportionate cuts to the voluntary sector. It is increasingly clear that well run councils are following that principle, but that a few of the worst run are targeting the voluntary sector for disproportionate cuts.

[Julie Hilling]

On Friday I met representatives of Westhoughton visiting service who, having lost a third of their budget, do not know where to turn to make sure that their elderly clients get the support they need. That is one of the many voluntary and community sector groups that have contacted me in desperation. I hope that the Minister does not reply by saying that Bolton council should have prepared for the cuts or should protect the voluntary sector, because it did and it has, but the Government have cut £42 million—three times more than Labour would have cut. If the council does not have the money, it cannot give it to groups. What can I say to these groups?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady can start by getting her figures accurate. This is the second time in a row that she has come to the House with bizarre figures. I was at a loss to understand where she got them from, but the source of her information turns out to be a magazine called the Bolton Scene. It is not a paper of record. In between obituaries for fish—“Farewell to popular fish”—it includes all sorts of misinformation about the settlement for her council. If she sources her information accurately, she will discover that the cut to Bolton’s budget is 7% and the council should not be cutting local groups disproportionately.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has made great efforts to ensure that local authorities publish their spend above £500. Will he extend that to urge local authorities to publish the amount of their spend that is given to voluntary organisations? I think that that transparency would be very worth while.

[Greg Clark]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, although there is one council that has failed to publish its spending over £500: Nottingham city council. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) squirmed and wriggled rather than urge the council to publish those details. I hope that she will take the opportunity today to say that it should publish them.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Well, here we have Ministers again castigating local councils for cuts affecting voluntary organisations, but the Cabinet Office is cutting grants to many volunteering organisations, Government cuts to legal aid funding will have a serious impact on Citizens Advice and the VAT rise and loss of gift aid transitional relief will cost the sector £250 million. Does the Minister not see just how hypocritical that stance is toward local authorities? When will the Government get their act together on supporting the voluntary sector?

[Greg Clark]

Of course, the hon. Lady never saw a piece of spending that she did not like. The hypocrisy is to complain about the inevitable consequences of the previous Government’s overspending. As she has the opportunity, perhaps she will just nod and agree that no council—for example, a Labour council looking to her for leadership—should cut disproportionately. It is a time for leadership from the Opposition Front-Bench team. If they want to hang around like ghouls, wailing and moaning from the sidelines, they can do so, but they should take a lead and give a message to Labour councils.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. To date there has been no breach of order from either the Opposition Front Bench or the Treasury Bench, but I remind hon. and right hon. Members that they should be very careful in their use of the word “hypocrisy”.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of the equity of the distribution of Government funding for local authorities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

The local government settlement is a fair outcome in very difficult circumstances—those circumstances being that we are borrowing £400 million every day to plug the gap left by Labour. We have worked hard to get equity between local authorities, giving proper attention to both their level of dependency on Government support and their local resources. That is why we have transferred the needs-based element from 73% to 83% of the formula grant and introduced the banded floors. As a result, for every pound per resident of formula grant that goes to the least dependent authority in London—Richmond—Lambeth will get £4.86, which is almost five times as much per resident as the least dependent authority.

As far as equity for local taxpayers goes, the council tax freeze will provide £2.4 million to Lambeth this coming year.

[Mr Umunna]

Of course, the fact is that the most deprived single-tier local authorities are seeing their spending power reduced by nearly four times the amount of the least deprived local authorities. For example, Lambeth—the Minister omitted this point—is having to make just under £40 million-worth of cuts to services in my area, including to Lambeth senior citizens day centre in Brixton Hill. That centre provides food and a place to go for—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It seems to be contagious. Both sides are taking too long. We will have a quick question from Mr Umunna.

[Mr Umunna]

The older people’s centre is facing cuts of up to 80%. Will the Minister come with me to the centre and explain how he will help it to continue to survive in the coming financial year?

[Andrew Stunell]

According to Lambeth council’s own website, it is reducing its front-line service provision by £1 million, but I draw the House’s attention to the fact that it is also increasing its reserves from £83 million last year to £93 million this year. Perhaps the question about equity would be better directed at the council than at us.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Some councils, many of them Labour-controlled, are protecting overpaid bureaucracies and slashing services run by the third sector, while others are embracing social enterprise and charities in new models of social services provision. Will the Minister recognise good behaviour in future allocations to get true equity to the people who need it?

[Andrew Stunell]

I thoroughly understand my hon. Friend's point, and as he will know, the local government resource review will look at those matters in the near future.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

The wheels are well and truly coming off the Government’s explanation for their swingeing cuts to local government—that is pretty clear. Contrary to his assertion that he would protect the most vulnerable by making his cuts “fair and progressive”, the Secretary of State is actually imposing the biggest cuts on the country’s poorest communities and leaving more affluent areas relatively unscathed. Even his own Housing Minister confessed last week that the poorest areas will shoulder the harshest cuts. Will the Minister replying do the decent thing and admit that the Secretary of State’s declaration about fairness and the Chancellor’s assertion that we are all in it together are completely and utterly preposterous?[Official Report, 26 April 2011, Vol. 527, c. 2MC]

[Andrew Stunell]

The hon. Gentleman has of course used a selective quotation, and that is entirely his prerogative, but it does rather undermine his case. The reality is that no local authority in this country faces a reduction in its real expenditure of more than 7.7%, and offset against that is the new homes bonus that we have announced today, through which Lambeth, for instance, gets £1.9 million.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

6. What plans his Department has to establish trusts to assist communities in providing homes for local people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and remind him that the Localism Bill, for which he and I served in Committee, contains provisions for the community right to build, which will allow community organisations to bring forward schemes for small-scale development, including housing, without needing to go through the traditional planning route. As he and I know, we hope to achieve Royal Assent for that at the end of the year.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One of the problems with housing supply is the availability of land, but the Government own vast tracts of land throughout the country, so has his Department given any consideration to bringing forward some public sector land to meet the housing crisis?

[Andrew Stunell]

I remind my hon. Friend that “The Plan for Growth” published last week by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Chancellor set out plans for the release of more public land, and this Department is very strongly engaged in making sure that that leads to more housing.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to support home ownership and first-time buyers.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to support home ownership and first-time buyers.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

At the Budget, we announced the Firstbuy scheme, which will be co-funded by the Government and house builders, bring £500 million of investment into the sector and build about 15,000 homes throughout the UK. In England, those figures are £200 million and 10,000. In addition, the Government’s commitment to reducing debt is perhaps the most important thing that we can do to create stability, and recently I held a first-time buyers summit to pull together the sector and ensure that progress is made.

[Guto Bebb]

I thank the Minister for his response. Does he agree that the new funding for the Firstbuy scheme will help the construction industry, creating new jobs and increasing the pace of economic growth?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on, of course, and the scheme will do both those things. The critical difference between it and the schemes that the previous Government ran is that the person purchasing the house has to provide a deposit. In addition, the amount of money going in from the Government will be reduced to make it much better value for money.

[Simon Hughes]

Will the Minister ensure that all the initiatives for first-time purchase and for shared ownership are well publicised in every local authority in England, and that the new homes bonus money can be used, where local authorities agree, for the maximum number of property builds and for the maximum number of people acquiring a property—through shared ownership or outright possession—for the first time?

[Grant Shapps]

I am very grateful for that question, not least because I am able to congratulate Southwark on today pulling in £2.6 million from the new homes bonus. That money certainly can be used in precisely the way it is required locally, and whatever the principal concerns are for local people. It is the way to incentivise more house building, and we will make sure that it works effectively alongside the Firstbuy scheme.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister referred to the new scheme as relevant to the replacement of HomeBuy Direct, which as he is aware was the much more generous scheme that he scrapped just 10 months ago. Is this not another example of the Government introducing a new policy to make up for the fact that their previous policy has gone wrong?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman has got his facts wrong. HomeBuy Direct continues until 2012, so there is no question of its having come to an end. It was a funded scheme for a specific period which will come to an end at that point, so by launching another scheme that overlaps rather than replaces it, we have, I assume, achieved precisely what he would want.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I make my usual declaration of an indirect interest in the entry in the register for my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford).

HomeBuy Direct was a good scheme, and considering that the Minister called it an “expensive flop” I am delighted that the Government have seen fit, albeit somewhat late in the day, to enhance it further and, in many ways, to replicate it. Can he confirm that, as the Financial Times reported, this is nothing more than his admitting that he cannot fix the mortgage market? Has he not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said, just wasted a vital 10 months, leaving hundreds of thousands of first-time buyers—not tens of thousands, given the sort of scheme we are describing—with no hope under this Government of securing their own homes?[Official Report, 9 June 2011, Vol. 529, c. 5-6MC.]

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to clear up one thing. It is worth knowing that when I said that the HomeBuy Direct scheme had been an expensive flop, it had been launched 10 months earlier and had helped just five people to secure a home. It is true that the scheme has developed over a period of time and has helped people in between, but as I said in my previous answer—I appreciate that it was given after she had written her question, but none the less it is useful to connect the two—the previous scheme does not end until 2012. We are in 2011, and we have already announced a new scheme.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

8. If he will bring forward proposals to increase the powers of local authorities to tackle unauthorised development.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

The Government take the problem of unauthorised development seriously. Among other measures, the Localism Bill, which completed its Committee stage in the House of Commons on 10 March, includes provisions aimed at strengthening local planning authorities’ powers to tackle the issue.

[Mr Leigh]

Unauthorised developments, particularly illegal Traveller sites, have poisoned relations in our communities. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he will use to the full the new powers in his Localism Bill to ensure that local councils are given the powers they need to determine these issues on the basis of local need and historic demand, not imposed national quotas?

[Mr Pickles]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. In addition, we will very shortly be consulting on the section 106 planning guidance, which deals with Gypsy and Traveller sites, and I hope that he will contribute to that consultation.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

People in Hightown, Melling and Lydiate in my constituency are concerned at the possible development of the green belt. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to confirm whether the new legislation will make it harder for developers to build on the green belt, and will he allay the fears of many people that it is a developers’ charter?

[Mr Pickles]

No, the way in which we intend to deal with problems of unauthorised developments is to get tougher. We are doing four things. We are going to deal with the question of concealed buildings and those who seek to hide a dwelling behind a construction; we will be increasing the penalties; we are going to ensure that people can appeal either for an enforcement order or a retrospective planning application, not both; and we are going to increase the ability to deal with fly-posting. Our general policy is this: we intend to ensure that the green belt is held solid and absolutely inviolate by this Administration. We are not going to follow the tenets of the former Labour Government by concreting over the green belt.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

9. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on levels of homelessness of the proposed changes to rules on the changes in the treatment of tenancies in under-occupied social housing.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

The security and rights of existing social tenants, including those who are under-occupying, will be protected in the reform of social housing. I have announced a £13 million scheme to help local authorities to offer tenants greater flexibility in their choices.

[Mr Leech]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but does he accept that the allocations policies of some local authorities, including Manchester, result in larger, hard-to-let properties being under-occupied through no fault of the new tenants? Given the one reasonable offer rule, surely some existing tenants will no longer be able to afford to stay in their property, and some potential tenants will not be able to afford to take the one reasonable offer.

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there are problems with the allocation policy at the moment. One thing that we plan to do through the Localism Bill is to provide much greater flexibility to allocations. For example, if somebody is seeking to move home within the sector, they should not have to join the back of the regular queue. In addition, by the end of this year we will have set up a mobility scheme, which will cover 90% of homes in this country.

[Mr Speaker]

David Morris is not here. The grouping therefore falls and Mr Ruffley’s question will follow later.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to protect green spaces from development.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

The coalition Government have moved fast to enable communities to protect their green spaces. Three measures stand out. The first is the end to the perverse classification of gardens as brownfield land, which has led to the destructive practice of garden grabbing. The second is the abolition of density targets so that developers have greater freedom to provide homes with gardens. The third is the introduction of neighbourhood plans, which will allow local people to safeguard green spaces and incorporate them in their vision of their community.

[Mr Sheerman]

Can the Minister therefore explain to me what on earth the Chancellor of the Exchequer was talking about in his Budget speech? One of the most important parts of the speech was on how he would free up the country to developers. Most people in Huddersfield now know that their green spaces—not green belt, but green spaces—are vulnerable to being built on.

[Greg Clark]

Of course they are not. At the moment, the regional strategies place a threat over communities, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He is a great localist, and he and I agree on this. I commend his blog to those on the Opposition Front Bench, who are chuntering away. There is a very persuasive piece on this matter under the title “The party I love is a party of ideals. That’s why I back David Miliband”. It states:

“I’ve always wanted to be in a party rooted in our diverse communities…nourished and reinvigorated by the ideas and aspirations that stem from our grass roots.”

We are giving the grass roots the right to determine the future of their green spaces, something for which I welcome his support.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Rural buffer zones and other planning designations protect areas such as my constituency from the westward expansion of Swindon. Does the Minister agree that, leaving aside the green belt, we have all kinds of ways in which to protect our countryside from excessive building?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right that development must be sustainable and must not compromise the ability of future generations to enjoy the environment that we have. The Government’s policy has always been clear in that regard.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

14. What assessment he has made of the likely effects of reductions in Government funding on the number of people employed by local authorities in 2011-12.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

The Department makes no such centralised estimates for the good reason that it is for individual councils to make their own decisions about how their local work forces are organised and managed to ensure the efficient delivery of services for local taxpayers.

[Nic Dakin]

The Tory-led Local Government Association has made the estimate, however, that 140,000 jobs will go as a result of these policies. PricewaterhouseCoopers has said that for every job lost in the public sector, one will go in the private sector. That makes almost 300,000 jobs. How on earth can that help the recovery?

[Robert Neill]

That is because the Government are committed to reducing the deficit to enable a proper and sustainable private sector-led recovery. That is no doubt why the Office for Budget Responsibility has demonstrated that there will be an increase in private sector jobs of 1.3 million over the same period. That is nearly four times the figure quoted by the hon. Gentleman.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Is it not the case that if councils used their reserves more effectively, unlike Manchester city council, and did not keep sending officers out of the door at half a million a pop, like Nottingham city council, so many jobs would not have to be lost?

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is quite right. The Government have made it abundantly clear that significant sums are held by local authorities in reserves, much of which is not allocated. Sensible use of those funds at a time of financial crisis would enable councils to protect their front-line services.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

16. What recent representations he has received on local authority funding for leisure facilities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

We have received four parliamentary questions and a number of letters that included references to local leisure facilities.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

May I urge the Minister to take a closer look at Labour-led Leeds city council, which is cutting funding to Garforth leisure centre in my constituency yet continues to waste taxpayers’ money, such as £6 million on new furniture?

[Robert Neill]

I hope the council did not go to the same suppliers that gave our Department the sofas and the peace pod. I note that Leeds city council has £32 million in its reserves, and I hope that it might consider a use for that money to support facilities in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

17. What recent representations he has received on the levels of remuneration for local government executives.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

Representations have been received from Members of Parliament, leaders of local authorities, trade union branches and members of the public. Although it is a matter for individual councils, we expect restraint and leadership to be shown locally when setting senior pay. We have introduced measures in the Localism Bill to increase local democratic accountability for decisions on senior pay. We have also been consulting on proposed new transparency arrangements for local government, including how public money is used in relation to senior pay.

[Mr Ruffley]

Forty-three per cent. of chief executives are paid more than the Prime Minister, and their pay has increased by more than 78% in the past five years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this culture of excessive pay is a direct result of the last Labour Government’s consistent ability to spend more than this country could afford?

[Mr Pickles]

I entirely agree. Chief executives’ pay has got completely out of kilter. There are now 800 local government employees in the top 1% of all earners according to Will Hutton’s figures. With regard to the chief executive of Suffolk, that county does many fine things and is an exemplar authority in many ways, but the chief executive’s refusal to take a pay cut has meant that she has detracted from Suffolk’s many fine achievements.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State look in particular at the case of Mr Nick Johnson, who for the past four years has supplemented his local government ill health retirement pension by being paid £1,000 a day by Hammersmith and Fulham council, so that when he leaves later this year he will have taken almost £1 million from taxpayers? In doing so, will the Secretary of State ignore the fact that the local Conservative party says that Mr Johnson is good value for money, and that he has advised the Tory party on housing policy?

[Mr Pickles]

I kind of understand that it has never been a glad morning since the hon. Gentleman lost his position as housing chairman at Hammersmith. Frankly, abusing somebody from the safety of this Chamber does him no credit at all.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

18. What change in band D council tax he expects (a) on average in local authorities in England and (b) in Tamworth borough between 2010-11 and 2011-12.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

Average band D council tax for all local authorities in England, including Tamworth, is unchanged between 2010-11 and 2011-12.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. By sharing back-office services with Lichfield district council and by bearing down on furniture and other equipment costs, Tamworth borough council has managed to keep council tax frozen, reduce its spending and ensure that it is doing a good job. Will my right hon. Friend please commend the Conservative-controlled council, and its retiring value-for-money chief executive David Weatherley, for the work that they have done?

[Mr Pickles]

Of course my hon. Friend has much to be proud of in Tamworth council. It clearly cares about front-line services and is not prepared, as some Labour councils have been, to use the poor as a battering ram against the Government for base political motives.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

19. What plans he has for the future of rules governing the use of section 106 moneys collected by local authorities.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

The Government are committed to delivering a simplified, locally driven planning system that supports sustainable economic growth and development. A key part of that is the framework that ensures that local communities benefit directly from development. We intend to retain section 106 agreements in a scaled-back form, alongside the community infrastructure levy, to fund local infrastructure and community facilities.

[Caroline Nokes]

Given that commitment to empowering local people, is there any intention to provide greater flexibility to parish councils, such as Sherfield English parish council, which desperately want to use accumulated section 106 moneys, but cannot do so under current rules?

[Greg Clark]

The answer is yes. The Localism Bill centres on giving greater discretion to local communities to use the funds that come with developments so that they can invest in infrastructure locally. We know that one of the sources of opposition to development is people’s reasonable fear that they will not get the infrastructure that the development requires. We are changing that through the Bill.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

A recent scrutiny report at Wiltshire council revealed that it had failed to claim £16 million of section 106 agreements to date. Given the pressures on councils to spend on and invest in the infrastructure in their communities, does the Minister agree that now would be a good time to make such claims?

[Greg Clark]

It would be an excellent time. My hon. Friend’s suggestion should apply to councils throughout the country.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Robert Halfon. He is not here. I therefore call David Rutley to ask Question 21.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise. The hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has just entered the Chamber. He is only just in time, but he is here.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

20. What recent estimate he has made of the average change to council tax bills for households in (a) Harlow, (b) Epping Forest and (c) Essex between 2010-11 and 2011-12.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

It is good to see my hon. Friend in his usual place.

Council tax bills for Harlow, Epping Forest and Essex are unchanged between 2010-11 and 2011-12. That pleases me, too, as my hon. Friend and I are constituency neighbours and share Epping Forest and Essex.

[Robert Halfon]

It is the second year in a row that Harlow council has frozen council tax without having a major impact on front-line services. Will the Secretary of State meet Harlow councillors to learn how their example can be spread throughout the country?

[Mr Pickles]

As my hon. Friend is my neighbour, it will obviously be a pleasure to visit an exemplar council, which is doing the right thing: protecting front-line services and keeping down the council tax.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr David Rutley, whose patience is rewarded.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

21. What mechanisms his Department is using to achieve efficiency savings in its budget for 2011-12.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

My Department will deliver efficiency savings in the next financial year by driving down our core running costs and through key contracts that have been renegotiated. This is expected to deliver efficiency savings of around £11 million: £4.2 million from information technology, £6.5 million from buildings and £0.6 million from facilities management.

[David Rutley]

I welcome the steps that the Secretary of State is taking to realise efficiency savings and improve accountability and transparency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that more must be done to create a real value-for-money culture in more local councils in the country, and that that aim should feature more strongly in public servants’ objectives so that it is reflected in their work in the communities and for council tax payers?

[Mr Pickles]

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point. It is particularly important for my Department to take a lead. That is why we have been so keen to reduce the central costs of our budgets and to take a lead in reorganising the Department to recognise its changing role, whereby it no longer dictates to local government, but tries to enable more power to go to local communities.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

22. What estimate his Department has made of the likely number of new social housing starts between May 2010 and April 2015.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

We are investing £4.5 billion in new affordable housing over the next four years, with the hope of producing 150,000 new affordable homes.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for his reply, although I note that he referred just to affordable housing, not to affordable social housing. Given the imminent publication of the Government’s child poverty strategy, what conversations has he had with colleagues in other Departments about the impact of the lack of affordable social housing on achieving our child poverty targets?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady is right to draw the subject to the House’s attention. It is sadly true that there were 45,000 fewer affordable social homes in this country following 13 years of her party’s being in power. I have had extensive conversations with colleagues across Government to ensure that, in the next 13 years—or at least in the next four—a significantly greater number of social, affordable and all types of homes will be built across the social and regular housing sectors because this country needs homes, for which the new homes bonus will provide a significant boost.[Official Report, 8 June 2011, Vol. 529, c. 3MC.]

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that special measures are likely to be required in areas such as Bradford, which has low market rents, because raising our rents up to the 80% level will yield no additional funds for new social housing starts?

[Grant Shapps]

Let us be clear that the existing social housing programme continues—£2.2 billion goes into that. An additional amount will go into affordable rent. Affordable rent does not mean 80% of market rent. The key words are “up to” 80% of the local market rent, meaning that in some areas, the figures will be somewhere in between social rent and the market rent, but not necessarily 80%.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

May I draw attention to my entry in the register?

Will the Minister admit that he will not build any social rented homes at all, and that the ones that will be built are all inherited from the previous Government? His policy of so-called affordable rented homes—at 80% of market rents—will not produce any social rent properties, and even worse, it will require the conversion of former social rent properties to so-called affordable rent properties when they become available for re-let. That means no new affordable social rented homes, and more people waiting for a home that they can afford.

[Grant Shapps]

It seems obvious to me that if homes are not built today or at least at the time of the election, and we subsequently build them, they will be counted in the homes that we build. The fact that we have decided to continue to put £2.2 billion into the build programme in addition to the affordable rent programme means that we will out-build the previous Labour Government not just over four years, but in comparison to their 13 years, in every single year.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

23. What steps his Department is taking to increase the flexibility of access to shared ownership schemes for first-time buyers.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

The Government are committed to supporting those who aspire to own their own homes. As announced in the Budget, we are introducing the Firstbuy equity loan scheme, and the Homes and Communities Agency’s affordable housing programme in 2011 to 2015 will include affordable home ownership where appropriate in local circumstances.

[Jane Ellison]

I very much welcome that additional flexibility. Some of my constituents have said that they find existing schemes to be a bit over-bureaucratic, particularly as regards the relationship between where people live and where they work. I hope the Minister will look to new schemes to reduce the hurdles that face first-time buyers.

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the bureaucratic burdens have become a complete nightmare. When the Labour party eventually gets to the point of reflecting on why it was booted out of power, it will realise that one reason was that the level of bureaucracy—the top-down diktats and the impossible paperwork before anyone could do almost anything in this country, particularly build homes—led to fewer homes being built than at any time post-war.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

I am sure the whole House would like to place on record its gratitude for the professionalism and commitment of the 60 firefighters who are deployed as part of the UK’s international search and rescue team assisting the victims of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami. With the number of dead and missing growing daily, our thoughts are with the brave Japanese people.

The Budget revealed our plans to help support local enterprise and jobs, including the extension of the business rates holiday for small firms and small shops. The Department is the lead Department for enterprise zones, and we will make further announcements in the coming weeks. Letters detailing the first payments of the new homes bonus go out to local authorities today. The Department has published its plans for a future of local audit and delivery that is better value for money for taxpayers than the failed Audit Commission regime. The new rules to stop unfair competition from municipal newspapers are now in effect. I am sure that local press and the public noticed that Labour MPs voted en bloc to defend town hall Pravdas.

[Mr Speaker]

That was a very long answer, but I am sure they will be shorter in future.

[Annette Brooke]

May I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s comments on those brave firefighters, and express sympathy for the people of Japan?

With reference to the review of the statutory duties placed on local authorities, the Secretary of State will be aware that there is a great deal of concern among families with disabled children and young people. Can he give us some clarity on this matter, and confirm that no changes will be made to statutory duties relating to that group without formal consultation and a full impact assessment?

[Mr Pickles]

I think I can go further than that and tell my hon. Friend that we will not be making any changes to that duty. I am grateful to her for raising this issue because it comes out of an agreement between the Government parties and the Local Government Association in which we decided to get an audit of statutory duties. That has been established for the first time, but the fact that we have been able to count those numbers does not mean that we are going to make any significant reductions in them—certainly not in relation to the matters to which she has referred.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

May I associate the Opposition with the Secretary of State’s comments about the people and firefighters in Japan? There, as in this country, the emergency services go towards danger to save others and our thoughts are with those in Japan at this time.

It seems that with every passing day Ministers are being forced to rethink ill-thought-through policies. One Government policy that councillors and the public do not understand is the decision to front-load cuts to council budgets. Will the Secretary of State tell councillors, communities and Members of the House why it was necessary for the heaviest cuts to local government to fall in this first year?

[Mr Pickles]

I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s remarks about our firefighters. May I respectfully remind her that the Labour party was due to introduce cuts this year and that local government was not protected and therefore would have faced higher cuts under Labour than under the coalition Government?

[Caroline Flint]

There is no evidence of that and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that Labour would not have front-loaded the cuts to local government. As on many occasions, the Secretary of State has not answered the question and has left us with no idea why the front-loaded cuts were necessary. As was said earlier, the Housing Minister let slip that the Government knew all along that Labour councils representing the poorest areas of our country were getting the worst of the cuts. Is it fair that while the Secretary of State’s own local council loses just £17 per head this year, councils such as Manchester and Liverpool, which he has criticised, are losing nearly 10 times as much?

[Mr Pickles]

My local council has a budget that would have been lost in the sub-committees of Manchester city council. Labour’s Budget in March 2010 admitted there would be cuts to regional development agency regeneration, the working neighbourhoods fund, the local enterprise growth initiative, the housing and planning delivery grant and time-limited community programmes—and that was just the start. The front-loaded cuts from the Labour party would have meant £14 billion-worth of cuts falling in this year. Under Labour cuts, unprotected Departments would have received an average real-terms cut, over the spending review period, greater than those under the coalition’s deficit reduction plan.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

T2. Because of mistakes made by Cumbria county council in its single status process, Cumbria’s outstanding teaching assistants face a 30% drop in pay and deprofessionalisation. Will the Minister meet me, representatives of Cumbria’s teaching assistants and the county council to find a solution to this impasse so that Cumbria’s teaching assistants can be fairly rewarded and Cumbria’s children can be properly supported?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend, but I am sure he will understand that the role of central Government in relation to local government pay and work force issues is extremely limited because they are rightly for local councillors to decide in local circumstances.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T3. Planning applications for wind farms, Travellers’ sites and new housing—which of those will parish councils be given a veto over and when?

[Robert Neill]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman awaits the publication of the details of our national planning policy framework, which will set out the parameters within which all local plans will be drawn up.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T4. Parish councils are an important part of the structure of local government, but they often feel that they have to take an unfair and disproportionate regulatory burden, the latest of which is that they will all be obliged to employ their parish clerks, with all that entails, such as making national insurance contributions, although many such clerks get only an honorarium, which they could easily declare in their annual personal tax return. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

[Mr Pickles]

My hon. Friend remarks on an issue of some importance, particularly to smaller parishes. I am a little surprised that some of the professional organisations associated with parish councils have welcomed the move, but I think it would be sensible for my hon. Friend to meet me and a Treasury Minister to see if we can sort this matter out.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

In June, east Lancashire was hit hardest by the area-based grant reductions, and in October, it was again hit hardest by the reductions in the support grant and the axing of the housing market renewal programme. Today we find out that east Lancashire authorities feature in the bottom 27 for payouts under the new homes bonus. In fact, my Conservative council is to receive just £62,000—despite being one of the most deprived in the country—out of 350 authorities. It is understandable why—we have 1,300 empty properties and a Conservative council—but does the Secretary of State accept that the new homes bonus is unfair and hitting the deprived hard?

[Mr Pickles]

The hon. Gentleman should recognise that we have done what he asked us to do, which is to bring those empty homes into the new homes bonus and turn empty homes into property. He and the House also need to understand that the allocation of the new homes bonus is about building houses or bringing derelict houses back into use. It is not on the basis of permissions; it is about getting things built. My advice to him is to get back to his council and tell it to get building.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

T5. In last week’s Budget debate, the Secretary of State told the House that at the heart of his approach to planning was a presumption in favour of sustainable development. What does he understand sustainable development to be?

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

It is a very good question. The Brundtland commission captured the classic definition of sustainable development, which is development that does not compromise the needs of future generations in meeting the needs of the present generation.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Ministers will have seen the wealth of evidence showing that increased street lighting leads to lower levels of crime, so do they share my concern that Nottinghamshire county council wants to reduce street lighting and will they join me in urging it to think again?

[Mr Pickles]

My own local authority is considering similar measures, and providing that that is done at a reasonable time, in the early hours of the morning, it is a sensible move towards greening our provision. However, in places where there are difficulties with crime, I would expect local consultation to take place.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

T6. Can the Minister give an update on the expected timing of a further announcement on the proposed eco-town at Bordon, and does he agree that there should be a local referendum before any large-scale development there takes place?

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

Just to be clear, my hon. Friend raises an important subject, because eco-towns were being pushed on to areas without local communities having any say about them. Indeed, there was even a separate planning policy statement about eco-homes under the previous Government. We are not in the game of pushing communities into building homes in ways that are not compatible or sustainable locally. I am absolutely certain that my hon. Friend’s local authority will want to take notice of all local opinions and balance that against things such as the new homes bonus benefits, which it will get from building new homes.

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State still believe that abolishing the Audit Commission will provide savings of £50 million a year, or has that figure been revised?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman raises a point about the abolition of the Audit Commission, which I see is still going out to promote its cause in the weekend newspapers. The reality is that we need local audit that is efficient and brings competition into the marketplace. We see no reason whatever to have the country’s fifth biggest auditor owned by this Government.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

T7. I was shocked to hear in the media that disabled people under-occupying homes will have their housing benefit cut. Can the Minister either dispel that rumour, or at least tell the House what estimate he has made of the cost of rehousing those disabled people and then carrying out the necessary adaptations in their new homes?

[Grant Shapps]

Of the changes that we are making in affordable housing and social housing allocations, the most important thing is protecting the most vulnerable people. The whole House will agree that when resources are tight, paying for spare rooms—rather than paying for people to live in the homes that are available—does not make sense. In those changes, however, we will ensure that disabled people are protected in the best possible way.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

The last Labour Government oversaw the greatest renaissance of our cities since the Victorian age. Central to that was the densification of development on brownfield sites. Why have the Government junked that policy for more sprawl, the destruction of the countryside and the gutting of our cities?

[Greg Clark]

Under the previous Government’s target, gardens in cities, which make a huge contribution to the biodiversity and pleasantness of life in cities, were erased. We have got rid of that, and our cities can breathe easily as a result.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T8. How does the Localism Bill help communities like Dover and Deal?

[Greg Clark]

Dover and Deal are fortunate indeed to have a representative who is as passionate a localist as my hon. Friend. I know that he is crusading to have the port of Dover retained in the hands of the local community. As Members know, the Localism Bill provides an opportunity for local communities to make a bid for assets of community value—and I dare say this might provide such an opportunity.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Given the Secretary of State’s well-publicised comments about “Pravda on the rates” and his desire to stop unnecessary council publications, what message does he have for Liberal Democrat-controlled Stockport council, which continues to publish the “Civic Review”, promoting only Liberal Democrat councillors just weeks before the local elections?

[Mr Pickles]

I would say to my hon. Friends, “Beware of friendly fire.”

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

T9. My constituents support the Localism Bill and the empowerment it will bring to local communities, particularly in the world of planning, but can the Minister reassure my constituents that the announcements about growth and planning applications in last week’s Budget will not be contradicted?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. I can certainly give that assurance. He will know that in our election manifesto and in the coalition agreement, we said that we would bring in neighbourhood planning and a presumption in favour of sustainable development. We are doing that.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Residents of Wideopen in North Tyneside have for a number of years defended a green open space from development. They won one appeal, but the latest planning application has resulted in a public inquiry. Will the Secretary of State commend the residents on their commitment to save the open space and please agree to meet me about this matter?

[Mr Pickles]

The hon. Lady will, I am sure, understand that I deal with these matters in a quasi-judicial way, so it would be inappropriate for me to make any comment that might be interpreted as prejudging any appeal.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

T10. Does the Minister agree that shared services are the way forward in local government? The chief executive of Redditch and Bromsgrove councils, Kevin Dicks, has already managed to save hundreds of thousands of pounds by uniting services between the two councils. Is this not the way to cut costs while improving services?

[Mr Pickles]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am pleased to see that local authorities up and down the land—regardless of whether they be county, district or metropolitan—are increasingly looking towards joining together to get better value and protect the front line. I am truly sorry that that enthusiasm is not shared by Opposition Members.

Armed Forces Redundancies

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

15:32

[Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on armed forces redundancies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

Today, the Army and the Royal Navy will announce details of their tranche 1 redundancy fields, setting out the specialisations, branches and ranks from which we are seeking volunteers for redundancy. This was a planned, publicised and expected announcement, following that already completed for the Royal Air Force on 1 March this year to deliver the necessary reductions in the size of our armed forces as required by the strategic defence and security review.

We had wanted to lay a written ministerial statement at 4 o’clock this afternoon—a time chosen by the services to allow sufficient time for them to brief service personnel ahead of their hearing about it from a third party. Indeed, many will have read a story on armed forces redundancy published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday. It was extremely disappointing that any details were leaked and equally appalling that the press would publish a story that will in no way change the difficult decisions we have to make, but adds a further concern to service personnel and their families—a position we have striven to avoid. Indeed, it was to allow all personnel to be briefed that we passed details to the chain of command on Friday.

As has been made clear in this House on several occasions, we would prefer not to make anyone redundant, but we have to do this to make the very real required savings in defence costs to take control of the deficit. As has been emphasised, this Government will not, for political expediency, shy away from announcing details when they are expected; our armed forces deserve this honesty.

The redundancy programme will not impact adversely on the current operations in Afghanistan or in Libya, where our armed forces are fighting so bravely on this country’s behalf. This was a key assumption in the strategic defence and security review. We will inform all those individuals selected for redundancy in this, the first of up to four tranches, in September 2011—specifically, 1 September for the Army and RAF and 30 September for the Royal Navy. Those voluntarily leaving the armed forces will do so within six months; non-volunteers will do so within a year. For all those leaving the armed forces as a result of these changes, every effort will be made to assist in what can often be a difficult transition. We will continue to work hard in this area. Our people deserve nothing less.

[Mr Murphy]

For the third time in just seven weeks, Ministers have had to be summoned to the House of Commons to speak about the treatment of our armed forces. I should have thought that after the sacking of warrant officers by e-mail and the sacking of trainee RAF pilots by media press release, Ministers would be banging on your door, Mr Speaker, demanding the right to come here to make a statement rather than being summoned to appear before the House. Let us hope that this is the last occasion on which Ministers will be dragged here to explain their Department’s actions. On previous occasions the Secretary of State has simply shouted some political slogans across the Chamber, and I hope that the change of Minister today signals a change in tone, because armed forces families are expecting a different tone.

Labour Members are committed to a bipartisan approach to policy on both Afghanistan and Libya. The Secretary of State originally gave a commitment that none of those currently serving in Afghanistan would be sacked on their return, but has since had to admit that he cannot honour that commitment, and that personnel will be sacked after their post-operational leave. Can the Minister confirm that those serving in and around Libya at this very moment will also be liable for compulsory redundancy in September?

As for the sacking of RAF trainee pilots, the Secretary of State said—quite fairly, I thought—

“It would make common sense to ensure that those closest to the end of their course could be allowed to continue, if possible.”—[Official Report, 15 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 820.]

How much common sense has prevailed? How many trainee pilots have been sacked within just 10 hours of earning their RAF wings?

We all know that no one can stop all redundancies in the Ministry of Defence. However, the first time this was mishandled, Ministers said that it had been an accident. The second time, they said that it had been a mistake. In the opinion of Labour Members, the third time is simply inexcusable. It is time for this shabby treatment of our armed forces to end, and it must end soon.

[Mr Robathan]

This is no accident. On 1 March, the Secretary of State said in response to a question from the right hon. Gentleman that there would be an announcement today on redundancies as they were planned. [Interruption.] It was in the House of Commons. As Opposition Front Benchers know full well, it was planned for a written ministerial statement to be issued at 4 pm, and indeed I was going to conduct a briefing for Members of Parliament in all parties to explain the situation. Instead, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), has decided that a Minister should come to the House of Commons. What we are announcing is not new; this is political expediency on the part of the Labour party. The right hon. Gentleman was told on 1 March that the written ministerial statement would be issued.

The right hon. Gentleman raised three points in particular. First, he mentioned redundancies following post-operational leave. Of course those who have served in Afghanistan may have to be considered for redundancy, because 55% of the Army [Interruption]—which, as Opposition Members have spotted, amounts to 11 out of 20—will have served in Afghanistan.

Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of people on operations in Libya. We do not yet know what operations will be current in September, when people will receive their redundancy notices. We are considering the matter carefully, and we would certainly not wish to make anyone who is serving on combat operations redundant.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked about redundancies of RAF pilots who had only had 10 hours of training to go. I am afraid I cannot comment on that, but I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman and let him know the answer.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Minister remind the House how many uniformed armed services personnel will need to leave the service over the next two years under the current plans, and will he tell us why this cannot be done by means of natural wastage rather than redundancies?

[Mr Robathan]

As far as possible, it is being done by means of natural wastage, and indeed by reducing recruiting, but, as my right hon. Friend will understand, we must continue to recruit because otherwise there will be an imbalance in the armed forces. The number that we are looking at, off the top of my head—in fact I have it here, if my right hon. Friend will wait one second—is 11,000.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Minister says these cuts will have no impact on either Afghanistan or Libya, but can he confirm that, despite the leading role we have played in the Libya operation, we are providing only about 8% of the aircraft being used in the no-fly zone and the Chief of the Air Staff has today said that the Royal Air Force is stretched to breaking point? How does the Minister square the following three points: the stretch, the fact that we are providing only 8% of those aircraft, and his insistence that the cuts are having no effect on operations?

[Mr Robathan]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman played a very honourable part in the last Government explaining to the then Prime Minister how he was trying to increase operational capacity without increasing spending, and I know that he pointed out to the last Prime Minister that there was not enough money for our operational requirements. On the Royal Air Force in particular, as the Prime Minister said in October, and as the Chief of the Air Staff has confirmed and explicitly stated in his article, we wish to see an uplift in real-terms defence spending from 2015. The Prime Minister has said that.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend outline the extent to which the rules on regular reserve liability will affect those being made redundant, and confirm that those who do have that liability will be kept close, up to date and informed, as they form a very valuable potential contingency in the event of a declining international situation?

[Mr Robathan]

I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. The regular reserve personnel do indeed play a very important role, and I will make sure that they are kept informed.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

May I point out to the Minister that the armed forces do not have any trade union or federation representing them, and it is up to everyone in this House to look after their interests? What is the Minister doing to ensure that, for those who might be affected by these cuts, there are after-care services in place so they have assistance in looking for jobs and families are not moved out their homes? What are we as a Parliament going to do to ensure that we look after the people who protect this country?

[Mr Robathan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we have a responsibility to make sure our armed forces personnel and their families are properly looked after, and that is what I do. I should say that in September when individuals are issued with redundancy notices, volunteers for compulsory redundancy—that is the way it is put—will have six months of notice to work, while those who are compulsory non-volunteers will have 12 months of notice to work. They have full resettlement courses, which are extremely valuable, and I should say to both the House and the people outside that the personnel who serve in the armed forces are first rate and almost invariably find that outside employers wish to take them on because of their qualities.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the strategic defence and security review has factored in operations such as the one we are undertaking in Libya, and that we will retain the personnel to be able to respond to such events again?

[Mr Robathan]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, because he is absolutely right. The National Security Council came up with various scenarios, including operations such as the one in which we are currently partaking in Libya.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister say how many people in the armed forces will be made compulsorily redundant?

[Mr Robathan]

All 11,000 redundancies are termed compulsory. We are hoping that we will receive volunteers for as many posts as possible, but we are not just going to accept volunteers because some of them will be people we wish to keep, so we will not want them to enter the redundancy programme.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

We all very much regret every single compulsory redundancy under this deficit-driven SDSR, but we none the less accept they have to happen. Does the Minister agree that it is terribly important that those involved are given the most generous possible conditions of redundancy, whether voluntary or compulsory, in keeping, of course, with their normal terms of service?

[Mr Robathan]

Yes, I do agree. Individuals will find that the terms of redundancy are generous and attractive, which is why we expect a lot of people to volunteer.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister order an official inquiry into the way that our armed forces personnel continue to learn of their fate through the newspapers, and will that inquiry investigate Ministers themselves?

[Mr Robathan]

No.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

For the sake of clarity, will the Minister confirm that the reductions in manpower announced today are not in addition to anything announced in the strategic defence and security review? Were all the reductions planned, and had the Minister always planned on coming to the House today to announce them?

[Mr Robathan]

Indeed, we announced to the House on 1 March that the redundancy programme would be announced on 4 April. That is exactly what was planned in the SDSR and there is nothing in addition. I am sorry that some people have wished to make political capital of the matter.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Why do two out of three items of vital equipment fail to reach our combat troops on time?

[Mr Robathan]

I have known the hon. Gentleman for a long time and know that he takes a particular interest in these issues, but I do not think his facts are correct on this occasion. There were issues in the past but—and here I will be rather consensual—equipment procurement got a lot better during the final years of the previous Administration. Equipment procurement is now much better, particularly in operational areas.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and the Minister for his doughty response. We will now return to the subject of redundancies.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have no doubt about the ability of our armed forces to fulfil the tasks given to them, but I have some worries about morale. Will the Minister join me in appealing to the media to take a responsible attitude to the way they report these facts, and to have respect for the chain of command?

[Mr Robathan]

I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend because, like him, I have served in the armed forces and I find the political posturing and use of the media in these cases deeply regrettable. All that does is create an atmosphere in which people are uncertain and concerned about their futures.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the UK manufacturing industry’s profound disquiet at the continued reduction in the capacity of the armed forces? Has he discussed such matters with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, or only with the Treasury?

[Mr Robathan]

UK defence manufacturing is not my responsibility and I have not discussed it with the Secretary of State.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that the redundancies apply only to regular and not reserve forces?

[Mr Robathan]

I am confident that the review into reserve forces, “Future Reserves 2020”, will lead to a more robust reserve forces scenario and I look forward to reading it shortly.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

In his initial comments, the Minister deplored the fact that these details had been leaked to the media, yet he said to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) that he would not hold an investigation into the matter, and that he would not be looking into Ministers’ offices. That is despite the fact that there have been regular briefings that clearly cannot have come from anywhere other than the Ministers’ offices. He cannot have it both ways; he must stop briefing and ensure that newspapers do not get these stories unfairly.

[Mr Robathan]

I find it a strange accusation that I have been briefing the media on redundancies in the armed forces. It is not a pleasant subject and has not given the Government tremendously good publicity—I think we can agree about that. On past occasions, the Secretary of State has indeed instituted investigations into leaks, but I assure the House that this leak did not come from Ministers.

Africa and the Middle East

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

15:48

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

Mr Speaker, with permission, I will update the House on recent developments in Africa and the middle east. Before I do, I know that hon. Members on both sides will wish to join me in expressing sadness and outrage at the killing of seven international UN workers in Afghanistan this weekend. They put themselves in harm’s way to support a better life for the Afghan people. I pay tribute to those who died and call for their killers to be brought to justice.

The House will also share our concern about the heavy loss of life in Côte d’Ivoire. The UN has confirmed at least 462 deaths and up to 1 million people have been displaced. I discussed the situation this morning with Jean Ping, who chairs the African Union Commission. The African Union has led mediation efforts. We are also in close contact with the rightful President, Mr Ouattara. The Security Council will meet tomorrow to discuss its response. We call for an end to the violence, for defeated former President Gbagbo to step down, for all human rights abuses to be investigated and for the International Criminal Court to investigate the crimes that appear to have taken place.

We also remain in close contact with the small British community in Côte d’Ivoire. Since December, our advice to British nationals has been to leave the country. France is leading on plans to evacuate nationals of EU nations if it becomes necessary. We have sent a rapid deployment team to Paris, ready to be part of any evacuation, and consular officers in the region are on standby.

Britain continues to play its part in the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1973 to protect civilians in Libya, and 34 nations are now providing a range of assistance. NATO has assumed full operating capability over all military operations, and since Thursday, a total of 701 sorties and 276 strike sorties have been conducted. The coalition has all but eliminated the regime’s air defence capability and stopped it bombarding Libyan cities from the air. We are destroying key regime military assets, including main battle tanks and mobile artillery. The arms embargo is being enforced. We have prevented a huge loss of life and a humanitarian catastrophe.

However, the regime is still able to inflict considerable damage on Libya’s civilian population using ground forces, and indeed is deliberately inflicting such harm, particularly in the towns of Brega, Misrata and Zintan, where the heaviest fighting is taking place. So long as the regime continues to attack areas of civilian population, the coalition will continue military action to implement the UN Security Council resolution. We take every precaution to minimise the risk of causing civilian death and are seeking verification of incidents where this nevertheless may have happened.

We are one of more than 30 nations contributing to the humanitarian effort in Libya. Food distribution is taking place at six locations in opposition-held areas in the east of the country. The World Food Programme has more than 10,000 tonnes of food positioned inside Libya and neighbouring countries, and hopes to reach 85,000 people. The Department for International Development is flying tents for more than 10,000 displaced people from its stocks in Dubai to be distributed by the Red Crescent. Several consignments of medical supplies have been successfully delivered to Misrata and, yesterday, a Turkish hospital ship was able to evacuate 230 wounded people.

A further British diplomatic mission has travelled to Benghazi, led by Christopher Prentice. As I explained to the House last week, we are not engaged in arming the opposition forces. We are prepared to supply non-lethal equipment that will help with the protection of civilian lives and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Given the urgent need of the interim transitional national council for telecommunications equipment, the National Security Council has decided this morning to supply it with such equipment.

On Wednesday, Libya’s Foreign Minister, Musa Kusa, joined other prominent Libyan figures who have resigned their positions. He flew to the UK from Tunisia of his own volition, having notified our authorities shortly before his departure of his intention to travel here. In accordance with the EU travel ban, he was refused formal leave to enter the UK but was granted temporary admission and met by officials. Musa Kusa is not being offered any immunity from British or international justice. He is not detained by us and has taken part in discussions with officials, since his arrival, of his own free will. Today, my officials are meeting representatives of the Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway police to discuss their request to interview him in connection with the Lockerbie bombing. We will encourage Musa Kusa to co-operate fully with all requests for interviews with law enforcement and investigation authorities, in relation to Lockerbie as well as other issues stemming from Libya’s past sponsorship of terrorism, and to seek legal representation where appropriate. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, these investigations are entirely independent of Government; they should follow the evidence wherever it leads them, and the Government will assist them in any way possible.

Musa Kusa’s departure weakens the regime and exposes its utter lack of legitimacy, even in the eyes of those most closely associated with it in the past. It confirms that there is no future for Libya with Gaddafi in power. It is right that, in these circumstances, when the Foreign Minister of a regime that is committing atrocities against its own people wishes to leave that country and to take no part in what is happening, we should assist in that process. We will treat those abandoning the Gaddafi regime in the following way. Any who travel to the UK to speak to us will be treated with respect and in accordance with our laws. Any immigration issues will be considered on their merits as with any other case. If our law enforcement authorities wish to speak to them about crimes committed by the regime, Her Majesty’s Government will in no way prevent them from doing so.

In the case of anyone currently sanctioned by the EU and UN who breaks definitively with the regime, we will discuss with our partners the merits of removing the restrictions that apply to them while being clear that that does not constitute any form of immunity whatsoever. We will begin such discussions at the EU this week in the case of Musa Kusa. Sanctions are designed to change behaviour and it is therefore right that they are adjusted when new circumstances arise. We continue to offer our full support to the investigations of the International Criminal Court.

The Libyan regime is under pressure. What is required from it is clear: a genuine ceasefire as set out by President Obama and others including our Prime Minister last month, an end to all attacks against civilians, the withdrawal of armed forces from contested cities and full access for humanitarian assistance. When those requirements of the UN are fulfilled, air strikes to protect civilians can stop. The world is united in believing that the Gaddafi regime has lost all legitimacy and that he must go, allowing the Libyan people to determine their own future.

We continue to pursue tough sanctions at the EU. Additional sanctions on five Libyan companies and two individuals are being discussed at the EU today and if agreed will be in place on 12 April. We also continue to pursue additional sanctions with our international partners at the UN and we hope to achieve agreement soon. The first meeting of the contact group on Libya that was agreed at the London conference last week will take place next week in Doha, and I will attend. It will take forward the work agreed at the London conference, maintain international unity and bring together a wide range of nations in support of a better future for Libya.

Elsewhere in the region, we remain very concerned about the political situation in Bahrain. It is vital for the future stability of the country that the Government and leaders from all communities work together to reduce sectarian tension and to create the conditions in which a national dialogue can lead to real political reform. In Yemen, attempts at agreeing a political transition have repeatedly stalled or failed. There is an urgent need for steps to meet the legitimate demands of the Yemeni people and we call on President Saleh to engage with the opposition and with the protesters in a way that meets these aspirations and avoids violence.

We are deeply concerned by further deaths and violence in Syria. We call on the Syrian Government to respect the rights to free speech and peaceful protest. We call for restraint from the Syrian security forces and for the Syrian authorities to investigate the deaths of protestors and bring those responsible to account through a fair and transparent process. We note the announcement of certain reforms and believe that meaningful reforms that address the legitimate demands of the Syrian people are necessary and right.

The United Kingdom believes that the people of all these countries must be able to determine their own futures and that the international community must be bold and ambitious in supporting those countries that are on the path to greater political and economic freedom. That is why across the region we stand for reform not repression, and why in Libya, supported by the full authority of the United Nations, we are acting to save many lives threatened by one of the most repressive regimes of them all.

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for allowing me advance sight of it this afternoon. May I also join him in expressing revulsion on behalf of the Opposition at the murders of the seven UN workers in Afghanistan this weekend? He is right—and speaks for the whole House in this—generously to commend their work and unequivocally to condemn their killers.

May I also associate myself with the Foreign Secretary’s comments about the gravely worrying situation in Côte d’Ivoire? I welcome news that he has held discussions this morning with the chair of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, and that contingency plans are in place for any evacuation deemed necessary. I join the Foreign Secretary in stating clearly and categorically that Laurent Gbagbo must step down immediately. If he does not stand down, there is clearly a risk of a repeat of the situation we had in Angola in 1992 when a disputed election led to a protracted civil war. Given that risk, will the Foreign Secretary share with the House his assessment, in the light of those conversations with the African Union, of Nigeria’s willingness to contemplate supporting any west African-led intervention force in Côte d’Ivoire? Given the prior opposition to such a move by Ghana and Gambia, what assessment has he made of the possibility that the Economic Community of West African States might be able to agree to an intervention force in the event of the conflict continuing in the days, weeks and months ahead? What assessment has he made of the number of Governments in the African Union that still support Mr Gbagbo?

On Syria, on Friday thousands of Syrians took to the streets of Douma after prayers and were reported by the BBC to have been chanting, “We want freedom.” Yesterday it was reported that again thousands of people had taken to the streets there, this time to bury at least eight people who died during Friday’s protests. The legitimate demands of these protestors should be met, as the Foreign Secretary said, by reform and not by repression. What assessment has he made of the likely impact on the reform process of the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Adel Safar?

Let me associate myself and the Opposition with the position set out by the Foreign Secretary on both Yemen and Bahrain.

The situation in Libya has, of course, dominated debate within and beyond the House in recent weeks. The Foreign Secretary at the weekend was optimistic that we have not yet reached a stage of stalemate, but beyond protecting civilians from the air, UN resolution 1973 provided a range of diplomatic powers intended to deepen the isolation and increase the pressure on the Gaddafi regime. These included an expansion of asset freezes, enforcing the arms embargo and measures to prevent mercenaries from flying into Libya. Will the Foreign Secretary provide an update specifically on the implementation of these non-military diplomatic aspects of resolution 1973?

I welcome the fact that Christopher Prentice’s team is in Benghazi assessing the situation and entering into dialogue with the interim national council. The Foreign Secretary has just told the House that “we are not engaged in arming the opposition forces. We are prepared to supply non-lethal equipment that will help with the protection of civilian lives and the delivery of humanitarian aid.” He went on to say that he had decided this morning with his colleagues on the National Security Council to supply the transitional national council with telecommunications equipment. Will he therefore inform the House whether opposition military forces have been in receipt of any support from British military personnel in maintaining or upgrading the military equipment that they already possess?

Turning to the case of Musa Kusa, his defection should be taken as a welcome sign of the disillusionment and disunity within the Gaddafi regime. Following that defection, can the Foreign Secretary give us his latest assessment of the situation within the Gaddafi regime? In particular, how seriously should the House treat the discussions between Musa Kusa’s successor and the Greek Foreign Minister in trying to find a way of resolving the conflict? Clearly, our first priority has to be the urgent operational need to ascertain information from Musa Kusa with respect to the present conflict in Libya. UN Security Council resolution 1973 must be enforced, and if he can help in any way to bring that about, all sides of the House must surely welcome it.

However, many in the House will want to know that Musa Kusa is not and should not be above British or international law. Last week I supported calls saying that the appropriate authorities including, of course, the police should in time be able to ask him all the necessary questions about Libya’s violent history, not least here on British soil. The murder of a police officer in Northern Ireland on Saturday, on which Ministers are due to give a statement later today, will no doubt remind the House of the links between the Libyan regime in the past and decades of terrorism on British soil.

I welcome the news, therefore, that the Scottish Crown Office and Dumfries and Galloway constabulary are now in discussions with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office about how to pursue their investigations. Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House whether any other authorities in the United Kingdom or in other countries at the international level have been in contact with the Foreign Office over the arrival of Musa Kusa as part of their investigations into Libyan terrorism or crimes against humanity perpetrated in Libya?

In conclusion, both sides of the House supported the decision to enforce UN Security Council resolution 1973. The members of our armed forces, of course, have the continuing support of the House, and the Government have our continued support in using diplomatic means to maintain pressure on, and deepen the isolation of, the Gaddafi regime.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what continues to be strong bipartisan support for the operations that are taking place in Libya. He mentioned his revulsion at the events in Afghanistan—the murders of the UN workers. That will be felt across the House and the whole international community.

On Côte d’Ivoire, the right hon. Gentleman asked how many African Union nations there are now that do not believe Mr Gbagbo should stand down. I think the number is down to zero. The whole of the African Union is clear about that. The African Union did try to mediate a solution. It is Mr Gbagbo’s persistence in trying to sit where he is, having clearly lost the election and despite the views of his own countrymen and the efforts of the African Union, that has precipitated the violence we now see.

It is not the belief of west African countries that they will need to provide an intervention force of the kind the right hon. Gentleman describes, but that will be discussed at the UN Security Council tomorrow, as I mentioned in my statement. We will strongly support greater action by the UN and French forces that are in Côte d'Ivoire to help ensure civilian protection in Abidjan and elsewhere. We will also discuss the international response to the mounting civilian casualty list and reports of atrocities in the country. We will urge the swift investigation by the UN-mandated commission of inquiry into reports of horrific human rights abuses in Côte d'Ivoire, which are not necessarily all on one side. All abuses must be investigated. However, I do not think that Nigeria and other west African countries are contemplating an intervention force on top of the fighting that is happening there now.

In Syria, as the right hon. Gentleman says, a new Prime Minister has been appointed. As in all these cases, we will have to judge by actions, rather than words. The Syrian President has committed himself to certain reforms, but it is clear that many in Syria would like those to be much more far reaching. We in the United Kingdom recommend reforms that meet the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people. I think that the new Prime Minister, and indeed the President, will be judged by that.

On Libya, the overall implementation of the sanctions set out in UN resolutions 1970 and 1973 is particularly good by the standards of these things because there is very strong international agreement on them. The vast majority of nations in the world are fully behind the sanctions. That has led to freezes on tens of billions of dollars of the regime’s assets. The conflict has led to oil not being lifted from Libya, so the principal income of the regime has also been very seriously affected. The right hon. Gentleman asked about opposition forces and whether British forces had been involved in any way in upgrading, improving or maintaining the equipment. I am not aware of any such efforts, so the answer to that question is no.

I discussed with the Greek Foreign Minister this morning the efforts and discussions that took place late last night in Athens between the Deputy Foreign Minister of Libya and the Greek leaders. The Libyans again put forward, as they have in various discussions over the past three weeks, their intention to have a ceasefire, but of course the Gaddafi regime has three times announced a ceasefire and yet continued its attacks, particularly the attacks on the people of Misrata, who have been placed in a desperate situation. I believe that my colleague, the Greek Foreign Minister, conveyed the message that we would want him to convey, which is that a ceasefire will be judged by actions, not words, and that we wish to see the Gaddafi regime observing the requirements that the international community has placed on it. I think that these attempts to have discussions with other countries are a sign of the pressure that the regime is under, but the solution is in their hands to adopt a genuine ceasefire and then, in the interests of their country, make it clear that Colonel Gaddafi will go.

I hope that my statement answered satisfactorily all the questions that the right hon. Gentleman raised about Musa Kusa. Musa Kusa has come to a society that is based on law, and the way in which we treat people who come to this country will be based on law. They will not be given immunity from prosecution from British or international authorities. Equally, we cannot put them under a restraint that is not justified by evidence against them. If they are not under arrest, they are of course free to move around. Our response in every way will be based on law, just as our international response, our implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1973, is based on international law. We stick to the implementation of that resolution—nothing more and nothing less—in the military action we are undertaking, and that gives us our strong moral, legal and diplomatic position.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is understandably much interest in this statement, but there are three more statements to follow and, therefore, heavy pressures on time, so brevity, as usual, is vital.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement. Does he agree that removing Colonel Gaddafi must be the focus of our attention? There are many around him still propping up his regime, however, so can he confirm that there is no viable future for those still loyal to Colonel Gaddafi as long as they continue to keep him in power?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, there is no viable future for the country as long as Colonel Gaddafi is in power, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that Gaddafi should go. Virtually the whole world thinks that Gaddafi should go, although let me be clear that our military objectives and activities will be strictly in accordance with the United Nations resolution—let no one be in any doubt about that. But, of course, what is required for any viable future for Libya is for Gaddafi to leave, and of course we recommend to other figures in his regime that it would be right to follow the example of Musa Kusa and desert a regime that has done such violence and damage to the Libyan people.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

However much we despise Gaddafi and everything that he represents, does the Foreign Secretary understand that there is no wish for Britain to become actively involved in a civil war, and that resolution 1973 should not be interpreted in any way as Britain being involved in any way whatever in what is, after all, a civil war, although we know which side we would like to see win?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is getting involved there and taking sides, but I hesitate to call it a civil war. It is an uprising by people who started with peaceful demonstrations against a despotic regime that then waged war, using heavy equipment, artillery and air power, against them, even at the stage when all they were trying to do was to demonstrate and to ask for the rights that we take for granted in so many other parts of the world. I hesitate to call that a civil war; it is a Government waging war on their own people. Nevertheless, I think I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he looks for: we will implement the UN Security Council resolution, and that is what we are there to do. If it had not been for that resolution and the legal authority that it provides, we would not be engaged in what we are doing in Libya. We rest on that resolution, but we will continue to implement it.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

In view of the emerging possibility of further prosecutions in relation to the Lockerbie bombing, does my right hon. Friend agree that any such prosecutions should be conducted through the regular court system in Scotland, and that we should avoid the previous incongruity of having to establish a special court at Camp Zeist in Holland, as happened in the case of Mr Megrahi and his co-accused?

[Mr Hague]

I had better leave any legal deliberations to those better qualified in the Government. Certainly, whatever appropriate method is necessary should be followed in any future prosecutions. I understand that at the moment there is insufficient evidence to produce further prosecutions, but that may change, so I will let my right hon. and learned Friend raise the matter with the Law Officers, rather than try to give a definite ruling on it.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

May I welcome the work of the Foreign Office and its agents in bringing Musa Kusa to the United Kingdom, even if he brings with him a lot of legal, diplomatic and ethical problems? If he was responsible for giving Semtex to the IRA in the 1970s and ’80s, the people who used it to kill and main British citizens are now all out of prison and, in some cases, our partners in devolved Administrations. If people want to quit their regimes, whether in Zimbabwe, Burma or anywhere, and come to the UK, saying that they should go straight to clink and straight away face prosecution is not going to encourage them to defect.

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point clearly. We are not putting anybody straight into clink. Musa Kusa is not detained; he is not under arrest. As I say, this is a society based on law, and if he is not under arrest, he is free to do as he wishes. Equally, as a society based on law, we do not give immunity from prosecution by the British authorities or international authorities.

[Mr MacShane]

indicated assent.

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman nods his head, so I think we have his approval.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that while of course we must observe the rule of law in this country, it may nevertheless, from time to time, reach a point where it is in the wider interest, if it is going to mean saving a lot of lives, to do deals with people whom we may find deeply unattractive, and that there are a number of precedents for exactly that?

[Mr Hague]

There are precedents for doing deals with people one has previously found unattractive—there is no doubt about that—in all walks of life and all stages of public life. Nevertheless, while I take my hon. Friend’s point, that has not arisen in this case. In the case of Musa Kusa, there is no deal. Any press reports of a deal—of sanctuary or asylum in return for information—are wrong. That is not how we are conducting this. It is being conducted in a much more straightforward way, and that has not arisen so far.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

In the second world war, Rudolf Hess landed in this country and was locked up. Why is it that this Musa Kusa wanders into Britain, is treated in the way that he is, and it is not yet even thought to hand him over to the Scottish authorities? Never mind what my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) said: just think of the revulsion out there in the country about this man being treated like he is.

[Mr Hague]

As I say, our response to this and other situations will be entirely based on the law of our land. If the hon. Gentleman can find any way in which we are treating Musa Kusa, or anybody else who has come from Libya, without respect to the laws of our country and without full co-operation with policing authorities or judicial prosecuting authorities, then he must tell me about it. In no way are we treating him in any way differently from accordance with our laws.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that matters in the Ivory Coast will be dealt with with some urgency because of the current heavy loss of life that has already taken place?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, absolutely. We have treated this with urgency all along. It was back in December that we called for Gbagbo to go. We have delivered a great deal of humanitarian assistance, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has put in place, not only for Côte d’Ivoire but for Liberia, since this has created a very difficult humanitarian situation in Liberia as well. All the time we have tried to respond to events and put in place the help that is necessary, and we will add to that urgency at the UN Security Council tomorrow.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary will know that over the past two days 1,600 people have been injured in Taiz and Al Hudaydah in Yemen. Although of course we appreciate the efforts that he has made on the diplomatic front to bring sides together, is not now the time for an envoy to be sent from the United Nations or the European Union to bring the President and people around a table so that a smooth transition can be exercised?

[Mr Hague]

A great many diplomatic efforts have been made. The right hon. Gentleman mentions my own efforts. I met the President and the opposition parties two months ago to encourage them in the right direction—evidently without success in this case—and other Foreign Ministers from around the world have tried to do the same. In recent days, the Gulf Co-operation Council countries, in particular, have been involved in trying to mediate over Yemen, and Saudi Arabia has often tried to do so. Many efforts have been made. The list of envoys who have tried to assist in bringing people together in Yemen is growing quite long. That in no way excludes further efforts, so of course we will continue to do everything we can to try to ensure that reason prevails and that the way to an orderly transition is found in Yemen that does not involve an even greater scale of injury and loss of life, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. We will continue these efforts and in no way dismiss the idea of a further international envoy.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

When Musa Kusa was ambassador here, we had to expel him for openly calling for the murder of dissidents. We are now supping, if not with the devil, with a pretty good substitute. Is not our enthusiasm for regime change sucking us away from the high moral ground of humanitarian gestures and into the ever more murky world of Libyan politics?

[Mr Hague]

No, I think that the high moral ground is retained by basing all our actions on what is legally correct, as we have done in our handling of the whole Libya crisis from the United Nations resolution downwards, and in the handling of these individual cases. When somebody with such a long association with the regime wants to leave it, and by doing so damage the regime, I think that it is right to assist them in doing so. Additionally, it can only be a good thing to discuss with such a man the situation in Libya and the middle east, and gain his insight into it. It can also only be a good thing that any prosecuting authorities that wish to speak to him and get more information from him can do so. I see no downside in doing what we have done with him over the past few days.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that among the restrictions that he proposes to remove is the freezing of Musa Kusa’s assets? That will mean that a man who has engaged in the most despicable acts, both abroad and in the exploitation of his own people, and who has built up his assets on that basis, will be able to enjoy the fruits of those acts.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman makes a number of assumptions in his question. I will not necessarily take issue with those assumptions. However, where we have placed asset freezes and travel bans on individuals purely because they are members of a regime, as is the case with the European Union asset freezes and travel bans—we are not talking here about United Nations Security Council travel bans—when an individual ceases to be a member of that regime, it follows that a change in those restrictions should be discussed; otherwise there would be no incentive whatever for members of the regime to abandon its murderous work. When the situation changes and the reasons the restrictions have been placed on an individual change, of course the restrictions should change as well.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

When we first intervened in Libya, the length of our commitment was talked of in briefings in terms of weeks; now it is months. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that if there is a stalemate on the ground without a ceasefire, we could be talking years?

[Mr Hague]

I am not sure that I have ever referred to days, weeks, months or years, and I am not going to start doing so now. I think that to do so is futile. We will implement the United Nations resolution. We should not be put off implementing that resolution if it takes time, just as we might have been very pleased if it had not taken many days at all. I do not think that we should say of something of the gravity of the protection of the civilian population of Libya, with all the consequences that flow for north Africa and the wider middle east, that we will do it for only a week or for 10 days. It is important to carry through the authority of the United Nations, and we are not putting a time limit on that.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On Friday, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that the Foreign Secretary, with French and German support, intends to propose the recognition of a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, at the next Quartet meeting in two weeks. Is that true? If so, I commend that positive step, but ask him not to get sucked into the issue of land swaps and to maintain the right of return for refugees.

[Mr Hague]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman on something that he was going to commend me for, but no, we are not proposing the recognition of a Palestinian state. We have recently upgraded the Palestinian delegation in the UK to a mission. What the UK, France and Germany are putting to the Quartet is that the basis of negotiations set out by the Quartet, including the United States, should include 1967 borders, with land swaps, a just settlement for refugees and Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states. We are advocating that as an established basis for negotiations, but we are not advocating proceeding unilaterally with the recognition of a Palestinian state.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

Will the Foreign Secretary update the House on the planning for the post-conflict reconstruction and stabilisation of Libya, and on whether he believes the scope of the existing UN resolution, for example in relation to our inability to deploy the military stabilisation and support group, means that it can be practically implemented to achieve what we want to achieve there?

[Mr Hague]

This is a vital subject that we discussed in part of the London conference last week. It will be an important part of the discussion at the first meeting of the contact group, which, as I explained in my statement, will take place in Doha next week. The United Nations Secretary-General made it very clear at the London conference that the UN was prepared to take the lead in co-ordinating the stabilisation and humanitarian work, which was an extremely welcome commitment. The next stage, on top of the urgent work supported by our Department for International Development that I mentioned earlier, is to conduct more detailed consideration of Libya’s future stabilisation needs at the Doha meeting.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for an advance copy of his statement.

Of the 34 countries currently involved, how many are Arab states, and how many of that number are involved in front-line activities?

[Mr Hague]

The number of Arab states involved in military participation is two, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. They have both supplied fighter aircraft to support the no-fly zone. Of course, other states are involved in humanitarian assistance, and the 34 also include states that have given over-flight rights to assist in the implementation of the UN resolution. That would be a minority of the 34, but I do not have the numbers to hand for each different category of Arab support.

We should be clear that the Arab League continues to support the implementation of the resolution robustly. It attended our meeting at the London conference, and we will expect to see it in Doha as well. There were five or six Arab nations represented at the London conference, and I hope that more than that will join the contact group. The support of Arab nations for what we are doing has been maintained from the beginning, and it continues.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that we owe it to the United Nations to continue to press the Afghan Government to bring the Mazar-e-Sharif killers to justice? However, will he also condemn the burning of the Koran by American extremists, which does not excuse, but clearly inflamed, the violence?

[Mr Hague]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I absolutely condemn the burning of the Koran in that or any other instance. It is fundamentally wrong and disrespectful. As he said, that does not excuse what then happened in Afghanistan, but we should be very clear that we condemn both.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does not the failure of the armed Afghan police to stop the lynchings of the United Nations workers, along with the previous retreat by 300 members of the Afghan army when they were attacked by seven members of the Taliban, cause the right hon. Gentleman to reassess his very optimistic belief that the security of Afghanistan can be left in the hands of the police and the army when our troops retire?

[Mr Hague]

I do not think we have ever suggested that the Afghan national security forces are able to look after every security situation in Afghanistan on their own—clearly they are not. If they were already able to do that, we would not need to be in Afghanistan. We want to get them in a position in which they can do that from 2014 onwards.

Since the hon. Gentleman points to some of the deficiencies of the Afghan national security forces, it is important also to point out that many of them are doing excellent work, partnered with our troops in Helmand, and that a huge proportion of the military operations around Kandahar over the past year have been undertaken by the Afghan forces themselves. We must not give an unrepresentative account of the capabilities of those forces.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I know that the Foreign Secretary is well aware of the tribal differences in Libya and the historical divide between east and west. To what extent is Gaddafi exploiting our geographical capture in the east to create and perpetuate that sense of divide? What can we do in the west of Libya to ensure that people there see and understand that our humanitarian activity is for all Libyans, not just certain tribes?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The strength and determination of the attacks that the regime has mounted on, for example, Misrata, illustrate their determination to try to secure by military force areas in the west of Libya so that if they cannot reconquer the whole country, they can declare an east-west divide, playing on history and trying to return to those days. As well as the humanitarian reasons, that is why it is important for us to support the people of Misrata and try to defend them from attack. The vast majority of Libyans with whom I have discussed these affairs, in the opposition and in the regime, strongly support Libya’s territorial integrity and want a united future for their country. They do not agree with any Gaddafi intention to partition it, or to hang on in part of the country.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Foreign Secretary referred to his discussions this morning with Jean Ping about the terrible situation in Côte d’Ivoire. Was he also able to discuss Libya with him? Has he got any clearer understanding of African Union perspectives on that? Was he able to give or take any encouragement about possible African Union influences that might be used, in keeping with what was envisaged in UN resolution 1973?

[Mr Hague]

As the hon. Gentleman can imagine, we discussed Côte d’Ivoire, but also Libya at great length. Mr Ping was clear that the African Union also felt that Gaddafi should go—the vast majority of African Union leaders have no disagreement with us about that. Some African nations might disagree, but the vast majority of the African Union believe that it is inevitable and right. I have encouraged Mr Ping to engage more closely with our work in the contact group. Indeed, I have invited the African Union to the contact group meeting in Doha at the end of next week. It will have to decide at its meeting in Mauritania this weekend whether to attend the Doha meeting, but I see no obstacle to the African Union’s joining in a meeting, where the United Nations is present. I think that we have established this morning a closer working relationship on those matters.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

In 2003, in planning for the reconstruction of Iraq, the UK Government gave too much weight to the opinions and insights of Iraqi ex-pats, émigrés and defectors. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that we do not make the same mistake, as the rats leave what we hope is Gaddafi’s sinking ship?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I think my hon. Friend makes an absolutely fair point. All those people have important insights and opinions, but we must remember that there are many people left, for example, those who want to leave the regime but cannot or dare not. Some people are lying low and others have been in office in the past and not been seen around in recent years. All their opinions will be important, too. We fully take the lesson to which my hon. Friend refers.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary said that Britain would now give the rebels telecommunications equipment. That could cover a wide variety of things, from some mobile phones, through the Bowman system to a missile guidance system. What exactly does he mean by telecommunications equipment?

[Mr Hague]

I do not mean missile guidance systems; I mean telecommunications equipment. I do not want to go into details about the exact specification for various reasons, including that, if I did so, it would be easier for the regime to interfere with the telephones. However, it is telecommunications equipment, which enables people to say where there is desperate humanitarian need and when a town is under attack, and to speak to us in the outside world. I spent a good deal of yesterday afternoon trying to speak to one of the Libyan opposition leaders in Benghazi, but we were never able to establish a telephone connection. It will improve our understanding of what is going on there. It is purely about communications.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary should be congratulated on his statement, and the coalition Government should be congratulated on their regular updates to the House. Is the former Foreign Minister of Libya free to leave this country if he wants to?

[Mr Hague]

He is not detained or under arrest, so as things stand, he is free to go where he wishes. I am not aware of him trying to leave the country, but he is not in detention. We will treat him in accordance with the law—I strongly reinforce that point. Only if the law prevents him from doing something that he wishes to do would we intervene to stop him departing.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement to the House. On the arrival from Misrata of the hospital ship with some 1,000-plus injured people on board who were hurt as a result of the terrorist campaign, will he tell us what steps he will take to ensure that the Gaddafi regime and his soldiers are prevented from carrying out their clinically murderous campaign against innocent civilians? What steps will he take to ensure that Misrata is not overrun, and that the voice of freedom is maintained?

[Mr Hague]

We have other plans to get further assistance into Misrata, although of course, I cannot be specific about them in advance—we do not want to give notice of our plans to the Gaddafi regime. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that a good deal of our military effort has been designed to protect the people of Misrata. Many of the strikes against battle tanks and mobile artillery units of the Libyan armed forces have been made in the vicinity of Misrata. That is difficult because some of those forces are in built-up areas, and our concern to avoid civilian casualties overrides our desire to attack individual units in such areas. However, a great deal of the NATO effort is now going into trying to relieve the pressure on the most unfortunate citizens of Misrata.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)]

While I can accept that Musa Kusa’s circumstances have changed, the one thing that has not changed is his antecedence—he gave weapons to the IRA and was alleged to be involved in the Lockerbie plot. If we do not have enough evidence to detain him and bring charges against him, what on earth have our intelligence services been doing for the last 20 years?

[Mr Hague]

As I have said, any action must be based on evidence. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that things have been alleged, but the evidence must be presented. The authorities can proceed only on the basis of such evidence.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Under the cover of what else is going on in the middle east, the Iranian regime recently increased the sentences of seven Ba’hai leaders to 20 years. Will my right hon. Friend make strong representations to the Iranian Government to stop the persecution of the Iranian Ba’hais?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, most certainly—my hon. Friend is quite right to draw attention to that. The Iranian Government now have one of the worst human rights records in the world. They have four times as many journalists in detention as any other country; they have carried out per capita more executions than any other country so far this year; they have imprisoned the two principal opposition leaders; and they have added to all that the outrage to which my hon. Friend refers, and we unreservedly condemn it.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary both acknowledged that the Gaddafi regime is at least partly propped up by murderous mercenaries who are terrorising the civilian population. Will my right hon. Friend therefore indicate what steps the Foreign Office, NATO and our allies are taking to stop the entry into Libya of mercenaries from Chad and Niger?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, that is one of the things attended to in the UN Security Council resolutions, which call for action against mercenaries entering the country. My hon. Friend is quite right that there is a good deal of evidence that Colonel Gaddafi has bought some of the military support that he has employed over the last few weeks. Although I cannot go into any operational details, we will take action whenever we can, and whenever we have the necessary information, against the supply of mercenaries to Libya. We have been in touch with neighbouring countries about that. People entering Libya in order to do violence to the civilian population of Libya do so at their peril.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I heard what the Foreign Secretary said to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on asset freezing, but in a statement last week he painted quite a rosy picture to the House about the benefit to the Libyan people of a future Libyan Government spending those assets. Can he reassure us that any loosening of sanctions in response to those deserting the Gaddafi regime will not allow those people to take with them riches gained as a result of their long association with Gaddafi which belong to the Libyan people?

[Mr Hague]

Basically, yes, any changes in sanctions on people who have defected from the regime are likely, in terms of the quantity of money involved, to be infinitesimal compared with the assets of the regime and its companies. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars. The United States has frozen more than $30 billion-worth of assets, so we are talking about something very tiny when compared with the total scale of assets.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

The House has rightly praised our armed forces for the visible work they are doing, but will the Secretary of State commend the staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, particularly the rapid deployment teams, for their sterling work throughout the region in recent times, which is perhaps less visible?

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Rapid deployment teams in a variety of very difficult situations, including chaotic airports and the aftermath of earthquakes in recent weeks, have done an absolutely outstanding job for this country. The diplomatic mission in Benghazi, to whom I have referred, have, in sometimes difficult and dangerous circumstances, gone into eastern Libya, so he is quite right to praise our diplomats and I will take that praise back to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

NHS Reform

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

16:41

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement about NHS modernisation. Modernisation of the national health service is necessary, is in patients’ interests and is the right thing to do to secure the NHS for future generations. The Health and Social Care Bill is one part of a broader vision of health and health services in this country being among the best in the world; world-leading measurement of the results we achieve for patients; patients always experiencing “No decision about me without me”; a service where national standards and funding secure a high-quality, comprehensive service available to all, based on need and not the ability to pay; and where the power to deliver is in the hands of local doctors, nurses, health professionals and local communities.

The House will know that the Bill completed its Committee stage last Thursday. I was also able to announce last week that a further 43 GP-led commissioning consortia had successfully applied to be pathfinder commissioning groups. We now have a total of 220 groups representing 87% of the country; that is 45 million patients whose GP surgeries are committed to showing how they can further improve services for their patients. In addition, 90% of relevant local authorities have come forward to be early implementers of health and well-being boards, bringing democratic leadership to health, public health and social care at local level.

That progress is very encouraging. Our desire is to move forward with the support of doctors, nurses and others who work in the NHS and make a difference to the lives of so many of us, day in and day out. However, we recognise that the speed of progress has brought with it some substantive concerns, expressed in various quarters. Some of those concerns are misplaced or based on misrepresentations, but we recognise that some of them are genuine. We want to continue to listen to, engage with and learn from experts, patients and front-line staff within the NHS and beyond and to respond accordingly. I can therefore tell the House that we propose to take the opportunity of a natural break in the passage of the Bill to pause, listen and engage with all those who want the NHS to succeed, and subsequently to bring forward amendments to improve the plans further in the normal way. We have, of course, listened and improved the plans already. We strengthened the overview and scrutiny process of local authorities in response to consultation, and we made amendments in Committee to make it absolutely clear that competition will be on the basis of quality, not price. Patients will choose and GPs will refer on the basis of comparisons of quality, not price.

Let me indicate some areas where I anticipate that we will be able to make improvements, in order to build and sustain support for the modernisation that we recognise is crucial. Choice, competition and the involvement of the private sector should only ever be a means to improve services for patients, not ends in themselves. Some services, such as accident and emergency or major trauma services, will clearly never be based on competition. People want to know that private companies cannot cherry-pick NHS activity, undermining existing NHS providers, and that competition must be fair. Under Labour, the private sector got a preferential deal, with £250 million paid for operations that never happened. We have to stop that. People want to know that GP commissioning groups cannot have a conflict of interest, are transparent in their decisions, and are accountable not only nationally, but locally, through the democratic input of health and well-being boards. We, too, want that to be the case. People want to know that the patient’s voice is genuinely influential, through HealthWatch and in commissioning. Doctors and nurses in the service have been clear: they want the changes to support truly integrated services, breaking down the institutional barriers that have held back modernisation in the past.

As I told the House on 16 March, we are committed to listening, and we will take every opportunity to improve the Bill. The principles of the Bill are that patients should always share in decisions about their care; that front-line staff should lead the design of local services; that patients should have access to whichever services offer the best quality; that all NHS trusts should gain the freedoms of foundation trust status; that we should take out day-to-day political interference, through the establishment of a national NHS commissioning board and through strong independent regulation for safety, quality and effectiveness; that the public’s and patients’ voices must be strengthened; and that local government should be in the lead in public health strategy. Those are the principles of a world-class NHS which command widespread professional and public backing. All those principles will be pursued through the Bill, and our commitment as a coalition Government to them is undiminished.

We support and are encouraged by all those across England who are leading the changes nationally and locally. We want them to know that they can be confident in taking this work forward. Our objective is to listen to them and support them, as we take the Bill through. No change is not an option. With an ageing and increasing population, new technologies and rising costs, we have to adapt and improve. Innovation and clinical leadership will be key. We want to reverse a decade of declining productivity. We have to make productive care and preventive services the norm, and we must continue to cut the costs of administration, quangos and bureaucracy. The House knows my commitment to the national health service and my passion for it to succeed. To protect the NHS for the future must mean change—not in the values of the NHS, but through bringing forward and empowering leadership in the NHS to secure the quality of services on which we all depend.

Change is never easy, but the NHS is well placed to respond. I can tell the House today that the NHS is in a healthy financial position. Waiting times remain at historically low levels, as promised under the NHS constitution. Patients with symptoms of cancer now see a specialist more quickly than ever before. MRSA is at—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Secretary of State must be heard.

[Mr Lansley]

MRSA is at its lowest level since records began. We have helped more than 2,000 patients have access to new cancer drugs that would previously have been denied to them. All that is a testament to the excellent work of NHS staff up and down the country, and we thank them for their efforts to achieve these results for their patients. The coalition Government are increasing NHS funding by £11.5 billion over this Parliament, but the service cannot afford to waste any money. We can sustain and build on those improvements only by modernising the service to be ever more efficient and effective with taxpayers’ money.

The Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set the NHS on a sustainable course, building on the commitment and skills of the people who work for it. Our purpose is simple: to provide the best health care service anywhere in the world. I commend this statement to the House.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for Health for a copy of his statement shortly before he made it this afternoon. So Mr Speaker, in the middle of confusion, chaos and incompetence, the Prime Minister has pushed the Health Secretary out of the bunker to try and tell people what exactly and what on earth they are doing with the NHS. Why is the Health Secretary here and not the Prime Minister? After all, we have been told that the Prime Minister has taken charge and it was he who made his most personal pledge to protect the NHS and to stop top-down reorganisations that have got in the way of patient care. It is the Prime Minister who is now breaking his promises on the NHS.

Will the Health Secretary tell us why the Tories did not tell people before the election about the biggest reorganisation in NHS history? Why did they not tell the Lib Dems about the reorganisation before the coalition agreement was signed? Whatever the Government say or do now, there is no mandate—either from the election or the coalition agreement—for this reckless and ideological upheaval in the health service. In truth, the Health Secretary is here only because there is a growing crisis of confidence over the far-reaching changes that the Government are making to the NHS.

There is confusion at the heart of Government, with briefings and counter-briefings on all sides, and patients starting to see the NHS go backwards again under the Tories—with waiting times rising, front-line nursing staff cut and services cut back. Yet the Health Secretary has done nothing to restore public confidence in the Government’s handling of the NHS and nothing to convince people to back the Tories’ reorganisation plans. Everything he said today the Government were told about in the consultation—and they ignored it. Everything he said today the Government were told in Committee—and they rejected it.

This is not just a problem with the pace of change; simply doing the wrong thing more slowly is not the answer. It is not just a problem with presentation. In fact, the more people see the plans, the more concerned they become about them. That is why there is growing criticism of the Tories’ plans for the NHS—from doctors, nurses, patients’ groups, NHS experts, the Health Select Committee, the Lib Dems and peers of all parties in the House of Lords. I have to hand it to the Health Secretary: it takes a special talent to unite opposition from Norman Tebbit and MC NxtGen. That is why Labour has been saying that the reorganisation requires a root-and-branch rethink and that the legislation requires radical surgery.

There are fundamental flaws in what the Government are doing, not just in what they are saying. The test is whether the Prime Minister will now deal with these fundamental flaws. Will he radically safeguard commissioning to draw on the full range of NHS expertise, to prevent conflicts of interests, bonus payments to GPs and to guarantee that important decisions are taken in public not in private? Will he radically strengthen local accountability to the public and to patients? Will he delete the one third of the Bill that breaks up the NHS and makes it into a full-blown market ruled by the forces of market regulation and EU competition law? Will this be just a public relations exercise or will real changes be made in the NHS plans—or has the Prime Minister not yet told the Health Secretary? This is no way to run a Bill; this is no way to run a Government; this is no way to run the NHS.

[Mr Lansley]

We heard from the Leader of the Opposition earlier that the NHS needed to change, but once again we have heard nothing from Labour Members about how it needs to change. It is not unusual to hear nothing from them. They say that we need to tackle the deficit, but they will not say how. They say that we must change the NHS, but they will not say how.

Interestingly, in January the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) said that he agreed with the aims of the Bill. He said that he supported a

“greater role for clinicians in commissioning care, more involvement of patients, less bureaucracy and greater priority on improving health outcomes”.

At the last election, his manifesto said that he wanted all NHS trusts to become foundation trusts. It said that he wanted patients to have access to every provider, be it private sector, voluntary sector or NHS-owned. Now we do not know what the Labour party’s policy is at all, but what I do know is that the Government will give leadership to the NHS, and that we will give the NHS a strategy enabling it to deliver improving results in future.

The right hon. Gentleman clearly wrote his response to the statement before reading it. In fact, we have made it clear that we will listen to what is said about precisely the issues on which people in the NHS and people who depend on the NHS are united. They know which issues are really important. They know that we must be clear about accountability, and that there must be transparency. Clinicians throughout the health service want to work together, and want the structure of the service to help them to work together so that they can deliver more holistic and joined-up services to patients. We want that, and they want that. We will back up our strategy with detail, but from the right hon. Gentleman we heard no strategy, no detail, and no answers whatsoever.

We are clear about the principles that we are pursuing through the reform and modernisation of the national health service. We are listening, and we are engaging with those principles. We are listening to the people in the health service who have come together to implement those principles, so that we can help them to do so effectively. Labour Members have not even listened to those who threw them out at the last election, because they are still wedded to the past and to a failed, top-down, centralised, bureaucratic approach.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

All who genuinely wish the NHS well and consider it to be an important part of our national heritage will welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to ensuring that clinical practice delivered by the NHS is kept up to date with the best available medical practice, and responds effectively to the wishes of patients. Will he continue to develop effective commissioning as the best way of delivering that, building on 20 years of commitment to the principle of commissioning under Governments of all political complexions since 1990?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He knows and I know—and past Secretaries of State, with the exception of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) also knew—that in order to deliver the best possible care in the NHS, we needed to engage clinical leadership more effectively. That is what these reforms are about. The modernisation of the NHS is about better and stronger clinical leadership delivering better commissioning of care and thereby helping to deliver better provision of care, and about allying that with democratic accountability at a local level. Neither of those things has happened sufficiently in the past, but both are at the heart of our Bill.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Contrary to what the Secretary of State has claimed, waiting times are already lengthening and the quality of service to patients is already deteriorating as a result of his ill-conceived upheaval of the health service. Why does he not abandon it, rather than just pausing for the Easter holidays, before he squanders all the improvements that were achieved under Labour Governments?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should denigrate what staff in the NHS have achieved over the past year. He will not have read the deputy chief executive’s report on NHS activity, which shows improvements in breast screening rates, improvements in bowel screening rates—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise for interrupting the Secretary of State. I recognise that this subject inflames passions and that there are very strongly held views about it, but there is too much noise on both sides of the Chamber. I gently say to the hon. Members for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) and for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) that they should cease to yell at the Secretary of State from a sedentary position. It is very unseemly.

[Mr Lansley]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall not go through a long list, but many services in the NHS have improved and continue to improve. Our objective is very clear: it is to support that improvement, including improvement in waiting times. For example, last year the median wait in January for non-admitted patients was 4.8 weeks, whereas last year it was 4.9 weeks. For diagnostic tests, the average wait this year is 1.6 weeks, exactly the same as last year. Meanwhile, many other factors are continuing to improve as well.

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State may know, I still have a faint link with the NHS and medicine in general. The GPs I have met in my constituency and elsewhere are very much in favour of the proposals. In contrast, the complaints are circular letters that have been well organised. Does the Secretary of State agree that GPs will be devastated if there is any reversal and backtracking?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. He and other Surrey Members will be aware of that primary care trust’s past failure to manage effectively within its budget. The GPs in Surrey are, like many others across the country, coming together and demonstrating that they can achieve much greater service improvement within NHS resources—and those resources will increase in future years.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that the reorganisation and introduction of competition under this Bill have created chaos inside the national health service? What message does he have for the 40% of people who work for Rotherham PCT who have now taken redundancy, and who are getting out because they know they are aboard a sinking ship?

[Mr Lansley]

As we have demonstrated, NHS performance is continuing to improve, and it will improve further with clinical leadership, but we can achieve that effectively only if we achieve a £1.9 billion a year reduction in administration costs in the NHS. We have started that process: since the election, we have reduced the number of managers in the NHS by 3,000 and increased the number of doctors by 2,500.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s continued support for the NHS in Cornwall, with the cash increases this year, the long overdue integration of adult social care with the NHS, and the real opportunity of giving power to local people through the health and well-being boards. Will he ensure that the central changes he wants to introduce to achieve the aim of “no decision about me without me” are kept absolutely at the heart of what he does?

[Mr Lansley]

I will indeed do that, and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments. She represents a Cornwall seat, and she and I know that over the years many people in Cornwall have felt they wanted a greater sense of ownership of the decisions made in the health service, not only for individuals but for the health service in Cornwall itself. That is precisely what we are going to make available through both local commissioning and local authorities.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State listed in his statement concerns to which he intends to listen, but every single one of them has been raised with him before, going back to the time of the publication of his White Paper. As he did not listen to those concerns then, why should any of us believe his positive commitment to listen to them now?

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid the hon. Lady is completely wrong about that. We have continuously listened. After the publication of the White Paper, we had a full 12-week consultation with more than 6,000 responses, and in December’s Command Paper we set out a whole series of changes that were consequent on that, including to the structure of commissioning and the timetable for the transfer of NHS trusts into foundation trusts. In Committee, we have introduced further amendments, not least to make it clear that competition in the NHS will be on the basis of quality not price, which is very important because that is a concern that people raised.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s efforts in modernising the NHS. The concept of GP commissioning has been widely supported by politicians from all parties for many years. May I urge my right hon. Friend to keep putting patients first by increasing GP involvement in the NHS?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. We have now—earlier than any of us had imagined—arrived at the point where most of the country has pathfinder consortia in place. It is absolutely the right moment to engage with them to discuss how we can ensure that the concerns that have been properly raised, about transparency and accountability in governance and the avoidance of conflicts of interest, will be dealt with in the legislation. We want the legislation to work for them and the people we serve.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State has spoken a great deal about ill people, but the health service is also, very importantly, about promoting health. With local authorities taking the lead in the public health strategy, what is his mechanism to ensure that GPs are fully involved and contribute fully to the wide range of initiatives on which primary care trusts took a lead, such as those on child protection, teenage pregnancy, diet and exercise, child safety and obesity?

[Mr Lansley]

If the hon. Lady reads the Bill, she will see that one of its changes that has been most widely supported, including by local authorities across England, has been the transfer of public health leadership into the health and well-being boards, with ring-fenced budgets for local authorities. The previous Government could have done that, but they did not. Such an approach will allow continued engagement with general practitioners and their practices, both because they are participants in the health and well-being boards and because Public Health England and the local health and well-being board will be able to influence directly the quality and outcomes framework, which incentivises GPs in the work that they do.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Colleagues on this side of the House will know that the Secretary of State has a great passion for the health service, and great mastery of his brief. Will he confirm, for the sake of all hon. Members, that the object of getting rid of PCTs and top-down targets is to free a lot of money for patient care? That should be in the interests of all hon. Members and their constituents.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Before the election, the previous Labour Government said that it was necessary to save up to £20 billion in efficiencies in the NHS, but they never said they would reinvest that money in the NHS. We have said that we will reinvest it. In order to deliver those efficiencies, 10% of that gain will be achieved by cutting the costs of bureaucracy and administration. We have set out how we will do that, but the previous Government never did.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State understand that those who care about the future of the NHS believe not only that he got his presentation wrong, but that his Bill is fundamentally wrong in principle?

[Mr Lansley]

No, I do not accept that for a minute. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, who sits on the Opposition Front Bench, has freely acknowledged that I have met and talked to many people in the NHS over the course of seven and a half years, and that I am passionately committed to the NHS. If one set of beliefs lies at the heart of the reforms and the Bill, it is the belief in the NHS as a free, comprehensive, high-quality service that delivers some of the best health care anywhere in the world. We will never achieve that without the clinical leadership that is essential to delivering high-quality health care.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for having the grace and courage to respond to legitimate concerns. Given the agreement that exists in the House—not about the effects of the Bill, on which there is no agreement, but about its aims—does he agree that we should not get hung up about whether substantial changes will in future be referred to as “tweaking”, “surgery” or, possibly, “surgical tweaking”? Is not the main thing to get a Bill that carries the broad support of Parliament, NHS professionals and the country? We do not need to sell this Bill better; we need to take the spectre of salesmanship out of the NHS.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman and I know one another well enough to know that we share a commitment to the NHS and that I am determined. Perhaps I sometimes get very close to all of this because I am very close to the NHS. I spend my time thinking about this subject and I spend my time with people in the service. I spend my time trying to ensure that the Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right for people in the NHS—they want to be free. The British Medical Association made it clear that it wants an end to constant political interference in the NHS. We can do that only if we secure the necessary autonomy for the NHS, and if we make accountability transparent, rather than having constant interference from this place or from Richmond house.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

How many managers who have lost their jobs will be re-employed during this pause?

[Mr Lansley]

I do not have a figure for how many have been re-employed. The hon. Lady will know that under the process by which people agreed with the NHS to take resignation and, more recently, in voluntary redundancy terms, after six months there is an opportunity for people to take jobs—we are not depriving them permanently of the ability to take jobs. Indeed, one of the responsibilities of the commissioning consortia will be to find the best people, but we are doing that now. That is why we continue to make progress on the ground by the assignment of PCT staff to commissioning consortia and to local authorities, in order to ensure that they are beginning to take on their responsibilities.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that many GPs are very excited by the opportunity that his reforms will give them to serve the needs of their local communities even better. Can he assure those GPs that he has no plans to water down that strengthening of their pivotal role in the national health service?

[Mr Lansley]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. This is born not of political opportunism, as it seems to have been characterised by the Opposition, but of a determination to support those people in constituencies that my hon. Friends on this side of the House have been talking to and listening to. As he knows, GPs in his area have come together. For example, when I met people at Southampton hospital recently, they were able to talk about how they were working together on improving the clinical design of services for patients in his area.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

Why has the Secretary of State waited until now, after the passing of the Bill through its Committee stage, to announce a so-called natural break in which to listen to and engage with the public? Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but would not the normal process involve getting the brain into gear to avoid putting the foot in the mouth?

[Mr Lansley]

If I did not come to the House to make a statement, I would be accused of not doing so, but when I do so, the Opposition ask why. The reason is very simple: it is because we are going to listen, and to engage with people actively over the course of the coming weeks, and I did not want the House to see that happening during the recess without having been told about it beforehand.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that only the most cynical people could criticise him for wanting to consult more about the changes that he wants? [Laughter.] And that only the most cynical could treat the NHS as a laughing matter? Will he maintain the goal of delivering the prize, which is to give local people, through their local GPs, more control over the resources that the NHS spends in their name?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I agree. Indeed, in north-east Essex, the consortium under Dr Shane Gordon’s leadership is doing exactly that. I personally think that leadership and listening are not mutually exclusive, and we are going to continue to do both.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

In the spirit of openness, will the Secretary of State please place in the House of Commons Library a copy of the legal advice on whether EU competition law will apply to the provisions in the Bill?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady should know, as a member of the Health Select Committee, that I wrote to the Chair of the Committee just last week and set out the position very fully. The Bill does not extend the scope or application of competition law at all.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does he agree that reduced bureaucracy and better local scrutiny and accountability will ensure a better NHS for all?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Locally, he can see how that is happening as GP leaders—including Dr Howard Stoate, whom Members will fondly remember, as the chair of the clinical cabinet in Bexley—are coming together to look at issues that the previous Government never dealt with, including those relating to the South London Healthcare NHS Trust and to Queen Mary’s hospital in Sidcup. They are coming forward with proposals to improve services for local people, and I applaud that kind of clinical leadership.

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Before the general election, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) promised an extra 3,000 midwives. Has the Secretary of State noted the alarming rise in preventable maternal mortality? Would the Secretary of State not do better to deliver on his Prime Minister’s promises and abandon his reckless reorganisation?

[Mr Lansley]

The right hon. Lady must know that we continue to have a record number of midwives in training, and that the number of midwives in the health service has continued to increase since the election. In the financial year that is just starting, the number of commissions for training will continue to be at a record level.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

The Secretary of State is aware that under the Labour Government, accident and emergency and children’s services were transferred from Burnley to Blackburn. The transfer was opposed by the majority of GPs and 95% of the local community. It was supported only by the bureaucrats in the PCT and the SHA and by prima donna consultants. Will the Secretary of State confirm that under his new proposals that will never happen again and that such decisions will be taken only following full consultation and agreement with GPs and local communities, rather than being driven through as they were by the previous Government?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In Burnley and other places—I think not least of Maidstone—decisions were made in the past, under a Labour Government, that clearly did not meet the tests that we now apply, which are about public engagement, the support of the local authority, engagement with general practices leading commissioning, the clinical case and the responsiveness to patient choice. Those tests will be met in future. As we go through the painful process of examining how they are applied to the situations that we have inherited, on occasion we can say things to help colleagues, but sometimes we cannot.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is not only the Health Secretary who cares about the NHS. Most people in the House support the NHS in their constituencies and the work that it carries out, but the mistakes that the Secretary of State has made—I hope he will admit that he has made mistakes by not listening—mean that there will already be costs to the health service because of the Bill. Will he publish an impact assessment of the costs to the health service so far of his failed policies?

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is wrong on a number of counts. First, we have listened and we will continue to listen. Secondly, of course there are costs in reducing the number of managers in the NHS, but it is absolutely essential that we reverse the decade of declining productivity in the NHS that took place as the number of managers went up by 78%. How can that be the right way forward? Under Labour, we had more managers and less productivity.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be keen to know that many of the GPs I have met in my constituency are keen on the idea of GP commissioning, but there is undoubtedly concern about the exact role of the private sector in the NHS. May I urge the Secretary of State to use these next few weeks or months to ensure that in the country and if necessary in the Bill we make it perfectly clear that the private sector will not be allowed to undercut or undermine our local hospitals?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Our manifesto was clear that patients should be able to have access to a provider who gives them the best quality, be it the NHS, a private sector provider or a voluntary provider. That was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto and in the Labour manifesto. It is always about ensuring that that provider is properly qualified and that the basis of that choice is quality, not price. There cannot be a race to the bottom on price. We make it very clear in the legislation—it is important to set this out—that the commissioners of local services will also, through designating services, be able to ensure that where patients need services to be maintained and need continuity of services they can set that out themselves.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Why does the Secretary of State not admit that the policy is unravelling before the eyes of the British public? The thousands that have been writing to MPs in every constituency now know that the truth is out. Instead of waiting for the natural break, and then a reshuffle, and then a resignation, he should do the honourable thing now and resign today.

[Mr Lansley]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman one thing: I and my colleagues on the Government Benches talk to people in the constituencies who are getting on with this. That is what is so impressive. People across the NHS are seeing the opportunity to bring more clinical leadership and more democratic local accountability to fashioning an improving health service. That is what I am determined to achieve.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Excessive bureaucracy and a record level of managers have dominated health care provision in mid-Essex. Will my right hon. Friend assure my constituents that, under his reforms, the funding for that excess will go to front-line patient care in the constituency of Witham?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I can. Under the coalition Government, in mid-Essex there has been a 3.2% increase in cash for the NHS this year compared with last year. Not only that, but more of that money will, as a consequence of our changes, get to the front line to deliver improving services for patients.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

“No decisions about us without us” could apply to every single person who works in the NHS who has been telling the Secretary of State that these are reckless changes. Throughout the country changes are taking place. Now he says that he is going to be listening. If so, we can anticipate some more changes. Will he therefore instruct everyone in the NHS who is currently restructuring on the basis of the Bill to stop that restructuring until we know exactly what the Government intend to do?

[Mr Lansley]

No, I will not, because we are very clear about the strategy and the principles of the Bill. We are equally clear that now we have the opportunity to work with the developing GP pathfinder consortia, the health and well-being boards in local authorities and the wider community to ensure that the implementation of the Bill and its structure support those developing organisations.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his helpful and useful update this afternoon, and welcome his assurances that the coalition wants to reform and modernise our NHS, right in line with its founding principles. He knows that I will continue to argue for greater transparency for the new GP consortia, and I hope we can still find a way to do that, but I warmly welcome his listening exercise, the measures contained in the Bill and the way he has made himself freely available to colleagues since taking up his post last year. May I urge him to continue doing that both in the House and, of course, outside it?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We will do that, not only formally across the country but in the informal manner that we do in the House. His point of view exactly illustrates the purpose of my statement. He served on the Committee that debated the Bill. Notwithstanding the good progress that the Bill has made and that we are making around the country, people have legitimate concerns and questions. They want to raise those and to know that we will listen and act on them.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State say more about the future of care trusts? Integration of health and social care is vital to all our constituents. With all the uncertainty, staff are being lost and more could be lost. During this natural break, what can the Secretary of State say to preserve the continuity of those people doing that vital work and the continuing support for care trusts?

[Mr Lansley]

I reiterate the point that I made a moment ago. There is nothing in what I have said today that should do other than give people on the ground confidence that they are building the improvement of services that they need for the future. At the heart of that is the integration of health and social care. We as a Government have made available in this new financial year £648 million through the NHS specifically to build that kind of integration between health and social care. It has been insufficient in the past; we are building it now. As the hon. Lady knows, the Bill allows care trusts to continue in formation, but it is also possible for care trusts to redesign around commissioning consortia on the one hand and health and well-being boards on the other.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition stated his willingness to work with the Government on the NHS reforms. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a good place for him to start would be with a re-reading of his party’s manifesto at the last election, which supported virtually every principle in our NHS Bill, with one important difference—it was without the additional funding to match?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I am not sure which Labour party we would be expected to engage with—the one whose manifesto agreed with us, the one for which the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne spoke at a King’s Fund meeting in January when he agreed with us, or the one that we saw in Committee, which opposed everything, tried to wreck the Bill and clearly has gone back to the Holborn and St Pancras view of the NHS.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

It is obvious that the public are extremely concerned about the Bill. Why does the Secretary of State not suspend the Bill and bring forward new proposals that we can all support?

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman does not seem to understand that the public support the principles of the Bill. The public want patient choice. When they are exercising their choice over treatment, they want to be able to go to whoever is the best provider. Patients believe that general practitioners are the best people to design services and care on their behalf. Patients, the public and professionals support the principles of “no decision about me without me”, focusing on outcomes and delivering an outcomes framework, and the devolution of responsibility. What we are talking about now is ensuring that other important principles, such as governance, accountability, transparency and multi-professional working, are genuinely supported by the structure of the Bill.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My constituents in Suffolk were very concerned at the last election about the fact that only two doctors covered them for out-of-hours care, and that was for 600,000 patients. They welcome the reforms in the Bill. Indeed, Waveney and Great Yarmouth have come together as one pathfinder consortium and resumed out-of-hours care. Will the Secretary of State assure me that such important changes will continue to be important for patient delivery in the new Bill?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes an important point. When people talk about primary care trust commissioning, they might care to look at the report produced by the Care Quality Commission on how primary care trusts went about commissioning out-of-hours care. The answer is that they pretty much did it on the basis of cost and volume, rather than quality, and once they had a contract they did not monitor it, follow it up or ensure that the right quality was there, including the right calibre of doctors. It is clear that general practice-led commissioning consortia will take a wholly different and preferable approach to that kind of commissioning.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister’s commission on the future of nursing and midwifery reported a year ago in March 2010. Of the 20 recommendations, all related to improving the quality of care in the NHS, which is my constituents’ priority, not top-down reorganisation. During the pause that the Secretary of State has announced today, will the Government finally find time to respond to that important report?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Can the Secretary of State reassure me that any further listening will mean that retaining local community hospitals, which are much loved across the country and particularly in South Dorset, remains top of the agenda?

[Mr Lansley]

I can assure my hon. Friend that one of the central beauties of the Bill is that in future it will matter less what my priorities are and much more what the priorities are of his local communities and general practitioners and others who are responsible for commissioning in his area. On that basis, I have no doubt about the importance and priority that they will attach to community hospitals.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I share and welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to reduce bureaucracy, so I am concerned to know why Monitor’s budget is increasing by 600% over four years to police the marketisation of the NHS. Is that not poor value for money?

[Mr Lansley]

The Government are introducing for the very first time a clear limitation and reduction on the running costs of the NHS. That will include the Department of Health, the arm’s length bodies, the strategic health authorities and the primary care trusts—the whole shooting match. We will reduce those costs by more than a third in real terms. Monitor forms part of that. We have made it clear that its estimated total running costs will be between £50 million and £70 million. That is more than at present because its responsibilities will be considerably larger than they are at present.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)]

As the Secretary of State will be aware, I chaired the majority of the Public Bill Committee’s sittings. It was the longest Bill Committee for 12 years. During that time, more than 100 amendments were voted on in formal Divisions, and many hundreds of others were agreed to. If we are taking several months to look at this again, how on earth will the time be found to ensure that this House has enough time to scrutinise properly any changes, bearing in mind how much time has been spent on the Bill as it stands? I want an assurance, as I hope the whole House does, that we will be given sufficient time and that the Bill will not be steamrollered or bulldozed through the House.

[Mr Lansley]

I know that the whole Committee will have been grateful to my hon. Friend for his chairmanship, because what was achieved in Committee, as was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), was that every inch of the Bill was scrutinised. It is our intention to secure proper scrutiny for any changes that result from our engagement.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Public Bill Committee was one of the busiest since 2002, according to the Clerk, with 26 sittings and more than 100 Divisions. Does the Secretary of State not agree that that reflects the level of concern that the general public have, but that they will exercise theirs at the next general election?

[Mr Lansley]

No, I am afraid I do not accept that. All that 100 Divisions demonstrate is that time and again the Labour party was simply trying to divide the Committee in order to delay or, indeed, to wreck the Bill.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

GPs in Oxfordshire want to be catalysts for change. Collectively and collegiately, they want to be able to design NHS services for the best and optimal benefit of the people of Oxfordshire. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this statement means that they can continue to design those services and continue to plan to have an Oxfordshire-wide GP consortium, knowing that they will be able to go forward in the future to plan the best health services for the people of Oxfordshire?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I can indeed confirm that. Having joined my hon. Friend in Banbury in the past and met GPs there, I know and can say that, if they had been more fully engaged, as our plans would have meant, in the design of clinical services in Banbury or in the future of the Horton general hospital, for example, we would have had better and earlier outcomes than was in fact the case.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State, in his letter to me of 23 March, dismissed my request that he discuss with the Comptroller and Auditor General concerns about the conflicts of interest which might arise from GP commissioning. The Secretary of State, in his statement today, refers to the concerns about those specific conflicts of interest. Will he now engage in a discussion with the Comptroller and Auditor General to receive best advice on methods of Government procurement?

[Mr Lansley]

I do not think I dismiss anybody; I might not agree with people, but I do not dismiss them. If I recall correctly, I did not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion because he misunderstood the fact that the consortia are separate statutory bodies, not private bodies, and separate from GP practices, which are individual contractors to the NHS. The confusion between those two things meant that his point was not valid.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

My constituents, who have watched primary care trusts halve the number of community hospital medical beds in Wiltshire, know that NHS reform is needed to make decision makers accountable, so how does the Secretary of State propose to strengthen the public and patient voices on the boards of the GP consortia that will replace them?

[Mr Lansley]

Clearly, this is an area that we will engage in over the coming weeks, but the Bill is already clear that the consortia must engage the public and patients directly. We can look at how we can strengthen that, but we must never lose sight of the fact that, through local health and wellbeing boards, we are creating for the first time a very much stronger public representative voice in relation to all such decisions, including commissioning and planning, and that, through HealthWatch, we are creating for patients an altogether stronger, more comprehensive patient voice, which will have a statutory right to be consulted and to express a view on all those commissioning issues.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Exactly how long will the natural break be, and how will we know whether the Secretary of State has listened?

[Mr Lansley]

I think the hon. Lady must accept that, because I have come to the House and made it very clear that we are going to do this thing. We are going to set it out, I have done so before the recess, and it will take place during the recess and beyond. But, from my point of view, I think that in the formation of the policy and its introduction there has been a genuine process of listening. It is now a genuine process of listening and engaging to ensure that we get the implementation right.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

This has been a very good day for the coalition Government, a great day for the Secretary of State and a superb day for Parliament. What Opposition Members do not seem to understand is that this is about Parliament scrutinising a Bill and improving it. Does the Secretary of State agree that he should listen not to those dinosaurs but to Parliament?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. My objective is to ensure that the statutory structure for the NHS moves on from one that had virtually no serious accountability. As Secretary of State, I could have done most of this without the legislation: I could have just abolished most of the primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. Previous Secretaries of State behaved in that cavalier fashion, but we are not doing that; we are giving Parliament the opportunity—a once-in-a-generation opportunity—to give the NHS greater autonomy and, in the process, to be transparent about the structure of accountability.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware of the instability that we are experiencing in the management of NHS services in Trafford, with provider services off at Ashton-under-Lyne, Wigan and Leigh on a temporary basis, with Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust forced to find a new partner for its management, and the primary care trust forced, first, to combine with other Greater Manchester care trusts for one year, before splitting into GP consortia next year? In view of all that instability and the uncertainty that it is causing to staff in the NHS and at Trafford, will the Secretary of State ensure that he has the adequate support in terms of project and change management that appears to be so lacking at present?

[Mr Lansley]

Let me make it clear to the hon. Lady that many of the things she is describing in Trafford are the result of things that the last Labour Government failed to do. For example, the last Labour Government said that all NHS trusts should meet the criteria to become foundation trusts by December 2008, but they did not do it. We are now having to help NHS trusts to meet the kind of quality and viability standards that they did not meet in the past, which is at the heart of many of the problems she describes. Do we have management resources? Yes, we do. That is one of the reasons I invited Sir David Nicholson, as chief executive of the NHS, to be the chief executive of the new NHS commissioning board so that the design of commissioning for the future will be completely consistent with the transition and the management of the change in the NHS today.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for standing firm in his desire to improve the NHS. Will he join me in commending the work of the Great West commissioning consortium in London and others, who have approached these reforms with professional leadership and commitment to make the NHS more efficient and improve public health, ensuring better care for all patients?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I do join my hon. Friend in applauding the Great West commissioning consortium, because it and others across London are demonstrating that instead of having the top-down diktat of how services should be changed in London, they are in the process of designing, from the point of view of the populations they serve, what the requirement is for them and their services in their area. That is a better and more sustainable basis on which to design community-led and primary care-led services for the future.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

This debate was confused before today. Can the Secretary of State put in writing exactly what things will be put on hold and what things will carry on? For example, he said that he is taking a natural break but GP commissioning groups can still continue to be set up. If the natural break is a good idea, surely that is a pointless exercise.

[Mr Lansley]

No, the hon. Gentleman misunderstands. I was very clear in my statement and in subsequent responses to questions. Right across the country, there are thousands of people who are developing the pathfinder consortia, taking NHS trusts through to foundation trust status, and building the health and well-being boards and new public health structures in local government. They should be confident in doing that, because the Government continue to be committed to achieving those changes. In the process of doing so, we will engage with them to ensure that the legislation specifically gives them the support that they need.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on engaging and listening. We have all received the 50 or so e-mail circulars from constituents who are concerned, but that does not reflect the evidence on the ground. GPs in Shipston in my constituency are absolutely passionate about the reforms and want to engage fully with them, as do 220 other groups—87% of the country. May I make a suggestion to the Secretary of State? Perhaps we should bring all those people who are passionate about this reform and want to take party politics out of it together with Labour Members on a platform so that we can take this forward without petty politics derailing a brilliant piece of legislation.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Labour Members sit and laugh about this, but they ought to realise that 1 million patients a day visit their local general practice surgery. GPs across the country who have come together to form pathfinder consortia—87% of the country—are doing it on the basis that they can improve services for patients. I suspect that they understand the needs of their local community and patients better than many Labour Members, who are not listening to their GPs locally.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I would like to thank the Secretary of State for single-handedly destroying the Government’s reputation on the NHS through this Bill. No amount of minor changes or slowing down of the pace will address the Bill’s fundamental failure to protect the public from privatisation by stealth. If he refuses to resign, is he worthy of his nickname, Broken Arrow—he doesn’t work and he can’t be fired?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman might like to talk to Dr Stewart Findlay, who is among those leading the pathfinder consortium in County Durham. He might like to talk to people locally who are piloting the new 111 telephone system, which will give better access and better urgent care to patients. Instead of sitting there making rather absurd political points, why does he not go and talk to people who are delivering services to patients? That is what the NHS is really about.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

In east Cheshire, there is no lament for the passing of the PCTs. In fact, there is a positive response to GPs having a greater say in how health care is delivered locally. Will the Secretary of State tell the House how GPs will be updated on progress over the coming weeks?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are not only developing communication with GPs in pathfinder consortia, but, more importantly, creating a learning network among GPs in pathfinder consortia, so that these groups across the country will not only learn from each other, but, we hope, arrive at a set of views that help us to design a service that supports them.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State, who tells us how much he studies the NHS, must know that the King’s Fund tells us that under the Labour Government, Britain’s NHS was the most efficient in the entire world. On that basis, a broad coalition of people, including health experts and the Liberal Democrats, is telling him that this policy is wrong. He apparently came here today to tell us why he is right and all those people are wrong. Is this a genuine consultation, or is it just a pause to get through the local elections before he does what he wants to do anyway?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong on almost every count. We have seen a decade of declining productivity in the NHS. The Office for National Statistics and the National Audit Office set that out recently. We have seen an NHS that, despite record increases in funding, which are welcome, is still not meeting the best European cancer survival rates, as was made clear by the NAO. We need to improve the NHS. The Government are not discounting anybody’s views on how we can best achieve that. In the spirit of continuous improvement in the NHS, there is a spirit of continuously listening about how to make that happen.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State share my amazement that in recent months the Labour party seems to have U-turned on patient choice and on any willing provider, and does not appear to support putting clinicians in charge of commissioning health care? Its only policies seem to be “Save the PCTs”, “Save the SHAs” and “Save NHS bureaucracy”.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps having increased the number of managers in the NHS by 70%, the Labour party thought that it would be swept to victory on the votes of NHS administrators. That did not happen. People in the NHS knew that waste, inefficiency and excess bureaucracy were not the way to deliver the best care for patients. That was Labour’s way; it will not be our way.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Given that the Secretary of State will not instruct NHS managers to take a natural break in implementing his so-called reforms, does he understand why his intention to make changes after the natural break might be questioned? As colleagues have suggested, is the natural break just like every other Tory consultation—a sham?

[Mr Lansley]

There is nothing sham about this. This is serious business, not a political game, as it appears to be for Opposition Members. Tens of thousands of people across the NHS are engaged in managing and developing new services, which will deliver improving outcomes and be more responsive to patients, through devolved decision making in the NHS. I think that we should simply help and support them, not least by listening to them.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State told my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) that the budget for Monitor will be between £50 million and £70 million, but the Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, on which I sat, heard that it would be between £40 million and £130 million. Does that not show that not only are the Government not listening to this side of the country but are not even listening to their own facts?

[Mr Lansley]

I answered that question earlier.

Murder of PC Ronan Kerr

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

17:44

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Owen Paterson)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the murder of Police Constable Ronan Kerr in Omagh on Saturday afternoon. Shortly before 4 pm, a device exploded, destroying his car in Highfield close, a quiet residential neighbourhood in the town: 25-year-old Constable Kerr died as a result of his injuries. I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending our deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of this brave young officer. He was a local man who, having gained a university degree, decided upon a career in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He dedicated his life to the service of the whole community; the terrorists who murdered him want to destroy that community. The contrast could not be clearer.

These terrorists continue to target police officers and endanger the lives of the public. We all pay tribute to the PSNI and the Garda for their remarkable commitment and for their success in thwarting a number of recent attacks. Working seamlessly together, last year they charged 80 people with terrorist offences, compared with 17 in 2009. However, regrettably, on Saturday a device exploded, killing Constable Kerr. His murder was a revolting and cowardly act perpetrated by individuals intent on defying the wishes of the people.

Following Saturday’s attack, the PSNI immediately began a painstaking murder inquiry. The House will understand that that meticulous work is still in the early stages. I saw the Chief Constable yesterday and I know that the PSNI, working closely with the Garda Siochana, will not rest until these evil people are brought to justice. I reiterate in the strongest terms the Chief Constable’s appeal for anyone with any information to bring it to the police.

The PSNI has support from right across the community and is responsible to locally elected politicians. Just over a year ago, we strongly supported the previous Government’s determination to devolve policing and justice, and we backed the very significant financial package that accompanied that devolution. After the election we endorsed proposals for a further £50 million for the PSNI, specifically to confront the terrorist threat. In the national security strategy, published last October, we made countering terrorist groups a tier 1 priority. We have agreed an exceptional £200 million of additional funding over four years, as requested by the Chief Constable, so that he can plan ahead with certainty.

As the Prime Minister said on Saturday,

“the British Government stands fully behind the Chief Constable and his officers as they work to protect Northern Ireland from terrorism”.

That cannot be done by a security response alone, crucial though that is. It can be resolved in the long term only by the community itself, together with strong leadership by local politicians. That leadership was evident again this morning when the First and Deputy First Ministers and the Justice Minister stood as one with the Chief Constable to reiterate their determination that these terrorists will never succeed. They all called for the active support of the PSNI. They spoke for the people of Northern Ireland, and their condemnation of this grotesque murder has been echoed in London, Dublin and Washington.

Our clear and united message to these terrorists is that they will not destabilise the power-sharing institutions at Stormont, they will not deter young Catholic men and women from joining the police service, and they will not drag Northern Ireland back to the past.

Thirteen years ago, the agreement was endorsed by overwhelming majorities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That was the true democratic voice of the people of Ireland, north and south. They, above all, will ensure that the terrorists fail. The visit of Her Majesty the Queen will shortly reinforce the fact that relations within these islands have never been stronger.

Today, politics in Northern Ireland is stable. The democratic process is established. An Assembly has completed its first full term in decades. At the elections in May, voters will choose their politicians to serve in the new Assembly based on everyday bread-and-butter issues. That is democracy in action.

Those who murdered police Constable Ronan Kerr fear democracy. The Omagh bomb in 1998 did not destroy the peace process. The terrorists failed then and they will fail now. They will not deflect us from our shared determination to build a peaceful, stable and prosperous Northern Ireland for everyone.

In the powerful and moving words of Constable Kerr’s mother yesterday:

“We were so proud of Ronan and all that he stood for. Don’t let his death be in vain.”

[Mr Shaun Woodward (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. The House can only echo and underline the sincerity and unity with which the leaders of all Northern Ireland’s political parties—nationalist, republican and Unionist—have spoken. The Opposition are part of that single voice, which reverberated around the world this weekend.

We remember Constable Ronan Kerr with profound respect. Our hearts go out to his mother and family, and to the people of Omagh, for whom the brutal assassination reopens a deep wound. We think, too, of the police family of Northern Ireland, who today deeply mourn their colleague, but will be at work, the gravest risks to each no less, serving the community selflessly.

The men and women of the PSNI do not see themselves as extraordinary, but in what we ask of them, in the gravest risks that they daily face, we know them as extraordinary. In his courage and service, Ronan Kerr exemplified that spirit. His commitment to working for one community—Protestant and Catholic—stands in absolute juxtaposition to the deluded and demonic deeds of those who targeted him.

However futile their actions, those behind the psychotic acts of violence seek to bring fear and terror back to the streets of Northern Ireland. Constable Kerr was not an isolated target, nor was the attack random. His death is profoundly shocking, but an attack on a police officer is not a surprise.

When the Belfast agreement was signed, as the head of MI5 acknowledged last year, we all hoped that the residual threat from terrorism in Northern Ireland would remain low and gradually decline. Regrettably, optimism must give way to realism. The threat is not low: today it is severe. It is more serious today than in nearly 15 years and it is ongoing. A serious terrorist incident was attempted almost every week last year—a dramatic and regrettable escalation on previous years. Those people have improved capacity, increasingly sophisticated technical and engineering capability, and they aspire to extend their reach.

Today’s terrorists may have little or no community support, but we make a grave mistake if we do not recognise that, in addition to those who refused to accept the peace agenda, a new generation is growing up, delusionally embracing a new wave of criminal and deadly violence. Their numbers grow significantly. Bordering on psychotic, their ambition is to instil fear through attempted bombings and murders. Their aspirations extend beyond Northern Ireland to Britain.

Excepting national security, responsibility today for policing and justice is devolved to Stormont. However, devolution does not absolve us at Westminster of our broader responsibilities to the people of Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State recently succeeded in persuading the Treasury to provide additional resources from the reserve. He is to be congratulated on that. That, of course, was before this attack.

If the Chief Constable should require—to fulfil the ongoing demands of community policing for the public and, of course, for the safety of his officers—further additional resources for overtime, forensics, vehicles and other items to meet the threat, will the Secretary of State reassure the House that they will be agreed and made available without delay?

To tackle today’s threat, we must ensure that we not only contain the existing terrorists, but do all we can to stop alienated young people being drawn into that pattern of crime. The Secretary of State will know of the work of Co-operation Ireland, which is urgently seeking additional financial support for its critical work from, among others, the British Government. He knows the former deputy Chief Constable, Peter Sheridan, who leads that work. The organisation has made cutting-edge proposals, tackling the sectarian legacy but also dealing with real problems in the present. Will the Secretary of State consider the proposals sympathetically and renew his support for additional funding with the Chancellor?

The Home Secretary raised the threat level in Great Britain last September. To ensure that we are guided not by optimism, but by realism, will the Secretary of State reassure the House that the Government will learn from not only the mistakes that we made in the past, but the security measures that we got right?

Will the Secretary of State confirm that he is satisfied from discussions with the Home Secretary that here in Britain police forces have and will continue to have the resources they need to address the threat appropriately? Will he also confirm that, at all levels of Government, there is no complacency? Prevention should be our guide.

On national security, and if we are to learn, as the head of MI5 said, from “the pattern of history”, will the Secretary of State tell the House that he is fully satisfied with the co-operation between the PSNI and forces here in Britain, including on timely and comprehensive sharing of information?

Without capability, the threat from terrorists will be significantly contained. Those who supply the criminals must also be brought to justice. Will the Secretary of State confirm that anyone involved today or in the past in the supply of weapons or explosives will not be given immunity from prosecution? Will he confirm that, should the PSNI wish to conduct interviews with any foreign nationals currently in Britain, the Government would immediately help facilitate that?

Hon. Members will have seen the statement that Constable Kerr’s mother made on television last night. Yesterday was mothering Sunday. When so many sons and daughters remembered what their mothers had given for them, Constable Kerr’s mother, in her darkest hours of grief, shared with our country what her precious son meant to her and her family. We all have a duty to ensure that Ronan’s death will not be in vain. Let us be judged on what we now do.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments and support, which send a strong signal across the world that the House is united on the issue.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned contingency. We have made it clear that, as under the arrangements that he fixed with the Executive at the time, should the threat increase, we are prepared to consider the reserve, but let us look at what we have done. We confirmed £50 million last year and got an exceptional £200-million programme agreed this year for the next four years. Today, the Chief Constable said:

“We have the resources, we have the resilience and we have the commitment.”

As I said in the statement, we are supportive of work with community groups, and I spoke to the chairman of Co-operation Ireland this morning. We will consider a range of alternatives because, as I made clear, there is not just a security solution.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made counter-terrorism a priority, and budgets are protected. I am absolutely confident that there is increasing and improved co-ordination between the PSNI and GB-based forces. She came to Belfast to discuss that with the Chief Constable a few months ago.

Finally, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that no immunity has been given to anyone. If he were present for the statement from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, he would have heard him say quite clearly that Musa Kusa is not being offered any immunity from British or international justice. He also said during his statement that we believe in the rule of law.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is a matter of the utmost gravity, which is being treated as such by the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State. However, I hope the House will understand when I remind Members of the very heavy pressures upon time, the further Government statement to follow and an Opposition day debate. Therefore, brevity from Back Bench and Front alike from now on is vital, and it will be enforced if necessary from the Chair. It is no good Members saying, “Ah, but the point I had to make was important.” They are all important, but we must make progress, and I cannot guarantee accommodating everybody.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

May I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement, and on behalf of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee join him in condemning this evil and cowardly murder? I do not believe that those people have any legitimate political aims, but, if they do, is it not worth drawing a parallel and reminding them that a murderous campaign by the IRA made any change in the jurisdiction and constitutional position of Northern Ireland less, rather than more, likely?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for his comments and for the Committee’s support on this issue. We are quite clear that there are now mechanisms for everyone in Northern Ireland to pursue their legitimate political ambitions by peaceful, democratic means. There is absolutely no excuse, and no place for violence that is in theory for a political cause.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Our sympathies and prayers are with the Kerr family at this terrible time. I spoke to Mrs Kerr yesterday in her family home. Her courage and bravery, and that of her son Ronan, stand in stark contrast to the cowardly callousness of those who murdered him. At this time, does the Secretary of State agree that the best answer, as I said at Prime Minister’s questions only last Wednesday, is for the people of Northern Ireland to stand together, as they are standing together, as one community, to reject these men of violence, and to keep Northern Ireland moving forward? That is the clear, united voice coming from Northern Ireland and this House today, and Ronan’s death will not be in vain.

[Mr Paterson]

I wholeheartedly concur with the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. For Mrs Kerr, yesterday afternoon, under those circumstances, on mother’s day, to welcome politicians to her house and to come out after that to make the statement that she made, was a quite remarkable moment. We all owe it to her to do exactly as the right hon. Gentleman says—to rally round together. I encourage everyone to participate, campaign and vote in the coming elections in Northern Ireland, to show that that is the way for Northern Ireland to progress.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

May I offer my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Constable Ronan Kerr? Will the Secretary of State join me in continuing to support, honour and celebrate the brave men and women of the PSNI, which can today proudly and rightly say that it is drawn from all communities in Northern Ireland?

[Mr Paterson]

I am happy to confirm to my hon. Friend that we now have a police service that is well manned with personnel from right across the community, with strong local support, and one that is endorsed by all the main political parties. That is a major force for good.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. As the only leader of a Northern Ireland party who is a Member of this House, I wish to add the voice of the Social Democratic and Labour party to those who have condemned this murder, and who are determined that its perpetrators are brought to justice. I was happy yesterday to speak to Mrs Nuala Kerr, and to her two sons and daughter, to convey those sympathies on behalf of the wider community and my party.

Such killing was always wrong. It was wrong even when there was some political support for such violence. While we grieve for Constable Kerr and remember Constable Carroll, let us include in our prayers all those who have died throughout Northern Ireland.

Given the level of infiltration of the dissident groups by the security services, will the Secretary of State give a firm assurance that the PSNI will receive every scrap of information and intelligence that is held by the security services that could be relevant to its investigation of this appalling murder of Constable Ronan Kerr? May I join other hon. Members in urging all members of the wider community in Northern Ireland who have information to pass it on to the PSNI in order to assist with the inquiry?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We must have much shorter questions, although I understand their importance.

[Mr Paterson]

I wholeheartedly concur with the hon. Lady’s comments. Her party has a proud record of pursuing its political ambitions by democratic means through the most difficult times. She asked about the security services. I shall repeat the comments of Lord Carlile, who is an independent assessor of these matters:

“MI5 and the PSNI are working very closely together and one really could not have more work being done and more energetically to try and deal with what is a very difficult threat”.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State join me in commending Nuala Kerr for the conspicuous and formidable moral leadership she has shown since the callous and senseless murder of her son, and in urging all politicians to demonstrate the same conspicuous and formidable moral leadership in dealing with the terrorists who murdered her son?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that strong comment. I entirely concur with what he said about Mrs Kerr, and I remind everyone of what she said yesterday.

“We all need to stand up and be counted and to strive for equality…We don’t want to go back into the dark days again of fear and terror.”

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

May I add my sincere sympathies to those expressed by the Secretary of State to the family, colleagues and friends of Constable Ronan Kerr. I also add to the Secretary of State’s call to those who have information that could lead to those who perpetrated the attack being brought to justice. Their destructive and murderous attack is in stark contrast to the constructive role that the PSNI plays in our community in trying to build for the future.

Does the Secretary of State agree that this was an attempt to drive young Catholics out of the PSNI, and to drive a wedge between it and the community? Does he agree that the best way to avoid that is for us to stand shoulder to shoulder with those police officers and give them our full support?

[Mr Paterson]

I am very grateful for the hon. Lady’s supportive comments. She rightly paid tribute to the Kerr family. I again quote Mrs Kerr, who yesterday said:

“I urge all Catholic members not to be deterred”.

I do not believe that they will be.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

The thing that sets the Provisional IRA apart from the dissident republicans is that in the early 1990s the Provisional IRA recognised that above what it wanted was what the public and community wanted, and that the community did not want violence as a way of solving the troubles. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to tell us whether the whole Catholic community is fully behind the family of Constable Kerr, and will he consider redoubling his efforts to ensure that more Catholics join the PSNI?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend gives me an excellent opportunity to confirm that to my knowledge there is overwhelming support for the legitimate institutions and for the legitimate, peaceful parties—I cite as an example the minute’s silence at the Gaelic Athletics Association game yesterday in Tyrone, which is a very strong republican area. There is absolutely no place for political violence in Northern Ireland.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

May I also join the Secretary of State in extending my deepest sympathy to Mrs Kerr and her family? Does he share my concern that, more than two years on, those who were charged with the murder of Constable Stephen Carroll are still to come to trial? Will he take this opportunity to voice his strong support for Minister Ford’s efforts to speed up the justice system in Northern Ireland, so that those who go out to murder police officers will be reminded not only that they will be caught, but that if they are convicted they will spend most if not the whole of the rest of their lives in prison?

[Mr Paterson]

The right hon. Gentleman will have direct experience of these matters and I know that there has been frustration in the past about the slowness of the system, so I congratulate Justice Minister Ford on having introduced measures to speed things up. I also point out that there were 17 charges in 2009, that the number jumped to 80 in 2010 and that there have already been 16 charges this year, so we are definitely bringing in measures to speed things up.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

The death of Constable Kerr is obviously an extremely sad event, but will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the policemen and soldiers who cleared a 40 lb anti-personnel device this time last week in the centre of Londonderry, and will he explain whether he believes that the two incidents are linked?

[Mr Paterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and I am happy to put on the record my wholehearted congratulations—I touched on this in my statement—of the work not just of the PSNI but of the Garda Siochana, who are working extremely closely. I think we should pay tribute to the co-operation we are getting from the Dublin Government, from both parties. I have talked to Eamon Gilmore—the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Tanaiste—and to Alan Shatter, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence. Today, I also talked to Martin Callinan, the Commissioner, and I confirm that we are working extremely closely. My hon. Friend is right that there has been a succession of events, week after week; I would not want to comment today on whether they are linked to this one, but we are determined to work together and bear down on these dangerous people.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his leadership at this time, which is much appreciated by MPs from Northern Ireland. We do not want to be dragged back to the past and the dark history that we had for many years. I am aware that there has been a large reduction in the number of police officers, which might have fallen to approximately 7,000. What steps will the Secretary of State be taking in relation to resources and training to ensure that the stipulated 7,500 figure is reached through the urgent and immediate training of officers to ensure that we have significant and adequate police coverage on the ground?

[Mr Paterson]

On police numbers, we have contributed major extra funds this year, as requested by the Chief Constable. I repeat what he said today:

“We have the resources, we have the resilience and we have the commitment.”

How he divides up the funds that have been provided to him and the Justice Minister is a matter for him. Those are operational matters and not for me to answer from here.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the statement that he has unfortunately had to make today. Our thoughts are with the Kerr family, the policing family and all those for whom the awful events of the weekend have been a dreadful reminder of their own trauma. The Secretary of State rightly commended the strength of political unity. Does he agree that it is hugely important, in the context of the election campaign, that all parties make it clear that there is no political difficulty or difference that these terrorists can exploit for their warped agenda? Does he agree that Constable Kerr was a patriot and that those who killed him were not? He was a patriot who was honouring his country in the service of all in his community.

[Mr Paterson]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I entirely endorse his comments about Constable Kerr, who could have pursued another career. He had a university degree in a totally separate subject but he decided to work in his community for the benefit of the community. I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the behaviour of local politicians and local parties. The election campaign of the next few weeks is a glorious opportunity to rebut everything that these violent terrorists stand for. The election should be entirely about day-to-day issues. As I have said, I encourage every voter to participate and turn out. I encourage them to put these people in their place and show them that they have absolutely no representation or support anywhere in the community in Northern Ireland.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

If the Provisional IRA could not achieve its aims over 30 years, despite all the crimes and atrocities it committed, why should the dissident republicans believe they can succeed?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question. To put it bluntly, they will not succeed, but one has to ask what on earth they think they achieved by ending this bright young man’s career just as it began.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State welcome the strong support from Secretary of State Clinton in her condemnation of this brutal murder? Will he assure the people of America that there is no support in the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland, in the Republic or in the American Government for these brutal murderers who should be brought to justice as a matter of urgency?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We have had unstinting support from both parties in Washington and I was touched that Hillary Clinton, given everything else that is going on in the world, put out a very strong statement condemning this “cowardly act”, which she said represented the “failures of the past”. She said that the perpetrators’ actions

“run counter to the achievements, aspirations and collective will of the people of Northern Ireland”.

I spoke to Congressman King last night, who is the chairman of the Friends of Ireland group. He, too, has put out an extremely strong statement, which we all welcome.

State Pension Reform

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

18:15

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a short statement about state pensions. The coalition has already taken steps to support current pensioners by reintroducing the earnings link for the basic state pension. Indeed, we went one step further with our triple guarantee, which will mean that a pensioner retiring today can expect to receive about £15,000 more in basic pension over the life of their retirement. However, the pensioners of tomorrow face a new landscape. With longevity continuing to increase, future pensioners can expect to work for longer and they may not have the same levels of housing equity. They are less likely to have the certainty of a final salary pension and from 2012 we will introduce a new system of automatic enrolment into workplace pensions.

Today, the Government are publishing a consultation document, which looks at whether the existing pensions system is suitable for meeting the challenges of the future. This Green Paper marks the next step in the coalition’s plan to create a system that is fair and simple for pensioners and that rewards those people who do the right thing and take responsibility for their future. It is right that we ask people to take responsibility for their retirement by saving over the course of their working lives, but it is also right that the Government should play their part by ensuring that we support those who make the right choices for their future and those of their families.

If we want to encourage pension saving, the key is getting the state pension system right. The current system has been in a sort of permanent evolution for decades, which means that planning for retirement is fiendishly complex. The Green Paper sets out two options for reform, neither of which involves spending more money on future pensioners than has already been forecast through the existing system. The key is to spend the money we have better. The objective is clear: to move to a simple, contributory state pension system that provides flat-rate support above the level of the means-tested guarantee credit, which would be easy to understand, efficient to deliver and provide a firm foundation for further saving.

The first option involves bringing forward existing reforms so that the state pension would evolve into a two-tier, flat rate system more quickly. The second, more radical, option is to move to a single-tier state pension. Both options are for future pensioners; pensioners who have already reached state pension age by the date of reform would not be affected, so no existing recipient of state pension would see their income reduced. For future pensioners, we would also continue to honour the contributions that people have built up to the date of reform. The option of a single-tier state pension would be a marked improvement on the current system, which is dogged by complexity and confusion. During the transition, many would receive their single-tier pension from a combination of their state and contracted-out scheme, as happens now, which means that they would receive less than the currently estimated £140 directly from their state pension.

Let me give hon. Members an idea of just how confusing the present UK pension system is for the average person. The Pensions Commission has described it as one of the most complex in the world and a departmental survey on attitudes to pensions found that barely one in four people agreed that

“they knew enough about pensions to decide with confidence about how to save for retirement.”

Worse still, few people have a clear idea of what their state pension will be worth when they retire. Critically, the current system actually discourages some people from putting anything aside; the mass reliance on means-tested benefits leaves people unsure whether they will benefit from the savings they make. Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions with employer contributions are due to start from next year, so we need to give people more clarity and certainty about what they will get from the state, thereby giving them a firm foundation for decisions about saving to fund their retirement.

For women, the low-paid and the self-employed, the state pension system can produce unfair outcomes. As a result, people in those broad groups are far more likely to have poorer state pensions, which we will address. Under a single-tier state pension, for example, the self-employed would be able to build up as good a state pension as anyone else. They stand to gain around £1.40 a week of state pension for every year of national insurance contributions that they make, up to a maximum of 30 years. That could provide them with a state pension of around £140 a week, instead of the current rate of £97. Currently, less than 50% of women in their late 40s or early 50s are expected to get £140 a week from state pension income in retirement. Our proposals would address that. We are clear that reform on this scale could take many years to deliver, but the prize—providing clarity to savers and all those planning for their retirement —is a real one.

There are two other, related issues. The Government recognise that means-tested benefits play an important role in targeting support where it is needed most and provide an essential safety net for the most vulnerable. However, means-tested benefits add to complexity and can be a real disincentive to saving for many people. Therefore, in addition to consulting on the two state pension options that I have briefly mentioned, the Green Paper seeks views on whether the current system of means-tested support would best meet the needs of future pensioners. On the state pension age, as life expectancy projections continue to be revised upwards, we also have a responsibility to ensure that the pensions system is sustainable and that the costs of increasing longevity are shared fairly between the generations. Therefore, as well as reforms to the state pension, we are consulting on the most appropriate mechanism for determining future changes to the state pension age.

As the coalition addresses those issues, I shall be seeking as many views and contributions to the debate as possible. We shall be asking all interested parties—hon. Members, employers, pension providers, members of the public and specialists—to work with us to ensure that we deliver the state pension system that the people of this country deserve. If we want future generations to take responsibility for their retirement, we need to deliver a simpler and fairer state pension system that acts as a foundation for people to build up to a decent income in retirement. Fairer, simpler systems that reward people who do the right thing and take personal responsibility for themselves and their families—these are precisely the same themes that run through the welfare reforms being implemented by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, from the universal credit to the Work programme.

With the Welfare Reform Bill we have set out how the coalition will transform working-age benefits to make work pay and tackle the root causes of poverty and welfare dependency, but we also need people to save for their retirement. We need automatic enrolment and employer contributions to work. With today’s Green Paper we are setting out how we plan to transform the pensions system and create a simple, decent state pension that is easy to understand and efficient to administer. We need to ensure that saving for the future pays. I am proud to be part of this bold, reforming agenda. Today’s Green Paper is a step on the road to a radical reform of the state pension system, and I commend this paper to the House.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement—half an hour before he got to his feet. Given that the pensions Minister and the Secretary of State chose to announce the most positive elements of the Green Paper to the media over the weekend, I cannot help feeling that I am the only person who still has not seen it. Today we have heard proposals that include a universal flat-rate pension and further increases in the state pension age. Although in principle the move to a more simplified system is welcome, it raises a number of important questions.

The Labour Government recognised the importance of pension reform. Labour made great inroads, particularly in lifting more than 1 million pensioners out of poverty and in recognising the vital role that people—mainly women—play as carers. The Labour Government reduced the number of years needed to qualify for a basic state pension to 30, helping women, while more generous credits for carers have ensured that more people are now entitled to a higher level of the state second pension. Labour also introduced automatic enrolment, helping the up to 8 million people who previously did not put money aside for their pensions to save. Although we welcome the fact that the Government are continuing with automatic enrolment, we disagree with the watering down of some of those proposals.

Previous changes to the state pension mean that, based on new accrual rates and assuming 30 years of national insurance contributions or caring credits, a low-paid woman or someone in a caring role would be entitled to a basic state pension of £102.15 a week, plus £43.50 in the state second pension, totalling £145.65 a week, or more if she had 40 years of contributions. The figure of £140 a week that the Minister set out must be seen in that context. Pensioners and families must assess the proposals carefully to ensure that they are not worse off than they would have been under Labour’s plans. Can the Minister give some reassurances about the other benefits that pensioners receive, including free TV licences, prescriptions, eye tests, support with council tax, bus passes, the winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments? In the Budget we saw a cut in the winter fuel allowance, despite rising energy prices and two successive cold winters. Will the Minister explain how he will account for those benefits in the new system, or say whether we will see further cuts, by stealth or otherwise?

I have a few brief questions about affordability and fairness. The Chancellor announced in his Budget that the reforms would cost no more than the current system, yet the Pensions Policy Institute estimates that a flat-rate pension at a guaranteed credit level will cost almost 1% of GDP after 13 years. That must imply that although some will be better off under the Government’s plans, some will also be worse off. The Minister has spoken eloquently about the potential winners, but the distributional impacts are critical, so will he confirm who will be worse off under the new proposed system?

On fairness, the Minister has said that accrued rights will be protected. Forgive me for being a bit sceptical, but he said the same about the switch in uprating from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index. However, in this instance I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Can he guarantee that someone in their 50s who has worked all their life on average earnings and has never contracted out of the state second pension will still be entitled to a more generous state pension than someone who has not paid in? If not, does he think it fair that those contracting out and getting defined benefit pensions in retirement could receive the same state pension as their counterparts who have paid full national insurance contributions throughout their careers? If those who have paid in get more than £140, will the change really be cost-neutral? If some will get less than £140 based on lower contributions, will the Minister ensure that no one falls below the guaranteed credit level? In what way can that be called a flat-rate pension?

The Government’s proposals could have serious implications for the future of defined benefit schemes, because they will end the rebate for those on DB schemes. Given the importance of occupational savings for retirement income, as the Minister said, what are his estimates of the generosity of DB schemes—and, indeed, their overall survival—given the changes? The changes in contracting-out touch on a wider point. The post-world war welfare state is based on the contributory principle. We welcome the news that any new flat-rate system will keep contributions at their core, and that anyone with 30 years’ national insurance contributions will be entitled to the newly formulated pension. However, given the Chancellor’s announcement that the Government intend to merge tax and national insurance, will the Minister explain how the contributory principle will work in practice if that merger takes place? Will he also give a reassurance that taxes will not go up for pensioners, who of course do not pay national insurance?

The other, less briefed elements of today’s Green Paper include the automatic mechanism for increasing the state pension age to make future increases fair and smooth, with time for people to plan. The move comes too late for the 500,000 women who will have to wait a year longer before they receive their state pension and the 33,000 women who will have to wait exactly two years before receiving their state pension. Does the Minister now recognise that the accelerated timetable for the state pension age for women in their 50s does not spread the cost fairly or, with just five years’ notice, leave enough time to prepare?

To conclude, the Green Paper does nothing for today’s pensioners, because a flat-rate pension will be for only new pensioners. Today’s pensioners are suffering at the hands of this Government, with an increase in VAT to 20%, which sees pensioners worse off by £200 a year, low savings rates and a £100 cut in the winter fuel allowance. Although a flat-rate pension of £140 sounds good in theory, the Chancellor says that there is no new money, so who will lose out? It is quite likely to be families on average earnings, or just a bit more, who have worked hard and brought up a family, paying their full national insurance contributions. Some people will be worse off under the reforms, yet the Government want to talk about only the winners. In the final chapter of the review, the Government suggested that a crude formula could be used for uprating the state pension age. They have already hit women in their late 50s with a two-year increase in their state pension age; now they want to use a formula that pays no attention to health in later life, so we will all be waiting longer and longer to get our pensions.

We welcome the intent behind today’s Green Paper. We want a more progressive and less complicated system, but I am yet to be convinced that today’s Green Paper will achieve that.

[Steve Webb]

I did write the hon. Lady’s words down—in principle, she welcomed the Green Paper, so I am grateful for her warm comments about our proposals. She asked a number of specific questions, and I shall try to respond to them.

The hon. Lady seemed to imply that women would get £145 anyway, so wondered why we needed to do anything. That, however, is decades away. Equality between men and women in the state pension system is decades away, and we think that is too slow. Many women who did their child rearing in the ’80s and ’90s got no state second pension protection because it did not exist at that time. They will be retiring over the coming years and we are now bringing forward that protection for them. We do not want to wait 20 years for equality.

The hon. Lady asked an important question about passported benefits and we will need to consider the implications of these changes for those benefits. She had the cheek to suggest that the winter fuel payment had been cut in comparison with what she would have provided if she were in office. She will be well aware that we are sticking precisely to the budgets that her right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, wrote. He will know perfectly well how much he put aside for the winter fuel payments, and we are doing exactly what he planned.

The hon. Lady asked about the Pensions Policy Institute and its estimate that a £140 flat-rate pension would cost 1% of gross domestic product. What she may have misunderstood from the report is that the question it asked was what it would cost if that amount were paid to everybody. That is where its figure came from. We are saying that we will create this for new pensioners, because new pensioners face a new world in which they will work longer, retire later and have fewer final salary pension schemes, so we need a system that is fit for them.

The hon. Lady sought reassurance on two points and the answer is yes to both of them. We will honour past service and we will make an adjustment, as I said in my statement, for contracted-out periods.

The hon. Lady asked about the future of final salary pension schemes after 13 years of decline under Labour. She will be pleased to know that the National Association of Pension Funds—the trade body for company pensions —welcomes these reforms and supports them, but we are in dialogue with those operating large final salary pension schemes to discuss how these changes will impact on them and how we can work with them to move towards the sort of simpler scheme that they and we want to see.

The hon. Lady asked about merging what the Chancellor referred to as the operation of the tax and national insurance system, which is certainly at an exploratory stage, but he has made it clear that pensions will be protected under these changes and that the contributory principle will remain.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the mechanism for raising the state pension age. She referred to a crude formula, but there are options in the Green Paper. One is to have an automatic mechanism for raising the pension age as longevity increases; the other is to adopt a more nuanced approach to take account of a range of factors. We would welcome feedback on that.

Overall, I think the hon. Lady welcomed our proposals, particularly the fact that they will benefit women and self-employed people and will lead to a fairer system. She said that she wanted to see a fairer system; in office, the Labour Government never delivered one, but through this Green Paper, we will.

[Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

In welcoming the statement and the Green Paper, I congratulate the Minister on achieving a long-held ambition in the pensions world of creating much more certainty and transparency about the state pension system so as to encourage saving in the longer term, as well as on helping the more vulnerable groups he mentioned, such as women, who will get help that much earlier. Will he say more about the time scale? He talked about the long distance we still have to go before achieving justice for women, so what improvement will these changes bring and what is the Minister’s time scale?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who brings his great knowledge of these issues to the House and to the Select Committee of which he is a member. As he says, we need a simpler system. He will appreciate that these things take time; we will need to consult and then respond. In due course, we hope to legislate to re-programme the computers and so forth. As the Chancellor said, we are talking about some years to implement the reforms, but we are clearly keen to move forward as fast as we possibly can.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I was listening hard to the Minister’s reply to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), and I noticed that he provided no examples, in response to her request, of those who would be worse off as a result of these changes. There must be some losers. Presumably, they will include the group who enjoy pension credit now, but have not paid enough contributions to justify the new flat-rate pension. What will happen to that group? As for women, surely if they have not made the contributions, they will not be any better off than they are now.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the Select Committee Chair for her questions. To be clear on the role of pension credit, we envisage that there will have to be a safety net under any system, and the Green Paper provides for consultation about what exactly that might look like. There will still be a guaranteed credit type system—a floor below which people cannot fall. In a single-tier pension world, the savings credit would no longer be necessary for new pensioners. In other words, the savings credit was invented by the previous Government to deal with the fact that 100% marginal tax rates were paid on any saving. Because we are not doing that any more, we will not need the savings credit for new pensioners, which helps to pay for the reform. It is less means-testing, more universal pension.

The hon. Lady rightly mentions the position of women and my point is that women under the current system, who often did their child rearing before the state second pension was introduced, have no protection at all, whereas they have basic pension protection. Under a single-tier world, they get protection at the full rate, so they will benefit from the reforms we are introducing.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

My hon. Friend the Pensions Minister has not only this very month introduced the link between pensions and earnings, for which pensioners have been calling for years, but now makes a clear bid to be the most popular Pensions Minister for decades, in announcing the option of the citizens pension for which he and I have campaigned for ever. It is clearly fairer, simpler and particularly helpful to women and the self-employed. I urge my hon. Friend to be as bold and reforming as he suggests option 2 would allow. I urge him to go fully through the consultation process, but when midsummer’s day arrives—the last day of the consultation—I urge him to go for the single tier state pension so that this Government’s legacy for pensioners will be as radical in this century as the legacy of Lloyd George and Beveridge was for pensioners in the last.

[Steve Webb]

My right hon. Friend puts me on the spot, but I am glad to respond positively. I have noted his comments down as being the first response to my consultation, making it 1-0 for the single-tier option—I will keep score as we go. He is right that the restoration of the earnings link after 30 years of breaking it is an historic event, although it has been rather overshadowed by other events in the world. We think someone retiring this year will, over the years, get an extra £15,000 in basic state pension through the restoration of the link. That is a real firm foundation for today’s pensioners as well as reform for tomorrow’s. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend in respect of the liberal heritage and to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Chancellor for their encouragement for the proposal to move forward.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

It is humbling to follow a question from a “for ever” Member of Parliament.

May I ask about the mechanism for determining future changes to state pension age? Could this mechanism please allow for occupational and social class differences in terms of life expectancy? If we look at men who work in what are called routine occupations, such as van drivers, cleaners and labourers, we see that almost a fifth of them—19%, I believe—die before they receive the state pension at 65. If we keep raising the state pension age without allowing for those people who have been working since they were 15 or 16, we will certainly bring insensitivity into the system.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who brings great knowledge of these issues to the House. He raises a vital point. Although it is true that life expectancy across the social classes has been improving, which is entirely to be welcomed, there are still very significant differences. One suggested option in the Green Paper is that the review mechanism should take account of a wide range of factors of the very sort that he mentioned. It is possible to have a too formulaic or automatic approach, but the right hon. Gentleman will have noted that the Chancellor referred in the Budget to a “more automatic” approach, taking systematic account of increases in life expectancy, but potentially of other factors such as those that he mentioned.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

In welcoming the Green Paper and particularly the emphasis it places on removing means-testing as a deterrent to saving, will the Minister confirm how he intends to treat caring responsibilities and their role in contributing towards the build-up of a pension?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I know of the expertise she brings to the Select Committee on these issues. We propose that bringing up the next generation or caring for an elderly relative will be valued by society just as much as a high-paid job. A year will be a year will be a year. If someone is contributing to society in that way or in paid work or in other ways, it will bring them one thirtieth of a single state pension. We think that is a big step in the right direction, which will be widely welcomed around the House.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

We welcome the Green Paper and the consultation that will ensue. We agree that moving away from means-testing and complexity towards a universal flat-rate pension is greatly to be welcomed. The Minister says that this will not entail spending any more money. Given that so many pensioners today do not claim all the means-tested benefits to which they are entitled—this is a big factor in these reforms and should again be welcomed—does it not mean that more money will need to be spent to make up for the fact that people do not claim? If so, will the Minister guarantee that that money will be provided?

[Steve Webb]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an important point, namely that under the current system many people are entitled to top-ups and do not claim them, whereas pretty much everyone claims the state pension. The new system will guarantee that a great many people will live clear of the poverty line for the first time. As the right hon. Gentleman says, a price tag is attached, and we have factored that into our costings. Although the prospective state pensions of the very highest earners will be lower than they would otherwise have been, many lower earners and people who would not otherwise have taken up their entitlement to pension credit will be in a better position, and we consider that to be a fairer system overall.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

What the Minister has announced will be enormously welcome in my constituency. I know from correspondence with my constituents that they will be particularly interested in the raising of the state pension age, because they want a degree of certainty about when they can expect to retire. I urge the Minister to provide that certainty as rapidly as possible.

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend says, people want certainty about the future. We have said that we must move rapidly in respect of those reaching the age of 66. However, the new mechanism is designed not just to make changes more automatic, but to provide notice periods. Young people will not have that certainty, because life expectancy is always changing, but as people approach the state pension age, we want to be able to give them more certainty. That is part of our plans.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is difficult to think of any statement that could be more important than one that commits a Government to paying a state pension above means-tested assistance level. The importance of this statement—which I welcome—stems from the fact that the income of many pensioners is below that level. Even if we take into account those who do not claim means-tested help, a large price tag will be attached to this reform. Will the Minister consider the contribution made by taxpayers through pension tax relief, which favours the wealthy over those who earn least, as one way of financing it?

[Steve Webb]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the proposed system. It will be financed on a cost-neutral basis within the system: we will spend less money on means-testing and, for instance, savings credit, we will withdraw some of the very small payments that we currently make to people who do not even live in this country, and we will remove some of the highest accruals for the highest earners. We therefore do not need to involve tax relief. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Government have refined the previous Government’s plans, so tax relief will be less concentrated on the highest earners, but we have no further plans to change tax relief.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

It is always an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who invariably speaks a great deal of common sense on these issues.

I thank the Minister for publishing the Green Paper, which, along with the introduction of universal credit, constitutes a seminal reform. We in the Government parties are sending the message that it always pays to work and it always pays to save. We are taking radical steps in regard to the choices that we give pensioners on annuities; may I ask the Minister to continue that work? After all, we are talking about the individual savings of pensioners who have worked all their lives.

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a clear link between the major reforms that the Department is introducing for people of working age and those that it is introducing for those who will reach pension age in the future. “It pays to work” and “it pays to save” must be the right combination.

My hon. Friend asked about pensioners’ savings. In a world in which we will enrol people in workplace savings, we need them to be confident that they will be better off when they save, and that is one of the specific purposes of the reforms. If my hon. Friend wishes to raise any further points, I will certainly respond to them.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Given that the introduction of a single-tier pension will be available only to new pensioners, will the safety nets to which the Minister referred in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) include all the existing passported benefits, and will claimants still have to go through a means-tested system in order to obtain them?

[Steve Webb]

We are not changing the system for current pensioners at all. It will continue as previously budgeted. As for new pensioners, we need to think what paying a pension above the guarantee credit implies for passported benefits, and what sort of system we need. I should be interested to hear people’s ideas, because the issue is important. Hitherto, we have simply assumed that pension credit means poverty and that we must therefore make all the extra payments. We may need a more sophisticated system now, but the role of passported benefits is important, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for providing us with the rationale behind it. As he will know, people will want to establish whether the single tier really does offer the platform for fairness and adequacy that he has described. They will want clarity and confidence.

The Minister mentioned the need for people to save money for their pensions. What consideration have he and Treasury Ministers given to their ability to afford that, given the hits that they are taking as a result of the withdrawal of some child benefit, the entry of more people into the 40% tax bracket, and the huge challenge posed by tuition fees?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point about people’s ability to afford to save. One of the key aspects of automatic enrolment is the fact that an employee’s contribution will trigger an employer contribution of nearly as much, plus tax relief. If an employee contributes 4% of his salary, the employer’s contribution will raise that to 8%, so this is a very affordable form of saving. Of course we want to ensure that people who make such sacrifices in order to save will be better off as a result, and our reforms will make that outcome far more likely than it is at present.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Plaid Cymru has long campaigned for a living pension, and we welcome the Government’s single tier proposals. The current system does not ensure an adequate income for all pensioners. As Jackie Ashley wrote in today’s Guardian,

“On this issue of complexity Labour in power got it wrong, and should admit it.”

However, does the Minister accept that on the accelerated equalisation of state pension age, the Government are in some danger of getting it badly wrong for about half a million women in their late 50s? What assurances can he give about that?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for expressing support for the proposal of the single tier on behalf of the Welsh nationalists. As for the issue of state pension ages, the Green Paper involves moves beyond the pension age of 66. The issue raised by the hon. Gentleman will be dealt with in the Pensions Bill, which will be presented to this House shortly, but, beyond that, we are trying to establish a more automatic mechanism that takes account of changes in life expectancy and, perhaps, of other factors as well, such as notice periods—which is, I think, the issue that he has raised—in a more systematic way than we or other Governments have done so far.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There is some good stuff in what the Minister has said, but every week my office—and, probably, the office of every other Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom—receives queries about small works pensions. Although they amount to a pittance, they remove people’s eligibility for benefits. Will the Minister assure us that such people will not be disadvantaged?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A small occupational pension can make the difference between living in poverty and living with a bit of dignity. Hitherto, given the low state pension of £97 a week, the first £35 or so of company pension has tended to offset £35 of guarantee credit, so people have been no better off. Then the savings credit has come along and given them a bit back, and it is all fiendishly complicated. The beauty of the single tier is that people are above the guarantee credit level from pound one, so the works pension is theirs to keep on top. There is still a housing benefit system and so on, but in principle the works pension will be worth more than it is under the current system.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I give the Minister a final opportunity to tell us who the losers will be from his plans for flat-rate pensions?

[Steve Webb]

I will have another go. We have made it clear that we are not spending more money overall, that there are significant gainers among women, the low paid and the self-employed, and that therefore, inevitably, some people who would have received higher state pensions under the current system will receive flat-rate pensions. Because the current system is earnings-related, the highest earners will tend to receive lower state pensions under this system. The Labour party used to support that sort of thing.

Points of Order

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

18:48

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice on how the House may properly engage with the public in the referendum on the alternative vote. Many of my constituents, and many Members of Parliament, have drawn my attention to the fact that a recent publication by the Yes campaign appears to be an official document drawn up by the local electoral service. It also appears that those who apply for a postal vote may well be entitled to vote in all the elections. How can we make people understand that this is nothing to do with the electoral service, and that they must apply for a different postal vote if they want to vote in the local elections?

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I was going to rule on the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), but if the point of order from the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) will help, I will take it.

[Mr Jenkin]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The leaflet in question uses local authority free post whether or not a person already has a postal vote, thereby adding to the costs authorities face for this referendum. How can the House engage in this matter and hold this disbursement of public money, which the Yes campaign is wasting, properly to account?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That point has already been raised in the House. It is not a procedural point on which I can rule, but I suggest that it might be taken up with the Electoral Commission.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just over six weeks from now, East Coast trains will start operating on a new timetable. East Coast is wholly owned by the Government and many people who wish to travel will want to buy their tickets in advance in order to get the best possible fares. However, even though there are only six weeks to go until the timetable takes effect, East Coast has still not published it, so last week I tabled a named day question to the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), asking when the timetable will be published. On Thursday, the Minister responded, saying that she will answer the question shortly. That is not an answer; that is a happy coincidence of ink patterns on a piece of paper. What is the point of named day questions if Ministers are allowed blatantly to ignore and disrespect Members and the procedures of this House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

There are quite a few points in that point of order. The first of them is, to some degree at least, a matter for the Scottish Government. I cannot rule on the second point. Instead, it will need to be taken up with the Table Office, and I am sure the Member will do so on his way out, in order to ask about the progress of the answer to that question.

Opposition Day

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[14th Allotted Day]

Government Reductions in Policing

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I must inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

18:51

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the Association of Chief Police Officers’ statement that there will be 12,000 fewer police officers because of the Government’s cuts to central government funding for the police; considers that chief constables across England and Wales are being put in an impossible position by the Government’s 20 per cent. cut to central government funding; notes that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) said the police budget could be reduced ‘at best’ by 12 per cent. and that ‘a cut beyond 12 per cent. would almost certainly reduce police availability’; further notes that HMIC has said that 95 per cent. of police officers do not work in back office roles; regrets that because of the Government’s 20 per cent. cut frontline police officers are being lost in every region of England and in Wales; is deeply concerned by recent statements from police forces and authorities that show the level of cuts being forced upon them by the Government, amounting to 1,158 police officers in the South West, 1,428 police officers in the South East, 1,215 police officers in the East of England, 579 police officers in Wales, 783 police officers in the East Midlands, 1,573 police officers in the West Midlands, 573 in the North East, 3,175 in the North West, 1,242 in Yorkshire and the Humber and 1,200 in London; calls on the Government to think again; and rejects the cuts to frontline police officers the Government is forcing upon police forces.

We come to this debate rather later than any of us had expected, and I congratulate those Members who have managed to sit through all four statements and an urgent question in order to be present for it.

This debate offers a chance for the House to reflect on the full scale of the cuts in policing the Home Secretary agreed and announced last October, a chance for Members on both sides of the House to consider what this means for their constituents, and a chance to urge the Home Secretary to pause and think again, because if Government Ministers can do that for trees and for hospitals, then this is her moment. It is time the Government stopped to think about the damage they are doing to the nation’s policing before it is too late.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Does this debate also present the previous Administration with the chance to say sorry for the huge economic mess we were left in, which is why tough decisions are now having to be taken in policing and other areas?

[Yvette Cooper]

In fact, at the time of the election unemployment was falling, the economy was growing and borrowing was lower than expected, whereas nearly 12 months on we have seen borrowing come in higher than expected, unemployment continue to rise and growth stall. The hon. Gentleman should, perhaps, consider those points when he thinks about the impact these foolish decisions are having on public services.

I was contacted last week by a local beat officer from the west midlands, and I want to read out what he said about the job he did:

“When I arrived it was a run-down, deprived area frequented by pimps, prostitutes, druggies and drug dealers. By working with the community we were able to change it into an area where the residents were happy to walk the streets at all times of the day and night. Crime was reduced and the feel-good factor returned. The local community saw me every day. If I wasn’t there, they would phone me. I was able to rebuild trust and confidence in the police. I was the single point of reference for them.

In 2010 I was awarded the ‘coppers’ copper award’ by the Police Federation…this spoke of my professionalism and dedication. Now I am being forced out and will not be replaced. Residents are up in arms and have even started a petition to keep me. These people know that in a very short space of time”

their area

“will return to what it used to be and they are frightened.

I believe I am good value for money...My presence prevents crime and antisocial behaviour. It makes people feel good. I’m totally devastated to be leaving as I feel that I have a number of good years in front of me doing the job I’m good at. I took an oath in 1979 and have stuck to it. Ultimately the people who will suffer are the public.”

Those are the words of one beat officer in the west midlands, who is at the sharp end. That is what it is really like on the front line of the Government’s 20% cuts in policing, and there is much more such evidence from across the country.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

One of the sharp-end decisions this Government have had to take is to deal with the economic legacy to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) referred. Is the biggest Budget deficit in the developed world part of that golden economic legacy that the right hon. Lady believes her party left to our country and Government?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady chose not to comment on the more than 100 police officers being lost from the Wiltshire force, as well as the more than 100 support jobs being lost from that force. I look forward to seeing her put that in her leaflet for the next election. As I have already pointed out, at the time of the election borrowing was, in fact, lower than expected and unemployment was falling. By cutting too far, too fast, the hon. Lady’s party is going to make it harder to cut the deficit, with more people on the dole and more spent on unemployment benefit.

From Nottinghamshire, another officer writes:

“Since 2006 when I took this office road casualties have fallen by 33%...that’s saved over £90 million in costs...I haven’t achieved this by myself for sure but we’ve contributed massively to that effort and now they want to get rid of me.”

Hampshire police have been forced to cut their domestic violence units. In Lancashire, they are reducing air-support cover. In Dorset, they are cutting traffic policing by 33%. In north Wales, they have cut back on the handlers and sniffer dogs for explosives. In the west midlands, neighbourhood policing teams are being lost.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wants to comment on the policing cuts in his area.

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. Under the 12% cuts she proposes, what does she consider to be the right ratio between the numbers of senior management staff and bobbies on the beat, whose comments she is quoting in her speech? Cambridgeshire police has a sergeant for every four constables, an inspector for every three sergeants, and a chief inspector or officer of more senior grade for every one-and-a-half inspectors. Does she consider that to be the right ratio between the number of senior police figures and those on the beat?

[Yvette Cooper]

Of course we want to see more police officers out on the beat, and, in fact, that was the consequence of the policies of the Labour Government over many years. We also believe it is right for forces to do everything they can to improve their efficiency and to make sure they are supporting officers. However, in force after force and area after area we are seeing police officers, not just police staff, being lost: 12,500 officers to go. These are not our figures; they are figures from the Association of Chief Police Officers and individual police forces and police authorities across the country. There will be 12,500 fewer officers and 15,000 fewer support staff. That is the equivalent of the combined police strength of Yorkshire and Humberside, or the equivalent of the forces of Durham, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey and Dorset combined.

[Claire Perry]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Lady if she thinks it is really possible to make cuts of that scale to police forces and still have no impact on the front-line services that communities across the country receive.

[Claire Perry]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Lady for her generosity in giving way for a second time. I am very interested in the statistics she is quoting, and I ask her for the source of the data she just gave suggesting that 100 officers were going in Wiltshire, because I have very frequent conversations with the chief constable of Wiltshire, and that is not a number that either he or I would recognise. Please can she tell us the source of the data?

[Yvette Cooper]

All the figures we have seen and released have come either from chief constables, police forces or police authorities. That is also where the figures of 12,500 fewer officers and 15,000 fewer support staff have come from. I know that Ministers have repeatedly refused to acknowledge those figures, but I hope they will take the opportunity of today’s debate to admit that police officer posts are being cut across the country. That is what happens when you cut too far, too fast. Of course the police can make efficiency savings; they should strive to do more and do better, and should make savings in procurement, on overtime and by changing the way they do things. That does mean cuts to their budgets, but by forcing cuts of 20%, with the steepest cuts occurring in the first two years so that there is no time to adjust and plan, the Government have lost any sense of balance and any grip on the reality of what such cuts will mean for communities across the country.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The right hon. Lady is making a lot out of the issue of police numbers. What would she say to Chief Constable Peter Fahy from Greater Manchester, who in January said to the Home Affairs Committee:

“The other issue has been political—if I can say it—almost an obsession with the number of police officers, which meant that we've kept that number artificially high. We have had lots of police officers doing administrative posts just to hit that number.”?

[Yvette Cooper]

As the Home Secretary will know, chief constables have been put in an impossible position. They are rightly trying to do everything they can to deliver strong policing within the budgets they have been given and to reassure the communities for which they have to provide services, but the rug is being pulled from underneath them. If the Home Secretary now believes that police numbers are artificially too high and higher than they ought to be, she is the first Conservative Home Secretary in history to say that the problem with the police force is that police numbers are too high.

The right hon. Lady referred to chief constables. Chief Constable Steve Finnigan of the Lancashire constabulary, who is the ACPO lead on police performance management, was asked whether he would have to reduce front-line policing in order to meet the Government’s budget cuts. He replied: “I absolutely am.” He has also said:

“Let me be really clear. With the scale of the cuts that we are experiencing…we can do an awful lot of work around the back office…but we cannot leave the front line untouched.”

That is because of the scale of the cuts and it is what chief constables are saying across the country.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend not amazed that at a time when we are cutting front-line policing, the Government intend to spend more than £40 million electing police commissioners that nobody wants? The Government have failed to put forward an argument as to why they are required.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because that money could be spent on keeping some of the 2,000 police officers who have been told that they will be forced to take early retirement as a result of the scale of the cuts. Electing 43 police and crime commissioners seems to be the only crime policy that the Government have. They are electing 43 new politicians in place of the thousands of police officers across the country who are to go.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Meredydd Hughes, the chief constable of South Yorkshire, has said that Government expectations of improving performance were

“challenging if not unrealistic in the longer term.”

Does that not demonstrate beyond doubt that the service will be damaged between now and 2015?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to mention the concerns of the chief constable of South Yorkshire. He is reported as having recently raised concerns about what would happen to crime in many areas as a result of the scale of the cuts in the Government’s plans. The cuts go way beyond the 12% that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said could be made through genuine efficiency savings over several years, and they go way beyond the 12% cuts that the previous Labour Home Secretary identified and promised to implement over a Parliament—they are more than 15% in real terms in the first two years alone. The Government are cutting more in the first two years than Labour proposed to cut over a Parliament.

[Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady not feel any need to apologise for the state in which Labour left this country? We had the worst deficit in the G20—worse than Ireland and Greece. We are now trying to do something about it, but she criticises every saving. What is the matter with Labour? Do Labour Members not understand that everybody and every economic organisation across the world is saying that we need a deficit reduction package and that what she is saying is nonsense?

[Yvette Cooper]

Government Members have obviously been primed by the Whips today to join the debate but not make any points about policing. They are obviously afraid to discuss the consequences of the cuts for policing and crime in communities across the country, and they are starting to sound like a stuck record. They are cutting too far, too fast, and it is having serious consequences for our economy, the level of unemployment, and police forces. They are going too far, too fast, and communities will pay the price.

The charge against the Home Secretary, as she sits in the dock aided and abetted by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, is serious. She is the first Conservative Home Secretary in history to champion cuts to the police as a way to cut crime. What is her defence? First, she tried to claim that she was not at the scene of the crime, and that it was the Chancellor who cut her budget and not her. She then tried to claim that no crime had been committed, saying

“lower budgets do not automatically have to mean lower police numbers.”

Faced with the incriminating evidence of 12,500 fewer police, she changed her story:

“We have been absolutely clear about the need for forces to ensure that the cuts are made to the back office, procurement, IT provision and so forth.”—[Official Report, 6 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 19.]

Her accomplice, meanwhile, said that savings could all come from the back office and the newly defined “middle office”.

The expert witnesses from HMIC have blown that defence away. Instead of proving that cuts could all be made from the back office, they showed that 95% of police officers do not work in the back office. Instead of identifying a wasteful middle office, they said that that office carried out 60% of intelligence support, included the CID specialist crime units, and worked on tackling hate crime, vice, drugs and burglary. Even the Conservative councillor who chairs the Norfolk police authority has switched sides to give evidence for the prosecution. He stated:

“I have to fundamentally disagree with the Minister’s assertion that we can find further efficiencies in the so-called ‘back office’…you can’t take £24.5 million out of our annual spend and still deliver the policing service to the same current standards.”

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

In my local area, the police tell me that their back office is already cut to the bone. We are reaching a point—[Interruption.] That is what I have been told. Government Members may laugh, but that is what police officers have told me. We now have the ridiculous situation of front-line police officers taking time to do things such as empty the bins in a police station in my constituency. That was done by the back office, but it is no longer a back-office function as the back office is not there. The police are spending time emptying bins rather than being on the street fighting crime. How on earth is that justifiable?

[Yvette Cooper]

That is a hugely important point, because the scale of the cuts to the back office is having an impact on the front line. The sheer scale and pace of the cuts that hon. Members are making and supporting are having an impact. Making the police implement those cuts so fast makes it hard for them to plan, make reforms and change services. Instead, they are having to make deep cuts that hit services as well.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that last year, when I was the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism, we proposed £1.5 billion-worth of cuts and the then Conservative Opposition did not vote against those cuts or propose the extra £1 billion that they are now taking out, and the Liberal Democrats asked for 3,000 more police officers on the beat? Will my right hon. Friend update us on where we are on that promise?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right. We had identified a series of areas where savings could be made while still protecting front-line services. It is true, as the lonely Liberal Democrat on the Benches today will concede, that the Liberal Democrats had called for 3,000 more police officers, rather than voting to cut 12,500 police officers in constituencies across the country.

The Home Secretary has tried a final line of defence. She hopes that the Merseyside force will come to her rescue as a character witness. She claims that if every force improved its visibility as well as Merseyside has done, more officers would be available. We agree that forces should increase their visibility, as many started to do when we introduced neighbourhood policing, and that they should learn from the best. But Merseyside’s testimony does not help the Home Secretary’s case, because it is losing more than 800 police officers, along with an estimated 1,000 staff. Its evidence shows that, despite its good work, it is already being forced to make cuts in front-line services, including to officers in visible jobs, who are already losing their jobs, and it is also cutting the antisocial behaviour task force.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for being a little late arriving for the debate. Is she aware that the second phase of redundancies in the West Midlands police force will cost an extra £10 million a year over the next two to three years?

[Yvette Cooper]

I was not aware of the further plans in the West Midlands police force. It is certainly true that many of the cuts in police numbers cover only the first year or two, and many forces are concerned about the consequences in future years as well.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend will know that Merseyside police force made the biggest efficiency savings in the country before it received its grant settlement. That means that 800 police officers and 1,200 police support staff will now not be employed, and we are still waiting to find out how many policy community support officers will lose their jobs. Is she as worried as I am that police officers in domestic violence units, undercover police units, child protection units and race hate crime units are no longer to be considered front-line police?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. She will know from her constituency the impact that the cuts are having on communities across Merseyside. While Merseyside has certainly done excellent work in getting as many police on the beat as possible and in ensuring that its officers are as available as possible, as well as making very substantial efficiency savings, it is now being penalised. Its services are being hit, and it is the local communities in Merseyside that are paying the price. The truth is that the Home Secretary is making visibility more difficult to achieve in Merseyside, not easier.

It is the same story in Warwickshire, where the force is having to take police officers off the front line to cover critical support jobs that have gone, and South Yorkshire’s chief constable has said:

“A reduction in back officer support will put an increased burden on operational officers, detracting them from frontline duties.”

HMIC said in July last year that

“a cut beyond 12 per cent would almost certainly reduce police availability”.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that HMIC also said last year, in a report commissioned by her Government, that only 11% of police officers were available to the general public at any one time? Does she not accept that there are efficiencies that can properly be made, and that this Government are cutting forms and bureaucracy that have taken up hundreds of thousands of hours of police time? Those are the kind of efficiency savings that can be made.

[Yvette Cooper]

We have always said that efficiency savings can be made. That is why we set out 12% reductions, but HMIC said that

“a cut beyond 12 per cent would almost certainly reduce police availability”.

The hon. Gentleman also cited the HMIC figure on visibility, but he is misusing the figures. In fact, HMIC said in its most recent report that it is right that forces should try to increase visibility, but pointed out that policing is a 24/7 service. The report stated:

“HMIC estimate that between five and six officers are needed in order to provide one on duty 24/7…This suggests that, overall, the police are operating at the upper end of the efficiency range.”

That is not my conclusion, but that of the independent HMIC.

Chief constables are being put in an impossible position. They are doing their best within their budgets to deliver strong policing and to reassure the public, but the rug is being pulled out from underneath them. Whichever way we look at it, the evidence from the police and the expert witnesses is clear. The sheer scale and pace of the cuts mean that front-line services, and not just front-line numbers, are being hit. The Home Secretary and her co-defendants can change their story as much as they like, but every claim collapses under interrogation. The evidence from the police and the expert witnesses is damning, and the mood among the jury, as Lord Ashcroft’s polling proves, is already hostile, even though the cuts have barely started to bite. It is little wonder that the Ministers are backing softer sentencing; they know that they are going to be found guilty as charged.

Whatever Ministers say at the Dispatch Box, in their offices and in the TV studios, they are a long way from the reality in the police stations and out on the beat. They are out of touch. They think that if they talk fast enough and loudly enough in management-speak about efficiency, bureaucracy, visibility, availability, back office, middle office and even Middle Earth, it will somehow make the real cuts go away, but it will not. This is all a far cry from their pre-election promises. The Prime Minister promised that the front line would be protected. The Lib Dems wanted 3,000 more officers, not 12,000 fewer. Even the Policing Minister told his local paper, just a year before the election:

“I will continue to press for more PCSOs and police officers”.

So much for that, then.

As for Ministers’ claims that there would be no link between the cuts in police numbers and crime, influential members of their own coalition see things rather differently. Before the election, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) said that

“putting 2,700 more police on the beat in England and Wales will lead to 27,500 more arrests and an extra 24,500 crimes being solved.”

I am not sure that I would sign up to his level of precision, but he made his point. And one prominent Tory Front Bencher said the following:

“The case can certainly be made that the increase in police officers in the last few years has had a positive effect both on providing reassurance to the public and on reducing some crimes…I am making an argument in favour of an increase in police numbers”.—[Official Report, 3 May 2007; Vol. 459, c. 1671-73.]

Who said that, in this House? The current Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice.

Let us listen to the concerns from the top police. The South Yorkshire chief constable has warned of the impact of higher unemployment, shorter sentences, cuts in probation and cuts in police on increasing crime. The Kent chief constable has said that a 20% cut was

“quite a significant drawback into police numbers, both civilian staff and police numbers, and clearly there’s a potential impact that crime will rise.”

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am a member of the Kent police authority, and the chief constable of Kent has also said that he sees this as an opportunity to deliver a more efficient and effective force. He is increasing the number of neighbourhood officers by more than 75%.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome anything that the Kent chief constable is able to do to support neighbourhood policing, but the hon. Gentleman will know that Kent police are having to lose more than 500 officers and about 1,000 support staff. That means that they will be under pressure in a number of different areas.

What on earth has happened to the Conservative party? The traditional party of policing and crime is throwing it all away. They have left the Liberal Democrats in charge of policing powers and sentencing policy, and they have left the management consultants in charge of the police. They are taking serious risks with crime and communities as a result. Over the 13 years of a Labour Government, crime fell by more than 40%, but most of us think that it is still too high. We want it to come down further. But instead of building on our progress, the Government are putting it at risk.

The Government’s amendment today

“welcomes the Government’s comprehensive proposals to cut crime”,

but what are those proposals? In 13 years of falling crime, Labour increased the number of police officers and got more of them on to the front line, increased the powers of the police through ASBOs and other measures, increased the use of CCTV and DNA, increased crime prevention through youth services and intensive family support, strengthened sentencing and, yes, sent more people to prison. What are this Government doing? They are making cuts in the number of police officers and cuts in the number on the front line. They are cutting the powers of the police and ending ASBOs. They are cutting the use of CCTV and DNA. They are cutting prevention, youth services and specialist family support. They are cutting sentencing, cutting prison places and cutting probation, all at the same time. They are increasing unemployment and child poverty, too. Those do not sound like crime-cutting proposals to me.

The Government are whipping up a perfect storm. None of us knows when it will blow, but they should think again before it is too late. Let me say this to them: they used to be the party of law and order once. Not now.

19:18

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“welcomes the Government’s comprehensive proposals to cut crime and increase the democratic accountability of policing while dealing with the largest peacetime deficit in history; supports the Government’s determination to help the police make savings to protect frontline services; congratulates the police forces that are increasing the number of officers visible and available to the public; notes that the Opposition’s spending plans require reductions in police spending; and regrets its refusal to support sensible savings or to set out an alternative.”

I want to start by saying that in this country we have the finest police in the world. The tragic events in Omagh at the weekend have yet again shown the bravery of police officers serving in all parts of the United Kingdom. They put their lives on the line day in, day out, and I am sure that the whole House will join with me in paying tribute to the courage, dedication and commitment of all our police officers.

I am delighted that we are having this debate today. Of course, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) wanted to hold it last time there was an Opposition day, but she was overruled by the shadow Chancellor—not for the first time, I understand. From looking at the text of the Opposition motion and listening to the right hon. Lady’s speech, one might think that they had not planned to make any cuts to policing budgets, but in fact Labour’s overall spending plans involved £14 billion of cuts to Government spending this year, including cuts to the policing budget. The Opposition just will not tell Parliament, the police or the public how they would make them.

[Mr Hanson]

May I confirm that when I was police Minister last year we planned cuts of £1.5 billion? The difference is that her Government are implementing cuts of £2.5 billion and are front-loading them over the first two years.

[Mrs May]

I gently suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman is going to make an intervention it might help if he gets his facts right. He has the wrong figures. Indeed, I notice a difference between him and the shadow Home Secretary, who said she would make 12% cuts. The right hon. Gentleman talks about cuts of £1.5 billion—more like 15% or 16%. What we have done and what the Opposition have singularly failed to do is set out a detailed and comprehensive plan to free the police, give accountability back to the people, bring in real reforms and make real savings.

We struck a tough but fair settlement for the police in the spending review. Let us look at the figures. In real terms, the average reduction in central Government funding for the police will be about 5.5% a year, but given that police pay constitutes 80% of all police revenue spending and the likelihood that police pay will be frozen for two years along with that of the rest of the public sector, the reductions in police force budgets will be less severe than the real-terms figures imply.

In cash terms, the average reduction for forces’ grants will be 4% in the first year, 5% in the second, 2% in the third and 1% in the fourth. Again, that does not include the local council tax contribution, which on average makes up a quarter of all police funding. In fact, if we assume that the council tax precept rises in line with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s expectations, in cash terms the police face an average cut of 6% over four years. Those figures show that the reductions are challenging but achievable.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Home Secretary urging police authorities to increase council tax for policing?

[Mrs May]

No. I was merely pointing out the fact that the Opposition appear to keep forgetting, which is that police forces have two sources of funding: from central Government and from the precept.

I am absolutely clear that such savings will be achieved only if we reform and modernise our police service, which Labour consistently dodged and ducked during its time in office. We should be absolutely clear that, as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford has admitted today, Labour would not have protected police budgets but would have had to make the same savings as we are.

During the last general election campaign, the Labour Home Secretary was asked whether he could guarantee that police numbers would not fall under a Labour Government and his answer was no. Now, the right hon. Lady claims she would be able to protect police numbers. Despite Labour’s denials, we know the truth—they would have made cuts to the police budget, just as we are.

[Mr Ellwood]

A theme is developing. A call is made for an Opposition day debate on one of the great offices of state and Labour Members come to the House, demanding that difficult decisions are overturned while completely forgetting why we must make those difficult decisions in the first place—[Interruption.] Aside from the cuts, one big issue that affected the police in Dorset was the amount of red tape, which meant that officers were spending only 14% of their time on the beat. Is that right? Can we not change it?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes two extremely important points. First, judging by the replies from the shadow Home Secretary to a number of interventions from my hon. Friends—as well as the noise just made by Labour Members from a sedentary position—all those on the Labour Benches fail to recognise the state in which they left this country’s economy, with the biggest deficit in our peacetime history. By the necessary measures we have taken to cut public spending, we have taken this country’s economy out of the danger zone. My hon. Friend also makes an important point about bureaucracy. Central to our reforms is the need to get central Government out of the way and to start trusting the police again.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary claimed that our plans would have been the same as hers. By what maths does she make 12% over a Parliament the same as 15% in the first two years and 20% over a Parliament, which is what she is doing?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely clear that if Labour had been in government, it would have made cuts. We are making cuts. My point was very simple: she is claiming today that it would have been possible for a Labour Government to have protected police numbers. It would not have been possible, as the last Labour Home Secretary admitted during the election campaign. The right hon. Lady must consider that very carefully.

The one thing that the previous Labour Government failed to do was to address the bureaucracy that ties up our police officers in filling in forms rather than doing the job that they want to do and that the public want them to do out on the streets. Indeed, the former president of the Police Federation and the previous Government’s own police bureaucracy fighter, Jan Berry, said that as a result of their

“diktats the service has been reduced to a bureaucratic, target-chasing, points-obsessed arm of Whitehall”.

We have done away with the diktats, we have scrapped the central targets, and we are ripping up the red tape. Instead, we are putting our trust back in the police and we are making them accountable to the people who really matter—the public.

[Angela Smith]

On Friday, my constituent—a very senior officer in West Yorkshire police—came to see me at my surgery and asked me to put on the record in this debate his deeply rooted view that the Government’s police spending cuts will damage the service. What does the Home Secretary have to say to my constituent?

[Mrs May]

I would suggest that the hon. Lady says two things to her constituent. First, she should make it clear why the Government are having to make cuts in public spending—they are a result of the decisions taken by the previous Labour Government. Secondly, she should also make clear the commitment that Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison has given to what he calls the central drivers of the way in which West Yorkshire police will deal with the budget changes. He states that the first is that

“local policing will not suffer, the sort of policing you see when you open your curtains and the emergency response of the police at the times when people are feeling vulnerable, under threat or have suffered some criminal act or tragedy.”

On bureaucracy, we have scrapped the so-called policing pledge and done away with the last remaining national targets and we have replaced them with a single objective: to cut crime. We are scrapping the stop-and-account form, cutting the reporting requirements for stop and search, and restoring discretion over certain charging decisions to the police, and that is just the start.

[David Wright (Telford) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady is obviously in touch with front-line police officers and they obviously correspond with her. How many front-line police officers have written to her or spoken to her to ask for the introduction of a police commissioner in their area?

[Mrs May]

I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what front-line police officers are saying to me. When I visited the Nottinghamshire police force, I saw a police officer who said to me proudly that he had been out and had made an arrest that morning and that he had had to come back and spend several hours filling in forms when, to use his words, what he wanted to do was to get back out on the streets again.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is continuing the work started by the previous Government on bureaucracy, but this Government have a more ambitious plan to change the landscape of policing. Does she not accept that the abolition of bodies such as the National Policing Improvement Agency will result in a greater cost to local police authorities and the new commissioners? They will now have to pay for things, such as the databases, that they used to get for free.

[Mrs May]

Yes, we are getting rid of the NPIA and we are considering a number of the functions that it carries out as well as where they should best and most appropriately sit and we will make an announcement in due course. Of course, the overall cost to the public purse of such things is not likely to change much because the functions undertaken by the NPIA have been funded by the public purse. But there will be a question over the extent to which some of those functions are appropriately carried on at the centre or whether they are carried out elsewhere, potentially more efficiently and with an improved service as a result of moving them elsewhere.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

No. I shall make some more progress.

I have made the point about the bureaucracy, but what we have done is just the start. Working with the police, we are looking at sweeping away a wide range of the red tape, bureaucracy and paperwork that get in the way of officers doing what they want to do—getting out on the streets and keeping us safe.

[Yvette Cooper]

What does the home Secretary say to the police and Warwickshire and South Yorkshire and the HMIC, who have all said that the scale of cuts means that police officers will be doing more bureaucracy and will be less available because of the scale of the cuts and the support staff who used to do those jobs being lost?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady just does not get the fact that this Government are getting rid of much of the bureaucracy that has been tying up the police in red tape and taking them off the job that they want to do—something that the previous Government singularly failed to do. I would have thought that Labour supported us in our efforts to get officers out from behind their desks and back on the streets, but when one of their several former shadow Home Secretaries was asked by the Home Affairs Committee:

“Do you think it would be better if police spent more time on patrol than they do on paperwork?”,

he replied:

“I think that is too simplistic a question for me to give a sensible answer.”

Perhaps the right hon. Lady would like to tell us whether she agrees with the shadow Chancellor that the police should be behind their desks, filling in forms, or does she agree with me that they should be out on the street, fighting crime?

[Michael Ellis]

Will my right hon. Friend note that Jan Berry, the former president of the Police Federation, wrote only recently that one third of all effort was being duplicated or in some way wasted, and therefore that considerable savings could be made by a reduction in bureaucracy? One third—engineered or duplicated.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has made an extremely important and valid point and an excellent contribution to the debate. It is exactly that point that was stopping the police doing the job they wanted to do.

[Claire Perry]

Does my right hon. Friend share my incredulity on listening to those on the Opposition Benches? One would think that there had been nothing left to do in terms of improving efficiency, but is the Home Secretary aware that each of the 43 police forces buys its own uniform and its own cars separately?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend also makes an important and valid point. I will come on to such issues in a few minutes.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I will make some progress before I give way to any other interventions.

Our reforms are also based on the premise that the police must be accountable not to civil servants in Whitehall, but to the communities that they serve. Last Thursday, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill completed its passage through the House. It is our hope that it will complete its passage through the Lords and receive Royal Assent in time for elections for police and crime commissioners to take place next year.

During the Committee stage of the Bill, the Opposition helpfully conceded the principle that we need democratic reform in policing, but their idea is just to add elections on top of the existing ineffective structures by having elected police authority chairs, which would add to the costs without bringing any of the benefits. Under our proposals, police and crime commissioners will have the power to set the police budget, determine local policing priorities and hold their chief constables to account. If they do not cut crime and help keep their communities safe, they will face the ultimate sanction of rejection at the ballot box.

However, slashing Labour’s bureaucracy and increasing accountability is not enough. The police will have to take their fair share of the cuts across Government to clear up Labour’s financial mess, so direct savings and efficiencies are also needed.

[Jack Dromey]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary. Last week five west midlands police officers with a total service of 163 years spoke out about the harm that will be done to the front line on which they have served all their life. If the Home Secretary wants to hear the voice of front-line police officers, will she agree to meet those five police officers?

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to visit police forces, as I do, to talk to police officers across the board, and to hear directly what they are saying. When I next make a trip to the West Midlands force, I am very happy for the hon. Gentleman to arrange for me to meet those five officers. I am sure I will be meeting other officers as well.

It is important that we ensure that we make changes within our police force so that we have the police force that we need to face the 21st century, but it is also important that we make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent effectively. Our starting point for savings is the report by HMIC, “Valuing the Police” which estimated that £1.15 billion per year could be saved if only the least efficient forces brought themselves up to the average level of efficiency.

However, the fiscal deficit left by Labour is so dire that bringing all forces up to the average level is no longer enough—forces must go further. We must raise the performance of all our police forces up to the level not of the average, but of the most efficient forces. If forces improve productivity and adjust to the level of spend typical in the most efficient forces, we could add another £350 million to the £1.15 billion of savings that HMIC calculated.

This sort of thing is already happening. In Suffolk and Norfolk the police forces are creating a shared service platform for their back-office support functions, saving around £10 million per year. In Kent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) who serves on the Kent police authority made clear, the police are streamlining and rationalising support services, enabling them to put more into the front line. The Kent force is also collaborating with Essex police to make savings and allow more resources to be devoted to the front line.

In London the Metropolitan police are getting more officers to patrol alone, rather than in pairs, and are better matching resources to demand in neighbourhood policing, increasing officer availability to the public by 25%. In Gloucestershire the police are putting 15% more sergeants and constables into visible policing roles and increasing the numbers of officers on the beat, at the same time as they are making savings. These examples show that it can be done and it must be done.

There were other aspects that were outside the remit of the HMIC report. I know that members of the Opposition Front-Bench team have not read everything that was in that report, so let me spell it out to them. HMIC did not look at the savings that could be made by joining up police procurement and IT, for example. Currently, the police have 2,000 different IT systems across the 43 forces, employing 5,000 staff. As my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) said, the police currently procure items from uniforms to helicopters in 43 different ways. That makes no sense.

Working with the police, we have already secured their agreement that the right way forward is a national, joined-up approach, with better contracts, more joint purchasing, a smaller number of different IT systems and greater private sector involvement. With these changes we can save a further £350 million. Again, that is over and above the savings that HMIC identified.

[Steve McCabe]

rose—

[Mrs May]

The other major item that HMIC did not look at was pay. In an organisation like the police, where £11 billion goes on pay, there is no question but that pay restraint and pay reform must form part of the package. That is why we believe, subject to any recommendations from the Police Negotiating Board, that there should be a two-year pay freeze in policing, just as there has been across the whole of the public sector. This would add at least another £350 million of savings to those calculated by HMIC.

All these savings, together with those identified by HMIC, give us £2.2 billion of savings, just over the £2.1 billion reduction in central Government grant that must be made. And even that ignores the contribution from the local precept.

[Keith Vaz]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way a second time. The permanent secretary in her Department is before the Select Committee tomorrow and we will be asking her about procurement. I welcome what the right hon. Lady has said so far about centralising procurement, but is it not better for the Home Office to make recommendations on procurement across the 43 forces, rather than still to leave it to the forces to work out collaborations between themselves?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Our view is that it is important to get the balance right between what the centre does and what the local forces do. Of course we want to leave decision making with the local forces, but we are working with them and ensuring that they will collaborate on those aspects where it makes sense for them to do so in order to make the savings that enable them to reduce their budgets without affecting the front-line services that people want out there in the streets.

No Home Secretary wants to freeze or cut police officers’ pay packages, but with Labour’s record budget deficit these are extraordinary circumstances. That is why I commissioned Tom Winsor to undertake the most comprehensive review of police pay and conditions in more than 30 years—not because I want to make savings for their own sake, but because I want to protect police jobs and keep officers on the streets. We are doing everything we can to minimise the effect of the necessary spending reductions on pay. I have spelt out savings today, but we cannot avoid the fact that changes to pay and conditions have to be part of the package.

[Steve McCabe]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman has been very keen to intervene, so I will give way.

[Steve McCabe]

The Home Secretary is very generous. Following her comment on pay and trying to protect the police from the worst effects of the cuts, does she accept Winsor’s own comment that 40% of officers stand to lose as much as £4,000 a year as a result of the proposals she is putting forward?

[Mrs May]

Tom Winsor did not say that. He indicated that a percentage of officers could lose funding as a result of his proposals, which are about putting increased pay to those officers who are in front-line service or who are using certain specialist skills in their work. I want action on pay to be as fair as possible. We are determined not only to cut out waste and inefficiency, but to ensure that pay recognises and rewards front-line service and allows chief officers to put in place modern management practices.

The Opposition know that savings can and should be made by modernising police pay and conditions. Indeed, they have said so publicly. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and the former Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), have both said that Labour planned savings in the police overtime budget, but when Tom Winsor proposed those savings they attacked them. I am sure that not only police officers and staff but the public would prefer us to look at pay and conditions rather than lose thousands of posts. Given that the Opposition do not support reform of pay and conditions, losing more posts is exactly what they would do.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

On the key issue of posts, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, who has been mentioned a number of times in the debate, is facing a loss of 1,200 police and civilian posts. He is absolutely clear that there will be an enormous impact on front-line policing and has said that crime will rise in South Yorkshire. Given the Home Secretary’s concern that we should trust the police and their judgment, what would she say to him?

[Mrs May]

What I say to the hon. Gentleman is this: he is standing up saying that he wants to be able to save police jobs, so why have the Opposition singularly failed to support Tom Winsor’s proposals? Not only did they not support the proposals, but the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford said that in commissioning Tom Winsor’s report I was picking a fight with the police. It is absolutely clear that there are chief constables out there who recognise the impact that this could have. The chief constable of Thames Valley has said, “Tom Winsor’s report on terms and conditions provide us with recommendations that could cut the size of our pay bill if they are implemented. This will allow us to reassess the job reductions we had planned for future years and maybe to retain greater number of officers and staff.”

I have set out today that we have already identified savings over and above the reduction in central Government grant, so it is clear that savings can be made while front-line services are maintained and improved. The truth behind today’s debate is that the Labour party is engaged in opposition for opposition’s sake. They admit that there is a democratic deficit in policing but oppose our reforms to bring in democratic accountability. They said they would not be able to guarantee police numbers, but now they say that they would protect them. They say they would cut police spending, but now they oppose every single saving we have identified. They oppose a two-year pay freeze, meaning that their cuts would have to be deeper. They say that they would cut police overtime, but then they attack Tom Winsor when he proposes just that. They oppose reform of pay and conditions, meaning that under Labour more police jobs would have to go. This is not constructive opposition but shameless opportunism, and the public know it.

Only one side of the House has a clear plan to reform the police and cut crime. We are slashing bureaucracy, restoring discretion, increasing efficiency, giving power back to the people and, most of all, freeing the police to fight crime. Every one of those measures is opposed by the Labour party, which is why their motion deserves to fail.

19:44

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will start by repeating the declaration I make when policing issues come up in the Home Affairs Committee, which is that my oldest son is chief executive of the North Wales police authority.

I am amazed by the sheer complacency of the Home Secretary’s speech. She seems to have just landed from another planet. Given that we are experiencing the largest annual fall in police officer strength since figures were first published for March 1978—I depend on the House of Commons Library for that figure—it is obvious that the cuts are going too far, too deep and are happening too fast. I do not rely only on statistics to know that; I need only speak with senior police officers, experienced people who do not want to leave the police, who work on the streets in my constituency—colleagues can do the same in their constituencies—to know that we are losing people whose experience, knowledge and dedication are invaluable in the fight against crime.

The Home Secretary caricatured the position of the Opposition and previous Ministers, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). The cuts that the Government propose are roughly double the level that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) described as painful but possible when he was Home Secretary. The fact that the cuts are front-loaded makes the pain even worse.

I do not blame the Policing Minister, because this is driven by a Chancellor and a Prime Minister who are on the rampage with economic cuts that they clearly believe in and that go beyond what is economically necessary. The Home Secretary should have done better in negotiations and given the Policing Minister the tools that are necessary to do his job well. It is a fascinating and challenging role, as some of us know from our time in that job. The police need the tools to do the job. I want to inject some realism into the debate about what we expect from the police and then focus on what we mean by front-line policing.

In recent months, the Home Secretary has muddled the issues by talking so much about visible policing, as if the test is whether each of us can see a couple of Dixon-style cops strolling up our streets with measured tread. Visibility can mean different things to different people, so let us look at look at some examples. I will start with my own city of Cardiff. Pretty much all the police officers were pulled off the streets across south Wales on 5 June last year because the English Defence League made an unwelcome and unpleasant foray into south Wales. Inevitably, and rightly, I was there. People from a wide range of political and community groups marched as Unite Against Fascism. It was a massive and peaceful presence on our streets rejecting the bile and hatred of the EDL. That was a sort of inverse bonus for the city, because the police already had to cope with the Wales v. South Africa rugby game at the Millennium stadium. It was rather an irony that I had to depend for updates via text messages from my daughter, who was watching the match on television in Cape Town, because I was on the streets instead of at the game. On the same afternoon, the West Indies cricket team was playing against the England and Wales cricket team at Sophia gardens—it is called the England and Wales team when it is not doing very well, but the England team when it is doing well. The Stereophonics were in concert at Cardiff city stadium at the same time.

The police and the organisers of Unite Against Fascism and of the sporting events worked very hard to make it a peaceful day, and apart from a few idiots it went well. That was greatly to the credit of South Wales police, who took all necessary precautions. However, they could not be very visible in other parts of south Wales on such a day. It is challenging to police a successful capital city.

Despite such challenges, we have seen a major reduction in crime in Cardiff and across the South Wales police force area. Crime figures show that for 2009-10, crime overall fell by 11.7%, compared to 2008-09. More than 13,000 fewer people became victims of crimes such as burglary and vehicle crime. Robbery was down a massive 27%, with South Wales police the second most improved force in England and Wales.

That is not just down to the police; crime and disorder partnerships have helped, particularly through the violence reduction project in Cardiff, led by a medic, Professor Jonathan Shepherd. Violence resulting in a victim needing treatment at an accident and emergency unit is down by more than 40% in Cardiff, so the reduction is not just down to the police, but that partnership approach cannot work without the police. Is that front-line work? Is it visible policing? The answer to both questions must be no, unless we distort the words far beyond their normal, common-sense meaning.

Let me give some other examples. First, it is vital that police officers do undercover work and work internationally to counter terrorism. Preventing an explosion does not get the headlines commanded by the sort of bombs that went off in London in July 2005, but that is exactly why it is important for such quiet but effective work to go on year in, year out.

Secondly, there is the need to combat organised crime: those who traffic drugs, people and human misery. Again, that is well organised criminal activity and international in scale, as some of us saw when we visited Turkey with the Home Affairs Committee a few weeks ago.

Thirdly, there is internet-related crime, which includes fraud on a massive scale and serious and well-organised child abuse.

[Mark Tami]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government deride the work of so-called back-room staff? What does he think it does to the morale of such people?

[Alun Michael]

Absolutely. Often, it is not very pleasant work. It is painstaking and time-consuming and requires a great deal of commitment, and often people put themselves in danger by undertaking such not very visible activity.

In each of the three areas that I have just mentioned, success commands little publicity. A day’s report of convictions is the best that they can expect, and that is trumped by the drip-feed of facts and fears as the media quite rightly report the crimes and warn us of the dangers. That is inevitable, because until a case is brought to court, publicity might undermine it, and that is a risk which cannot be taken. It means, however, that the public demand for reassurance and safety involves effectiveness, not just visibility. Success on its own does not give reassurance.

There is an issue of confidence, but crime is down. I have referred to the massive drop in violent crime in Cardiff, as measured by the number of people who need emergency treatment, but people do not feel safe. They worry about neighbourhood nuisance, graffiti and rudeness as much as about murder and terrorism, and that is why police accountability is challenging and why Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary was right to send a message to the Home Secretary last week, defining the front line as a complex and challenging place.

That report itself, however, raises some serious issues, because the four categories of police work as set out in the report—visible, specialist, middle office and back office—do not include the strategic partnership work to which I referred earlier, and it is not clear that the report includes the other examples that I have given either.

I was a member of the Justice Committee when it produced its report on justice reinvestment. That report points out that many of the services that can make an impact on cutting crime depend on resources outside the criminal justice system: mental health, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, skills, employment, housing and personal relationships. Harnessing those resources, however, requires greater engagement by the police, not less, so forcing the police to withdraw from such teamwork will lead to long-term costs, rather than to savings.

That is why I am sceptical of the HMIC report. It fails to refer to the words of Sir Robert Peel, stating that the purpose of policing is to prevent and reduce crime, words that were quoted by the Policing Minister when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee and in a number of other contexts. I applaud him for quoting that as the prime purpose of the police, but nowhere in the HMIC report does it refer to the work of crime reduction partnerships or to any findings from the Justice Committee’s report.

A time of financial constraint is the right time to be innovative and strategic and to go back to basic questions such as, “What is this all for?” The HMIC report does not do that. At the end of the day, cutting bureaucracy is indeed a worthy objective, but the Home Secretary will find that it is not as easy as she thinks; many previous Ministers have been dedicated to cutting bureaucracy. Increasing the visibility of the police, solving more crime, arresting more offenders and succeeding in a higher proportion of prosecutions are also worthy objectives, but they are means to an end, not an end in themselves, and that is why we need to spell out the danger of the cuts that go too deep, too fast and too far.

Several people have quoted the chief constable of the South Yorkshire force. I could quote any number of chief constables, but I will quote Meredydd Hughes, because I remember him as an effective front-line police officer in Llanrumney in my constituency earlier in his career. He said that the cuts questioned the sustainability of unprecedented reductions in crime over the last 15 years, and let us not forget how successful the previous Government were in driving down crime. He also said:

“A reduction in back office support will put an increased burden on operational officers detracting them from front-line duties.”

But, above all, he said:

“What is clear is that we will be unable to continue to provide the level of service that we do today in such areas as neighbourhood policing within diversionary and problem solving activities.”

I worry that the HMIC report does not say enough about diversion, prevention, crime reduction or problem-solving activities. They seem to have fallen outside the four categories that it chose, and we need to look at that report and its definition with very great care.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

In Staffordshire, the protestations that the cuts should not hit front-line services simply sound absurd. From this November, the county, which has a Conservative-run council, is implementing a rule that will force serving police officers, irrespective of rank or experience, to retire once they have reached 30 years’ service. Does my right hon. Friend think that Staffordshire police will enforce regulation A19 lightly, or does he think that it has something to do with the severity and depth of the cuts?

[Alun Michael]

I am certain that it has a lot to do with the severity and depth of the cuts, and my hon. Friend refers precisely to the experience in my force area which has been replicated throughout the country.

The point is that, at a time of severe cuts, many forces are having to take emergency action, rather than a considered approach that looks at the evidence of what works and makes sure that the police service increases its effectiveness and efficiency and is more successful, rather than less, in reducing crime. We have deep cause for concern. The cuts go too far.

19:57

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to have been called in this debate, so soon after last week’s proceedings on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, to express some of the frustration that has reached me from police officers in the far west Dyfed Powys force and, indeed, from members of the public, who are increasingly concerned about seemingly being used as a political pawn in the debate. It is affecting that vital bond between the public and the police, and indeed the morale of police officers themselves.

In our debate last week, I drew a parallel with the ongoing consultation on the future of the coastguard service, simply to remind myself as well as the House that the great passion for that service—one that is crucial in west Wales at Milford Haven—is built on loyalty, public respect, a sense of ownership and the sense that the coastguard and, indeed, the police are somehow part of the fabric and the architecture of the community, and that people know that when they ring the coastguard, as with the police, they will get a trusted and, above all, local response. That is increasingly relevant in this debate.

As hon. Members know, the Dyfed Powys force covers a huge geographical area of rural west Wales, but it has its fair share of terrorist-related incidents, urban crime and industrial-related challenges. Above all, however, what the force possesses is an ancient relationship with the community, and the potential compromise of that relationship, as a result of the terms of the Opposition’s motion, is causing our officers and our public to waver between nervousness and distrust and, at times, contempt. Public confidence is very precious, and the idea that we can compromise it on the back of financial mismanagement over the past few years is the scandal at the heart of this debate, rather than the proposals put forward by the Government.

Several Members have referred to conversations that they have had with their local chief constables, and I will be no exception. Mr Ian Arundale, who is highly respected by the public in our area and by his own members of staff, has told me on more than one occasion that the proposals are challenging but need not compromise public safety.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The Opposition consistently contend that we are facing 20% cuts across the board, yet we know that the precept is not subject to those cuts, and that officers are likely to face a two-year pay freeze in the future, which means that in fact the cuts are far lower. Does my hon. Friend agree that a much more responsible approach is to make that clear, as that will be less worrisome to his constituents and mine?

[Simon Hart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Indeed, responsibility and irresponsibility lie at the heart of this debate. I cannot think of a more irresponsible approach than to try to frighten the most vulnerable in society, and the police service itself, with spurious claims that cannot be backed up by fact.

[Steve McCabe]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that the chief constable of Lancashire, who is the ACPO lead on performance management, was being irresponsible or misleading when he said on the “Today” programme on 29 March,

“we cannot leave the front line untouched and that is because of the scale of the cuts”?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman may also be interested in the comments of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who said:

“I don’t think it’s possible to make a direct correlation between police numbers and crime reduction.”

It is being assumed that a reduced number of police officers means a reduced service. I would argue, as have chief constables across the land, including my own, that that is not as clear cut as the hon. Gentleman might suggest. In Dyfed Powys, there will be a different sort of policing as a consequence of these changes—it will look different, as I said last week. There will be a greater reliance on technology, and things will not be quite as they were before. However, it is irresponsible to suggest that the public are somehow endangered as a result, and that makes the motion something that the Opposition should be rather ashamed of.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman says that police numbers and crime are not linked. Is he therefore suggesting that if crime does not go up we should carry on cutting police numbers?

[Simon Hart]

I fully follow the hon. Gentleman’s logic. The comment I made is attributed to a Member from his own party, and a similar comment was made by the former Home Secretary, so perhaps he will take it up with them when he has the opportunity.

I commend the approach of the Dyfed Powys force in its tackling of the challenges ahead. It had a simple strategy, which was to list its challenges as the things that it must do, the things that it could do, and the things that it must stop doing. Hon. Members may be interested to discover, as I was, that the last of those three lists is longer than Labour Members may care to consider. One such example was the victims of crime leaflet, a new Labour gimmick if ever there was one, which was abandoned by the Dyfed Powys police force as being a waste of officers’ time and the public’s time, and—guess what?—public satisfaction with the force went up at the same time as that measure was disposed of. That illustrates what I think, what my voters think, and what the police officers of Dyfed Powys think—that we would much rather have our police officers engaged in proper crime prevention and detection than in subsequently taking part in some sort of PR exercise to suit a political agenda.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me, and indeed the Government, in welcoming the comments of Baroness Newlove who said last week that the assets of criminals should be used more for the benefit of the community that they have harmed? How does he suggest that that happens in the Northumbria police area, where the asset recovery unit is going to be subject to the cuts that he is advocating?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman asks me to comment on a constabulary that is about as far away from my own as it is possible to go. All I can say on behalf of my own area is that we simply want our police officers to be solving crime and, better still, preventing crime—dealing with the realities of day-to-day life rather than engaging in spurious PR exercises and form filling of the sort that has dominated the political agenda for some time and that this Government are rightly seeking to reduce.

There is talk of its being easier simply not to replace chief superintendents—I almost said chief constables, which was a bit of a Freudian slip—after their 30-year service has come to an end. Of course there is a temptation to take that approach but, certainly in our case, it is balanced with the clear need seriously to address the issue of back-office support that other hon. Members have mentioned. That has been slightly misrepresented, because huge importance is attached to back-office police work as distinct from back-office administrative activity. The right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) was a little disingenuous in not making that clear separation.

[Paul Farrelly]

I mentioned the 149 police officers being forced to resign after 30 years’ service in Staffordshire, but I did not mention the six police stations, including my own in Newcastle-under-Lyme, that are being closed because of the cuts. These are police stations that survived Margaret Thatcher and are now falling victim to Cameron-Clegg. Would the hon. Gentleman designate those as much-needed assets or merely back-office functions that can be reorganised willy-nilly?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman conveniently takes me on to my next point.

I do not think anybody on the Government Benches—obviously I cannot speak for the Home Secretary—has gone into these challenges with any great sense of glee based on any great ideology. It is grim reality time—responsibility time. I was fortunate enough to operate in the private sector before I came to this place. I was responsible for 90 employees and a budget of £5 million. Every single year I was forced to reduce that budget, every single year I went to my departmental head, every single year they said they could not do it, and every single year they said it would never be the same again and the end of civilisation as we know it, and—guess what?—after 10 years we had a lean, efficient machine that served its members responsibly and cost-effectively. What it boils down to—my own chief constable has said this publicly and privately—is that police officers are well capable of applying the same corporate disciplines in the police world that most people out there in the real world apply to their businesses. We should not automatically assume that a new approach to efficient policing will necessarily lead to compromises in safety.

The Government’s proposals take us back to relatively recent levels of funding, not to the dark ages. They remove a thick layer of bureaucracy that I thought everybody in this House was keen to see rid of, as well as members of the public and the police force. These proposals take police officers out of their offices and put them back where we need them: solving and preventing crime, and closer to their communities.

The scandal of this motion, and the reason I took part in this debate—I had no serious intention of doing so, but I was driven to it by frustration—is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting vulnerable people in society or defending jobs in the police, and everything to do with furthering Labour’s political aims. To do that in the run-up to a Welsh Assembly election when so many things are at stake, and to do so at the expense of the fear of vulnerable people in society and police officers worried about their jobs, is an absolute scandal. For that reason alone, the motion should fail dismally.

20:09

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to take part in this important debate.

In January, I met the acting chief constable of Northumbria police to discuss the significant challenges she now has to face. Owing to central Government cuts, Northumbria police have to identify more than £57 million of cuts to be made over the next three years. That will lead to fewer police on our streets. I recognise that some savings are inevitable, but the depth and extent of the cuts that this Government are imposing on our police force will have a long and lasting effect on our communities and my constituents. My local police authority has confirmed that 318 police officers will lose their jobs, and that 825 support staff jobs will be lost. That is 41% of all support staff. In total, the sad figure of 1,143 jobs will be lost across the region.

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary warned that forces could make savings of up to 12% before front-line policing would be affected. This Government have arrogantly gone ahead with cutting central funding to the police by 20%, while continuing to claim that front-line services will be protected. Despite the cuts, Northumbria police are expected to maintain or even improve the services they provide. The numbers simply do not add up. I believe that this situation is impossible. I fail to see how Northumbria police’s track record of excellence and the quality of service that they provide to my constituents will not be challenged and compromised by the loss of staff.

Before entering this House, I was a trade union official for the GMB, as is stated in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For a number of years, I had the privilege of representing GMB members employed by Northumbria police as support staff, so I understand the jobs that support staff do. I know how hard they work and how dedicated they are to providing an excellent service to the residents of the Northumbria police area.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady speculate on what the effect would be on Northumbria police of the policing cuts that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has just announced that Labour would have made of 15% over the course of this Parliament?

[Julie Elliott]

That is substantially less than the Government propose. The key point is that it would be done over the course of a Parliament. These cuts are being implemented now—too fast and too deep.

The jobs that support staff do are crucial and important; they are not anonymous pen pushers. They do jobs such as taking calls from the public and directing them to the correct area within the force or escalating them to the correct level—for instance, if an accident has happened. Some are employed at the driver training school, which teaches all police officers specialist driving skills, such as how to drive safely at speed, before allowing them to drive a police car. Those are not jobs that do not have to be done, but essential jobs. If support staff do not do them, someone else will have to. They are not the type of jobs that can be got rid of.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Perhaps the hon. Lady can understand why the public are slightly confused about the numbers. Since 1994, police numbers have gone up by 16%, but back-room staff numbers have gone up by 54%. The public wonder about the productivity of the back-room staff because crime figures are not exactly moving in the right direction very quickly.

[Julie Elliott]

If back-room staff are freeing police officers to be out on the streets dealing with crime, they are doing an important job in bringing down crime. That is what my constituents say to me.

Staffing rationalisations, which I have heard much about from Government Members, have been ongoing for many years in police services. In my opinion, support staffing is down to a level where there is little, if any, slack. The cuts will take police officers off the streets to do support staff jobs. The result will be many fewer police doing front-line duties.

When Labour left office, there was a record number of police on the streets—nearly 17,000 more than in 1997—and 16,000 new police community support officers. Inevitably, the record number of police officers on our streets meant that crime fell dramatically. That is a record of which all Labour Members can be proud. The Government are unravelling all the work that was done to increase police numbers and as a result are putting the safety of our communities at risk.

The question I ask today is this: I know that my constituents value their police force, so why do this Government not? When the police do so much to protect our homes, families and communities it is only right that we show them just how valuable they are. At the moment, the Government are sending the police the opposite message from that of my constituents.

Over the last few weeks, many police officers who live and work in my constituency have contacted me. They are concerned about the additional and unnecessary pressure they will face as a result of the Government’s cuts. One serving police officer contacted me recently to say:

“The cuts to police officers and police staff will have a massive effect on our ability to police the streets throughout our force area. Our command team have no alternative but to face the press and pretend to them that we can make ourselves more efficient and improve the service we deliver. To say anything else would cause panic across our force area. This is the direct result of the massive cuts to police budgets imposed by the current government”.

I think that that sums it up. I ask the Government to consider the impossible position in which they are putting our police officers and chief constables.

For years, Sunderland has led the field in tackling domestic violence. The Safer Sunderland Partnership and its dedicated team have worked tirelessly and effectively to support women and children who are victims of and at risk from domestic violence. The Government cuts will put such specialist policing units under strain or facing closure. Sunderland’s safer communities team is losing its highly dedicated domestic violence co-ordinator. Our communities, and the women and children whom these services protect, cannot afford to take that risk. The Government do not seem to consider specialist services such as domestic violence, child abuse and serious organised crime units, or those involved in training, to be front-line services and they will not be exempt from the cuts. The Government may not consider such units to be important, but my constituents do and they greatly appreciate the work that they do to protect our community.

It is time that the Government faced up to reality and recognised the risks that they are taking with crime in our communities—risks that we cannot afford. They must review the level of cuts that they are imposing before it is too late.

20:17

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Government are facing up to reality. The most challenging financial circumstances that this country has faced since the second world war have made me acknowledge that the quality of policing cannot simply be about the number of police; it must also be about how well they are deployed. Government Members have always been clear that police forces can make savings, while protecting front-line services and prioritising the visibility and availability of policing.

There may be no agreement on that between the Government and the Opposition, but at least there is agreement on police budgets. Let us be clear: the Labour party admits that it would be cutting police funding, that it could not guarantee police numbers, and that it could not guarantee that police staff would not be lost. That is not only because of the cuts to police funding that it had proposed, but because, irrespective of the plethora of targets that operated when it was in power, it still could not dictate to chief constables exactly whom they did or did not employ.

At the moment, the police are crippled by bureaucracy and spend more time on paperwork than on patrol. That frustrates the police, who want to do their job, and the public, who want to see more police on the streets. The coalition Government are scrapping unnecessary bureaucracy to save police time. The Liberal Democrat and Conservative manifestos both said that we would reduce time-wasting bureaucracy, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are helping the police to make savings, and to ensure that resources are focused on the front line.

[Graham Jones]

Would the hon. Gentleman not add cutting crime to that list? He has listed bureaucracy, but surely the purpose of the police is to cut crime. Will that be in his speech at some point?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That is the second point on which we can agree: the police should, indeed, cut crime.

The police could also make savings from consolidating IT services, as the Home Secretary said. The police have no fewer than 2,000 separate IT systems. Surely that is a good place to look for savings. We can do much more with technology to help the police use their time more effectively, and all parties agree that we need to do much more to ensure smarter procurement.

Another point on which the coalition partners agree, but on which Labour opposes us, is the terms and conditions of police officers. The Government were right to set up the Winsor review of police pay and conditions, and of course the coalition Government will work in co-operation with the police negotiating bodies on the matter. To fight crime, we need a modern and flexible work force to help chief constables manage their resources properly, maximise officer time and improve the service to the public. We are clear, of course, that the police must be fairly compensated for their work, which is difficult and often dangerous, as we have been tragically reminded over the weekend following the callous murder of Ronan Kerr.

What are the key facts behind what the coalition Government are doing? It is true that Government funding for the police is being reduced, and will be reduced throughout this Parliament. However, as the Home Secretary said, the police also receive precept funding, and the Government’s freeze in police pay will make a substantial contribution to maintaining budgets.

I acknowledge that the picture across the country is complex, and it is clear from the reports that we are getting from different forces that some are finding the situation tougher to address than others. However, as Members have said, some police forces are actually increasing the number of front-line officers, such as Gloucestershire police, which is moving up to 15% of police officers into more visible roles. Many Members have quoted the HMIC report, which revealed that some forces have twice the visibility and availability of policing of others. It is clear that all forces can make improvements to the visibility of police officers.

The same report showed that a third of resources are not on the front line, and highlighted the great differences in the visibility of police officers at different times. Some 16% are visible on a Friday morning at 9 o’clock, but only 9% are visible and available on a Friday night. Again, it is clear that there are things that forces can do to increase the visibility of police without necessarily touching police numbers. They can provide police at the time when the public want to see them. I am sure all Members have been accosted by constituents who ask them why police officers and safer neighbourhood teams are out patrolling at 9 o’clock on a Monday morning rather than in the town centre at 9 o’clock on a Friday night. Improvements can therefore be made to rotas.

The Labour party’s record is worthy of some scrutiny. As Opposition Members may well know, in 2009 just 14% of all officers’ time was spent on patrol, compared with 22% on paperwork. In one year alone, from 2007 to 2008, the amount of time spent on paperwork increased by 22%. The Home Secretary referred to the comment of Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, that Labour had a political obsession with numbers of police.

[Stephen Twigg]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

Perhaps one could argue that the Liberal Democrats had that obsession too. I am very happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I may have pre-empted his point.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful. In the light of the hon. Gentleman’s comments, does he regret the commitment that he stood on last May of 3,000 additional police officers?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, and I apologise for pre-empting it. However, I said at the beginning of my speech that the circumstances that we are in have required all parties to reappraise any prior commitments in their manifestos. Quite simply, as the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, there is no money.

I turn back to the previous Government’s record. Jan Berry, as the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) mentioned, said about police bureaucracy:

“I would estimate one-third of effort is either over-engineered, duplicated or adds no additional value.”

She was the person whom the previous Government chose to examine bureaucracy, and that was her assessment of police effort.

[Keith Vaz]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it would have been sensible if Jan Berry had been asked to continue the work that she started? She produced an excellent report, but I understand that her work has now been transferred to the chief constable of the West Midlands, a serving chief constable. Surely it would have been better if Jan Berry had been allowed to monitor the results of her recommendations.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I am absolutely certain that the work that Jan Berry has already done will inform what the chief constable and the Government are doing to address bureaucracy.

A previous Labour Home Secretary, when he was asked in April 2010 whether he could guarantee that police numbers would not fall, said that he could not. The shadow Chancellor is on record as saying that under his plans,

“you will lose some non-uniformed back office staff”.

It is interesting that the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Chancellor cannot even agree among themselves what their position on the Winsor review is. The former has attacked the Government for initiating the review, but the latter has said that overtime and shift work savings are something that

“any sensible government would look at”.

I suggest that they need to get their house in order first.

[Yvette Cooper]

To clarify, we have criticised the Government many times for pre-empting the Winsor review, not for commissioning it. We have criticised them for announcing their views on the amount of money that should be cut, and for criticising the police in the newspapers, in advance of the Winsor review rather than after it.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary, but maybe she would like to intervene again and confirm whether she agrees with the shadow Chancellor that overtime and shift work savings are something that

“any sensible government would look at”.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is inviting interventions, because we have said that it is right to examine how the police work. However, will he confirm that his party’s pledge of 3,000 additional officers was made when the now Deputy Prime Minister said that although financial circumstances were extremely difficult, the position of the police was so important that there would be 3,000 additional police officers as part of his party’s manifesto commitment?

[Tom Brake]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for intervening and putting on record the Labour party policy on policing—that it is right to examine how the police work. That is as close to a policy statement as we are going to get tonight.

The debate could have been an opportunity to discuss the coalition’s programme of police reform and budget reductions, and to contrast that with the Opposition’s track record and future plans. Regrettably, the Opposition did not grasp that opportunity. Instead, we had the usual “too fast and too deep” or, alternatively, “too far and too fast” line from the shadow Home Secretary, peppered with lame police and justice themed jokes, recycled from an earlier speech. When will she accept that saying that the coalition is going too far, too fast does not amount to a policy for the Labour party? If she wants to be taken seriously, she will have to work out her party’s policy before she next stands at the Dispatch Box.

20:28

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

The Government speak of reform of the police force: of front-line services and of back-office management. However, “reform” is a euphemism that the Government use for the most drastic cuts to one of our most vital public services.

Actions speak louder than words, and the public will judge the Government on their actions and their decision to cut the police budget by 20%. The Government speak of reform, but the reality is deep and damaging cuts, which will drastically affect the front line of our police force.

We should not underestimate the scale of the cuts. Almost a quarter of a million people are employed by 43 police forces in England and Wales. The Association of Chief Police Officers has put a figure on how the Government’s 20% cut is likely to translate into the number of officers on the street. It estimates that 28,000 jobs will be lost as a result of the cuts. Of those, 12,000 will be police officers and 16,000 will be so-called civilian staff. That represents a fall of around 12% in overall staff numbers, with 8% of officers losing their jobs.

The Government’s Winsor review states that the taxpayer will save £485 million over three years as a result of those cuts, but at what cost? Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has said that more than two thirds of all police force staff in England and Wales are employed in front-line roles, but that not all are necessarily visible. It stated that the front line is

“not just what you notice, but it’s also what you rely on.”

We must not make a clinical distinction between front-line and back-office policing. That is too crude. We must not confuse visibility with deployment.

HMIC found that 95% of police officers are either on the front line or working in important middle-office roles in—for example, intelligence gathering or operation planning. Even if the Government’s claim that cuts of 20% would affect only back-office roles were true, those middle and back-office roles are not simply disposable assets. Cuts to middle and back-office roles will inevitably have an effect on the ability of those on the front line to do their jobs.

The Prime Minister said:

“There is no reason for there to be fewer front-line officers.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 335.]

I would like to echo the words of Steve Finnigan, our chief constable. He said that preventing cuts from hitting the front line would prove challenging. He went further, saying that it would be impossible to protect the front line. He was asked this week whether the Government’s cuts mean that he will have to reduce front-line policing and he replied, “I absolutely am.” Chief Constable Finnigan is ACPO’s lead officer on performance management. Does the Home Secretary think that he is wrong? Does she think that Chief Constable Finnigan of ACPO and Lancashire police is not managing his force correctly?

The point is simple, and we are hearing it from forces throughout the country. We simply cannot make cuts of 20% without hitting front-line services. Our police force is one of our most vital public services. Those officers do some of the hardest jobs in the most demanding circumstances and the Government have wholly underestimated their commitment and dedication.

The Government’s so-called reforms will inevitably have an impact on the police service for years to come. The Government promised that there would be no centrally determined job losses—I suppose that that is technically true. Instead, the Government are responsible for the heavy front-loaded cuts, leaving the inevitable job losses in the hands of local authorities and the police.

The priority must be to protect the visibility and availability of police forces in our local communities. However, my constituents are far from optimistic about the so-called reforms. Lancashire Police Federation has said that, in the light of cuts, the force will be hit doubly with job losses and pay cuts, about which we have already heard.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Jones]

I would like to finish, please. Plenty of other hon. Members wish to speak.

John O’Reilly, chairman of Lancashire Police Federation, said:

“Lancashire is a top performing force because of its workforce.”

John goes on to say that

“if the Government keep bashing us, all they are doing is opening up the door for criminals to make life more difficult.”

Figures put to the Lancashire police authority suggest a drastic reduction in the number of officers, which would put Lancashire’s officer strength at its lowest since 2003. In the period since 2003, Lancashire has experienced the greatest fall in crime, and I would not like to go back to 2003 crime levels. However, the cuts will result in an eight-year low in the number of police officers on Lancashire’s streets.

Everyone supports sensible reform, but the Government are hitting our police forces hard, and it will be to the detriment of our local communities. My constituents are concerned that cuts to our already stretched police force will be an open invitation for criminals to commit more crime. Do the Government really think that crime levels will not rise with the police force stretched, understaffed and under-resourced? Do they honestly think that antisocial behaviour will not increase, and that the safety in our streets will not be put into question as a result of there being fewer officers on the beat?

Two thirds of the British public share those concerns and, to date, the Government have done nothing to put those concerns to rest. People are clearly concerned that reduced police funding will have detrimental effects, and at the same time, the Government are prepared to spend £40 million or thereabouts on electing police commissioners.

Furthermore, there has been a two-year delay on the decision on whether police community support officers will continue. My constituents are worried not only about police cuts, but about the Home Office budgets that affect PCSOs. This is not just a numbers game. The Government seem happy to cut our police force by a fifth, but have they paid any thought to the experience and expertise of the PCSOs who will be lost as a result of those cuts?

The Home Secretary must realise that she cannot make drastic cuts of 20% to the police budget without losing some of our most experienced and dedicated officers from the front line. The Government must think again on the scale and pace of the cuts. They are going too far, too fast.

20:35

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this very important debate.

Since the start of this Parliament, we have had numerous Opposition day debates on a range of subjects, but the core of every debate is always the same—public spending and public sector reform—and the Labour party always falls back and repeats the same tired mantra that the coalition is cutting too fast and too far.

Of course, to date the Opposition have offered no alternative. They have no credible policies to speak of and there is still no ink on the Leader of the Opposition’s blank sheet of policy paper. Perhaps there is an untidy smudge, because after all, in February, he and the shadow Chancellor tried to instil some discipline in the shadow ministerial ranks by asking that all potential commitments be cleared by the Labour high command. That discipline, however, was in tatters in no time. Over the past few weeks, Labour has opposed £50 billion of savings proposed by the coalition, and made £12 billion—and rising—of unfunded spending commitments. That is no economic policy; it is voodoo economics.

To understand what Labour would have done had it been in government, we need to look back at its plans. The coalition inherited planned spending cuts from Labour of £14 billion in 2011-12, and the coalition savings amount to £16 billion for the same period, which is a ratio of 9:10. It is all very well Labour Members moaning about the level and pace of cuts, and the front-loading of savings, but the fact is that they planned to do exactly the same.

It is all very well the shadow Home Secretary wailing about police numbers, but before the general election—a number of colleagues have alluded to this—her colleague, the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), made the point that he could not guarantee police numbers if Labour were re-elected and returned to office. It is all very well the shadow Home Secretary attacking the Winsor review, as she did again today, but her colleague, the former Police Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who is not in the Chamber, confirmed that Labour planned to cut police overtime if it returned to office. I do not understands—and I guess no Government Members understands—why the Labour party and the shadow Home Secretary oppose the Winsor review.

The shadow Home Secretary may well moan about cuts generally, but she should remember, as do many outside the House, that the Government of whom she was a member created the mess and the record deficit that the coalition is trying to fix. Just for the record, and because Labour Members still do not get it after 12 months in opposition, let us remember Labour’s legacy: the biggest deficit in the developed world, and £120 million paid out every day in interest alone by the British taxpayer. That is three and half times the total that we spend on policing in the UK.

Have the British people ever had an apology from Labour for creating that toxic financial mess? No. And what of the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Labour’s decade of destructive debt? The right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) seems to have abandoned the House completely—I do not think that we have seen in him here in recent times—and in his utterances, the shadow Chancellor seems to be morphing into the Labour Prime Minister of the late ’70s, saying, “Deficit? What structural deficit?” That is where we have come to.

A few weeks ago, the shadow Home Secretary turned up in my constituency in a marginal ward to moan about cuts in front-line policing and to worry my constituents—what a surprise with local elections due in May. To get her facts she chose, rather unwisely, to listen to the apparatchiks, dinosaurs and deficit deniers who currently comprise the Labour party in Reading. [Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has met them! They are the same folk who managed, between 2002 and 2010, to increase Reading council’s debt from £41 million to an eye-watering £200 million, with no debt-reduction plan in sight—that sounds familiar does it not? There was £1 million of taxpayers’ money wasted on consultants here and £1.4 million to pay for full-time union officials there, but then Labour has always been very good at frittering away taxpayers’ money.

Had the shadow Home Secretary bothered to speak to the chief constable of Thames Valley police before her visit to Reading, she would have heard a different story. She could perhaps have Googled, as she is doing now, and seen the stories in the press from February. What is absolutely clear is that, despite having to make savings, Thames Valley police has made it clear that it will not cut the resources committed to neighbourhood policing and patrols. That is its commitment to visible policing—protecting the front line. It is finding savings by removing management layers and collaborating successfully with the neighbouring Hampshire police in key areas to save back and middle-office costs. Examples include a single, shared IT department that will save millions of pounds and shared firearms and dog training. It is collaborating with other forces in areas such as air support, witness protection, specialist operations and technical support. While finding savings and protecting the front line, Thames Valley police is also increasing the number of special constables, having recruited 570 in the past six months alone.

Thanks to Labour’s budget deficit, police forces and other public services are having to find savings, but we should also remember, as a number of my colleagues on the Government side have said, that many in the private sector have had to find savings of more than 3%, 4% or 5% a year for the past few years. It is, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, possible, and Thames Valley police is demonstrating that it can find savings and protect the front line at the same time. Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the police officers and PCSOs in Reading who do such a great job and are so dedicated to serving the local community.

In conclusion, this is just another cynical Opposition motion. It demonstrates that Labour is not ready for a grown-up discussion about tackling its budget deficit and I will be voting against it this evening.

20:42

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I shall concentrate my remarks on what is happening in my part of south London and in the Metropolitan police area, where there is a serious undermining of the credibility of senior police officers at the moment, because of their collusion with the Mayor and deputy Mayor in suggesting that there are no cuts to safer neighbourhoods teams.

First, let me say that I am truly obsessed by police numbers, and I am joined in that obsession by the 74,000 people who also live in my constituency—people who voted Labour, Conservative or Liberal, or who did not vote at all; men and women; people of all races; people who have come to this country recently and people who were born in this country, perhaps in south London. All those people are obsessed with police numbers because their top concern is their personal safety and their desire to feel safe from crime. I am talking about crime numbers and the fear of crime.

We in the House often forget that there has been a revolution in policing in the past 10 years. There has been a rowing back of the police policy of 50 years—the policy of getting off the street, out of the neighbourhood and into the panda car, to be with the blue light and not with the old lady on the street or the young guys down the street who did not know police officers’ names and increasingly came into conflict with them.

In the past 10 years we have seen an enormous change in the relationship between the Metropolitan police and the communities that make up London. All communities now want more police and they all believe that antisocial behaviour and crime need to be tackled. More people are also prepared to give evidence—to stand up and be brave in the face of some of the most shocking crimes that we have seen recently in London. Operation Trident, dealing with black crime, has also been a fantastic success.

However, that success does not come out of thin air; it comes from politicians—yes, politicians—making decisions about policing and saying, sometimes in the face of opposition from leading police officers, “We want to get back to community policing and we want to introduce safer neighbourhood police teams.” I give credit to the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), for introducing safer neighbourhood teams and police community support officers. His decisions were sometimes derided, but those initiatives have brought about the biggest increase in confidence in policing and the biggest reduction in crime in modern times, all because of those simple things that we all know to be true, irrespective of our political ideologies.

For policing to work, it has to be about community. People have to know who their police officers are and to feel that they can give information to them, because the police can never sort out crime on their own. They need all of us with them, and that is what the safer neighbourhood teams were beginning to do. Were they perfect? Did they all do the right things? No, certainly not. Indeed, I have spent most of the last 10 years fighting with my safer neighbourhood teams, because I have not liked their shift patterns, nor have I agreed that they should be out more at 9 o’clock in the morning than at 9 o’clock at night, and that goes for Mondays as much as for Saturdays or Sundays. Indeed, when my dad was dying, I found the energy to sit all my safer neighbourhood teams down, along with all the trade unions, and say, “You have to change these practices.” Is the Home Secretary right to look at police practices? Yes, she is; but in doing that, she also has to say that we need to keep safer neighbourhood teams on our streets.

In my constituency those officers are declining in number, yet the area commander and the leadership of the Met deny that this is happening. Currently, eight out of my 10 safer neighbourhood teams are not fully staffed. They have gone down to one PC, and none has a full complement of police community support officers. That is not something that I have dreamt up or that a disgruntled police officer has told me—although many are willing to tell me—but something that can be found on the Merton police service’s website. Consultations begin all the time on what safer neighbourhood policing should look like, but the whole drift and drive are about reducing team numbers, merging and deciding that some areas are not worthy of their team, because they are not crime-ridden enough. However, as far as I am concerned, people in every ward pay their taxes and they deserve to have their neighbourhood police team.

If the Government and the Mayor believe that the cuts should fall on safer neighbourhood teams, let me say this: stand up and say it. Do not pretend and do not lie, because the consequences will be enormous, and if we row back on people’s confidence in the police, we will all have a problem.

I was watching the BBC’s nightly London news programme back in February when I saw my good friend Councillor Martin Whelton talking about how his safer neighbourhood team was being merged with the team in Longthornton, and how the two police panels had been merged. Later in the same news item I saw Mr Ian McPherson, the Assistant Commissioner—whom I have never met—explain that that was not happening. The local councillor on the ground and the members of the panels were saying, “Yes, this is happening,” but the Assistant Commissioner was saying, “No, it isn’t”, so I sought to clarify the situation. On 18 February, I wrote to Mr McPherson to say:

“I write further to my discussions with the Area Commander of Merton Police Service, Mr Wolfenden, and your interview on BBC London on Thursday February 17th, in which you suggested that there were no plans to reduce the size of Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

As my colleague, Councillor Martin Whelton, suggested in the news report from Mitcham, the evidence on the ground contradicts the content of your TV interview. I am personally aware that the Longthornton and Pollards Hill teams have now merged and only have one sergeant, both having only one PC. In addition, I am also aware that a PC was removed from the Lavender team and transferred to Graveney. As you will be aware, the concentration of crime and anti-social behaviour in the London Borough of Merton is within the Mitcham and Morden constituency, with high levels of crime and fear of crime in Lavender, Cricket Green, Figges Marsh and Pollards Hill. If you were to reorganise the police officers to match this need, those wards would be receiving greater, not less, cover.

I have also been informed by officers at all levels within the Merton Service, that there is no point to argue for the continuation of the ten teams in my constituency as this cannot be sustained due to the need to cut back on sergeants within the Metropolitan Police Service. The need to reduce the number of officers and the inability to sustain the Safer Neighbourhood Teams was also contained on the Merton Voluntary Service Council website, who themselves were informed that there needed to be cuts in sergeants and police officers.

Given the evidence on the ground, and concern of local councillors and residents, I would be very grateful if you might meet with me in my constituency to discuss these matters further. I am concerned that there are changes being undertaken on the ground that you do not appear to be aware of. I would be happy to arrange a meeting with councillors and concerned local residents where we could discuss these matters.”

That letter was written on 18 February. To date, I have not received the courtesy of a reply. In getting no response, I am not offended personally, but I am offended on behalf of my constituents, who fear crime and want to keep their police officers.

I would ask for a modicum of honesty in this matter. It is absolutely right to look at how a big public service like the police works. The desire for continuing efficiency is absolutely right, but the idea that police officers can be taken off the street and be put back in cars at the same time as continuing to reduce crime itself and, more importantly, the fear of crime is a complete lie and a fantasy. We should stop these lies.

20:52

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

This is the fourth time in my short career in the House that I have spoken in a policing debate and, sadly, the second time I have done so while a murder investigation is ongoing in my constituency. That makes it a good time for me to pay tribute to the police for their hard work. Large-scale and difficult investigations like this one after the senseless murder of young Jia Ashton in Somercotes a couple of weeks ago help us all to appreciate how hard a job the police sometimes have.

It is important to put our debate on policing into context. We are debating the subject in the shadow of the most difficult public finance situation in peacetime history. As we look through these large and confusing numbers, it is important to realise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) just explained, that the Opposition’s last financial plan when they were in government involved them in about 90% of the spending reductions for this financial year—a difference of only £2 billion, which they spent many times over. They cannot get away with saying that if they were in power we would not have to face the huge savings that need to be made or the huge cuts that need to be found. In fact, neither of the main parties at the last election pledged to make no reduction in police funding or police numbers. Moreover, the last Labour Home Secretary—we have already had three shadow Home Secretaries in this Parliament—admitted that police numbers would fall under Labour as well.

The public do not much enjoy listening to us throwing blame around the Chamber. They want to hear us talk about what the Government should be doing to ensure that we have the efficient and effective policing that we need. The Government might have passed a Bill stating that there would be no reductions in uniformed police officers, but I am not sure whether we could have recommended such a Bill or whether it would have worked or been at all sensible. We have all seen the awful trend of having uniformed officers working at back-office functions for which they are not trained and which they are probably overpaid to do. What we need is something different. We want the highly trained police officers to be out on the streets, not doing support or back-office roles, however we want to define them.

The Government clearly can and should do certain things. I would like to talk about three particular examples: the funding for each force, reforms to pay and conditions and taking steps to strip away bureaucracy. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is still in the Chamber. She has heard me say this before, but I think it is important to bear in mind the difference in funding levels. Let me point out yet again that for many years Derbyshire has lost about £5 million a year —which equates roughly to 160 officers—because the last Government did not implement their own funding formula establishing the requirement for each force.

I realise that it was not possible for any Government to solve the problem in the time available, but I urge the Home Secretary, when the next funding round arrives, either to start to implement the existing funding formula or to introduce a new one. It cannot be right for us to keep saying “Here is a formula; here is the amount that you want; oh, sorry, you cannot have it”. That simply is not sustainable. We are led to believe that some forces do not have to work under the same financial pressures as Derbyshire and several other authorities in the east midlands.

I may gain more agreement from my colleagues on the Front Bench when I speak of the need to reform pay and conditions. The point has been well made that at a time when more than 75% of police budgets is spent on pay, there is a clear link: if we do not reform pay and conditions, we shall have to accept a smaller head count. Although imposing a two-year pay freeze is not a pleasant task, reforming police allowances and overtime payments must be the way forward. I say that cautiously, as the police service parliamentary scheme enables me to spend Wednesdays touring Chesterfield with members of the police force. I hope that, if they read the report of my speech, they will understand what I was trying to say. I am happy to debate the issue with them.

I urge the Government to make some progress on the Winsor review. The last thing that any of us want is for police forces to have to make cuts and savings and then, when the final recommendations of the review are published, to discover that the problem was not as bad as had been feared, and that they need not have made those savings. A degree of certainty on pay and conditions and the pension position will help everyone. I do not think that any of us work at our best with a huge amount of uncertainty hanging over us for longer than necessary.

We also need to strip away bureaucracy, and during their 11 months in power the Government have made considerable progress in that regard. We all want as many man hours as possible to be spent on the front line. I believe that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary defines the front line as officers

“who directly intervene to keep people safe and enforce the law”.

I do not know whether others agree with that definition, but it strikes me as a reasonable form of words.

The abolition of the police pledge, the reduction of bureaucracy and the granting of more discretion to the police to fight crime should be hugely welcomed. Talk of absolute police numbers is not the clearest way of discussing the issue; I think that what the public want to see is the right number of officers engaged in the right duties at the right times and in the right places, working in a smart manner.

[Tom Brake]

One issue that the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, other Members should consider is the amount of time spent by safer neighbourhood teams on petrol stations. I was appalled to discover that one BP garage in one ward was using 20% of the safer neighbourhood team’s time to deal with drive-outs and shoplifting. I suggest that Members with petrol stations in their constituencies ask how much of the local safer neighbourhood teams’ time is being spent in that way because they have not, for instance, ensured that CCTV is up to scratch, and that staff are properly trained to prevent shoplifting from becoming rife.

[Nigel Mills]

The hon. Gentleman has made a sensible point. I hope that the Government’s decision not to increase fuel tax even more will not provide any further encouragement for thefts from petrol stations.

Various reports have been quoted as saying that in 2009 only 14% of police officers’ time was spent on patrol and 22% was spent on paperwork. That cannot be right: there must be scope for the police to work in a far smarter manner. According to Jan Berry’s report—which has been referred to—about a third of police time is ineffective, and that demonstrates the scope for savings.

I commend the work that Derbyshire police have done, and continue to do, in their “Moving Forward” savings programme. I recently had an opportunity to quiz the chief constable, the officer in charge of the change programme and various others about how they were approaching it, and to challenge them by suggesting some additional things that they could think about. I was impressed by how well on track they were, and how well they had thought everything through. They have managed to save £700,000 already by putting sergeants back in charge of evidence gathering and case preparation, and they have saved about £1 million through increasing regional collaboration, so there are things that all forces can do.

[Mrs Grant]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is also an emerging police willingness to work with other agencies in the community, and that they are doing that in a very exciting and innovative way, which is good for both public services and the improvement of the police force generally?

[Nigel Mills]

It would be impossible not to agree with that; it has to be the way forward for all the services that have interactions with each other to make those interactions more effective and to avoid the duplication that can arise.

People must feel that the police are on their side. In the election campaign, I suspect that the following concern was expressed to every one of us time and again: “What do the police do? We never see them. They only want to tackle innocent motorists, and they don’t tackle serious crimes.” That is why the introduction of elected police commissioners—I have the pleasure of serving on the Public Bill Committee dealing with that—is a hugely powerful step. It is a way of saying, “Look, here is someone who can ensure that what the police do is what the public actually want them to do, and not what the chief constable, or the Government, might want them to do. Here is someone who is accountable to the public for delivering on police priorities.”

Finally, let me say that it would have been a far more constructive use of parliamentary time if today we had debated those aspects of the Winsor review that we welcome or have concerns about. Instead, we have had what must be about the third debate on police funding, which has more to do with playing party games before the local elections than trying to improve the police force. Let us instead look at the challenges the police face, and work constructively to get the best and the most efficient, but also the most effective, police force that we can for all our constituents.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I point out to those Members still waiting to speak that the winding-up speeches will start at 9.40 pm and we simply will not have time to hear from everyone who wishes to contribute unless we have fewer interventions from those who have already spoken and each Member who speaks is considerate of the Member who is about to follow them? If that is the case, everybody will be able to make their points.

21:02

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). He made a thoughtful and reflective speech, which, frankly, is in complete contrast to all the other speeches delivered from the Government Benches this afternoon. I was astonished by how relaxed the other Conservative and Liberal Democrat speakers were about the scale of the police cuts we are experiencing as a direct consequence of decisions made by this Government—by the Conservative party, which used to be described as the party of law and order, and the Liberal Democrats, who advocated extra police officers on top of the additional officers Labour introduced throughout our period in government.

Between 1997 and last year, there was an increase of 17,000 in police numbers, and at one stroke this Government are making a reduction of 12,000. There is a very significant difference between that and the reductions we propose and absolutely acknowledge need to be made, as referred to in our motion, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) made clear in her speech. The cuts under the 12% figure cited by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary would be very different from those under the 20% figure that this Government are imposing on police forces up and down the country.

I want to be brief in order to enable other Members to speak, so I will focus my remarks on the situation in Merseyside. Merseyside has already cut 200 officers and another 80 police staff. The force had a moratorium on recruitment during the previous financial year, and that continues. As a consequence, it anticipates a further reduction in officer numbers of 200. In other words, one in 12 officers in Merseyside will be lost in the space of just two years, and for the remaining period of this Parliament the force anticipates a total loss of 880 police officers and 1,000 police staff. In other words, one in five officers will go. I know from my discussions with the chief constable, with other senior officers and with front-line staff at the police stations in my constituency that they are doing their utmost to protect the front line, but they have said that because of the cuts in Government funding, front-line services will now be looked at.

The Home Secretary said that local police forces had the option of increasing the council tax, and when I challenged her on whether she was advocating that, she was careful in her response. I wish to reiterate something that I have said in previous debates: the capacity of a local police force to secure additional funding by increasing the precept varies enormously from one police force to another. The key determinant of that variation is how deprived the local community is. Half of Surrey’s funding for the police comes from central Government and half is raised locally, whereas 82% of Merseyside’s police funding comes from central Government and only 18% is determined by local council tax. It does not take a mathematician to work out that the capacity of Merseyside police to raise additional funds locally is considerably less than that of the police in Surrey and in other parts of the country. The Merseyside force has made great strides in recent years in improving its efficiency and the quality of its service. That is why, although it is making efficiencies and will make further efficiencies, it is simply not going to be possible for it to balance its books without cuts in the front-line service.

I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about the importance of the work done by the safer schools partnerships and, in particular, by police working in schools. The previous Government piloted this programme in 2002, when I was a Minister in the then Department for Education and Skills, and it was brought into the mainstream in 2006. I imagine that hon. Members on both sides of the House will have seen the very positive work done by police in schools, not only to tackle bullying but to ensure higher attendance levels and lower truancy rates in schools. Last year, “Robby the Bobby”, who is based at Lower Lane police station and who serves the Croxteth and Norris Green communities in my constituency, received the Queen’s police medal in the Queen’s birthday honours list. I want to pay tribute to him because he does great work, and I have seen that work. More importantly, however, I cite him because the work done by police in schools is so important. I would like to hear a reassurance from this Government that the safer schools programme is one to which they have the same commitment as the previous Government had.

The Minister has responded to me on this point previously, but I ask him to respond again on the issue of the differential impact of police cuts on the poorest communities. I request him specifically to meet a Merseyside delegation of MPs and those from the police authority to discuss the issue, because we could make a real difference to the front-line service in Merseyside if we could reconsider the scale of the cuts and the unfairness involved in how they have a greater impact in a community such as mine than they do in a community such as the one that he represents.

The main focus of tonight’s debate is on the fact that by going beyond the 12% figure that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has set out, the Government are endangering the quality of front-line policing in all our constituencies, no matter which part of the country we represent. For that reason, I urge the Government to think again.

21:08

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

First, I should declare an interest as a member of the Kent police authority. In that capacity, I get very frustrated about some of the numbers that the Opposition throw around. The shadow Home Secretary said that Kent’s police force had said that it was going to cut more than 500 officers, but it has not said that. The projection, once made, of 500 was on the basis of an assumption that the cut in grant was going to be significantly worse than it actually turned out to be.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) set up this great contrast between the 12% cut that Labour is very happy about and the 20% cut that we are supposedly imposing, but he does not draw attention to two key differences between those figures. First, the 20% reduction is a real reduction rather than a cash reduction, so a two-year pay freeze accounts for a significant portion of it and helps to explain totally appropriate front-loading, because that is the period in which the pay freeze will take place. In addition, the 20% does not allow for a precept, and assumes that the precept falls as much as the central grant. If we take those two factors into account, the reduction in central Government grant represents a more generous settlement than the one that HMIC said it would be possible to deliver. That reflects the importance that we place on policing and on police numbers.

The motion is predicated on the assumption that there will be a cut of 12,000 in the number of police officers because that is the number that ACPO has put out. However, that number was put out before Tom Winsor’s report was published. It is a very long report, and I look forward to reaching its conclusion over the recess, but I have read quite a lot of it already. Tom Winsor is saying that, even for 2012-13, on the basis of his recommendations, there will be a further £200 million of savings, over and above those that police authorities and chief constables have already been pushing towards. If we generously assume that there will be add-on costs of about £50,000 per police officer, that would give us enough money for 4,000 officers. If we implement what Tom Winsor suggests in his interim report, we would get the number down from 12,000 to 8,000.

That number will have to go through the national Police Negotiating Board, and there will doubtless be some pushback from the Police Federation and others, but in some areas Tom Winsor is actually being quite generous to the police in recognising the unique contribution that they make. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who is no longer in his place, has suggested that 40% of officers would lose £4,000 on the basis of what Winsor has said, but that is quite wrong. Tom Winsor’s point was that, back in 1978, under Lord Edmund-Davies, a 9% shift allowance for unsocial hours was incorporated into the standard police pay. Tom Winsor went on to say that, logically, we should therefore reduce by 9% the pay for the 43% of officers whose role did not require them to work unsocial hours. Rather than recommending that, however, he has now left them as they are and proposed an additional 10% shift allowance for hours worked between 8 pm and 6 am.

Another area in which Tom Winsor has been very generous to the police is that of the new expertise and professional accreditation allowance. Most police have been operating on the assumption that the special priority payments, which were introduced in 2003 and which have been quite divisive, would not be continued. If we take into account the additional allowance, which will be more costly than the special priority payments, we shall see a net increase in pay, even though most officers probably assumed that they would not get a special priority payment. Perhaps there will be a bit of give and take in the negotiations but, in those two areas in particular, Tom Winsor’s proposals are more generous than many officers would have expected.

I should also like to touch on the ability of police forces to make savings. We also heard about this from my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). Most organisations try to find savings and do things more efficiently year by year. In policing, however, there was an increase in grant every year from central Government. Police forces were able to increase their numbers, deal with particular issues and have more police tackling problem areas without having to find savings in other areas to fund those activities.

In Kent, we found a deputy chief constable who had been delivering a fantastic programme in Norfolk and finding very significant savings, all of which were able to be invested in the front line. Now, in tougher times, Kent is looking to strip out some of the inefficiencies. There might be too many people in central teams, or the intelligence area might be top heavy, so we will make savings in those areas. We are also going to work with Essex to form a single major and organised crime division, which will bring together a lot of the specialist areas. That will enable us to iron out the peaks and troughs in demand and deliver at least as good a service using fewer officers.

When I first joined Kent police authority, I was concerned that we were not going out to find the savings and ask the difficult questions. Partly that is because police authorities are not elected, so there is no direct connection with the electorate that requires delivering the best possible policing while minimising the precepts. If one finds savings, asks difficult questions and tries to get the police to do things in a different way from the one they are used to, and which they perhaps prefer, that will always be quite difficult and with no direct electoral accountability, there is not necessarily the motivation to do that.

In my police authority, in the past year or two at least, people have worked very hard to find savings and it has one of the lowest precepts in the country. I believe that in many police authorities across the country that have had consistent grant increases year on year, there is scope to find savings and to work together much more. There is no justification for having 43 different IT systems. A large amount of the police budget is police pay, but that is partly because the police deliver almost everything themselves with a direct labour force. In many areas of the public sector, we have found significant savings through outsourcing. Cleveland police has a control centre run by the private sector—it is outsourced—but it is quite rare in policing to make those more radical changes to deliver things as cheaply and efficiently as one can by going outside the police service. A direct electoral mandate would press people to deliver policing as well as they could for as little as they could. There is significant scope for savings and I believe that reductions can be made while protecting the front line and delivering the police service that the country deserves.

21:16

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to our police service. It is quite remarkable how it has evolved over the years, learning sometimes difficult lessons of history from Scarman to Macpherson. Our Labour Government backed the police service and invested massively, with 17,000 more police officers and 16,000 police community support officers. An admirable model of community policing has led to a record fall in crime, and nowhere can that be seen better than in West Midlands police authority, under the leadership of Chief Constable Chris Sims.

I have seen at first hand just how effective our police service is. In Castle Vale, the neighbourhood tasking group deals with problems of antisocial behaviour and there is excellent dialogue between the police and the local community, so that the young kids now go and play in a park and the older residents, who were complaining, enjoy their environment. When there was an outbreak of robberies in shops in Stockland Green, the police mounted an excellent operation and effective intelligence led to the arrests of those responsible. When there were two terrible knife murders in my constituency, including that of one young man who died on his doorstep in the arms of his mother, a huge police operation, with support from the community, led to arrests.

The community values its community policing and there is complete dismay about the impact of the Government’s cuts on our police service, not least because the first duty of any Government is to ensure the safety and security of our communities. It is therefore simply wrong for the Government to impose massive front-loaded cuts on the West Midlands police service that will lead to 2,400 people going, including 300 police officers who are going right now under regulation A19. It is absolutely wrong that the high-need, high-unemployment west midlands is being hit more than twice as hard as the leafy glades of Surrey and that Ministers pretend that there is no impact on front-line policing. Policing is about much more than just those who are out on the front line: the police team working together is key. Some of the earlier references to areas such as child protection, domestic violence and counter-terrorism involve a great deal of inter-agency collaboration and intelligence gathering.

Having said that, we need to move beyond the numbers —not just how many are going, but who they are and why they matter. Sergeant Dave Hewitt, 32 years a police officer, being forced out at the age of 48, is a neighbourhood sergeant with an excellent team of neighbourhood police officers making their local community a safer place to live. Is he or is he not a front-line officer? Police Constable Ian Rees, 34 years a police officer, being forced out at the age of 55, is a motorway specialist making our motorways in the midlands a safer place to drive. Is he or is he not a front-line police officer?

Detective Constable Tony Fisher, 33 years a police officer, being forced out at the age of 50, is a specialist in dealing with serious robbery. Only in the past couple of years, he mounted an exercise to track down the individual who was robbing pensioners at cash points and put that man away, and rightly so, for 13 years. He also tracked down the gang that used machetes to rob shops, with the leader of that gang going away for 17 years, and rightly so. The community is a safer place, thanks to him. Is he or is he not a front-line police officer?

Detective Constable Tim Kennedy, 31 years a police officer, is a specialist in serious acquisitive crime—burglaries and cars—with one of the best detection records anywhere in the midlands. Is he or is he not a front-line police officer? Inspector Mark Stokes, 33 years a police officer, is a specialist in designing out crime, with an outstanding track record. On the Four Towers estate in Birmingham, for example, there has been a 98% fall in what was a serious level of crime, thanks to the work that he has done. Is he or is he not vital to the front line?

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for agreeing earlier that she will meet these A19 officers. She will find that they are the best in Birmingham and Britain. They will be sadly missed by the communities that they have served so well over many years. It is wrong—plain wrong—for the Government to say to the men and women being forced out under A19, “Thanks for your past loyalty. Thanks for your outstanding service. Here is your notice.” The Government have got to think again.

21:23

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Notwithstanding the remarks that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), the Opposition, whose motion we are debating this evening, know that it is not possible to have any discussion about any public sector service without having some regard to the national economic context. Colleagues on the Government Benches have mentioned the £120 million a day that the Government are spending on interest, which puts into context the £35 million a day that we are currently spending on policing, the matter under debate. All sectors of public service must be subject to review, and no sector can be immune. Policing must play its part.

It is entirely appropriate that cost reduction should be accompanied by Government reform of the public services. No sector should be immune from the need to reform, and policing must play its part. I therefore reject the proposition in the Opposition motion that does nothing other than criticise the steps that the Government have taken. It offers no alternative proposal. The motion is completely silent on what the Opposition would do to make policing play its part in reducing the burden of public expenditure or reforms to the service. We might therefore assume that the Opposition are happy to carry on spending as they were before and make no change to public service, but we would be wrong, because the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has said that all departments, police included, would need “to make savings”. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), has said that Labour in government would have cut spending and reduced police numbers.

What are the Government actually doing? They are making the police accountable to their communities, cutting increasing costs, removing targets and paperwork and, critically, restoring to police officers the discretion they once had. In my constituency of Rugby we are governed by Warwickshire police, a force in which, notwithstanding the Opposition’s remarks, police numbers fell between 2004 and 2009, so there have not been massive increases in police numbers under the Labour Government. Warwickshire police are currently vacating an expensive and unnecessary force headquarters to save costs, and the chief constable is doing the right thing by focusing on public protection, providing service to the community and increasing productivity on the front line.

One of the reasons I was keen to speak in the debate is that my brother is a sergeant in Warwickshire police with more than 20 years’ service. We often get together and speak about our respective roles. He tells me how he and his colleagues were frustrated by the previous Government’s tick-box approach and the massive increase in paperwork and bureaucracy that resulted in their spending less time on patrol than they did filling in forms. They were not doing what they had been trained to do—to protect the public. As a parliamentary candidate, I spent a Friday night accompanying an officer on patrol and saw just how much paperwork he had to complete.

The police look forward to many of the Government’s proposals and reforms, in particular the one to get rid of the stop and encounter form. Officers appreciate that services must accept some of the reduction in expenditure and in the cost burden of the public sector. There are three significant issues that they are having to deal with. First, the restructuring in costs will lead to fewer people being able to support them in the back office and the pay freeze. Secondly, the provisions of the Winsor report, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) has just referred, will change the way they operate and the structure of their pay. Thirdly, over and above those effects officers will also be affected by the Hutton report, which in time will lead to less generous pension provision. I must tell the Home Secretary and the policing Minister that the combination of those three factors means that the morale of our officers is lower than it has been for some time. They understand the need for change, but they feel that they are burdened by those three changes all coming along at one time.

I was delighted to hear the Home Secretary acknowledge in her opening remarks that we have the finest police service in the world. I hope that the Minister, in summing up, will express the regard in which the public hold the police, who are doing a difficult job at a difficult time. I hope that he will provide some reassurance to officers who are committed to service, such as my brother and his colleagues, that their commitment will be recognised. I hope that he will ensure that those officers who work hard and from time to time put themselves on the line can feel positive about the valuable role they play and can focus on the key task of protecting the public.

In conclusion, the Government are right to be taking their current action on policing. It represents just one of a series of very difficult decisions that they have been obliged to take over the past 11 months, all of which in the long term will provide better and more efficient services to the public of this country.

21:29

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who spoke about not only his constituency’s interest in the debate, but that of his family. He can report back to his brother that he was able to raise those concerns in such a debate.

It is commendable that both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary have sat through the entire debate, the feature of which is that Members on both sides have talked about not just the headline figures, but policing in their constituencies. On balance, Opposition Members have said that the cuts are going to affect policing negatively, and Government Members have said that the cuts are required to some extent because they can make the police more accountable, transparent and efficient.

In four weeks’ time, the right hon. Lady will celebrate her year in office as the first Conservative Home Secretary in 13 years. She has got used to the fact that when she enters the Chamber for policing debates, she does not get a standing ovation, but importantly we have heard what the Government propose to do and what the Opposition have said they would do in similar circumstances.

The Home Affairs Committee produced a report on police finances, and it was unanimous. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is our resident expert on policing matters along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael), and the Committee concluded that there would be significantly fewer police service staff once the proposals were implemented. That is certainly backed up by all the other stakeholder organisations—be they ACPO, the Police Federation or other organisations that have commented on the matter. The key test for the Government is whether having fewer staff will make the police force more efficient.

I do not deny any incoming Government the right to put forward proposals to the British people and a scheme that they say will provide a better service for less money, but it will be some time before we find out what those key indicators are. As several Members have pointed out, crime is at a record low, and the question is, once the proposals are implemented, whether crime will rise. That is the challenge for this Government.

We also know that the Government’s proposals have still not been completed. There is an ambitious target not just on police finances, but on the new landscape of policing, and the election of police commissioners will have an impact on how policing operates—everyone accepts that it will. The new landscape will result in the abolition of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the National Policing Improvement Agency, and the Home Affairs Committee is just about to undertake an inquiry into the likely new landscape.

I think that we will have to return to the subject once the Government have completed their template. As I have said, it is absolutely the right of an incoming Government to say that they propose to use taxpayers’ money in a way that will make the service more efficient, but my concern is that the template is not complete and, to some extent, the proposed cuts—or reductions, if we like to use that word—are a work in progress. We will not know the full effects until the rest of the landscape has been completed.

What the Government are doing on procurement and on the reduction in bureaucracy is excellent. The Home Secretary says that she has taken on board Jan Berry’s recommendations and appointed Chris Sims to take the matter forward, and that is a continuation of what the previous Government did. I see the previous Policing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), is present, and whenever he got to the Dispatch Box when Labour was in government, he talked about cutting red tape. We on the Select Committee hope to look at Jan Berry’s recommendations to see whether they have been implemented and whether red tape has been cut.

Tomorrow, as the Home Secretary knows, we have the new permanent secretary at the Home Office before the Committee. It is of course important to save money on procurement and I would like to have seen more done under the previous Government to bring procurement under much greater central control. The right hon. Lady talked about local decision making, but I understand that vehicles are now the subject of central planning, so the Home Office is saying, “You can buy these vehicles, because this is the best possible deal that we have been able to make.” If that can be done with vehicles, why not mobile phones or all other aspects of procurement? Of course we would like to see local police forces collaborate—the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood reminded me that a conference on procurement is coming up in the near future, co-sponsored by Essex and Kent police authorities—and we want local decision making, but I cannot understand why the Home Office does not produce a procurement catalogue that has the best possible prices available and encourage all local police forces to buy from it. That is something that we will have to look forward to in future.

My final point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made better than anyone else, is that we need to stop consulting only chief constables about what is happening. The people who really matter are the public. In his recent speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice rejected the idea of a royal commission on policing, citing Harold Wilson’s comment that royal commissions take minutes to set up but years to report. We do not need to wait years to hear about the expectations of the public, who must be consulted.

The Select Committee intends to consult the public in an online poll on the five key things that they want police officers and the police force to do. Once we have those conclusions, I hope that they will feed into the Government’s thinking on how the new landscape operates. Without consulting the public on their expectations, there is no point in having this debate. The chief constables have a vested interest—they want to protect their budgets. Police authorities want things to stay as they are, and everyone else involved has, to some extent, the same interest. However, it is the public to whom we are accountable on policing, and therefore, in the end, it is the public to whom we have to listen.

21:36

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I join the Home Secretary in the tribute that she paid to the police for their hard work and courage, which we have seen, tragically, over the past couple of days.

This debate takes place at a time when the police feel undervalued and under attack by this Government. Let me start by laying out a few facts. There is a 20% cut from central Government, with the highest percentage of that cut falling in the first two years, and the Government implementing it with no real definition of the front line. That will mean the loss of over 12,000 police officers. In every region of England and Wales, police officers and staff will be lost in every community. This means the loss of over 15,000 police staff—again, right across our country in every single community. As we heard so eloquently from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), it also means the loss of over 2,000 of the most experienced officers.

These officers are not going because chief officers want them to go—they are being forced to go because of the need to cut costs. The functions of most of these officers are not in the back office but on the front line. Front-line detectives are gone, with one detective saying “I don’t want to go and I’m absolutely gutted.” Front-line response officers are gone, along with neighbourhood sergeants, one commenting that the claim that cuts would not affect the front line was absolute rubbish. Firearms officers are gone from the front line, along with crime reduction officers and public order officers—and so the list goes on. These are just some of the front-line posts lost because of the cuts.

To listen to the Home Secretary, one would think that there is no impact on police officers—that there are no cuts on the front line—but her case is completely undermined by last week’s report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, which showed that 95% of police officers and police community support officers did not work in the back office, with only 5% doing so. [Interruption.] The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice scoffs, but I refer him to page 4 of the report, which shows clearly that the percentage of officers and PCSOs who are in the back office is 5%. If he wants to take issue with that, he must take issue with HMIC. That figure drives a coach and horses through the Home Office’s justification for its proposals. The proposals were undermined by Sir Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, who said that it would be difficult to protect the front line. The Government plough on regardless, oblivious to the growing chorus of anxiety and deaf to those who are expressing increasing concern and alarm. “We know best,” is the motto of the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice.

My right hon. and hon. Friends have pointed out the impact of the police cuts across the country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) praised the work of specialist officers, but pointed out the threat to the reduction in violent crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) spoke about the impact on Northumbria, where there is a 41% cut in police staff. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) pointed out the cuts to hundreds of police officers and police staff in the Lancashire constabulary. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) pointed out the importance of the introduction of neighbourhood policing and safer neighbourhood teams, which was one of the successes of the previous Government. The budgets pose a threat to those teams. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) spoke about the impact of the cuts on Merseyside, where one in five officers is to go. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said that the jury is out on the current proposals. He was right to point out that crime is at a record low, but the question is whether it will keep falling. At a time when crime is at a record low, all this is put at risk.

As the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, Meredydd Hughes, warned in a paper to his police authority, front-line posts and specialist officers will be lost, and there will be real risks to crime levels. He said:

“A reduction in back office support will put an increased burden on operational officers detracting them from front-line duties.”

No doubt the Government will say, as they do when anybody disagrees with them, that he is just wrong. Well, I know Med Hughes and he is an excellent chief constable. He should be listened to and not dismissed. It is not just one chief constable. The chief constable of Lancashire police, Steve Finnigan, said on the “Today” programme last week, in answer to whether he would have to reduce front-line policing to meet the Government’s budget cuts, “I absolutely am.”

Of course, the protection of the front line is made so much more difficult by the loss of police staff. Who will do the necessary administrative tasks? Who will do the necessary probation work or the court reports? We have seen examples across the country of officers being needed to do such tasks and being pulled away from the public and the front line. No reorganisation on this scale will protect the front line. We have already seen that in Warwickshire. Reflecting on the job losses in his area, Ian Francis, the chair of Warwickshire police authority, said:

“The simple matter is yes, we are going to lose policemen from the front-line.”

The Police Federation, the Police Superintendents Association, chief officers and police authorities have all warned of the consequences of this Budget settlement. However, as with so many of their so-called reforms, the Government say that they know best. They believe that they know what is right and that they have to drive through all those who stand in the way of this so-called progress. Last week, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice called those who oppose the Government’s accountability changes and other reforms elitist. Well, I say that the Government are elitist in their flagrant disregard for anyone who disagrees with them and anyone who stands in their way. The police and the public are deeply worried by the cuts to policing.

No one in this House of Commons, as far as I am aware, stood on a platform of having fewer police officers. The Liberals promised 3,000 more police officers—yet another broken promise. Individual Tory MPs up and down the country demanded more police officers. Tory MPs need to be sure what they are voting for, and so do Liberal Democrats.

I say to the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) that 250 personnel will be gone in his police area. He should put that on the leaflet in the local election campaign. In Carshalton and Wallington, police officers and staff are going—that should be on the next Liberal Democrat “Focus” leaflet. In Reading West, 256 officers and 564 staff are going at Thames Valley police—its Member should put that on the next leaflet and say it is down to efficiency. Although the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) was more reasonable than others, he will still have to put on his election leaflets for the Amber Valley borough council election why he justifies 290 police officers and staff going in the area. I tell you what, Mr Speaker—I bet not many of them do put that on their leaflets.

Up and down the country, people are watching—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary should listen to this. People are watching a Tory-led Government cutting police numbers and crime prevention projects. They are looking at a Tory-led Government who cannot find money for the police but can finds of millions of pounds extra for a democratic experiment in electing police and crime commissioners that nobody wants and for which the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has yet to produce one shred of evidence. [Interruption.] Are you enjoying this? The Government were so embarrassed that the responses to the consultation paper commissioned to show how many people were in favour of elected commissioners were not published. Shall I tell the House why? Because of the 900 people asked, so few were in favour that the Government were embarrassed to publish the responses.

The cuts to the police budget are too fast and too deep. The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister need to think again. They need to put aside ideology, listen to the many voices of concern and change course. The Government are looking to cut costs, but it is communities up and down the country that will pay the price of an arrogant Government failing to stand up for policing and failing to stand up for the police.

21:46

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

First, I join other hon. Members including the shadow Police Minister in paying tribute to the police for the job that they do for the whole country in every constituency, particularly at this time when, as the House did earlier, we remember PC Ronan Kerr, who tragically lost his life serving the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

We should always value the work that the police do and remember that they do a difficult and dangerous job, but none of that means that we can avoid the decisions that have been forced upon us by the need to deal with the deficit. My first point to Opposition Members is that they are silent about the savings that can be driven by police forces working together and individually that reach beyond the savings identified in the HMIC report. That report stated that savings of more than £1 billion a year were possible while front-line services were protected. It did not examine the potential savings that could be made through, for instance, police forces working together to procure goods and equipment—some £350 million on top of that figure.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary pointed out, there are 2,000 different IT systems in our forces, employing 5,000 staff. I welcome the comment of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), that we were right to examine such procurement. He should know, and I know he does, that we have already laid regulations to drive collective procurement by forces to save money.

I repeat for the benefit of the Opposition, who have not heard or understood the point, that those savings are in addition to those identified by the inspectorate, and that they can be made by police forces working more effectively together. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) criticised that approach when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary talked about it earlier. Do the Opposition Front Benchers not support that collective approach to procuring goods and equipment, and why did they not take it in their 13 years in government?

Let us examine another matter on which the Opposition are completely silent, which is the proposed savings that we have set out in relation to pay. Any organisation in which three quarters of the costs rest in the pay bill has to look to control that bill when resources are tight. That is the responsible thing to do. That is why we have said that, in common with other public services, we expect the police to be subject to a two-year pay freeze. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) was right that that directly answers the point about the savings that we require forces to make being higher in the first and second years than in the third and the fourth. In those years, we propose that another £350 million should be saved through the pay freeze. Here is a question for the Opposition: do they support that pay freeze? If not, they would put more jobs at risk in policing. They are adopting an irresponsible approach.

What about the Winsor savings? Police officers should know that it is proposed to plough back the majority of the savings that Tom Winsor identified in his report on pay and conditions into new allowances to reward front-line service and specialist skills. We will consider those matters carefully in the recommendations of the Police Negotiating Board. Do the Opposition back those savings, for which police forces have not budgeted at the moment? Do they support those proposals in the Winsor review? Again, we do not know because the Opposition are silent on the matter.

Let me explain for the benefit of the Opposition that the total effect of the savings of more than £500 million, on top of the savings that HMIC identified, add up to 10,000 officers. In opposing the pay reforms, the Opposition put those 10,000 jobs at risk. That is why their position is untenable.

Several hon. Members mentioned the front line. Of course, it includes not only visible policing but investigative units. However, the Opposition have again completely missed the point. The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) shouts “smoke and mirrors” from a sedentary position, but he uses a fair bit himself when he claims that 5% of officers are in the back office. Does he expect officers to do IT and payroll? Those are back-office functions. The inspectorate says, “Look at the back and middle offices—the support functions—not the front line.” How many police officers does the hon. Gentleman think are serving in the back and middle office? The same report tells him—I assume that he has read it. A fifth of officers and PCSOs are in the back and middle office. In case he cannot do the maths, that means that 30,000 police officers are not working on the front line, and we should begin looking for savings in the back and middle office so that we can protect front-line services.

The Opposition mentioned Northumbria police and claimed that there would be an impact on front-line services. Chief Constable Sue Sim said:

“I am absolutely committed to maintaining frontline policing and the services we offer to our communities.”

Every chief constable is saying the same. They are committed to doing everything they can to maintain front-line services.

As the chief inspector of constabulary said, we must consider a total redesign of the way in which policing is delivered in this country. We must look at forces sharing services and collaborating. We must consider radical solutions, which will enable a better service to be delivered. Is the Labour party in favour of police forces outsourcing their services to the private sector? That is another matter on which it is silent. Some forces have contracted our their control rooms and their custody suites. Those are defined as being in the so-called front line. Is the Labour party in favour of those cost-saving measures? There is deafening silence from the Opposition when they are faced with difficult questions about how to drive value for money.

There is silence again about bureaucracy. The Opposition spent 13 years tying up our police officers in red tape. All the shadow Chancellor could say about that when he was shadow Home Secretary is that he did not think it mattered that officers spent more time on paperwork than on patrol. Let me say to the Opposition that the Government think it does matter and we are determined to reduce red tape and improve productivity on the front line because we want police officers to be crime fighters, not form writers.

Let us look at another matter in which the Opposition seem simply uninterested: how resources are deployed. Labour is only ever interested in how much money is spent rather than in how well it is spent. Why, therefore, do Labour Members have not the slightest interest in the fact that officer visibility and availability in the best-performing forces are twice those of the poorest-performing forces within the existing resource? Apparently, they are not interested in that. Government Members have consistently made the point that, even as resources contract and even as forces find savings, they can and should prioritise visible and available policing, and good forces are doing so.

As we have heard from my hon. Friends, Kent is increasing numbers in neighbourhood policing teams, as is Gloucestershire, and Staffordshire is protecting them.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Minister says that good police forces are doing all the things he wants, but what does he say about the Warwickshire, South Yorkshire and Merseyside police forces, and all forces that are being forced to take police officers off the front line? Does he think that those chief constables are doing a bad job?

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Lady just does not get it, does she? She does not understand the difference between how much is spent and the service that we get at the other end, because Labour measures the value of every public service by how much is being spent on it.

Let me tell the right hon. Lady what the South Yorkshire chief constable said in January this year. He said that

“the reduced level of government funding announced late last year was expected and I’m confident that our service to the public won’t necessarily decline over the next two years.”

Let us look at the sums. Labour Members always say that there will be 20% cuts in budgets.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Herbert]

I shall make a little more progress, and then give way.

The Labour party says that there will be 20% cuts in budgets—that is the language that Labour Members always use—but there will not be. No force will have a 20% cut in its budget, because forces raise money from their precept. Assuming reasonable rises in precept over the next four years, the cash reduction is 6%. Provided that forces do the right things, that is challenging but nevertheless deliverable.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Minister again says that some police forces are doing the right thing, and some the wrong thing. He referred to Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes of South Yorkshire police, who said this week:

“We will be unable to continue to provide the same level of service we do today in such areas like neighbourhood policing”

and diversionary and problem-solving activities. He also said:

“A reduction in back office support will put an increased burden on operational officers detracting them from frontline duties.”

Is the South Yorkshire chief constable right or wrong?

[Nick Herbert]

It is the same tired stuff from the shadow Home Secretary, reading out local press cuttings from around the country. She should reflect on the fact that police officer numbers were falling under the previous Government by the time we got to the election. In their last year in office, officer numbers fell in 27 forces across England and Wales—did we hear a squeak from them about that?—and officer numbers fell in 13 police forces in the five years before 2009.

This is what the public need to know about Labour. It would cut police budgets by £1.5 billion—we heard that this evening—and yet Labour Members pretend that that would not mean fewer officers and staff. When asked in the election campaign, Labour refused to guarantee police numbers, yet Labour Members criticise the fall in numbers now. Labour Members say that cuts are too deep and front-loaded, yet they would be cutting £9 for every £10 we will cut next year; they claim that police and crime commissioners would cost too much, but their model would cost more; and they call Opposition debates and run their cynical campaigns, but they—

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.

21:59

Division 252

Ayes: 210

---

Labour: 205
Democratic Unionist Party: 2
Plaid Cymru: 2
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 289

---

Conservative: 248
Liberal Democrat: 40

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the proposed words be there added.

22:15

Division 253

Ayes: 282

---

Conservative: 241
Liberal Democrat: 40

Noes: 209

---

Labour: 204
Democratic Unionist Party: 2
Plaid Cymru: 2
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

The Speaker declared the Main question, as amended, to be agreed to (Standing Order No. 31(2)).

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the Government’s comprehensive proposals to cut crime and increase the democratic accountability of policing while dealing with the largest peacetime deficit in history; supports the Government’s determination to help the police make savings to protect frontline services; congratulates the police forces that are increasing the number of officers visible and available to the public; notes that the Opposition’s spending plans require reductions in police spending; and regrets its refusal to support sensible savings or to set out an alternative.

Business without Debate

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

Delegated legislation

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Legal Services

That the draft Legal Services Act 2007 (Approved Regulators) Order 2011, which was laid before this House on 14 March, be approved.—(Mr Newmark.)

Question agreed to.

Bradley Manning

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Newmark.)

22:26

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this issue, because it is important that the case is raised here in the House of Commons. I want to talk about the treatment of Bradley Manning. An early-day motion on this subject—early-day motion1624—stands in my name and is currently supported by 37 right hon. and hon. Members, and I hope that others will add their names.

I wish to speak this evening in terms very similar terms to those of the early-day motion, which reads as follows:

“That this House expresses great concern at the treatment of Private First Class Bradley Manning, currently detained at the US Quantico Marine Base; notes the increasing level of interest and concern in the case in the UK and in particular in Wales; appeals to the US administration to ensure that his detention conditions are humane; and calls on the UK Government to raise the case with the US administration.”

That is what I want to expand on in this short debate. I want to explain why I am so concerned about Bradley Manning’s case and why others should be too, and I want to ask the Minister to undertake to raise the case with the US Administration.

Bradley Manning is the US soldier imprisoned at the US marine base at Quantico, Virginia. He is accused of being the person responsible for the leaking of the US Government information—about Iraq and about Afghanistan, and from US embassies around the world—that was released into the public domain through the website WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning is a serving member of the US armed forces and he is detained in a military prison. It is important for us to note that he has yet to be convicted of any offence—I am not sure whether there is a confirmed trial date, but I understand that it will not be until May or June.

Like me, the Minister will want to be careful about describing the actions of which Bradley Manning is accused, because we have yet to have Bradley’s account and he has still to have that account considered by a court. That is why I do not want us to get drawn into a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the WikiLeaks revelations. However, I would like to concentrate on the current conditions of detention for Bradley Manning. I have read the several accounts of Bradley’s treatment which have appeared in the press. Some very good accounts that have appeared in The Guardian have come from David Leigh, in particular, but the one that I paid most attention to was the one from Bradley himself. On 10 March, in an 11-page memorandum from Bradley Manning to the commanding officer of the Quantico marine base, issued through his lawyer, Bradley Manning described for us the conditions of his detention. This is what he said:

“Since 2 March 2011, I have been stripped of all my clothing at night. I have been told that the PCF commander intends on continuing this practice indefinitely. Initially, after surrendering my clothing to the brig guards, I had no choice but to lay naked in my cold jail cell until the following morning. The next morning I was told to get out of my bed for the morning duty brig supervisor (DBS) inspection. I was not given any of my clothing back. I got out of the bed and immediately started to shiver because of how cold it was in my cell. I walked towards the front of my cell with my hands covering my genitals. The guard told me to stand at parade rest, which required me to stand with my hands behind my back and my legs spaced shoulder width apart. I stood at ‘parade rest’ for about three minutes until the DBS arrived. Once the DBS arrived, everyone was called to attention. The DBS and the other guards walked past my cell. The DBS looked at me, paused for a moment, and then continued to the next detainee’s cell. I was incredibly embarrassed at having all these people stare at me naked. After the DBS completed his inspection, I was told to go and sit on my bed. About 10 minutes later I was given my clothes and allowed to get dressed…Under my current restrictions, in addition to being stripped at night, I am essentially held in solitary confinement. For 23 hours per day, I sit alone in my cell. The guards check on me every five minutes during the day by asking me if I am OK. I am required to respond in some affirmative manner.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ann Clwyd]

I have very little time, but yes, I will.

[Jim Shannon]

Is the right hon. Lady aware of when the trial will take place?

[Ann Clwyd]

No, I do not yet know that, but I think that it will be in a couple of months’ time.

Bradley Manning’s account continued:

“At night, if the guards cannot see me clearly, because I have a blanket over my head or I am curled up towards the wall, they will wake me in order to ensure that I am OK…I am prevented from exercising in my cell. If I attempt to do push-ups, sit-ups, or any other form of exercise I am forced to stop. Finally, I receive only one hour of exercise outside of my cell daily. My exercise is usually limited to me walking figures of eight in an empty room.”

We also learn from this memorandum, issued through his lawyer, that his treatment ignores the repeated recommendations of the Marine Corps’ own appointed psychiatrists. They repeatedly say that Bradley Manning’s detention status should be changed. That treatment serves no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade Bradley Manning. I regard it as cruel and unnecessary.

Bradley Manning calls his conditions “improper treatment” and “unlawful pre-trial punishment”. Human Rights Watch has called on the US Government to

“explain the precise reasons behind extremely restrictive and possibly punitive and degrading treatment that Army Private First Class Bradley Manning alleges he has received”.

Amnesty International has said:

“Manning is being subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. This is particularly disturbing when one considers that he hasn’t even been brought to trial, let alone convicted of a crime”.

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, who I have spoken to in the House of Commons about the case, has officially raised his concerns with the US Administration and is awaiting a response.

We have not only those views but a view from inside the US Administration. Until recently, P. J. Crowley was the spokesman for the US State Department. He was a senior and well respected official and a career member of the US armed forces. Early in March he was forced to resign following comments he made about the treatment of Bradley Manning at a university seminar. He called the treatment of Bradley Manning “ridiculous”, “counterproductive” and “stupid”.

Since his resignation, P. J. Crowley has gone on to explain why he said what he did, including in a column in The Guardian last week. He says:

“As a public diplomat and (until recently) spokesman of the department of state, I was responsible for explaining the national security policy of the United States to the American people and populations abroad. I am also a retired military officer who has long believed that our civilian power must balance our military power. Part of our strength comes from international recognition that the United States practises what we preach.”

He goes on:

“Based on 30 years of government experience, if you have to explain why a guy is standing naked in the middle of a jail cell, you have a policy in need of urgent review.”

Finally, he says:

“So, when I was asked…I said the treatment of Private Manning, while well-intentioned, was ‘ridiculous’ and ‘counterproductive’ and, yes, ‘stupid’.

I stand by what I said.”

In the article and the interviews he has given, P. J. Crowley—a career US military and Government man—sets out why Bradley Manning’s case is important. It is important because of the message it sends to the rest of the world about what kind of treatment the United States thinks is acceptable for people in detention. As for us, it is important what we say—or what we do not say—because of the message that it sends about the kind of treatment we in the United Kingdom and in the UK Government think is acceptable. That matters in countries where human rights are not so well observed. People will pay attention in China, in Russia, in Libya, where we want to be on the side of those fighting for freedom from state repression, and most of all in Afghanistan. The image that Britain and the US have in the world matters to the UK and US service personnel fighting in Afghanistan.

I know that only too well from my experience in Iraq as special envoy on human rights over a seven-year period. In my view some of the greatest damage was caused to British and American efforts in Iraq when the stories of prisoner abuse emerged. It undermined our moral authority at a time when we needed to explain that we were fighting for a better future for Iraq, free from the torture and abuse suffered under the regime of Saddam Hussein. The United States and the UK, in the way we respond to US actions, need to preserve that moral authority if we are to have a positive impact on the world and lead by example.

So what am I asking the Minister to do? Let me address the issue of British nationality, because it seems to me to have been something of a red herring. I am not raising Bradley Manning’s case because he is a British national but because I believe his treatment is cruel and unnecessary and that we should say so. I am also chair of the all-party group on human rights and so I often raise human rights cases from around the world. They might be in Burma, Chechnya, East Timor, China, or, sadly, too many other places besides. I do not raise them because they involve British citizens, but because they involve human rights abuses or wrongdoing and because I am in politics because I want to do something to try to stop those things happening.

I want the British Government to raise Bradley Manning’s treatment with the US Administration because his treatment is cruel and unnecessary and we should be saying so. We cannot deny, however, that Bradley’s connection to the UK adds an additional dimension. Bradley’s mother, Susan, is Welsh and lives in Pembrokeshire. Bradley lived and went to school in Wales between the ages of 13 and 17. There is a great deal of interest in the UK, and in particular in Wales, in Bradley’s case and much of that is grounded in his close connection to the UK. Both London and Wrexham have seen protests against Bradley Manning’s treatment, and I pay tribute to those people in the UK who have raised his case.

Perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to clarify, on the record, just what the position is with regard to British nationality. My understanding is that under the British Nationality Act 1981 anyone born outside the UK after 1 January 1983 who has a mother who is a UK citizen by birth is British by descent. Perhaps the Minister will assist us by confirming that that is the case. I am aware that Bradley Manning’s lawyer has issued a statement that Bradley is not asserting any kind of UK nationality. I know that, but from the point of view of British law, is it the case that Bradley Manning qualifies for British nationality?

I shall mention briefly the British aspect of the case, which concerns Bradley’s mother and family in Wales. I have met some of Bradley’s family—his aunt and uncle—and I am in contact with them. This will be an exceptionally hard time for Bradley Manning’s family, not just for his mother and family in Wales, but for his father and that side of his family in the United States. He is accused of the gravest of crimes which, according to some reports, can attract the death penalty, and there is intense media interest in Bradley, in anything to do with WikiLeaks and in the information that was revealed about the US Government.

Part of Bradley’s family live in Pembrokeshire and their son is in a military prison in Virginia in the US. They are being contacted by journalists, campaigners and politicians who are trying to raise the case. This is a difficult situation for any family to deal with. What kind of consular, official or other support could be made available to Bradley’s mother and family? When they visit Bradley in the US, for example, can they expect assistance from British embassy staff in the US? Can they receive advice and assistance in understanding the charges faced by their son, and perhaps advice, too, about the issue of British nationality?

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I hope that in his reply he does not say that we do not know what Bradley Manning’s conditions are. We have his own statement, backed by his lawyer, from which I read earlier. I am sure the Minister will not try to defend the harsh treatment that Bradley Manning is experiencing because of the gravity of the charges. That is beside the point. I hope the hon. Gentleman does not try to say that as he is not a British citizen, it is not appropriate to raise Bradley Manning’s case with the US Administration, because we raise cases with other countries all the time. I hope he will not fail to acknowledge that Bradley Manning’s having lived for a time in the UK, and given that his mother and that side of his family are British, creates an additional obligation on the Government to act in that family’s best interests.

I hope that the Minister can give two undertakings tonight—first, that the British Government will officially raise the case with the US Administration, and secondly, that the Government will consider what support they could provide to the British family of Bradley Manning as they try to do whatever they can to help Bradley.

22:43

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) on securing the debate, which is of considerable interest not just to a number of right hon. and hon. Members but to her constituents and others in Wales, as well as to the country as a whole. The right hon. Lady is deservedly well respected for her understanding and championing of human rights. Her work in Afghanistan and Iraq is widely admired.

As the Foreign Secretary said last week during the launch of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s report on human rights:

“Our government promised from the outset a foreign policy that will always have support for human rights and poverty reduction at its irreducible core. It is not in our character as a nation to have a foreign policy without a conscience, and neither is it in our interests.”

I therefore welcome this chance to discuss matters that give rise to concern among Members of the House. Although recent events in the middle east and north Africa continue to demand the attention of my ministerial colleagues, it is important that we do not lose sight of developments elsewhere in the world, including in the countries that are closest to us.

The right hon. Lady makes a number of points about the treatment of Private Manning, including those from a memo of 10 March 2011 from Private Manning to his commanding officer, released by Private Manning’s lawyer. I have read the memo and have listened carefully to the different points that the right hon. Lady has made, including allegations of mistreatment in detention.

Her Majesty’s Government are committed to working towards the eradication of mistreatment that may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. We do not condone its use for any purposes. We take allegations extremely seriously and, where appropriate, raise general and specific concerns with foreign Governments. That is why we fund work to support professional and ethical policing. We also fund human rights approaches to prison management and initiatives to support a robust legal system and civil society, including an independent judiciary, which all contribute to tackling mistreatment.

As far as Her Majesty’s Government are concerned, the conditions in which an individual is detained must meet international standards. Conditions that fail to meet this standard may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This is particularly important for an individual in pre-trial detention. The manner in which a detainee is held depends on an objective assessment of the security risk posed by that individual, their health and their behaviour in prison. This must be justified by the detaining authority. In general, we are content that conditions in the US detention system meet international standards and that there is a clear legal process for a detainee to be able to challenge their conditions of detention.

In this case, President Obama himself has said that he has sought and received assurances from the Department of Defence that Private Manning’s treatment is “appropriate” and meets US “basic standards”. Of course, the United States has an effective and robust judicial system. It is a champion of human rights the world over. However, where crimes are alleged to have occurred they must be investigated. This is currently the case. The fact that we have seen the memo from Private Manning to his commanding officer is evidence that his legal representation is working. We must allow the legal case to follow its course without interference.

Where representatives of this House or members of the public have concerns, we have a duty to listen. On 16 March the right hon. Lady raised her concerns about Private Manning’s treatment with the Foreign Secretary during the oral evidence session of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and on 17 March she repeated her call for discussion of the issue during business questions. Be assured that we are in no doubt of her concerns, which we know are shared by a number of Members across the House. Indeed, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) has already received more than 30 letters from Members of the House.

In line with the Foreign Secretary’s response to the right hon. Lady during the Foreign Affairs Committee evidence session, a senior official in our embassy in Washington called on the US State Department on 29 March. He drew its attention to her concerns over Private Manning and handed over a copy of the uncorrected transcript of the Committee’s oral evidence session and a copy of her early-day motion 1624, which was tabled on 17 March. He also drew attention to the debate taking place today as a measure of the level of parliamentary interest in the subject. The State Department took note and agreed to convey the information to all those dealing with the case. Our US interlocutors know that where we have concerns we will raise them. The strength of our relationship empowers us to discuss difficult issues and we will continue to raise concerns where and when necessary. However, let us be clear that President Obama has stated that he has received assurances that Private Manning’s treatment is meeting basic standards.

I know that there will be many who feel that we should do more in the light of reports of Private Manning’s links to the UK. The UK Government have a duty to protect his privacy and as such it would not be appropriate to discuss his nationality without his consent. I note that his lawyer wrote on his blog on 2 February:

“Private… Manning does not hold a British passport, nor does he consider himself a British citizen”.

Therefore, it is clear that he is neither asking for our help, nor considering himself to be British. Although I have said that we do not normally discuss a person’s nationality without their consent, I will say that the right hon. Lady’s understanding of the British Nationality Act 1981 is accurate. Any person born outside the UK after 1 January 1983 whose mother is a UK citizen by birth is British by descent.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I, from the Government Benches, urge the Minister to convey to our American friends and allies that those of us who believe that, if Private Manning is guilty of the leakage of which he is charged, he did a very terrible thing indeed, are nevertheless convinced that it is fatal to snatch defeat from the jaws of a sort-of victory by focusing attention on the conditions in which he is being held, rather than on the question of the guilt or innocence of his conduct? The word “counter-productive” should be at the forefront of our American allies’ minds when they consider how to treat him.

[Mr Bellingham]

I thank my hon. Friend for his very wise remarks. He is a candid friend of our American allies, and his points are very well made. All people who are detained in custody deserve to be treated in detention according to the highest international standards, and we certainly expect nothing else—nothing less—from the United States.

To return to the point about Private Manning’s nationality, we must respect his wishes on the matter and recognise the limitations on UK involvement. The right hon. Lady mentions Mr Manning’s family. We have not had a direct request from them, but obviously, if it comes to consular assistance of any kind, we will look at that request as and when one is made.

Private Manning is serving in the US armed forces and has been detained in the US while he is subject to legal proceedings. He has access to legal counsel who, from the reports I have seen, appear to be very active in defending his case. That case is ongoing, and we are confident in this instance that US judicial processes are sound.

In the light of the right hon. Lady’s representations tonight, I will instruct our officials at our embassy in Washington again to report the concerns of this House to officials in the State Department. I will also discuss with the Foreign Secretary and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, who has responsibility for north America, what else we might be able to do, while respecting the views of Private Manning and his legal counsel.

I can assure the right hon. Lady that we are concerned: we have listened very carefully to what she has said before; I have listened to what she has said tonight; and, as I assured her a moment ago, in response to that we will instruct our officials at our embassy in Washington again to report our concerns to officials in the State Department.

Once again, I thank the right hon. Lady for raising the issue. I hope that what I have said is of some help and of some interest to her.

Question put and agreed to.

22:52

House adjourned.

Ministerial Corrections

Monday 4th April 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Monday 4 April 2011

Unpublished Research Reports: Immigration, the Economy and Regeneration

Monday 4th April 2011 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from a written ministerial statement on ‘Unpublished Research Reports: Immigration, the Economy and Regeneration’ given by the Minister for Housing and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) on 1 March 2011.

(ix) Modelling and forecasting county court claims and orders for mortgage repossessions.

This report by Professor John Muellbauer and Janine Aron was commissioned jointly by the former National Housing and Planning Advice Unit and the UK Spatial Economic Centre. The study explores the determinants of mortgage possession court orders as well as forecasting court orders on a regional basis for England and Wales from 2011 to 2015. It observed that the recent house price and credit boom of 2006-08 had increased the proportion of households with overstretched budgets and over-extended debt relative to their assets. The most important determinant of court claims and orders was found to be the debt to income ratio. This report was commissioned in 2009 at a cost of £30,366.

[Official Report, 1 March 2011, Vol. 524, c. 19-21WS.]

Letter of correction from Mr Grant Shapps:

An error has been identified in the written ministerial statement given on 1 March 2011. The penultimate sentence in the text in the section on the research project on mortgage repossessions should have referred to the debt service ratio, as the most important determinant of court claims, and not the debt to income ratio.

The correct text should have read:

(ix) Modelling and forecasting county court claims and orders for mortgage repossessions.

This report by Professor John Muellbauer and Janine Aron was commissioned jointly by the former National Housing and Planning Advice Unit and the UK Spatial Economic Centre. The study explores the determinants of mortgage possession court orders as well as forecasting court orders on a regional basis for England and Wales from 2011 to 2015. It observed that the recent house price and credit boom of 2006-08 had increased the proportion of households with overstretched budgets and over-extended debt relative to their assets. The most important determinant of court claims and orders was found to be the debt service ratio. This report was commissioned in 2009 at a cost of £30,366.

Air Passenger Duty

Monday 4th April 2011 Ministerial Corrections

The following is the answer given by the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for East Devon (Mr Swire) relating to a question from the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) during Northern Ireland Question Time on 23 March 2011.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

3. What assessment he has made of the likely effects of changes in air passenger duty on business travel between Northern Ireland and London.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I have had meetings with the Northern Ireland Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and with my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to discuss air passenger duty. My Treasury colleagues fully understand the issues involved. The rates that took effect last November were, of course, set and legislated for by the previous Government.

[Naomi Long]

I thank the Minister for his answer. He will be aware that, in addition to air passenger duty, Heathrow and Gatwick intend to levy passenger landing charges for regional flights, which will compound the problem. Will he confirm that this matter is at the top of his agenda, so that we can ensure that Northern Ireland businesses have access to the capital?

[Mr Swire]

Indeed; these things have been discussed at ministerial level. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is here to listen to the hon. Lady’s comments. We take this matter very seriously. A lot of the issues to do with Gatwick and Heathrow are commercial matters that are more properly dealt with by BAA.

[Official Report, 23 March 2011, Vol. 525, c. 934.]

Letter of correction from Mr Hugo Swire:

An error has been identified in the oral answer given on 23 March 2011. It has come to our attention that commercial matters at Gatwick airport are not the responsibility of BAA, who recently sold the airport to a consortium, with the largest shareholder being Global Infrastructure Partners.

The correct answer should have been:

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

Indeed; these things have been discussed at ministerial level. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is here to listen to the hon. Lady's comments. We take this matter very seriously. A lot of the issues to do with Gatwick and Heathrow are commercial matters that are more properly dealt with by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and BAA respectively.

Written Ministerial Statements

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

Monday 4 April 2011

Corporate Capital Gains Degrouping Charges (Simplification)

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

I am announcing today the Government’s intention to present to Parliament a proposed legislative change to schedule 10 to the Finance Bill. This schedule simplifies the calculation of chargeable gains degrouping charges for companies. The change we are proposing, which will have effect from 1 April 2011, will allow companies the option to apply the new degrouping charge provisions to transactions occurring from 1 April 2011 rather than only after the passing of the Finance Act.

A degrouping charge is intended to prevent loss of tax on gains that arise on the disposal of assets, where a company owning the asset is sold. This can be used for tax avoidance. Companies identified it as one of the most burdensome tax rules that affect them when they are making an acquisition or disposal, or restructuring.

The new provisions in schedule 10 provide greater certainty to companies planning acquisitions and disposals. The changes will promote growth in the economy by removing some tax barriers to corporate transactions, reducing the costs of restructuring a business and simplifying the process.

The changes made by schedule 10 have already been welcomed by many businesses. I am announcing this new change in response to recent representations, to ensure that the benefits of the changes we are making are available to those groups that are currently in the process of a reconstruction, or considering making an acquisition or disposal.

HM Revenue and Customs will publish a technical note on its website setting out further detail, including the draft legislative amendments.

Office for Budget Responsibility

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)]

The provisions of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011 which establish the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) have been brought into force today. The OBR is now established on a permanent, statutory footing.

The Treasury has also published and laid before Parliament the charter for budget responsibility. This charter addresses the comments made by Members during the passage of the Act. The charter must be approved by the House of Commons before it is brought into force. A debate will be scheduled shortly.

Alongside the charter, the Treasury and the OBR are publishing the OBR’s framework document and memorandum of understanding. The framework document sets out the broad governance and management framework within which the OBR will operate. The memorandum of understanding establishes a transparent framework for co-operation between the OBR, the Treasury and other parts of Government which the OBR will need to work closely with to perform its forecasting and analytical duties.

Each document has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. They are also available on both the Treasury’s and OBR’s websites. Copies of the charter are available in the Vote Office.

New Homes Bonus Final Allocations (Year 1)

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

Today, I am announcing the final allocations for local authorities in England for the new homes bonus year 1 funding. This announcement follows my written statement of 17 February 2011, Official Report, columns 93-95WS, about the final design of the new homes bonus. The new homes bonus will fulfil the Government’s coalition agreement commitment to provide local authorities with real incentives to deliver housing growth.

Local authorities had until 10 March to make data representations on their provisional grant allocations. We received 27 representations of which 16 were revisions to the 2009 and 2010 council tax base statistics, three were banding corrections between 2009 and 2010 and eight were about other matters. The 2010 council tax base statistics were released as official statistics on 31 March and we have used the official statistics to calculate the final allocations. We have worked closely with authorities to resolve other data issues.

New homes bonus is a key part of our ambition, set out in the local growth White Paper, to create a fairer and more balanced economy through encouraging growth. The role of local areas in this rebalancing of growth is crucial—they are best placed to understand the drivers of, and barriers to, local growth and should lead their own development to release their economic potential. In so doing they should be able to benefit directly from the development they bring forward.

The new homes bonus is designed to address the disincentive within the local government finance system for local areas to welcome growth. Until now, increased housing in communities has meant increased strain on public services and reduced amenities. The new homes bonus will remove this disincentive by providing local authorities with the means to mitigate the strain the increased population causes. In addition, in doing so, the new homes bonus should help engender a more positive attitude to growth, and create an environment in which new housing is more readily accepted.

The new homes bonus scheme will be a powerful, simple and transparent incentive. Commencing in April 2011, the bonus will match fund the additional council tax potential from increases in effective housing stock, with an additional amount for affordable homes, for the following six years. It will ensure that the economic benefits of housing growth are more visible to the local authorities and communities where growth takes place.

A full list of the final allocations is being placed in the Library of the House. Further information on the final scheme design can also be found at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingsupply/new homesbonus

We will continue to provide advice on the scheme via the [e-mail] email account.

Armed Forces Redundancy Process

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

The Government announced in the strategic defence and security review last October that as part of moving to Future Force 2020 and due to the economic situation we have inherited, we would reduce the size of the Army by 7,000 personnel, and both the Navy and RAF by 5,000 personnel. We also made clear that regrettably an element of these reductions would need to be made through a redundancy process.

I set out in my statement of 1 March 2011 the process and timetable the armed forces redundancy scheme would follow. The RAF informed their personnel of the areas in which they would look to make reductions in tranche one on the same day. In accordance with the timetable set out in the 1 March statement the Army and Navy have today published to their personnel the equivalent information. In the first stage the Army are looking to reduce by around 1,000 personnel, and the Navy by 1,600. Like the RAF, individuals will not be selected for redundancy by the Army and Navy until 1 September 2011 and 30 September 2011 respectively.

While it is too early to know who will be selected for redundancy, the principles set out in the 1 March statement will be followed. First, both services will ask for volunteers although all personnel in the relevant areas will be considered. Secondly, the redundancy scheme will not impact adversely on the current operations in Afghanistan and Libya, where our armed forces are fighting so bravely on this country’s behalf. No-one who is preparing for combat operations, deployed on combat operations where they will receive the operational allowance or on post-operational tour leave on the day redundancy notices are issued will be made redundant unless they have volunteered.

The Government would rather not have had to reduce the size of the armed forces but the size of the fiscal deficit inherited left little choice. As we continue with the redundancy process we will ensure we retain the capability our armed forces require to be as effective in the future.

UK Oil and Gas (Regulation)

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

In his statement to the House on 14 June 2010 on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change indicated his intention to review our regulatory procedures once detailed analysis of the factors that caused the incident were available. Subsequently in their evidence to the Committee on Energy and Climate Change’s inquiry into deepwater drilling, my Department, the Health and Safety Executive and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency confirmed that the review would involve external experts to ensure that an independent perspective was brought to bear on this work. I am pleased to announce today the composition of the panel which has been established to review the UK’s oil and gas offshore regulatory regime.

The panel will be chaired by Geoffrey Maitland, Professor of Energy Engineering at Imperial College. He will be joined on the panel by two further independent members; Professor John Shepherd of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, and Mr Mick Temple, who holds a range of positions and has extensive oil industry experience. Mr Jim Campbell (Director of Energy Development, DECC), Mr Kevin Myers (Deputy Chief Executive Health and Safety Executive), and Mr Philip Naylor (Director of Maritime Services , Maritime and Coastguard Agency) will represent the three regulatory bodies involved. The panel’s first formal meeting will take place on 7 April 2011. It will report later this year.

Afghanistan: Monthly Progress Report February 2011

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I wish to inform the House that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, together with the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development, is today publishing the fourth progress report on developments in Afghanistan.

The report focuses on key developments during the month of February.

The international security assistance force (ISAF) and Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) continue to make steady progress on extending security. ISAF commanders are confident that ISAF and Afghan military operations over the winter have significantly reduced insurgent capability, but the rising numbers of weapons found indicate clearly that the insurgents have every intention of stepping up their attacks. Recruitment of Afghan army and police remains ahead of target, but the standard of Afghan national police leadership needs to be improved and the rate of turnover of recruits needs to be reduced. The Afghan Parliament’s election of a new Speaker, after a protracted process, is an encouraging step forward, but further appointments need to be confirmed before the Parliament can play a full role in the legislative process. Stronger links are beginning to develop between central and local government in Helmand, through governance, rule of law and economic development programmes and better access to Government -provided services including transport. This is essential to help the Afghan Government deliver basic services and win the support of the population. Concern remains over a lack of progress in certain areas, for example, women’s rights. Through the High Peace Council the Afghan Government are increasing their dialogue with their neighbours to promote regional engagement in the wider political process. This is an encouraging step forward towards building confidence across the region, which is clearly a long-term challenge.

As I place this report, the Government of Afghanistan have announced that the following provinces and districts will begin the process of transition to Afghan security responsibility: Kabul (excluding Sorobi district); Panjsher province; central Bamyan province; Western Herat; Lashkar Gah; Mazar-e-Sharif (Balkh province); Mehtarlam (Laghman province). Further details will be included in the progress report for March.

I am placing the report in the Library of the House. It will also be published on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website (www.fco.gov.uk) and the HMG UK and Afghanistan website (http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/).

FCO Services (Performance Targets 2011-12)

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

FCO Services operates as a trading fund of the FCO. I have set the following performance targets for 2011-12:

An in-year surplus before interest and tax producing a net margin of between 1% and 5%.

A return on capital employed of at least 3.5% (weighted average).

Finance, HR, ICT and procurement functions to sit within or above the second quartile in the Office for Efficiency and Performance benchmarking survey.

A utilisation rate for revenue earning staff of between 75%-80%.

Customer satisfaction rating to be within or above the second quartile in the customer satisfaction index, as produced by the Institute of Customer Service.

FCO Services will report to Parliament on its success against these targets through its annual report for 2011-12.

Disability Living Allowance Reform

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I am publishing today the “Government’s response to the consultation on disability living allowance reform” (Cm 8051).

Disability living allowance (DLA) has not been fundamentally changed or updated since it was introduced, and no longer provides the framework for supporting disabled people that is needed in the 21st century. Over the last 18 years, DLA has failed to keep pace with the changing approach to disability in society. As it stands, DLA is complex to apply for and to administer, lacks consistency in the way it supports disabled people with similar needs, and has no systematic process for checking the ongoing accuracy of awards.

This is why we believe that now is the time to reform DLA by replacing it with a new benefit for working-age disabled people—personal independence payment. This new benefit will better reflect the desire from disabled people to live independent lives, not labelling individuals by a health condition or impairment but considering its impact on their everyday lives.

The importance of personal independence payment means that spending must remain sustainable for the future. Currently 3.2 million people receive DLA, an increase of around 30% in the past eight years. The announced budget for working-age spend by 2015-16 will bring that expenditure back to 2009-10 levels.

The Government response outlines the feedback received, from both individuals and organisations, and provides further information regarding the replacement of DLA and the introduction of personal independence payment for working-age people from 2013-14.

Copies of the Government’s response will be available in the Vote Office, and will be available shortly at: www.dwp.gov.uk/dla-reform.

State Pension Reform

Monday 4th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am today publishing the consultation document, “A State Pension for the 21st century” (Cm 8053), which looks at whether the existing pensions system is suitable for meeting the challenges of the future. We want to create a simple, decent state pension, that is easy to understand and efficient to administer, which gives people more clarity and certainty about what they will get from the state, thereby giving them a firm foundation for decisions about saving to fund their retirement.

A copy of the consultation document will be available on the Department’s website at: www.dwp.gov.uk/state-pension-21st-century, later today. Copies will also be available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office later today.

We look forward to hearing the views of the many groups and individuals who will have an interest.

Grand Committee

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

Monday, 4 April 2011.

15:30

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)]

My Lords, it has been agreed that, should any of the Questions for Short Debate not run for their allotted hour this afternoon, the Committee will adjourn during pleasure until the end of the hour. Therefore, each of the Questions for Short Debate will start at half-past the hour. Of course, in accordance with normal practice, if there should be a Division in the House, we will immediately adjourn for 10 minutes. If necessary, time can then be added to the time for the Question for Short Debate—what I would describe as injury time.

Health and Safety at Work

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

15:30

Asked By

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how their proposed changes to the health and safety system will encourage safer and healthier work places.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to have at least a short debate on issues of health and safety. It gives us the opportunity to take stock in light of recent developments, including implementation of the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham; the impact of the spending review and the 35 per cent reduction in funding for the HSE; and the recent pronouncements of 21 March by the Minister for Employment.

It was not my intent today to cover issues around the HSE’s role in nuclear inspection, but I hope that the report under way by the UK’s chief nuclear inspector will provide this opportunity in due course. Nor do I intend to dwell on major hazard industries, not because they are not extremely important but because the coalition Government have seemingly, and sensibly, determined that regulation of these industries is soundly based and in accordance with best international practice.

Our concern around recent developments is the central message being promulgated, which is that much action on health and safety is burdensome to business and unnecessary. The focus is on what RoSPA refers to as “over-hitting” on health and safety, rather than on underperformance. There is also very little focus on occupational health.

So it is worth reminding ourselves why health and safety is so important. The prevention of death, injury and ill health to those at work and those affected by work activities is not only a legal imperative and a moral one; it is good business. The costs to business of health and safety failures are potentially wide ranging: direct costs of sick pay, compensation, fines; loss on a temporary or long-term basis of employee skills; costs of temporary cover, reputational damage and possible exclusions from procurement opportunities. For individuals and their families the consequences can be devastating—the loss of a loved one, aspirations blighted, family finances wrecked.

We know that good health and safety is linked to leadership of an organisation and that organisations which have good health and safety systems tend to have good management systems, and better economic performance. We also know that the benefits of worker engagement can improve health and safety outcomes but that hardly gets a mention these days—certainly not trade unions and the significant contribution that they have made to the training of safety reps, which is just one example. For government the gains should be obvious; stopping people falling out of work avoids the cost of benefits, retains tax revenues and obviates recourse to expensive back-to-work programmes.

So, given all of this, it is surprising that little effort on the part of the Government is being directed at improving our performance as a country and promoting the strong benefits of the system that we have; rather, there is the focus on health and safety being a burden on business. I will not repeat all the figures, but last year 28.5 million days were lost to workplace ill health and injury. Over 500,000 workers suffered from MSDs, and nearly as many from stress, depression or anxiety. Some 152 people were killed at work, and 740 in work-related road accidents. The cost to the UK economy is many billions of pounds each year. Despite the fact that we have a very strong record in comparison to other countries, there is still much to do.

So how are these recent developments helping? The report of the noble Lord, Lord Young, focused little on occupational health and what might improve our health and safety performance but had wider significance around personal injury claims, food hygiene rating schemes and so on. Nevertheless, positive developments have flowed from the report, perhaps the most important being the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register. This was formally opened for business by the 21 March announcement but had been in gestation for some time. The health and safety professional bodies which have co-operated with the HSE in bringing it to fruition are to be congratulated, especially IOSH, which has long campaigned for an accreditation scheme. It will provide better reassurance for purchasers of services, helping to tackle the problem of unqualified or unscrupulous consultants who overcharge and overprescribe, adding costs for business and adding to a culture of unnecessary risk aversion.

One of the enduring strengths of our health and safety legislation and the management regulations is that they are non-prescriptive. They set out what must be achieved, not how something should be done. However, this creates a need for more help for some businesses, especially SMEs and micro-businesses. This theme was picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Young, who proposed simplified risk assessments for what he described as low-hazard workplaces. The HSE has responded to this, although it does not appear to be developing the proposed periodic checklist, nor, thankfully, to be exempting employers of home workers or the self-employed from risk assessment. The launch of the website Health and Safety Made Simple with the March statement is to be welcomed.

I turn to what is described as the new health and safety framework. A central proposition of this is to reduce inspections for non-major-hazard industries. In particular, it proposes that there will no longer be proactive inspections for what are described as lower-risk areas, which include light engineering, electrical engineering, the transport sector—air, road haulage and docks—education, and electricity generation, nor for areas of concern such as agriculture, quarries, and health and social care, where such inspections are deemed unlikely to be effective.

Perhaps, in passing, I may comment further that the HSE’s website for January records that one of the successful prosecutions was of a high-voltage electrical engineering company where someone was prosecuted after an employee suffered serious burns from equipment carrying 11,000 volts. On the new basis, it would seemingly be a lower-risk area and not subject to proactive inspections, if I understand the intent. Perhaps the Minister can expand on the evidence base that was used to arrive at this determination. Has the analysis taken account of health issues, as well as the records of deaths and accidents? Do the Government reject the evidence that the prospect of inspections is an incentive for employers to improve?

We have considerable concerns over this blanket approach to designating great swathes of business as low hazard—effectively no-go areas until something goes wrong. As RoSPA suggests, should we not be focused on the risk profile of people’s jobs and not the hazard history of the sector in which they operate? How do the Government intend to monitor and report on this new approach?

Of course, proactive inspection is only one component of the HSE’s and LA’s preventive agenda. Joint working with industry is carried out at the moment and can be developed. The provision of advice and awareness-raising through, for example, safety and health awareness days, and press campaigns such as the Shattered Lives campaign concerning asbestos, have recently been cut back. Given that proactive inspections are to be curtailed, can the Minister say what the future is for these approaches? Is it right that there is still a moratorium on TB advertising, which has been in place since the purdah in the run-up to the general election? IOSH points out that the HSE Infoline is to be terminated later this year, which has provided a valuable source of information as well as a translation service. This has been particularly valuable to SMEs. What is to replace it?

The 21 March document makes it clear that HSE will continue to undertake inspections for enforcement purposes and to follow up on complaints, but seemingly only for those areas of high risk or those of concern. This suggests—perhaps the Minister will confirm it—that there will be no such inspections for those lower-risk areas. Is this right? Is there to be any change to the HSE’s enforcement policy? We obviously await the outcome of the consultation on RIDDOR concerning the manner of reporting, but, in this context, the demise of the Incident Contact Centre, which simplified the process of reporting and reduced admin burdens on business, would seem at least premature.

All this must be seen in the context of the CSR and the requirement for the HSE to achieve savings of 35 per cent over the period—about £80 million a year by 2014-15. Proposals for cost recovery associated with breaches of health and safety law will ameliorate the position to an extent, but it is clearly not possible for the HSE to maintain its current level of operations.

The Government have indicated that cuts can be achieved by administrative savings, but considerable savings have already been made, not least in accommodation costs with the consolidation of the head office in Bootle. What is the number of front-line inspectors projected to be over the CSR period and the capacity of the organisation to carry out even the projected new number of inspections? What are the plans for the construction sector in particular, and is it right that the 20 inspectors on fixed contracts are not to be replaced? The construction sector has come a long way but, as we know, is still high-risk. If not through proactive inspection, how are issues in agriculture, another dangerous industry, to be addressed?

Finally, we have the review of health and safety regulation to be led by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt. We could not object to this, albeit that the starting premise carries the implication of gold-plating despite evidence to the contrary. One hopes that the review will put that myth to bed once and for all, but it would be helpful if the Minister could say when final terms of reference will be available.

Our country has been well served by our health and safety system, by our national and local authority regulators and by that committed and knowledgeable range of stakeholders who are key to past success and future progress. There are those who will continue to misrepresent or misuse the system, sometimes deliberately, sometimes through ignorance. We all have to make the case for H&S, the Government above all.

15:43

[Lord German]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for this debate today, because it gives us an excellent opportunity to pick up on some of the issues which were extensively debated on 25 November last year, when we discussed the report of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham. Since the Government said that they were going to implement the report’s recommendations, the debate gives us the opportunity also to test how far they have gone. I am pleased to see that there has been considerable progress. In particular, the framework document before us, Good Health and Safety, Good for Everyone, lays down a shape for health and safety for the future. However, like all frameworks, it is has skeletal aspects, which give us plenty of opportunity to probe the Minister for some of the detailed answers that we require.

I welcome the appointment of Professor Löfstedt to conduct the review of legislation in this area. He is eminently qualified and it is a welcome step. However, I am somewhat mystified to read that his terms of reference are to be determined by the professor himself. Some of us may think that if you hand someone a blank piece of paper they will write down what their predispositions are, whereas clearly it is the Government’s predispositions which are important. It is not clear from the document but I suspect that the Government have laid out a framework in which these terms of reference are to be placed. As a starting point, will the Minister provide Members of the Committee with a copy of the fully worked-up and detailed terms of reference as soon as possible, together with a timetable for his work, so that we can have an opportunity to look at those matters further?

An overarching principle is that health and safety is not only for companies, workers and the health and safety representative but for everyone. It is for all of us in a working environment and it is not to be seen only as the province of one responsible person. We have gained a great deal in this country from the work that has been done so far, but there is still more to be done. Certainly a great deal of streamlining is necessary, and some of the corners in the system which have been difficult for companies to turn can be made smooth and straightened out.

I suspect that this is about trying to draw the appropriate balance between not having too rigorous a regulatory regime with too great a burden on employers and making sure that we protect individuals at work. This could be seen as a continuum between the risk averse at one end and the risk takers at the other. I prefer to see this as a new way of looking at the “risk intelligent” approach, in which everyone in the workforce—the employers and the employees—need to be intelligent about risk. Intelligence, of course, is a key word for more knowledge, more skill and more training. A better understanding is at the root of this.

At the heart of this new framework, on pages 8 and 9, are the main changes that are to be made. There are two clear focuses: first, on those who flout the rules; and, secondly, on high-risk locations. I shall take them separately. On the first point, it is difficult to know who flouts the rules without inspections; then you can know who is not following the rules. Can the Minister tell the Committee how you know who is flouting the rules? If it is to be through an enhanced whistleblower approach, that is fine by me. However, it needs to be spelled out more clearly because there are difficulties in whistleblowing alone, as people will not want to upset their employer, particularly in a small company where they are fearful for their jobs. We need to be careful and define more clearly how we outline the companies who flout the rules. It is easy, of course, if they have done it once and you know who they are, to come back upon people and to redouble your efforts. Under the terminology in the DWP press release, once these “rogue” companies are discovered and investigated, they will have to pay for being helped to put things right—which is perfectly appropriate—but how do we find the “rogues”?

On the second issue, regarding high-risk locations, I was tempted, and I set my mind to trying, to find a route through to something that is to be described as non-high risk. I came up with an opencast facility in Merthyr Tydfil, where they are moving six mountains; they are digging a hole, taking out the old slag, washing it, putting back the unused minerals and taking the material away for use in coal-fired power stations. The difficulty there is that transport has also been excluded. I happen to have been on that site, where use is made of possibly some of the largest vehicles I have ever seen. If I stood next to the wheel, it would probably have been twice my height—never mind the size of the overall operation. Yet quarrying—which is essentially what that opencast facility is—and transport are excluded. I wonder when and where we will get more definition of how these categories are to be arrived at and what criteria lie behind their choice. It is perfectly acceptable to see them as they are in the framework, but the framework is skeletal and perhaps need to be sketched out somewhat more clearly.

As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has already referred to, in health and safety we concentrate very much upon safety and do not always look at health. I wonder whether that is because words such as stress and mental health are difficult to make tangible in order to understand their impact. For example, could we look at some hazards each year to try to anticipate the sort of changes that one might put within the workplace for those intangible health elements? Of course, there are far more tangible health elements which we now know about but which an employer would not have known about. The example there is asbestos. No one knew about its impact. We had a debate in this Room about mesothelioma, discussing its impact and the swift killer that it becomes based upon asbestos in the workplace. We know of that but there may be other silent killers which we know little about. How is that work to continue and who is going to do it?

Perhaps I might pick up on one particular interest: the loss of the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority, which is being replaced by a code of practice. I well remember why that body was put in place. Noble Lords may remember that it was when there was a series of accidents with children canoeing in a bay in Dorset. A lot of children were drowned when those canoes capsized. It is important that we are absolutely certain that the code of practice will not only be simple guidance but have the enforceability of law behind it, and that there is some form of checking to make sure that the code is put in place because the safety of young people is crucial.

I would like to touch as well upon the accreditation of advisers and consultants, which is very welcome. I went looking to see which of the advisers and consultants who are now on the register live near me. I understand that if you pay the money, you get on the register and there will eventually be an accreditation body to take on that responsibility. However, I would like reassurance that that accreditation body will also be sufficiently independent to examine appropriately whether somebody is doing their job well and to ensure that people are taken off the register if they are not. After all, one element that we talked about in the previous debate was of having people who had lacked the skills and qualifications in that crucial area. We need to ensure the highest possible standards, which it seems to me can be achieved without a great deal of money having to go behind them. However, that will require independence of action by a professional body.

In conclusion, there are still many questions to be asked and actions to be developed. The Government’s current progress is on track and I hope that they will achieve that balance which I spoke of earlier. That will lead to a risk-intelligent society at work in the future.

15:54

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend has introduced a debate on this subject and I thank him for doing so. Some time ago, we had a debate on a report undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Young. He is of course no longer the PM’s chief adviser but the Government are apparently still committed to introducing legislation arising from that report. Presumably, this paper from the DWP is part of that policy. I recall saying at the time that if legislation emerged designed to make it more difficult for employees to make claims because of illness or injuries at work, I would do everything I could to oppose it, and that is still my position.

There is apparently a notion that health and safety provision in the UK is the best in the world and that very few people are hurt at work. Unfortunately, that is not true. There are many hazardous occupations, some of which have been referred to by my noble friend Lord McKenzie in his introduction today. Up to 1,500 people are killed every year in work-related accidents and millions are made ill by work-related illnesses. Furthermore, arising from the report of the noble Lord, Lord Young—although this was not maintained in the report itself—the Government, including the Prime Minister, claim that in this country we are suffering from a compensation culture. They say that health and safety costs too much and that there is too much regulation which prevents a growth in jobs, particularly in the private sector. Much of that is not accurate. Less than 10 per cent of workers made ill or injured at work get any sort of compensation at all.

There is actually less regulation now than there was 40 years ago. There are also fewer spot inspections of workplaces, fewer prosecutions and in 98 per cent of major injuries there is no enforcement action taken later by the employers concerned. The Health and Safety Executive has done a very good job over the years on improving health and safety at work, but that is all changing as a result of government cuts. There is a 35 per cent cut in government funds to the HSE which is to take full effect by 2015. As a result, the HSE is now finalising plans to turn into a slim-line, pay-as-you-go enforcement agency that charges for everything, from enforcement notices to routine advice and accident investigations. There is now a voluntary exit scheme which has apparently been oversubscribed, with 250 applicants for redundancy among HSE staff. Enforcement is already in crisis. The number of inspections is to fall and proactive inspections may be abandoned altogether.

In the mean time, the Government are also planning to change the way in which European directives on health and safety eventually become part of UK law. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, who chairs the Cabinet's Reducing Regulation Committee made it clear that the Government intend to end much regulation so that British business is not put at a disadvantage. It is clear that the Government intend to move to weaker laws and, of course, less protection for British workers. That is dangerous and quite unwarranted. If the Prime Minister is genuinely concerned about the big society and encouraging voluntary organisations, he should be aware that the families of workers who have been killed and injured in work-related incidents have formed themselves into an organisation called Families Against Corporate Killers and are campaigning for tougher laws against what they believe to be preventable illnesses and deaths and for the HSE to have more powers rather than fewer.

The TUC also supports the campaign for improved enforcement. In confidential interviews, many managers and staff have said that they fear reprisals if they raise safety concerns at work, despite the fact that the Labour Government introduced legislation designed to protect whistleblowers. Unions have exposed the scandal of the under-reporting of safety concerns. From the information provided to me, it seems that far from having a compensation culture, there is actually too little reporting of hazards in employment. The TUC is taking that very seriously. There is no doubt that workplaces are safer where unions are recognised and safety representatives are able to do their work. Moreover, union members are more likely to get help if they need to take a case to court because the unions will support cases in order to assist their members.

There is a Workers' Memorial Day, with a rally in Manchester, on 28 April, in memory of those who have died from work-related accidents and to press for a strengthening of enforcement and opposition to the Government’s cuts drive, which will put more employees at risk, and which will involve the NHS and taxpayers in the expense of dealing with the problems that workers encounter because they need attention, benefits and assistance from the NHS. Sometimes employers manage to escape altogether because they do not always carry insurance. I remember that this was another issue that we raised some time ago; the previous Government had undertaken to deal with it, but it does not seem to bother the existing Government very much.

In a number of ways, the Government seem intent on changing the balance between employers and employees to the disadvantage of employees. The Government may very well live to regret that. I have recently had some correspondence from a lady who is very active in the voluntary organisation to which I referred. She is the mother of a son who died in a rather appalling accident at work. She has drawn my attention to the fact that the Prime Minister said, prior to the election:

“So let me make it clear: yes, the Conservatives will reduce the burden and impact of health and safety legislation in our country”,

to which she responds:

“David Cameron’s government intends removing the ‘burden’ on employers of safeguarding their employees, but the real emotional and financial burden is borne by the families of up to 1,500 killed every year by preventable accidents at work”.

That is a very important statement from somebody who has really suffered as a result of inadequate protection in the past. We certainly do not want to make it any worse than it is at present.

16:00

[Lord Berkeley]

If I may contribute briefly before the Minister sums up, I would just like to make two points. I have been on a sort of inspection trip of the railways this morning with Theresa Villiers, the Minister for Transport, looking at some work that Network Rail has been doing. There were a lot of signallers around on the tracks—something had gone wrong—and it made me wonder yet again, if transport as an industry is going to be downgraded in risk, where the railways come in this. Railways are transport and so is road. The difference in the risk to a worker beside a track on the railways is not much different to the risks and exposure of people working on motorways, where the traffic is going extremely fast—probably at much the same speed—and with even less protection. The great thing about trains is that they tend to stay on tracks, whereas cars occasionally wander off the road. So it would be very interesting to hear what views the Minister has on that particular element of transport, because railways are transport and roads are transport and, as my noble friend said in his introduction, so are ports.

That takes me on to my second point. I declare an interest as a harbour commissioner at the port of Fowey in Cornwall. We recently had a visit from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is spending a lot of time at the moment restructuring the coastguard service, as noble Lords have debated on previous occasions. The MCA came to inspect a passenger ferry, which is a little ferry that takes 12 people across the river. The ferry is already approved by the harbour authority and checked every year for safety, as are the skippers. The MCA informed people that the mooring hook that is used to connect to the steps at each end was unsafe. The same hook—a nice piece of mild steel—has been used for the past 60 years, during which there has been no record of any accidents. It is a hook that enables them to leave quickly if the swell gets too strong, but it is very safe and enables the ferry to operate very well. They have now been told to use a snap shackle instead. Some of us who help skippers on occasions know that the snap shackle can pinch your fingers—I know that other noble Lords have helped and also pinched their fingers on that particular shackle—so, if the Government are intent on saving money on some of these safety issues, surely they should concentrate on the important things rather than on coming to tell a ferry skipper which type of shackle he is supposed to use. Quite honestly, it is the skipper’s job to make sure that the ferry is safe, as approved by the harbour authority. I mentioned that to that chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency when he came to a meeting a couple of weeks ago; I have not had a reply yet.

I hope that the Minister will take that as a real example—and it is a real example, unlike some of these conker fights, which we hear about being unsafe, although I do not really accept that. Let us concentrate on the important things and try to avoid undue and unnecessary inspections of things that have worked perfectly well and will continue to work perfectly well for quite a long time.

16:04

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, I am grateful, as always, to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for the opportunity to update the House on how the Government’s proposed changes to the health and safety system will encourage safer and healthier workplaces.

I should begin by reiterating why change is needed. Good health and safety is, of course, vital, and the Government are committed to maintaining health and safety protections. That is the whole point—for health and safety to be effective, it must be a protection, not a burden. Health and safety legislation, overzealously applied, achieves nothing. That is exactly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made about snap shackles. Equally, compensation claims, pursued at random, simply breed cynicism. Our challenge is to lift these burdens and—to paraphrase my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham—to let common sense prevail.

Noble Lords will be aware that the Government are committed to implementing the recommendations in my noble friend’s report, Common Sense, Common Safety, and have recently reinforced this commitment. On 21 March, my right honourable friend the Minister for Employment, Chris Grayling, announced the next steps in the Government’s plans for health and safety reform in Britain. These include setting up an immediate review of health and safety regulation, with a wide-ranging remit including exploring the scope for consolidating, simplifying or abolishing regulations. The review, led by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, director of the risk management centre at King’s College London, is set to make recommendations this autumn. I can assure my noble friend Lord German that the terms of reference will be published on the DWP’s website before the end of May. The overall remit for the review was set out in Good Health and Safety, Good for Everyone. In the mean time, I assure noble Lords that the Government are already making good progress in implementing the recommendations set out in the report of my noble friend Lord Young. Those who wish to can view a progress report on my department’s website, detailing progress against all the recommendations.

My noble friend Lord German expressed concern about whether the code of practice would be enforceable in respect of adventure activities. That code of practice will be consulted on shortly. In practice, current licensing does not cover many of the newer adventure activities—I do not think that it covers coasteering, for instance. Health and safety law will continue to apply and will be enforced appropriately.

I shall focus on two aspects of our strategy today: first, the action that we are taking to change the health and safety culture for the benefit of Britain’s workplaces; and, secondly, our focus on reforming so-called no-win no-fee agreements and other aspects of civil litigation funding and costs.

Culture change, whether in health or safety or anything else, does not happen overnight, but its results can be impressive. Perhaps noble Lords will allow me a personal reflection. I well remember meeting officials from Eurotunnel—for which I was working in a more financial capacity—some 20 years ago and comparing the numbers of fatalities that occurred during the construction phase of that amazing project. There were seven on the British side and two on the French side. The factors involved were many and various, but I was struck and a little shocked by how much the French construction industry had achieved for itself compared with its British counterpart and how much its strong safety culture owed to partnership working.

Happily, in the intervening years, much of the British construction industry has followed suit, and the benefits are plain to see. The industry now has a fatal injury rate of 2.2 workers per 100,000 per year, which is among the best in the world.

Against this background I am delighted to report that the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Young, and of the Minister for Employment to deliver culture change are already bearing fruit. Following its recent launch by the Health and Safety Executive, already more than 2,000 health and safety consultants have been approved to join the online Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register. It is not only the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who has welcomed the register. We confidently expect more consultants to join the scheme as its reputation grows.

I need hardly explain the importance of the new register. It should spell the end of rogue health and safety advisers. All those on the register will be properly accredited to a professional health and safety body, which is good news for health and safety and, indeed, good news for business.

The consultants register is designed to help employers who need general health and safety advice to find a well qualified and experienced consultant who is able to give that advice. Employers using a registered consultant can have confidence that the consultant belongs to a professional body, has had their experience and qualifications assessed and is undertaking continuing professional development; in short, someone who is committed to providing sensible and proportionate advice and is properly insured.

To pick up on my noble friend Lord German’s point, there will be an annual renewal process to make sure that all those on the register still meet the eligibility criteria. The relevant professional body will deal with complaints and, indeed, could take action to remove consultants from that register. The new register is just one of several online tools launched recently by the Health and Safety Executive, with a view to providing small and medium-sized enterprises, and others, with straightforward guidance on how to manage health and safety.

Health and Safety Made Simple, for example, is a concise and easy-to-navigate website, designed specifically for low-risk SMEs. Similarly, four interactive risk assessment tools have been developed—specifically for offices, shops, charity shops and classrooms—and the HSE has also just published simple web advice making clear that health and safety law is not a barrier to volunteering activities, and explaining clearly when the law applies in practice.

Taken together, these new measures will allow businesses to achieve a basic level of health and safety compliance, and that, again, is good news for everyone. A basic level of compliance means lower-risk businesses delivering on their key health and safety obligations—but not being smothered by red tape, nor health and safety inspections, in the process.

As for my noble friend’s point on asbestos, asbestos clearly must remain a priority. Work to educate and raise awareness of the risk is under way and included in the HSE’s forward business plan.

On inspections, perhaps one of the biggest changes is the focusing of inspection and enforcement on those areas where it is needed most. In the current financial climate, there is no point in claiming that the enforcing authorities can inspect all businesses to the same extent and with the same frequency. On the other hand, why should they? Why should a lower-risk business be inspected as much as a higher-risk one? Equally, why should a business that is in serious breach of its health and safety responsibilities not be charged by the enforcing authorities for putting things right?

Let me be clear: we have no intention of reducing inspections in high-hazard industries. In fact, by the end of SR10, the aim is to have more, not less, nuclear and hazardous industries inspectors. As for unnecessary inspections, an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the statement is designed to drive this change of behaviour.

On inspector numbers, as of April 2011, we have 2,500 front-line staff and we are expecting an increase over the next year, with the figures beyond that date dependent. As I said, there is no intention to reduce numbers substantially although, with the reduction in the number of inspections, by implication the concentration on the higher-risk industries will intensify. This is not a net loss but an additional concentration on the higher-risk industries.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the evidence base for lower-risk classifications of industries. Essentially, it comes from the Office for National Statistics, and trends over that show where sectors are improving their health and safety performance. Higher-risk classifications relate to those industries where performance remains a concern. In agriculture, farm inspections have not proved effective in reducing injuries over the years. The current approach involves new training and education and has proved to be more effective.

As for my noble friend’s point about how to decide who to inspect without proactive inspections, clearly there is a whistleblower element and a follow-up of complaints. More importantly, however, there is also a follow-up of those incidents and an investigation where necessary. Other inspections will reflect evidence of risk and be regularly reviewed.

There was a question about why quarrying and transport have been excluded. It is mainly because of improvements in their performance over recent years.

Given the time constraints, I shall not speak about issues of civil justice. Those issues were not specifically raised so I shall perhaps leave them until another occasion.

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Lord has just mentioned quarries and transport, but where do railways come into this? I asked whether railways are part of transport or something else.

[Lord Freud]

That is currently being looked at within the Office of Rail Regulation. It was separated—I forget exactly when, but, from memory, I think it was 2004—and is now being brought back together and integrated with the regulator.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

The noble Lord has not mentioned trade unions once and yet this is a major part of all unions’ work. For many years it was one of my responsibilities within my union to run a scheme that provided assistance to people who had accidents at work. The TUC is very much involved with the prevention of accidents and so on and it is a major part of unions’ work. The Minister did not mention that. Although he referred to the register of people who are giving professional advice and so on, he did not mention unions at all.

[Lord Freud]

I apologise. That was an inadvertent miss-out. Clearly where there is a more responsive, not so proactive system, the unions would have a role in alerting the HSE where there were concerns. Clearly, the role of education and training in reducing health problems in many of these areas will be important.

One area in which I am most interested is what we will find from the sickness absence review. This has now been launched and will be looking at periods of sickness absence of 28 weeks. Stress-related and mental health-related issues account for around 40 per cent of such absence, and it will be very interesting to see whether we can use the new arrangements for managing sickness absence to ratchet up how employers look after their staff. I know that the sickness absence review team is actively looking at that. Therefore, there is a health and not just a safety angle here.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am sorry to intervene again and the Minister may wish to write to me, but perhaps I may clarify two points. First, can he confirm that the evidence base on which the categorisation has been determined takes account of evidence relating to propensity for ill health in sectors, as well as accidents and fatalities? Secondly, in relation to reactive, as well as proactive, inspections, the document, if I read it correctly, says that in both areas—that is, the high-risk areas and areas of concern, but not the low-risk areas—the HSE will continue to undertake inspection for enforcement purposes or to follow up complaints when such an intervention appears necessary. Can the Minister confirm that there is no intention of having reactive inspections for what are classed as lower-risk areas—for example, the transport sector, electrical engineering, and indeed education provision, as we know that asbestos in schools is a continuing problem?

[Lord Freud]

I am happy to confirm both those points. The first, concerning health, is clearly part of the statistical base that will alert the HSE. Secondly, where there is concern, the HSE will respond whether it is a lower risk or a higher risk, and that is exactly as I understood the section of the document to which the noble Lord referred. It says that in as many words.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, perhaps we should pursue this matter outside the Committee, as I do not think that it does. The comment seems to relate to the first two areas—areas of concern and areas of high risk—but not those of low risk. However, perhaps we can deal with that in correspondence.

[Lord Freud]

I should be happy to write a full letter on that point. In conclusion, I am confident that our health and safety changes are a force for good, ensuring that civil justice and health and safety law are applied sensibly. The emphasis should be on addressing real risks and preventing death, injury and ill health to those at work and those affected by work-related activities. I have said before that we will not make the United Kingdom a safer place by wrapping everyone in cotton wool and avoiding all risk; we will do it by delivering a health and safety system that is fair, balanced and proportionate.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)]

My Lords, the Committee stands adjourned until 4.30 pm.

16:23

Sitting suspended.

UN: International Year of Youth

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

16:30

Asked By

[Baroness Morris of Bolton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in the United Nations International Year of Youth to support young people in the challenges they face, especially in developing countries.

[Baroness Morris of Bolton]

My Lords, my passion for the well-being and meaningful engagement of young people has deep roots. From my days as a director of Bolton Lads and Girls Club, through my various shadow ministerial roles in education, health, women, children, schools and families, and internationally as a trustee of two charities, I have taken a keen interest in how we develop the enormous potential of young people alongside an aspiration to see a much better life for so many of them. I declare my interests as a trustee of UNICEF UK and of the Disability Partnership.

The United Nations International Year of Youth has served as a timely reminder of the significant importance of young people in the world today. I do not intend speaking about the role of youth in the UK, as this is a vast and important subject on its own, and I know that it will be expertly covered by other noble Lords. Can I just say that I am most grateful to all noble Lords for taking part? It is indeed a glittering cast in today’s debate. I will focus on young people living in the developing world, where 87 per cent of the world's youth live.

The UN International Year of Youth was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, and calls upon Governments, the United Nations and civil society to recognise the contributions that young people make to society and to address the challenges they face. The specific theme of the International Year of Youth is dialogue and mutual understanding, providing an important opportunity to increase commitment to youth, promote youth participation and enhance intercultural dialogue and understanding among young people. The International Year of Youth runs from August 2010, and the progress achieved during the year will lay the foundation for further work in youth development, including the implementation of the world programme of action for youth and contributions to meeting the millennium development goals.

The facts are stark, and for help with this debate I must express my gratitude for the invaluable briefing papers provided by Restless Development on behalf of the DfID civil society organisations youth working group, a network of over 30 civil society organisations and young people that are working to demonstrate the essential role of youth in international development and, at the same time, helping DfID work more effectively with, and for, young people. I am, as always, hugely indebted to and enormously proud of UNICEF.

The demographic reality is this: 87 per cent of young people live in developing countries, 60 per cent of Africa's population are youth, and, altogether, 1.3 billion young people make up the largest ever youth group in history. These numbers themselves need updating following the Indian census announced last week, which indicated another 100 million to be added to that country's population, all of whom are or will become young people.

Whilst young people make up 25 per cent of the working population, they account for 47 per cent of the unemployed and are three times more likely to be unemployed than other adults. One-third of the world's poor—the majority being children and young people—live in conflict-affected and fragile states. There is statistical evidence of a connection between high relative youth populations and risk of conflict when young people are not engaged in a meaningful way in their lives and communities. The youth literacy rate for conflict-affected countries is 79 per cent, compared with 93 per cent for other developing countries. UNESCO estimates that 98 per cent of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school, and 99 per cent of girls with disabilities are illiterate. Many development issues disproportionately affect young people; seven out of 10 young people live in poverty, with adolescent girls representing a large percentage of maternal mortality risk. Four in every 10 of new HIV infections occur among those aged 15 to 24. The list goes on.

If this were not enough, there is what I can only describe as a tsunami—an emotive word, which I use with care—on the horizon. Today the world’s population is 6.9 billion; over the next generation it will rise to over 9 billion. The vast majority of these additional people will be born in the developing world, challenging already desperately challenged communities. Where will the extra schools, jobs, healthcare and support for these young people come from? What vision do we have for this coming generation? What hope?

For me, the message is clear: young people represent a largely untapped asset in development. If we do not engage them meaningfully in development, we will fail not only to realise our international goals and commitments but, more importantly, we will fail them. The UN initiative helps us to focus on this important issue.

What can be done and what can the role of our Government be? Here I pay tribute to the leadership of my right honourable friends the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for International Development. It has required foresight and considerable courage, particularly in difficult economic times, to resist the pressure to go back on our international commitment to increase our aid spending to meet the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income by 2013.

I also pay tribute to the previous Government. DfID has rightly achieved a leadership role within the international development community and in the field of youth. It has also shown some excellent initiatives, of which I shall name but a few: the prioritisation of girls and women in DfID’s business planning, most notably around maternal health; the current DfID programme partnership arrangement, which now includes a consortium focused on working with and for youth; and the recent launch of the international citizen service initiative, providing opportunities for British young people to work alongside peers in developing countries to address important local issues while also learning new skills. These are positive steps, but we can do more.

In countries where DfID has a full-time office, the average percentage of the population under the age of 25 is over 55 per cent. This means that if we are to be successful in our development efforts we must focus our attention more on the needs of this demographic group. One practical and relatively low-cost step that DfID could take to ensure that programmes are age sensitive and responsive to the needs of young people would be to disaggregate performance and impact data by age. Applying a youth lens would enable DfID to measure the impact of its work on young people so that resources can be better focused and interventions are evidence based. This would enable us to see whether our efforts are meeting the needs of young people appropriately.

As the International Year of Youth reminds us, it is crucial not only to address the challenges that the youth of the world face but to recognise the contributions they can make to society. This more asset-based approach, recognising that young people are often the most readily available asset in the poorest countries in the world, leads us to two additional simple steps that we can take. The first step is to promote youth-focused and youth-led development among international and multilateral agencies and international fora. I know that President Obama has stated very eloquently his desire to support young people and perhaps this is something that Her Majesty’s Government could specifically support when the president visits the UK in May, or at the G8 which follows in Paris in the same month. The second step is to create a network of youth champions within DfID. Through regular and meaningful engagement with young people and youth-focused agencies, DfID’s staff could better understand youth concerns and the potential for youth-led development interventions and be able to champion them to senior policy makers at world development agencies. We have pursued this with great success at UNICEF UK.

I am delighted that this debate is being supported by noble Lords across the political spectrum because this fundamental issue affects us all. I heard from the Library that this is the first ever debate we have had on youth and international development. We only have to cast our eyes towards the recent events in north Africa, the Middle East, the Gulf and Côte d'Ivoire to recognise the potency of young people when faced with the alternatives of hopelessness or change. The speed of developments has been breathtaking and the risks of ignoring them are self-evident.

The positive benefits of grasping the opportunity and capturing the energy and idealism of young people are clear for all to see. When President Obama addressed young Africans last autumn, he said:

“Africa's future belongs to its young people … once again, Africa finds itself at a moment of extraordinary promise … it will be up to you, young people full of talent and imagination, to build the Africa for the next 50 years”.

In today’s debate, we extend to young people the world over that positive message of hope and opportunity.

16:41

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for making it possible for us to have this debate. What she just said about this being the first debate of its type that the Library can find says everything, yet, to look at it the other way, the notion that we should address this problem and solve it is also utterly self-evident. I declare an interest as the former president of UNICEF UK and as chancellor of the Open University, which I will come on to in a moment. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, did not mention that she is an utterly invaluable trustee of UNICEF. As someone who I would like to think helped to persuade her to take up the role, I say that it was one of the best day’s work I ever did.

I will not add to any of the horrifying statistics, which are all utterly self-evident. When I was young, there was a charismatic civil rights leader called Eldridge Cleaver who famously said that you are either part of the solution or simply part of the problem. My judgment, certainly from my work at UNICEF, is that young people around the world want to be part of the solution. The truth is that we cannot afford the luxury of not allowing them to be.

If I had a wish list, it would be to take Members of the Committee on just two visits. One would be to get all of your Lordships to a graduation ceremony at the Open University, because there you would see what hope is. These are not graduation ceremonies in the normal sense but triumphs of individual ambition and commitment. I have always believed that, if I could get sufficient parliamentarians to graduation ceremonies, all of my other problems at the OU would be solved immediately. The other, a lot less celebratory, would be to take parliamentarians on a number of the trips that I made to a dozen countries during my year and a half with UNICEF—it was almost two years—looking into the effects and issues surrounding sex trafficking, which is at the other end of the emotional universe.

A million young people a year get sold into either abusive under age labour situations or sex trafficking. It is a global scandal. The UN has taken it seriously and the police in this country have certainly begun to take it seriously, yet it goes on and on. The figures and the apparent appetite do not diminish. It is the only time in my life when I was truly ashamed to be a man. These problems have to be addressed by men and solved by men once and for all. I find it very difficult to deal with the idea that we should live with these problems.

Every now and then, I am helped by dipping my toes back into the world of cinema. Last November, I chaired the jury at the annual Asia Pacific film awards in Australia where, in a period of just nine days, I watched 31 of the most remarkable movies to have emerged from that large and increasingly significant region in just the past year. Rightly or wrongly, I would argue that film makers are particularly good at sniffing out the social and cultural zeitgeist, resulting in what we then refer to as trends. One overwhelming trend that emerged from watching those movies, from 15 different countries, was what I can only describe as intergenerational alienation. The young no longer trust us to do right by them. As a result, they have a serious problem believing many things that we say. Whether we say them in Parliament, in the media or wherever, they are simply ceasing to believe us because, as they increasingly see it, we have stolen their pensions, their food and water security, their future job prospects and their environment.

Precisely the same intergenerational alienation is largely driving the uprisings we have been watching in the Arab world in recent months. That is little wonder, when you look at the mind-numbing numbers of unemployed young people in that region. It is a form of alienation that is given a voice by technology but whose roots run far deeper. When you add to that Wikileaks, it seems to prove that this new and increasingly sceptical generation is right in the suspicion that the dominant players in the political and commercial world have forgotten how to play with a straight bat.

There are those who claim that the intergenerational world has always been typified by suspicion and mutual misunderstanding, to which my response is that never before in history have we been living in each other’s pockets to the same degree—both metaphorically and in reality—aware that a crisis in one part of the world has the capacity to utterly overwhelm those living elsewhere. We are asking young people around the world to switch on their television sets, no matter where they are, to see how the first world lives. They watch programmes about the lives of the rich and famous, so it is little wonder that they look at us and wonder whether we are mad or have lost all sense of imagination about what injustice might mean. The realities and challenges facing today's young people are not those of the 19th or even the late 20th century; the truth is that we may not yet have woken up to the fact but literally millions of young people have, and they do not much like what they see. I find it impossible to blame them.

[Baroness Northover]

Perhaps I may remind noble Lords—I am very sorry to have to do this in such a key debate with so many speakers—that the debate is strictly time-limited and when the clock reaches four minutes, you have had your four minutes. We want the Minister to have an opportunity to reply to everyone.

16:46

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton for giving us this opportunity to debate this subject. I declare an interest as a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Street Children and as a trustee of one large organisation UNICEF, in common with my noble friend, and of one small charity CMAP.

In the International Year of Youth, I want to highlight a particular category of youth, which is street children. They are very hard to define because they may live on the street, or they may have a home and only go to the street sporadically, or they may live at home and work on the street. The best definition is that they are children for whom the street is the main focus and main point of reference in their lives. By itself, that brings many challenges, dangers and issues. In every country we need to face that, recognise it and resolve it. Societies in any of these countries cannot solve the issues for children but they need to solve the issues with children. What makes street children quite different is that in most countries—including, I am afraid, our own—we often try to solve issues for the children without properly allowing them to participate in the solutions.

What drives these children and young people on to the streets does not vary much from country to country. Whether the country is the UK, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia or Indonesia, some common threads run through the causes, including violence at home and the presence of alcoholic or drug-using parents, which may lead to violence. However, some things are different. In her introduction the noble Baroness mentioned war, which is a major cause, as are land seizures for one reason or another, or migration from rural to urban areas, which is an increasing phenomenon. In itself poverty does not seem to be an automatic trigger.

For the first time ever, in this International Year of Youth one day—12 April—has been devoted to street children. In the UK, that day will be led by the Consortium for Street Children, which has 60 members, including large NGOs like Save the Children, Plan UK and War Child, and many smaller ones like Toy Box, ICT or International Planned Parenthood Federation. They work away in some 130 countries. For the first time, in many of those countries this international day for street children will mark the lives of street children and will celebrate the fact that they exist and need rights. There will be street parties in Honduras, sleep-outs in Ireland and children in Morocco, Uganda, Guatemala and many other countries will highlight the day.

What in particular needs to be highlighted? The fact is that public servants and authority still really do not recognise that street children have rights like other children whose parents stand up for them. There has been some really good practice. In El Salvador, the social inclusion unit is training public servants in street child rights. In Ethiopia, there has been police training on how to deal with street children in a way that suitably recognises their rights. At the recent UN General Assembly on 24 March in Geneva, there was a very welcome resolution by the UNHCR to expand and affirm this area. So there is much good work going on. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us which DfID policies are specifically geared to enable street children to realise their rights.

16:51

[Baroness Prashar]

My Lords, I, too, would like to begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, for securing this debate and introducing it with such conviction and clarity. I agree with what she has said.

The International Year of Youth is an opportunity to place young people at the heart of our international policy and to promote international development that is responsive to the needs of young people and involves them in planning processes in a very meaningful way. It is equally important that this is done by working with and influencing international agencies and those working in the international arena. One such forum is the Commonwealth—and I should perhaps state at this stage that I am a president of the Royal Commonwealth Society. The Commonwealth is a much undervalued voluntary association of 54 countries that work together towards the goals in democracy and development. It also has a vibrant not-for-profit sector. The Government would do well if they were to work with and through the Commonwealth.

Young people have long been at the heart of the Commonwealth. There are over 1 billion young people in the Commonwealth, and those under 30 years old make up to 60 per cent of the population. As such a significant group, young people are crucial to the strategies to achieve sustainable development. At a time of dramatic technological changes and some of the grave problems facing us, we should work to mainstream their involvement.

There are a number of initiatives within the Commonwealth which are worth drawing to the attention of the House and the Government. These projects, I believe, can be replicated and lessons learnt from them can be incorporated into future strategies and policies. The first example is about engagement of young people in democratic processes. Through a network of regional youth caucuses, young people contribute to high-level Commonwealth ministerial meetings and to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and have their say on the big issues such as education, environment, equality and empowerment. Young people also contribute to election observance missions, when international teams of experts help to ensure that voting is conducted in a free and fair manner.

The theme of dialogue and mutual understanding is a natural fit for a diverse association like the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council has run inspirational two-way intercultural exchanges that have exposed young people to new ideas and helped to build life-long friendships. The value of such exchanges was summed up by one participant as follows:

“Peace and understanding cannot be obtained from a book. You have to venture out and touch other nations”.

This sentiment permeates another Commonwealth initiative called Nkabom, the Royal Commonwealth Society's youth leadership programme, which unites 18 to 25 year-olds from all over the globe to learn first-hand about conflict resolution through exposure to practical projects, meetings with leaders and hands-on learning. Even for the youngest Commonwealth citizens, there are opportunities to reflect on the world and their central role in it. The RCS reaches 50,000 school students annually with its essay, film and photography competitions. These competitions provide a real insight into their world view and their ideas for the future.

These few examples show that, given an opportunity, these young people can make an enormous contribution. They can become active and engaged citizens. Young people are our future. Investment in their education and training and in their engagement in finding solutions is essential and prudent. The consequences of a lack of investment were well put by the World Bank report, which said:

“Given the cumulative nature of human developments, underinvestments in children and youth are difficult to reverse later in life, and the price for society is high”.

I very much hope that this year will act as a catalyst in encouraging Her Majesty’s Government to make a step change which can be sustained beyond one year. The issue of youth is too important to restrict to one year. I very much look forward to hearing what steps are being taken with regard to mainstream policies affecting young people and working with international agencies—in particular, the Commonwealth.

16:54

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, on securing this debate. It is not often that we get the chance to debate issues of this nature. First, I should declare the interest of the many organisations for which I act as a trustee. The three that are relevant to this debate are the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Voluntary Service Overseas. I am on the international board of VSO, which is an enormous privilege.

Inevitably, the priorities in much of the developing world are different from ours. Among many policy-makers in this country, the ageing society is talked about as one of the greatest challenges that we face, with questions of how to adapt our public services and so on to meet the needs of that ageing society. However, in the developing world, the absolute opposite is true. I have had the opportunity to go to several countries in Africa. The challenge faced in Sierra Leone is the number of young people involved in the war who have lost their parents and become incredibly emotionally damaged. The question is how to deal with the sheer number of such children and how to find meaningful work and activities for them. I visited Tanzania to work with an education organisation which is working to improve quality in primary education. It has done remarkably well in increasing the number of children going to primary school, and we congratulate it on achieving much of the millennium development goal on education. However, many girls are being taken out of school to do domestic work and so on.

I could go on but I want to talk specifically about the role of the International Citizen Service—the new programme being introduced by the Government that will begin later this year. Potentially, it can play a very important role in development and particularly in providing opportunities for young people, not only in this country but in developing countries, and I hope that the Government proceed with ICS in this manner. This new initiative will be run in this country by six specialist development organisations led by VSO. All six agencies are currently working in development, using volunteers as their main instruments. It is very important that these agencies’ primary concern is development through volunteering, rather than simply giving people from this country a good experience.

More than most in this Committee, I can give testament to the value of volunteering for individuals in this country. It changed my life; the most important two years in my life were the two that I spent in Kenya. However, that is not enough; we have to approach this with the vision of development. VSO will do it through youth exchange, involving young people from the developing world as much as young people from this country. I urge the Government to keep faith with development and not to be tempted to turn this into what some might call gap-year tourism. It is not that. It needs to be a significant experience in development for children and young people in the developing world. I hope that the Government will learn from VSO about how to do this.

17:00

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate, not least because it has been initiated by my noble and long-time friend Lady Morris of Bolton. We heard previously in Committee about her drive to initiate such a debate. It comes as no surprise to me, knowing her as I do, that she should seek to do so.

As all noble Lords were young once, we can perceive what young people desire. Perhaps I may take a few moments for personal reflection. For a long period before entering your Lordships’ House I was involved with a youth association. Indeed, I had the privilege of leading that association for 15 or 16 years in various capacities from sports secretary to culture secretary, to vice-president and charity secretary. That taught me a great deal. This is—following on from the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong—about going from cradle to grave. It is not just about doing something for one bit of your life, learning about things which impact on children and young people; it is, as I learnt, something that one can engage in throughout one's life. It is about harnessing what is important in society and what role you can play.

I remember learning various skills in those early years, such as organisational skills, motivational skills, leadership skills and financial skills. That allowed me to pick up skills which complemented what I learnt in school. These domestic-focused activities—sometimes organising charity walks, or organising feeding for the homeless—instilled in me what we often talk about across your Lordships’ House and the other place: the values that we all wish to instil in our young people. The answer is in these community projects, in youth work.

I remember being engaged in an international sphere during the tragic war in the Balkans. I travelled out there and—despite the devastation, the genocide and the horrors—I was inspired and moulded by the experience. I found inspiration in the young people of all communities from within the Balkans who said, “Yes, we have nothing, but we have our lives and we can start again tomorrow”. My experience of working at home and abroad with charitable organisations such as Save the Children and Humanity First has instilled in me the importance of focusing on youth projects as we build stronger and more cohesive communities. It is important, as I have seen in places as diverse as Ghana and Sierra Leone, to empower young people. What they can do with computer skills is one example. Bringing young people together in the pursuit of common goals instils in them the need to work together and shows them the importance of learning from each other to develop themselves. I therefore welcome the Government’s drive to encourage youth development, including through the national citizen service, which broadens the minds of young people by giving them wider experiences.

In closing I would ask the Minister to tell the Committee the specific policies and funding that are in place or planned for the future to facilitate young people, through schools and voluntary organisations, so that they can learn from and contribute to the Government's big society initiative within the UK and in the developing world.

17:05

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, on providing this opportunity to focus on young people, particularly in developing countries. It is a timely topic. Today’s generation of young people is the largest in history. Like the noble Baroness, I was stunned by the latest figures. Over 3 billion people, nearly half of the world's population, are under the age of 25, and 90 per cent of them are in developing countries. As many noble Lords have mentioned, girls and boys represent a large proportion of the population in countries that are fragile or affected by conflict. These countries are also likely to be most vulnerable in the face of environmental stress.

In 2000, world leaders established the millennium development goals to achieve, over 15 years, a set of global targets that seek to reduce poverty and promote development. The UK’s Department for International Development has made the achievement of these goals a central strategic objective. Last year, the House of Commons International Development Committee reviewed DfID’s achievements and found that there had been notable progress towards reaching several goals, including those focusing on child mortality and primary education. However, other goals are seriously off-track, including improved gender equality.

I am proud of the previous Government’s commitment and achievement in these areas, and it is clear that the coalition Government have the same commitment—for example, by showing leadership in focusing on women and children's health, as they did at the UN summit last September. However, huge challenges remain. It has been pointed out that many of the millennium targets are based on pretty low thresholds. Even if all the goals are achieved by 2015, many millions of people will remain in dire poverty and lack access to basic needs such as sanitation or basic educational opportunities.

I want to echo the words of Graça Machel, speaking at a UNESCO world conference two years ago, when she asked:

“How can it be that in 2009 we still have tens of millions of primary school-age children across the world who are not in school? … After all these years, why do we continue to have such marked gender inequality in educational access and outcomes for girls?”.

In my brief remarks, I want to emphasise the importance and value for money of DfID focusing its resources on basic education and, in particular, on educating girls. I follow my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top in mentioning Voluntary Service Overseas in this context. I hope that the Minister will share my pleasure, as life vice-president of VSO, that DfID continues its staunch support of VSO's excellent multilayered approach in education.

Of course it is not just a question of pumping in aid money. A blog on DfID's website stressed that it means tackling inequality, corruption and weak institutions, quoting an example in Nigeria—which I have seen at first hand—where there is a huge, underutilised government universal basic education fund and, at the same time, the largest number of out-of-school children in the world.

Nevertheless, all the evidence shows that basic education is one of the most cost-effective development interventions; and this is not just for the child. It aids economic growth, helps prevent HIV, improves health and prevents conflict. UNESCO’s data show that girls' education lowers infant and child mortality rates, reduces fertility rates and promotes per capita income growth. Each additional year of education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining longer at school

So, education works. Yet Oxfam has estimated that there is a $20 billion shortfall in the $50 billion promised at Gleneagles in 2005. As Oxfam says, this

“is more than enough to get a seat in the classroom for each of the 72 million children who are currently out of school worldwide”.

UNESCO has estimated that the global Education for All programme has a financing gap of $16 billion a year. So perhaps I can end by asking the Minister what the UK Government will do to help bridge this gap.

17:09

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a long-term supporter and now patron of Restless Development, the international youth-led development agency. I am also an advisory board member of the Global Poverty Project, the aim of which, through education and training, is to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action so that we will see a world without extreme poverty within a generation.

I have two or three simple messages. First, I have an abhorrence of waste. Whether it is wasting money, food, electricity, water or even wasting time, I cannot abide it in my own life or in society generally. The statistics set out so clearly by my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton incensed me. We talk glibly about a waste of natural resources in our world, yet the waste of so many hundreds of millions of young lives—a so-called lost generation whose potential is unfilled through no fault of their own—is rarely mentioned. Young people are human beings; they are also assets and potentially the most valuable resource in our world today. They have ideas, they have energy and they deserve a future.

By investing in these young people we have the opportunity to break entrenched cycles of poverty and inequity. There is an undeniable economic case for investing in children and youth today. As UNICEF’s 2011 The State of the World’s Children report states:

“The economic and social progress of nations depends upon harnessing the potential, energy and skills of these young people”.

A recent World Bank report says, specific to Uganda,

“if girls with only a primary education finished secondary school, over their working lives they would contribute economic benefits to their country equivalent to one-third of current year GDP”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, said, educated girls are less likely to marry early and less likely to become pregnant as teenagers. They are also more likely to understand the benefits of nutrition and to have healthy children when they become mothers. They are also more likely then to send those children to school.

What can be done and what can we do? I would like to talk briefly about my experience with Restless Development, having seen at first hand its commitment to working with and through young people in Zambia. Its approach is to train young national volunteers to teach in their schools and communities. Increasingly, it is also working to get Governments and international agencies to recognise that to achieve sustainable success in poverty reduction it is essential to meaningfully engage young people in the process. As I visited several schools in outlying communities in the back of beyond, I was struck by the potency of training young Zambians to provide peer education on livelihoods, leadership and sexual and reproductive health. Messages which older teachers and parents would struggle to get across were readily accepted. I was inspired, too, by the other consequence of training peer educators—that they themselves became young leaders who in due course would go into communities as role models.

I mentioned earlier my abhorrence of waste and my commitment to highlighting the needs of poor young people. As part of this—I hope noble Lords will forgive this advertorial—I will be participating in the Live Below the Line campaign championed by Christian Aid, Restless Development, the Salvation Army and other charities. This will involve me and—I am delighted to note—the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, and a number of other colleagues from the House, including the Lord Speaker, living for five days on £1 a day for food and drink. Again, like the International Year of Youth, the aim is to put a spotlight on the lives of 1.4 billion people, half of them young people, who live off this meagre amount every day of their lives.

We all have a responsibility to raise public awareness on this issue and to help those who are working to bring about change. One thing that struck me from my time in Zambia was that whatever poverty young Zambians endured, there is no poverty of ambition. A lesson, perhaps, for some in this country.

17:13

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, for initiating this debate and for calling, as other noble Lords have done, for greater emphasis and a stronger focus on measures intended substantially to increase the participation and the quality of life of young people. The actions and the desired outcomes we have discussed here today, as noble Lords have shown, make absolute and infinite sense.

Young people have potentially a huge contribution to make because of their experience and understanding, which they can add to global efforts to meet the millennium development goals and to fight against inequality and discrimination. There has, quite rightly, been substantial investment in young children, especially those under five. However, that does not mean that there is any justification for giving insufficient attention to the crucial second decade of life, which of course is the focus of the UN International Year of Youth.

Youths continue to be subsumed under the category of children but are too often overlooked in the programming and resources available; it is far more likely that that programming and those resources will be directed to younger children. It means that young people’s contributions are overlooked and neglected. As many noble Lords will know, many of these young people are heads of households, often caring for young siblings, fetching water and preparing food, yet they have absolutely no authority within their community and are excluded from all the decision-making. We now risk jeopardising the gains in early and middle childhood that have been made since 1990 and seeing a deterioration in those advances.

I am reminded of the story of a young woman speaking at a recent UN meeting. She asked the delegates, “How old will you be in 2050?”. The chair of the committee admitted that he would be 110 and therefore unlikely to see the results of our failure to act. The fact is that the kind of world in which that young woman lives will depend both on those who inherit it and on those who bequeath it to them. Noble Lords have talked about young people being our future. I would say that young people are our present too, and it is very important that we remember that.

It has certainly been my experience that all too often young people are not consulted, are not taken seriously and are not given a voice, when the parameters of rights and responsibilities are clearly agreed under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Tackling the challenges faced by young women is imperative at this time, as many noble Lords have said.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)]

With many apologies to the noble Baroness, a Division has now been called in the Chamber. The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 5.26 pm.

17:16

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

17:26

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I carry on where I left off. Two-thirds of the 137 million illiterate young people in the world are young women. The noble Baroness mentioned some of the statistics. If you break them down, you see that more than half of HIV-infected young people are young women. That is why tackling the challenges faced by young women is an absolute imperative. Educating girls brings benefits such as delayed marriage, reduced rates of HIV, reduction in unwanted, unplanned pregnancies and maternal mortality, higher family incomes and lower rates of domestic violence. There is a long list of proven benefits. It is clear that talk of social transformation is meaningless unless the culture of discrimination and inequity which so many young women face is challenged. Young women need equal access to secondary education, to health, to employment, to juvenile justice and to identity. Adolescent girls need access to sexual and reproductive health rights. This should be urgently addressed. Complications relating to pregnancy and child birth are a leading cause of death worldwide among adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 19.

Much of what needs to be done will be achieved only, as the noble Baroness said, if data are disaggregated. They should be disaggregated by age and gender; otherwise, one cannot make the relevant deductions. There has to be engagement across the board, from communities, Governments, the private sector, civil society, religious leaders, NGOs and donors. Everybody has to come behind the messages of this UN International Year of Youth. Many institutional and cultural barriers stand in the way of progress for young people at this time, but this year, which celebrates young people, should be used as a springboard for their future progress and opportunity.

17:28

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, before thanking my noble friend, I thank all noble Lords for an excellent debate, particularly in view of the time. If I do not succeed in covering all points raised by noble Lords, I undertake to write to them. I warmly welcome the support offered for the Government’s desire to ensure that girls and women remain at the heart of our policies.

I thank my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton for tabling this debate in the International Year of Youth, launched in August last year. I thank her for her work in supporting children and young people, including in her role as trustee of UNICEF. The work of UNICEF in more than 190 countries around the world is exemplary. That is why the Government have announced a doubling of their funding support for the agency.

The proportion of young people in the world today is higher than it has ever been. More than 3 billion people are under the age of 25, accounting for nearly half of the world's population. They have great opportunities, such as the ability to access information about world events at their fingertips, but they are also faced with new challenges, including those caused by climate change and the global financial crisis. We have witnessed many young people in the Middle East and north Africa calling for freedom, democracy and respect for human rights. These young people will be the leaders and decision-makers of tomorrow. They must have a role in rebuilding these countries and ensuring that the new constitutions uphold and promote human rights.

Experience tells us that we have to tackle the root causes of the development challenges today or we will spend much more time in future trying to deal with the symptoms. Almost 90 per cent of all young people live in developing countries. It is clear that we must harness the full potential of young people in order to guide developing countries towards a prosperous and stable future. The Government are fully committed to achieving better outcomes for young people in the poorest countries. There is a lot of good work under way. For example, in Sierra Leone, UK support has enabled 11,300 people aged between 18 and 28 to be trained as volunteer peer educators to work in schools and local communities to change health behaviours and reduce vulnerability to HIV. In Palestine, the UK is providing support through the Civil Society Challenge Fund to reduce poverty and social exclusion among physically disabled young people in the West Bank.

Young people are not merely passive recipients of aid but can be a powerful engine for achieving long-term development. DfID is supporting a number of international and local organisations to enhance youth participation and voice in development. In Brazil, for example, UK support has facilitated 5,300 teenagers and young people to be involved in monitoring public policy and programmes focusing on education. We supported the CSO youth working group to produce its guidance entitled Youth Participation in Development: A Guide for Development Agencies and Policy Makers. We will continue to draw on its strength to work with youth participation in the countries where we work—for example, as we develop new participatory approaches with young people through our partnership with the Nike Foundation.

In September last year, to mark the International Year of Youth and in the lead-up to the United Nations millennium development goals summit, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for International Development met with over 30 youth delegates from the UK to hear their views about global poverty and their priorities for tackling it.

The Government believe that it is through investing in young people, and in particular in girls and young women, that we will achieve transformative benefits for future generations. Last month, DfID launched a new strategic vision for girls and women, which sets out that the UK will prioritise support to adolescent girls in four areas: to delay first pregnancy and support safe child birth; to support girls and young women through primary and secondary education; to provide girls and women directly with assets and with jobs and access to financial services; and to prevent violence against girls and women.

Educating girls is one of the best investments to reduce poverty, but in sub-Saharan Africa there are only 79 girls for every 100 boys in secondary education. This is less equal than in 1999. We will concentrate on retaining girls in school and enabling girls to progress through to secondary school, where the largest benefits accrue. By 2014 we will be supporting over 9 million children in primary education, of which at least half will be girls, and 700,000 girls in secondary education. Examples of UK support include Tanzania, where we will support 14,000 more female teachers to provide positive role models for girls. In Pakistan, 57,500 lavatory blocks will be built for girls to give them privacy, security and dignity. But we know that education is not enough on its own. That is why, by 2015, we will be helping 2.3 million women to access jobs and 18 million women to access financial services. To support adolescent girls in particular, we are developing pilots through a new programme partnership with the Nike Foundation to increase our access to assets. This will include cash transfers, girl clubs, financial literacy and saving accounts designed for girls.

On the UK’s domestic work to support young people in the International Year of Youth, the Government want all of our young people to aspire and achieve and to be active citizens in their communities and wider society. We want a stronger focus on closing the gap in achievement between the richest and the poorest by supporting the most vulnerable young people. We have ensured that the funding is there to guarantee that more young people stay on in school, restating our commitment to raising the participation age to 18 by 2015. We are committed to the pupil premium and early intervention grant, which will provide targeted support and services for the young people who need it the most; and we have commissioned the Wolf review to make recommendations on vocational education for 14 to 19 year-olds.

The Government are in the process of working with young people and youth organisations to create a new statement of policy for young people that is sustainable for the long term. This will be achievable and has the positive endorsement and buy-in of young people themselves. A youth summit event, “Positive for Youth”, was held on 9 March. The participation of almost 300 people from across all sectors, including more than 50 young people, enabled an open, engaging and productive debate about the key issues that matter most to young people. “Positive for Youth” marked the beginning of a genuine opportunity to do something that is new, different and positive for young people. Tim Loughton, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, has also convened a representative group of young people to advise him directly on the development of the Government’s new policy, and to provide an ongoing forum for youth proofing policies across government.

The Government’s flagship national citizen service programme will be central to increasing the engagement and active participation of young people in their communities. It will offer young people a shared opportunity for personal development and community services through an intensive summer programme. It will also be a catalyst for the greater involvement of community and civil society organisations in providing universal activities, as well as stimulating greater engagement from private organisations.

We are also offering young adults the chance to volunteer on social action projects in developing countries. This new scheme, the international citizen service, will offer a life-changing experience for young people from the UK to improve the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. The ICS will channel the skills, enthusiasm and energy of young volunteers to make a meaningful contribution to a range of development projects. Some ICS volunteers will work alongside national volunteers, who will be supported to continue their work after the UK volunteers have departed and to develop their own skills.

In the couple of minutes that I have left I shall turn to some of the questions raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, asked what the Government are doing to enable young people to learn from and contribute to the big society in England. The Government want all young people to have a positive and active place in society and to be active citizens in their communities. The national citizen service and the development of the international citizen service are excellent ways for ensuring that young people become engaged. Like the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, I also learned through my own experience how working with people with so many vulnerabilities at their doorstep makes that a life change for you.

My noble friend Lady Morris asked about disaggregated data. DfID produces youth-disaggregated data where it can. For example, it encourages country offices to produce age-disaggregated data for their programmes. However, for technical reasons, it is sometimes not appropriate to disaggregate all indicators by age because sometimes the beneficiaries are not targeted at that level—for example, the supply of clean water is not age appropriate but is on a geographic basis.

The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred to the problem of human trafficking. He will be happy to hear that the UK ratified the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in 2008. After considering the views of Parliament, we will see whether we will sign up to that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, spoke about the Commonwealth and its importance to young people. DfID supports young people in the Commonwealth to engage in international development and build their skills. We provide funding of £850,000 per year to the Commonwealth Youth Programme, run by the Commonwealth Secretariat. This encourages young people’s engagement in international development.

I think that I have run out of time. I undertake to respond in writing to all noble Lords whose questions I have not answered.

Health: Obesity

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

17:42

Asked By

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce obesity in the United Kingdom.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, the purpose of this debate is to draw attention to the most serious epidemic to affect many parts of the world. The obesity epidemic will soon involve half the population of this country. It is killing millions of people, costing billions of pounds and the cure is free: eat less and live. The results of obesity cause great distress and suffering and include cancer, arthritis—which often needs joint replacements—and type 2 diabetes, which leads to blindness, loss of limbs, heart attacks, strokes and very much more disability.

The best measure of obesity is the body mass index, BMI, which is the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in metres. In terms of body mass index, 20 to 25 is healthy, 25 to 30 is overweight, above 30 is obese and over 40 is morbidly obese.

How is it that intelligent, well meaning leaders of this country have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into believing the false information about obesity that it is all to do with a balance between the calories that we eat and the exercise that we take? Of course, they have been aided and abetted by NICE—or, under its more recent name, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. In its document on obesity of January 2010, NICE stated:

“A person needs to be in ‘energy balance’ to maintain a healthy weight – that is, their energy intake (from food) should not exceed the energy expended through … exercise”.

There is its crucial mistake, because the real balance is between calorie intake and the total expenditure of energy in the body.

The simple fact is that only 20 per cent of the calories we eat or drink are used up in exercise, which means that diet is five times more important than exercise in controlling weight. Put another way, if we were successful in doing something which has never been achieved before—namely, getting the population to double the amount of exercise that they do in a day—it would increase energy expenditure only by 20 per cent. If, on the other hand, every plate of food was reduced by half, this would reduce the calorie intake by half.

We have to run 17 miles in order to reduce our weight by one pound of fat. Bearing in mind that as little as 20 per cent of the calories we eat or drink is used up in exercise, where does the remaining 80 per cent of the energy go? It is consumed by numerous activities over which we have no control: the heart beats 2.5 billion times in a lifetime, the kidneys filter 4.5 metric tonnes of blood and there are a myriad of activities in other organs of the body such as the liver, the pancreas, the bones and the alimentary tract. As regards those who believe that the energy from food is all used up in exercise, where do they imagine the energy comes from to run the heart, liver, pancreas, brain and so on? Perhaps they imagine that they run on air—perhaps hot air.

The sad thing is that there are politicians in all parties and people in many well meaning organisations who have also been misled. Most of their publications have adopted the mantra that exercise and diet are the solution to obesity but few, if any, emphasise that diet is five times more important than exercise. Politicians persist in believing that the issue is about having a balance between diet and exercise because that is what the quango NICE says in its publications.

When one examines what NICE published in January 2010, one sees that it recommends exercise and diet on seven pages and on three other pages it puts it the other way round, as diet and exercise. Nowhere does it state that reducing calorie intake is much more important and effective in reducing weight. On page 21, it recommends that obese adults should take more exercise even if it does not lead to weight loss. If treatment is not working, why not try another treatment such as eating less, which is five times more effective? But perhaps the most impractical advice in this paper was that people who have lost weight may need to do an hour and a half of exercise a day to avoid regaining weight. I must say that I would have been very disappointed if any of my medical students had produced a document such as this. But there is good news. I went to see the director of NICE, who has now admitted that the institute got it wrong. I look forward to politicians accepting this new advice that diet is five times more important than exercise.

Why are people willing to turn a blind eye to this problem while millions of people suffer as a result? By saying that taking exercise is the answer, we avoid upsetting the millions of obese people whose excessive weight often prevents them exercising and we give them a good excuse to stay as they are. We deceive them by avoiding the heart of the matter which is that we need to eat less. Of course, those in the food industry are delighted to hear that lack of exercise and sports facilities are to blame for the obesity epidemic as that lets them off the hook.

I have been asked not to be negative about exercise because all the political parties have been campaigning to increase activity and they do not want this momentum to be torpedoed. I understand that. I would never be negative about exercise because it is of great importance for the integrity of the heart and the control of the wrong sort of cholesterol. Exercise also gives a sense of well-being and high morale, but that does not alter the fact that what we eat is five times more important than exercise when we are dealing with weight control.

The subject of obesity is beset with a number of red herrings. Many people believe that obesity is due to genetics, hormones, brown fat, psychological factors, sexual abuse and so on. These factors may help to explain why people eat too much but they are certainly not the cause of obesity. Those factors were around during the war when food was rationed but there was no obesity then, apart from those miscreants who were indulging on the black market.

Over the years, I have had many obese patients who have assured me that they eat very little and sometimes they were speaking the truth. Their obesity was due to their alcohol intake. Noble Lords will perhaps know that three cocktails such as mai tai will contain 1,000 calories. That is another hazard for the unwary.

There is a good deal of confusion about childhood obesity, which is now a very serious problem and getting worse. The organisation Change4Life has estimated that there are 1 million obese children under 16 in the UK, and around the world there are 2 million children under five who are overweight. We are beginning to see earlier and earlier the complications of obesity in these children, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.

Again we are bedevilled by the obsession that exercise is the solution, but reliable long-term scientific research clearly shows that overeating is responsible and that it starts in the first five years of life. There was a misleading article in the Daily Telegraph on 8 November 2010 headed, “Exercise, not diet, key to obesity”. This was based on a Norwegian study which was fundamentally flawed. However, the same article mentioned the reliable work of Professor John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen, who presented unique data using state-of- the-art technology. He found that rising obesity levels were due to increasingly excessive food intake. The overall physical activity levels have been constant over the past 25 years while weight levels have soared due to the greatly increased calorie intake.

Professor TJ Wilkin of the Peninsula medical school has carried out a unique study, published in Archives of Disease in Childhood in 2009, that included annual measurements of physical activity and body composition over 12 years. This shows that obesity leads to inactivity, but inactivity does not lead to obesity. Furthermore it concluded that the pathway to obesity seems to be,

“set early in life, long before school age”.

This questions the rhetoric around school meals, computer screens, PE time, playing fields and physical activity, which, of course, is unstructured in early childhood. A recent meta-analysis incorporating 15 reports on over 13,000 children concluded that a nine year-old child subjected to intense pressure for 18 months would lose on average just three ounces, or 80 grams.

The obesity epidemic is killing millions, costing billions and the cure is free. Will Her Majesty’s Government embrace the essential fact that reducing food intake is five times more effective than exercise?

17:52

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is consistent. I remember that we have crossed swords on this subject several times. The idea that exercise is a bad way of controlling weight is odd because fundamentally it misses the point. Exercise may make you gain weight. If you take exercise that uses muscle—for instance, my own sport of rugby union or rowing—you will get bigger. If you take these exercises your body will become more dense and solid; if you run, your body will become more solid and you will add extra muscle. The old adage is that if you go to the butchers and ask for a pound of fat and a pound of muscle you will discover which is the smaller unit—it is just there.

We can jump around here but the idea is that you are carrying too much fat. The body mass index is probably the worst measure of obesity and fitness because it throws up the anomaly of the sportsman emerging as the person who is going to die tomorrow. According to the body mass index, I did not make it to 30; neither did anyone else who played my sport at any level; and when Pinsent and Redgrave won their last combined gold medal they were heavily overweight and just missed being obese. These men are six foot five, so you can see how bad it is.

I am aware that I have an inferior medical knowledge but burning fat is probably the worst way to judge the way in which you use calories in exercise—I know I am sticking my neck out in saying this—because you burn up the calories when your body repairs the muscles, over a longer period of time, after exercise has put up your metabolism. This is fundamentally what your body does and different types of exercise will burn it at different rates.

It is also true that you have to take account of the number of calories going in and the number going out. If you live a sedentary life, it is absolutely obvious that you do not need extra calories. Exercise burns up calories, basically by rebuilding, reconditioning or changing muscle. You might burn off 15 calories by keeping fit in the gym but if, for example, you lift weights, you will burn off far more calories by rebuilding your muscles afterwards. However, if you are heavily overweight and eat far too much or eat the wrong thing sat in front of a TV screen, you are going to get heavier.

The fact is that, if we do not take exercise and we sit in front of a TV screen, the vast majority of us will eat or drink cups of tea laced with sugar. The same point applies to sugar in tea as it does to sugar in alcohol. If we spend a great deal of time being sedentary, most of us will consume calories at the same time. Many of us do not have the will-power to sit still for hours doing nothing without consuming calories. We live in a society where these no-need-to-cook, at-your-fingertips calories are easily available: you go to a supermarket and, after you have been good and bought the things that you have to cook, you buy lots of things that you do not have to cook. That is one of the barriers that we face.

How do we try to bring about a balance? The Government’s responsibility deal is a way forward, and I hope that we can get a bit more out of that than we have from some of the other schemes that we have had in the past. Primarily, we are not asking everyone to stop eating convenience foods, but we are trying to make those convenience foods potentially less lethal. However, how this will work, I do not know. Improvements have been made but are they happening quickly enough? There is no silver bullet. The previous Government tried hard to tackle the problem. They made people look at the problem but people still tend to be getting heavier, so which combination is right?

Total abstemiousness may be desirable but it is not something that we follow. Let us face it: we would not have to maintain sports grounds if we all did. Fast food is available to us and it has always been a part of our culture. History shows us that fish and chip shops and pie shops have always been there. All the things we like, such as salt and fat, are available and they give us a nice hit. We have to take that on board and try to educate people further. If people like these types of snacks, we have to try to make them less fatty.

Exercise plays a very important part for many people. If you are active and a reasonably keen amateur sportsman, then, apart from anything else, you are probably going to take slightly better care of yourself. Why would you not do so? Even if you only want to get from the third to the second team in your particular sport, then losing a couple of pounds and eating slightly better may have a part to play in that. When you are playing or running around training one, two or three nights a week, you are not sitting on your behind in front of a TV screen or in the pub. We must look at the issue in the round. The incentive to control your diet is increased by exercise. If you do not eat a great deal and are not carrying an extra few pounds of fairly soft tissue or fat, then, even if you just want to walk gently up a hill on a Sunday, it will be easier and more fun. Everyone enjoys the view more when they are not gasping for breath at the end of their walk and do not have incredible pain in their muscles. That is a fact.

I repeat: we have to look at things in the round. Physical activity and access to physical activity will help, if only as an incentive to eat better. Unless we make sure that that there are incentives to take part in social and physical activity and to think about the foods that we eat and the amount we eat, we are going to miss our targets. Let us make sure that, when we talk about diet, we talk about it in terms not just of consumption of calories but of the correct cycle of calories for activity.

I leave noble Lords with this. Everybody is gobsmacked by professional athletes—not by the amount they train but by the amount they eat. An Olympic gold medallist—I think it was Phelps in the last Olympics—said that he had to eat 4,000 calories a day. That is eight gold medals-worth of burgers. It means that people can actually eat a great deal and be very fit and healthy. I suggest that we need to look at this in the round and not get obsessed by any one activity.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

Before the noble Lord sits down, would he recognise that I did not actually run down exercise? I specifically said it was a good thing. Also, how does he explain the scientific fact that only one-fifth of the calories we eat are expended in exercise?

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, quite simply, if it is expended in exercise, it is not expended in the rebuilding of muscle. Rebuilding muscle is an important part of exercise—not the actual taking of exercise.

18:01

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, you cannot really find fault with the logic of the noble Lord, Lord McColl—do not eat and you will not put on weight. The problem is that for most of us, if you mention food we want to eat. I am going to focus on strategy, but I cannot find fault in his logic.

The noble Lord has already referred to the fact that obesity is recognised as a major public health problem and that it may well be getting worse. A policy review of several countries, including the United Kingdom, finds common themes. All express concern at the prevalence of obesity, thought to be the result of over-consumption of energy-dense foods and inadequate levels of physical activity. Few countries have specific strategies; instead, obesity is tackled through separate policies of nutrition and physical activity. Policies often in general terms identify sets of actions without any firm commitments—often interventions that focus on schools, workplace and active transport. What is noticeable is the absence, almost, of fiscal and legislative interventions from policies; neither are the policies funded. The interventions are poorly supported by research or evidence. The proposed measurement of the effectiveness of policies is weak and not clearly formulated. The strategy to tackle the so-called “tsunami of obesity”, which threatens several countries in the world, is largely concerned with options for ways to develop policies rather than a set of interventions to reduce obesity.

We have known about the associations of obesity and disease, and the noble Lord, Lord McColl, mentioned some of them. There are some 17 different diseases that we know of that have associations with obesity, costing the health service in England in the region of £4 billion—costs that will exceed health costs due to tobacco and alcohol use. The joint report in January 2011 of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh—and I declare an interest as a fellow of both—made some key recommendations on diabetes and obesity that have implications for policy research and management of patients with obesity and diabetes at individual and population level.

Obesity, as everybody understands, is a condition characterised by an individual having excess body fat caused by higher energy intake than expenditure. Excess energy is stored in the form of adipose tissue. Statistics have already been mentioned and are clear: 25 per cent of the adult population is obese and 65 per cent may well be overweight, while 23 per cent of children at reception in school are obese or overweight and 33 per cent of 10 to 11 year-olds are obese or overweight. Those are important findings from the child measurement studies. The pester power of children and the pushing of calorific foods to children by shops contributes to this. A well-known politician reportedly asked:

“As Britain faces an obesity crisis, why does WH Smith's promote half-price Chocolate Oranges at its checkouts instead of real oranges?”

When he said that, he was much applauded by the population and by the citizens. The politician was David Cameron.

I turn to the current Government’s strategy, or what it might be. We await the publication. The public health White Paper suggests that the Government will take a holistic approach with emphasis on personal responsibility and choice, but they will be reluctant to use regulation or legislation. The focus will be on voluntary agreements with industry through public health responsibility deals. Interventions are likely to be based on strong evidence, but there is not enough strong evidence, especially as NICE is asked to put the obesity interventions review on hold. There are suggestions that the Government will use the famous “ladder of interventions”, beginning with the least intrusive—information, education and so on—but regulation of industry or individuals will be used only if the initial steps of the ladder do not work. That is the well known nudge theory which involves no regulation, prompted choice and co-operation with the private sector, and it will be subject to strict post hoc evaluation.

I ask the Minister: what is the evidence that the nudge theory will work? What is the roadmap to evaluation? What measurements will be used and who will carry them out? A major plank of the policy is the responsibility deal. Who will lead that responsibility deal? Who will be responsible for it? Could the noble Earl comment on the reports that several charities and consumer organisations have withdrawn, seeing it as industry influencing consumers rather than reforming their business practices?

I hope that the Government will take on board in their strategy several issues that have some evidence as to their effectiveness. They are such simple things as a front-of-pack colour-coded labelling scheme for foodstuffs; a ban on advertising on television before 9 pm of food that is high in fat, sugar or salt; a continuation of the national child measurement programme; information on calorie content on all products; a commitment from local authorities to provide, to protect and to maintain the environment that will enhance physical activity; promotion of research into psychology and anthropology of behavioural change; cost effectiveness of interventions; and, lastly, a ban on trans-fats in all foods, as I have said before. Strategies that demonstrate reduction in childhood obesity are key indicators of success and, therefore, the childhood measurement programme should be continued.

18:08

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I would like to intervene briefly to express some marginally politically incorrect sentiments, because I share concerns expressed by Members of the Committee about the scale of the problem of obesity nationally, which I think is huge.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me, but we were not notified that he had his name on the speaking list.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I did not know that there was a speaking list.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I am afraid that there is; this is a timed debate. However, as one of the speakers has scratched, the noble Lord can speak for four minutes in the gap.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I intend to intervene only briefly. I support the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and congratulate him on introducing this debate. His speech is worthy of passing around our friends and colleagues because it would have made a very good after-dinner speech. Although it was amusing, it dealt with an extremely serious subject.

My noble friend Lord Patel raised the issue of calorific information on food products sold in stores and particularly in restaurants. The other week I went into a Harvester restaurant which I had never been into before. I noticed that every item on the menu had its calorific content in bold lettering, so much so that I cannot believe that people who eat in those restaurants are not aware of and do not take into account the calorific content when they order their food. I am told that in parts of the world, particularly in America, the authorities in some cities insist on calorific information being provided on all menus in restaurants.

I wonder why we cannot do something similar here in the United Kingdom. I know that the Government are not over-wedded to the principle of too much regulation, but when so much is at stake arising out of problems of obesity and their consequences for health service expenditure, why can we not grasp the nettle in this area and introduce a regulatory framework for food manufacturers whereby the general public really do have to sit down and consider what they eat daily? If we were to do that, I believe that it would certainly have some consequence for obesity.

I return to being slightly politically incorrect. There is another problem as well. Families are often simply not prepared to raise the issue internally. There is an embarrassment about fatness. People just do not want to talk about it. Even among one’s colleagues, here or anywhere, we do not talk about whether people are fat or thin. We have to get over that because a huge problem is developing, in part due to an element of political incorrectness which is reflected in how the media and the industry treat the subject.

I am sorry if I did not comply completely with the rules. Having come from the Commons, and as I normally speak only at Report, in Committee and on Third Reading, I am not used to listings during debates.

18:12

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McColl, on his persistence in calling this debate; he is well known for his concern about this issue. I also offer congratulations to my noble friend Lord Brooke on having lost a lot of weight by reducing his intake of food by 10 per cent since June last year. I am not going to tell the Committee what he has gone to or from, but it is very impressive. In a way, that proves a point made in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McColl.

I address my remarks to the growing crisis that is childhood obesity. There are high levels of concern about obesity in westernised society, and about obesity in children in particular. The National Child Measurement Programme was implemented in the UK to monitor changes in average body size among children who are starting or about to leave primary education. It showed that, in 2008-09, almost one in 10 children—9.6 per cent—aged four to five was obese, while for 10 to 11 year-olds the figure was almost one in five, or 18.3 per cent. Over the past 10 years obesity among six year-olds has doubled, and it has trebled among 15 year-olds. With such levels of obesity, diseases such as type 2 diabetes are now being seen for the first time in children.

I draw on a recently published report entitled The views of young children in the UK about obesity, body size, shape and weight: a systematic review. It was undertaken for BMC Public Health and published on 25 March, and I commend it to all noble Lords. Among other things, it states that recent research shows that,

“Children are likely to experience immediate physical and psychosocial problems as a result of being obese and are at a higher risk of obesity as they grow older”.

Therefore,

“Children’s attitudes to and beliefs about their bodies”,

including high levels of body dissatisfaction, raise enormous concerns.

I have to confess that so far, taking their rhetoric with all possible seriousness, I am underwhelmed by the Government’s strategy for tackling childhood obesity. It seems that they are intent on removing all the levers that might make a difference nationally. For example, today the school dinner grant loses its ring-fencing and can be used to cover other budgets in schools which, it is safe to say, will lead to a rise in prices of possibly up to 17 per cent and a fall in take-up of school meals. The official national statistics on school lunch prices show that the average price for a two-course meal across primary and secondary schools with catering provided by the local authority was £1.88 in 2009-10. The Observer reported yesterday that more than 30 local authorities plan to increase the cost to children in the coming months, with some schools seeing an increase of as much as 17 per cent to £2.60.

Research by the School Food Trust reveals, not surprisingly, that the uptake of school meals correlates with price changes. According to its studies, a typical lunch brought in from home is not as nutritious as the average school lunch, which must meet national food standards. Packed lunches can also be repetitive. Therefore, despite reports of increased lunch fees in some areas, the School Food Trust says that it is “really encouraged” that many schools have continued to put the same level of investment into their school meals and has welcomed proposals to make it easier for schools to offer price deals such as ‘buy one get one free’ for larger families. Indeed, writing in yesterday’s Observer, Jamie Oliver said that he hopes the Government will continue to invest in,

“quality school food and the integral support and training of kitchen staff”.

However, we then have to add into the mix on school meals that the Welfare Reform Bill is a leap in the dark on this matter and raises the issue of the future of free school meals. Apart from the fact that it may mean children who need them may not get them, it introduces instability in funding.

Food education in schools is also incredibly important. It was made compulsory for children in secondary schools in 2008 and is due to come into schools this September. However, it is already under threat of being removed from the curriculum completely.

On nursery schools, in responding to the publication of recommendations by a government-commissioned panel on voluntary food and nutrition guidance for early years settings in England, Charlie Powell, director of the Children’s Food Campaign, said:

“While we welcome the substance of the recommendations from the Advisory Panel on Food and Nutrition in Early Years, we already know—from years of experience—that more voluntary guidance is almost certain to be largely ignored”.

That is simply not good enough. We should have legal standards for nursery food.

I agree with what Charlie Powell said when the Health Secretary announced the responsibility deals. He stated:

“They are little more than a continuation of schemes that were being done anyway by the Food Standards Agency—until the Government took away its nutrition remit”.

So instead of introducing effective measures to tackle alarming levels of childhood obesity—such as regulation to protect children from junk food marketing—the Government’s pledges require little or no extra work on the part of food businesses, which are delighted by the support they are receiving from the Government.

I urge the Department of Health to ensure that these voluntary commitments are independently monitored and evaluated and to set a timetable for regulation for when, as we expect, they fail to improve public health. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, it is an embarrassment that Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation joined alcohol health charities in not signing up to the deal.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of science and ethics at the BMA, said:

“Children and parents are surrounded by the marketing of unhealthy cereals, snacks and processed meals. This has to stop”.

Two of the partners in the Government’s responsibility deal had the following to say. The Food and Drink Federation rejected the need for restrictions on advertising and a spokesman said:

“Any simplistic scheme that demonises products does not take into account the complexity of people’s lifestyles and the way they eat”.

The boss of McDonalds, Peter Beresford, has made clear that he rejects TV advertising restrictions. He said that McDonalds is not to blame for rising obesity, adding:

“There is no good food or bad food, only bad diets”.

Statistics show that about 70 per cent of commercials shown during children’s viewing are for food and that, of these, between 80 per cent and 100 per cent are for junk food. We are sending the wrong messages to children at a time when we are seeing this terrible increase in weight problems. As noble Lords will be aware, because I promoted a Private Member’s Bill on this matter some years ago, I am strongly opposed to allowing advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar during the pre-watershed hours. National Consumer Council expert Sue Dibb has said:

“Anything less than full restrictions on TV ads and promotions for high fat, salt and sugar foods before the 9 pm watershed would be extremely disappointing”.

I agree with that.

On sport and exercise, the Government’s record is again not good. We saw last year the U-turn that they had to make on school sports and the scrapping by the DCMS of the free swimming programme, designed to be a key part of the London 2012 legacy plans. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, that nudge and suggestion have yet to prove themselves. I have not limited myself to talking about the Department of Health because this is a cross-government matter. I therefore have two questions for the Minister: is there a cross-government approach, and where are the interventions and levers? Although I shall not repeat the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I add my name to them.

18:22

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for raising this important issue, about which he knows a very great deal. I value the insights that he was able to give us in his most informative introductory speech.

Obesity is one of our biggest public health challenges. In England, three-fifths of all adults and more than a quarter of children aged two to 10 are overweight or obese. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, reminded us of some other statistics in that connection.

Already, more teenagers and young adults are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Experts tell us that if obesity stays at anywhere near its current high levels the health of the population will deteriorate dramatically in the years ahead. For instance, the National Heart Forum has predicted that, by 2050, the number of people getting diabetes because of their weight will nearly double and those with heart disease caused by obesity will rise by 44 per cent.

Our first thought has to be the human cost. Just as obesity cuts years from a person’s life, it also takes life from a person’s years. Statistics do not really convey the long-term effects of diabetes. They include limb amputations, long-term disability, chronic pain and heart disease, robbing people of their energy, their independence and their chances of a decent quality of life.

The other consideration is financial cost. Obesity already costs the NHS £4.2 billion. That figure is set to double by 2050. The prognosis is simple: make rapid progress or face a personal and financial catastrophe within a generation. As a country, we need to change our behaviour. The White Paper on public health sets out a new approach to improving people’s health that is locally centred, outcomes-driven and professionally led.

New local health and well-being boards will help to bring together the NHS and local government under a shared local strategy. The outcomes framework for public health will provide consistent measures to judge progress, and this includes two potential indicators covering obesity. Public Health England, a new, dedicated national public health service, will provide the resources, ideas and evidence to support local strategies. A specific obesity document will follow, setting out how the new system will work to reduce obesity levels.

However, as important as systems and structures may be, this is also about changing cultures. It is about encouraging greater personal responsibility. We have found that the state does not have all the answers, and the more the state intervenes, the more individual responsibility shrinks back. Rather than nannying people, we must nudge them, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, reminded us, giving them the support and encouragement they need to look after their own health.

Although the noble Lord, Lord Patel, raised this subject, he expressed some doubts about its efficacy. I simply say to him that the Government cannot change people’s behaviour; what they can do is help people to change their behaviour themselves by encouraging them, rewarding them, making it easier and making it the norm. We can provide information to individuals to help them to make informed decisions about their health and we can provide encouragement, which we are already doing.

The noble Lord was doubtful whether the voluntary approach would work. I share his wish for an evidence-based evaluation of whatever we do. That is a core component of the responsibility deal and we are investing in it. However, as part of our new approach, we will consider what can be achieved through voluntary approaches before considering regulation. People’s lifestyle choices are affecting their health. The Government cannot address that challenge on their own. We believe that collective voluntary effort can deliver more progress and do so more quickly than regulation. Through the public health responsibility deal, we can tap into the unrealised potential of a wide range of resources that can promote healthier lifestyles and support people in achieving them. We have examples of working with industry, and this approach works. Change4Life is a recent example of how we have successfully worked with industry. We firmly believe that collective voluntary efforts can deliver real progress. The responsibility deal and deliverables arising from it have to deliver real improvements to public health, and we are looking at what independent monitoring or evaluation will be needed to that end.

While obesity often has complex social, psychological and cultural foundations, its basic cause is simple. My noble friend Lord McColl spoke about energy balance in its broadest sense. He is right: people become overweight because they take in more calories than is necessary and they do not burn off the excess calories that they do not need. I do not think that my noble friend was arguing against that proposition. It is a point clearly made in the NICE guidance on obesity and being overweight, and it is central to the Government’s approach. The NICE guidelines on obesity address the prevention, identification and management of obesity. They stress the importance of addressing both diet and energy out. The guidelines were based on the best available evidence that NICE had at its disposal at the time. However, my noble friend will be reassured to hear that NICE’s clinical guidelines are updated as required so that recommendations take into account important new information, and the obesity guideline is no exception to that.

My noble friend referred to the work of Professor Wilkin. The department is familiar with the EarlyBird diabetes study by Professor Wilkin. The study makes some useful points concerning the importance of early-life experiences for future health. It provides some useful messages on the importance of a child’s early years and the impact that this can have on the child’s future health and behaviour. However, this is one study which needs to be seen alongside other research with different findings on physical activity and weight.

My noble friend Lord McColl made very clear his emphasis on diet as the more important ingredient in weight loss. However, I think he would agree that any planned weight management programme should be tailored to the person’s preferences—their initial fitness, their health status in general and their lifestyle. The NICE guideline recognises that relatively high levels of activity may be required by certain individuals wishing to lose weight or maintain weight following weight loss. However, it also emphasises that, while an individual’s ability to be physically active may be hampered by their initial level of fitness or comorbidities, physical activity recommendations can be built up gradually, be focused on everyday activities, such as walking, and be accompanied by a reduction in sedentary behaviour. The guideline includes a raft of recommendations for clinical practice on dietary management.

Therefore, what is to be done? First, we need to give people the information and the opportunities so that people can choose to change their diet and lifestyle. A powerful way of doing this is through the Change4Life brand, which helps people to cut down on fatty and sugary foods and become more active. Another is working with industry to guide people towards healthier choices. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked why we cannot ask restaurants and so on to place calorific content on menus. Through the responsibility deal, we now have 29 partners who are committed to posting calorific content on their menus in more than 4,000 restaurants. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned trans-fats, and my noble friend Lord Addington also referred to the fat content of food. They are both quite right. They will be pleased to hear that businesses have already committed themselves to removing artificial trans-fats from foods so that people can keep the tastes they enjoy without suffering such negative consequences. We shall continue to work with industry on other measures to help people to reduce their calorie intake, including reformulation. We will say more in the obesity document when it is published later this year.

A second issue is improving access to healthier food. In some areas, local shops simply do not stock healthier options. We are working with the Association of Convenience Stores to make fresh fruit and vegetables more available. The scheme has expanded incredibly quickly, with participating stores seeing a marked increase in the sale of fruit and vegetables. Of course, even if people have fresh produce, they still need to know what to do with it, so education is vital. There are many great local initiatives—involving the NHS, local authorities and a range of partners—which provide cookery schools and other local healthier eating initiatives.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, spoke very eloquently about school food, and I agree with a lot of what she said. The Government are committed to ensuring that pupils can eat healthy, nutritious school food. We are supporting the School Food Trust in its work to help caterers to become more efficient while continuing to provide healthy meals. The schools budget will increase by £3.6 billion in cash terms by 2014-15—the end of the spending review period. Although the school lunch grant will not remain as a specific grant, it will be one of the grants that make up schools’ baseline funding from 2011-12. It will, however, no longer be ring-fenced; it will be for schools to decide how to spend the money.

We have not changed the current rules for free school meals. Therefore, some 900,000 pupils in the neediest families—those without work—continue to receive free meals. We took the difficult decision not to extend eligibility to low-income working families because the previous Government had underfunded this plan by £295 million. The money saved by not extending eligibility will be used more directly to improve the educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils, which is key to extending opportunities for poorer children. We are continuing to support three pilot projects of extended free school meals. We will look at the evidence from these of the costs and benefits of extending free school meals before making any future decisions on this front.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, also mentioned advertising. As she knows, the television regulator, Ofcom, has placed scheduling restrictions on the broadcast advertising of food high in fat, salt and sugar during children’s programmes and programmes of particular appeal to children up to the age of 16. Since January 2009, these restrictions have applied to all channels. The Ofcom review in 2010 showed a 37 per cent reduction in the exposure of children to television HFSS advertising, with the highest reduction for children aged four to nine years, and a fall of 22 per cent in children—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Perhaps I may stop the noble Earl for a moment. In the first few moments of his speech he spelt out the scale of the crisis, yet almost all the measures that he has referred to are voluntary. They are based on an agreement with the industry or with this or that body. If that is not working—and it clearly is not, because the noble Earl himself set out the nature of the crisis—why, at an early stage, cannot we go down a more regulatory route?

[Earl Howe]

I hope that the Committee will allow me a little extra time in view of that intervention. The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is that if voluntary measures do not work, we will indeed consider regulation. I need to make that clear. We have a ladder of intervention at our disposal. However, as I also emphasised to him earlier, we think that we can make progress faster by means of voluntary measures. The food labelling regulations, for example, are governed by EU law, and the noble Lord will know how long it takes to change EU law. If we can make progress more rapidly by voluntary measures in this country, I am sure that he would welcome that as everybody else would.

On the other side of the coin, although equally important, is physical activity—the calories we burn rather than consume. My noble friend Lord McColl made some strong statements on that aspect of the issue but, as my noble friend Lord Addington indicated, physical activity is important in the wider context of people’s health. The public messaging on this clearly has to be balanced. We are currently reviewing the Chief Medical Officer guidelines on recommended levels of physical activity and we hope to publish those in the summer. Incidentally, I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Addington has underlined the importance of diet and exercise because I still believe that the two should be emphasised.

Finally, we need to make sure that those who need it can get the specialist help to reduce and manage their weight effectively. Weight management providers will continue to play a key role in this area. I believe that through the new public health system, with the responsibility deal and Change4Life, we can truly make a difference over the next few years.

Education: 16 to 18 Year-olds

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

Question for Short Debate

18:38

Asked By

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to offer support to 16 to 18 year-old students in full-time education.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)]

My Lords, I intervene at this point because we believe that a Division in the Chamber is imminent. We must make a start but once the Division is called, I then have to suspend the Committee immediately for 10 minutes. I am extremely sorry if that interrupts anybody’s flow of speech but I thought it important to mention it.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

Thank you for that warning.

I am grateful to noble Lords for speaking in this not so packed Room in this short debate on support for 16 to 18 year-olds in full-time education. It is rather sad that the Room is not packed for such an important topic. I am particularly grateful that my noble friend Lord Fink is with us. We are delighted that he is making his maiden speech and we very much look forward to his contribution. I actually sought this debate in July 2010 and it is testimony to the potency of EMAs that, despite last week’s announcement of a very welcome replacement bursary scheme, the question of support for 16 to 19 year-olds remains a contentious issue. Indeed, when the Mayor of London argued on BBC “Question Time” last week that the new scheme did not go far enough, he expressed—

18:39

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

18:49

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I am very grateful that we are having this debate on support for 16 to 18 year-olds and particularly delighted that my noble friend Lord Fink has chosen to make his maiden speech this evening. I sought this debate in July 2010 and it really is testimony to the potency of this issue that, despite the Secretary of State’s very welcome Statement last week, the issue of support for 16 to 19-year-olds remains contentious. Indeed, when the Mayor of London—an uncontentious figure—argued on BBC “Question Time” last week that the new scheme did not go far enough, he expressed the views of many of us who believe that the Government produced little sound evidence for ending EMAs and threatening participation, other than the need to save money.

The decision to save £560 million by scrapping EMAs was hardly unexpected. Indeed, given the parlous state of our finances, I appreciate that the money had to come from somewhere. However, the argument for doing so—that this was an ill targeted scheme, that it was unsuccessful and that it had huge deadweight costs—simply did not bear scrutiny. The Government largely pray in aid the 2007 IFS evaluation, claiming that 90 per cent of students in receipt of EMAs would have stayed on regardless. Those are the so-called deadweight costs. Yet the IFS did not make that claim. Rather, it was a somewhat shoddy report by the NFER that surveyed students prior to them even entering post-16 education. In fact, the IFS concluded in 2007 that the EMA achieved its aim of increasing and retaining participation by some six percentage points—the key aims of the previous and the current Governments.

What is more, if deadweight costs are to be key criteria for revenue reduction, what about the winter fuel allowances for the over 60s, many of whom, like those in your Lordships’ House, could well afford their own heating? What about subsidised student loans, which go predominantly to the better-off, not to mention child benefits paid to large numbers of those whose children are not remotely at risk? Indeed, a far more reliable source of evidence about the effectiveness of EMAs came from the CfBT Education Trust 2009 research project, Should we end the Education Maintenance Allowance?, which clearly showed the success of the programme. So does the mountain of direct survey evidence from the AoC, the 157 Group and from schools, demonstrating the crucial part that EMAs have played in providing support for students, especially for travel and equipment and particularly for vocational courses.

However, the Minister will be surprised to hear that I am not calling for the EMA scheme to be retained. The direction of travel announced by the Secretary of State last week is right and I pay tribute both to the Government and to my honourable friend Simon Hughes, the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, for producing an interesting proposal. It passes responsibility to schools and colleges for its execution and secures £70 million of Treasury cash to achieve the welcome but modest £180 million budget for the new scheme. Perhaps the Minister, in his summing up, will confirm that this is new money and that he is not simply top-slicing existing 16 to 19 programmes.

I am calling for the restoration of more of the £570 million that the scheme currently spends so that a wider group of students can be supported. Without a larger bursary fund we cannot start to tackle issues such as travel costs, which are one of the largest obstacles to participation and retention post 16.

18:53

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

19:03

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, for the third time, I am making the case not to retain the EMA scheme as it stands but to retain a significant part of its budget. However, to make a credible case for retaining resources while still delivering substantial savings to the Treasury actually requires us to think differently. I concede that young people from families with household income of up to £16,200 a year—the maximum income level for free school meals—have largely been protected to some degree by the bursary proposals, although the IFS paper last Tuesday made a different assessment. But if parents have a joint gross income above £30,800, young people at present do not get a single penny of EMA. My concern is that the Government are putting at risk participation by young people from families with incomes between £16,200 and £30,800—hardly the affluent middle classes.

There is a widespread belief that 16 to 19 financial support is simply limited to EMAs; it is not. There are two other significant sources of financial support: 16 to 19 child benefit and 16 to 19 child tax credit, which are treated not as education but as social security. However, at 16 plus, child benefit and child tax credit are not paid to parents for every child. They are paid only on condition that young people are in full-time education or unwaged training. Parents with 16 to 19 year-olds in jobs, apprenticeships, part-time education and those not in education, employment and training—the NEET group—do not receive child benefit or child tax credit. That is, some 15 per cent of all 16 to 18 year-olds.

I am inviting the Minister to view 16 to 19 child benefit and 16 to 19 child tax credit as financial support for education, not simply for social security. Currently, around £1.5 billion is spent on 16 to 19 child benefit and £2.3 billion is spent on child tax credit, which, when added to the EMA spending, amounts not to £700 million but to £4.3 billion of taxpayer support. Is the Minister confident that this entire £4.3 billion pot is being deployed in such a way that maximises post-16 participation, supports students and delivers value for money for taxpayers? No doubt the Minister will argue, correctly, that the Government are increasing the level of means-tested child tax credit, including for families with 16 to 19 year-olds in full-time further education. But at the same time the availability of child tax credits is being scaled back to those with a gross household income of around £26,000 from 2012-13. In any event, the extra payments for those below £26,000 a year were never intended to compensate for the loss of EMA which, as the Secretary of State has admitted, is up to £1,000 a year.

No one can deny that the EMA is not progressive, as payments are restricted to young people from households where less than £30,800 is coming in, but if there are deadweight costs in the EMA, what is the level of deadweight cost in 16 to 19 child benefit? The reality is that 16 to 19 year-olds from better-off families will stay on in full-time education irrespective of whether their parents get £20.30 or £13.40 in child benefit.

A week ago in the other place the Secretary of State argued that,

“there are real questions as to whether it is socially just to pay 45% of students a cash incentive to stay in learning when we could concentrate our resources on removing the barriers to learning faced by the poorest”.—[Official Report, Commons; 28/3/11; col. 52.]

The fact that he made that statement is quite interesting. If that is the case, how can it be socially just to pay child benefit to better-off families with 16 to 19 year-olds who will stay on anyway? So rather than cut £360 million in financial support from the EMA, which risks reducing participation of young people from relatively poor families, the Government should look at finding the £360 million from 16 to 19 child benefit paid to better-off families, which will not put participation at risk. That is the tenor of my argument. At present, the Government have opted to divert EMA funding from the relatively poor to the poorest, rather than divert 16 to 19 child benefit funding from the better-off to the relatively poor. We should debate that argument.

I believe that there is an overwhelming case for decoupling payments of nought-to-16 child benefit, paid to every child, and payments of 16 to 19 child benefit paid only to young people in full-time education and unwaged training. I also believe a common means test should apply to financial support for all 16 to 19 year-olds. I accept that that would extend means-testing. If you are going to target support, you have to have some form of means-testing.

As for balancing the books, my noble friend Lord Sassoon provided Written Answers to me on 7 December about potential savings from restricting 16 to 19 child benefit. For illustrative purposes, if 16 to 19 child benefit was restricted to those with less than £31,500—just £700 above the present maximum threshold for the EMA—the Treasury could save a whopping £875 million. Restricted to those with a gross household income of £37,500, the savings would be £600 million, with the equivalent savings just for England being £740 million and £510 million. I am arguing that there is an alternative way of providing the support for 16 to 19 year-olds, which could be targeted through the bursary scheme hugely effectively following the Government’s proposals, and by thinking differently about how we use the maximum resource rather than having pots of money in silos which do not move.

19:09

[Lord Fink]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for securing a debate in which I can make my maiden speech. While I have spent the majority of my time in the Lords in the Chamber, it gives me particular pleasure to make my maiden speech in the Moses Room. As well as the ancient ancestral connection, I also feel that the warmth and intimacy of this Room offers a comfortable place for making such a speech. To have the chance to speak in a debate on supporting 16 to 18 year-olds in full-time education is a particular pleasure as it touches on two or three strands of my particular interest and family history.

I thank your Lordships for the warm welcome that I have received from so many of you during my three months in the House, and in particular the staff of the House, who have shown great patience and helpfulness to me. I also thank my introducing Lords, my noble friends Lord Harris of Peckham and Lord Howard of Lympne, for the warmth of their introduction and my mentor, my noble friend Lady Fookes, for the time and patience she has shown me.

My life and family journey have been centred around education, which is one reason I was particularly pleased to make my speech on this subject. Growing up in Manchester in a happy family, albeit of modest circumstances, I never visited the Palace of Westminster, let alone dreamt that one day I would be privileged to attend your Lordships’ House. It is for this reason that I feel both very fortunate and humbled to be standing here.

My main education was at the Manchester Grammar School, where I received a free place to study as my parents could not have afforded to pay the fees. While I remember my early years at school with fond memories, I was acutely aware of the privilege I had in studying my chosen A-level subjects in science, together with free options to study one or two other unrelated subjects. Given how much I enjoyed and benefited from those last two years at school, I would not wish to see any other child deprived of that opportunity for financial reasons.

A law degree at Cambridge was a relatively dramatic change of direction for me but I saw it as a good way to study some arts subjects to balance my more natural skills in mathematics and science. However, being a mediocre lawyer, I was rapidly tempted to move back to accountancy and business, which I did after leaving Cambridge in 1979. Since then, my 30-year business career has spanned time in both industry and banking but, for the most part, I have worked in the world of investment management. I was proud to be able to work at Man Group for over 20 years and to help it develop from a medium-sized commodity trading business into a financial services group.

One of the reasons I left Man in 2008 was that I had suffered from a brain tumour three years earlier which had required major neural surgery. I received extraordinary treatment at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, where I was fortunate enough to be treated and diagnosed by a neurologist who, coincidentally, happened to be a friend from university, together with an incredibly dedicated neural surgeon as well as a fabulous team of nurses and speech therapists, who looked after me for nearly four weeks and helped me to speak again.

Along the way, I always tried to practice philanthropy in the way my parents had instilled in me, starting off in youth voluntary work, which was how I met my wife, Barbara. As well as managing to do some good on visits to the elderly people in Manchester, we made good friends with each other, of course, and with others. As well as supporting community causes, today my real philanthropic passions are the improvement of children’s health and education. I believe that with these two attributes the potential of our children is infinite, yet with poor health or education early lives are sadly blighted. I also never take for granted the joy of being blessed with three healthy and well educated children.

Noble Lords can see that these two main themes strike deep chords with my life experience and hence my commitment and passion. For this reason, I became a trustee of Absolute Return for Kids, which is a leading UK children’s charity focused on children’s health and education issues. That charity has the aspiration in education that every student should have the opportunity to go to university and that we should try to achieve five or more good GCSEs for each student under our care. The charity currently operates about 10 schools, and growing, in some of the poorest inner-city boroughs, mainly in London but, increasingly, in the Midlands.

In a personal capacity, I became a very enthusiastic supporter of the academy schools programme, directly supporting two schools: the North Liverpool Academy and Burlington Danes Academy in Hammersmith. The students at both these schools face enormous challenges and in both cases the ratio of children receiving free school meals is around 50 per cent, which is one of the highest marks of deprivation. Both schools also face non-financial challenges. In the case of Liverpool, it is a dependency culture, with many children coming from homes where there is literally no memory of a successful job. In the case of Hammersmith, it is a school with a large proportion of recent immigrants whose natural language is not English, many of whom are from Somalia.

What I have found so inspiring about the academy programme is that with the help of really committed staff many of the students’ lives have been transformed, while the rate of successful passes at GCSE has improved dramatically over the past four or five years, from less than half the national average to approaching 70 per cent in both schools. It is vital that schools have the ability to keep these less well off students in full-time education until the age of 18, at which point the students can choose whether to go to university or into a relatively skilled job or apprenticeship.

While I recognise and appreciate the necessity of saving public funds during a period of such fiscal constraints, I fully commend the coalition Government for focusing financial support on such students between the ages of 16 and 18 who are most needy, when financing those students makes a key difference in enabling them to remain in full-time education. I also believe and hope that the students who may miss out on the tightened criteria will also continue to proceed to A-level. The drop-out rate of the most able students is a statistic that might be monitored over the next three or four years, in order to see whether the targeting has adverse consequences. The first cohort of students from Burlington Danes Academy is finishing its A-levels this summer and I would be tremendously proud to see the first of these students go to a good university.

In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords for the kindness, courtesy and advice that I have received from all the Members of the House and look forward to being able to make a positive contribution over time.

19:17

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fink, on his maiden speech. Like myself, he comes from the north of England and therefore he and I are very modest. Modesty forbad him from telling your Lordships how successful he was in business. I read that in the 12 years that he was managing director of his Man Group, he managed to increase its assets under management 70-fold. That may be the reason why he was appointed the treasurer of the Conservative Party in October 2010.

Apart from being a committed business person, the noble Lord is also a committed philanthropist and a very successful fundraiser. He has told us about his chairmanship of ARK; he has also worked on the Mayor of London’s charity and Guy's and St Thomas' Charity and was chairman of the 2009 Lord Mayor’s Appeal. But his most successful fundraising was £10 million for the Evelina Children's Hospital Appeal. Your Lordships will have noticed how very passionate he is about education and health, and I am quite sure that it is on those subjects that we will hear very much more from him.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Willis on his groundhog day speech. He explained with great cogency and passion the point that he makes about the financing of student support for 16 to 18s. I welcome the statement on the EMA replacement and I do not believe that it was a U-turn, as some are saying. Some £110 million was put aside immediately the abolition of the EMA as it stood was announced. Simon Hughes was commissioned to work out how to target that money better, and he has been working on it for months. I do not believe that the EMA had been well targeted. Even Labour acknowledged that it had planned to restructure 16 to 19 financial support anyway in 2013 once participation became compulsory up to 17 and, two years later, 18. It also planned to use the EMA as a replacement for child benefit for 16 to 19 year-olds. I welcome the fact that the poorest students will be better off under this more targeted system and that schools and colleges, which know their students’ needs better than any centralised system, will be charged with distributing the enhanced discretionary funds.

As to the groups included in roughly the 1,200 of the poorest young people who will get a bursary as of right, can the Minister tell me whether they include asylum seekers?

Transport was cited as the greatest issue of concern by many students and colleges. It could be a real attraction if colleges were allowed to guarantee that free transport would be provided to students within their catchment area. Can the Minister confirm that they will be able to do this under the new arrangements?

Colleges need information as soon as possible about how the new system will work so that they can communicate with their students and potential students, who are, at this moment, considering whether they can afford to stay on. Can the Minister say how soon colleges will get the details of the operation of the new system? The consultation is out now but when will the conclusions be drawn?

Although financial support is very important, I should like to take the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, somewhat wider to include curriculum and careers advice, partly because I could not have addressed the financial issues as well as he did. Two recent reports have commented on these two issues—the review of vocational education by Alison Wolf and the recent report from Demos and the Private Equity Foundation, called The Forgotten Half, about the 50 per cent of young people who do not go to university. Both reports have important points for our consideration in this debate.

There are to be changes to careers advice with the establishment of an all-age service. Schools will have a duty to provide independent advice and Connexions will be scrapped. I am concerned that there will be a 12-month gap between the scrapping of the one and the establishment of the other—a hole through which some young people could fall. Can the Minister say how the Government will avoid this?

Careers advice should be high quality, comprehensive and timely. I think that there should be an entitlement to careers advice which is available face to face and not just online. Alternative paths to work and work with training need to be explained to these young people. Advice about apprenticeships must be given to all young people as of right. An entitlement to this was dropped from an earlier Bill under the previous Government. Do this Government plan to reinstate it?

Work is currently being done on the curriculum. Schools are very affected by the various ways in which they are measured. The latest of these is the EBac. I have concerns in relation to young people aged from 14 to 19 who are disengaged and are more likely to be engaged by a more practical and vocational curriculum. I do not want to see schools making it impossible for young people to choose a combination of courses to suit their needs. Of course, it is important to provide a foundation in core subjects but my view is that the EBac categories are too narrow and will suit only the half that go to college or university. Yes, all our children should study a humanity, a language and a science subject, as well as English and maths, but is it really necessary for them to take a GCSE in all of them? They will already have had eight years of all those subjects before they start on their GCSE courses as part of the school curriculum from age five to 13, so it can hardly be said that they have studied no history if they do not take history GCSE.

The university technical colleges have the right idea. They offer technical training opportunities for 11 to 19 year-olds. Today we are considering 16 to 18 year-olds, in particular, but it is important that they have had the right range of opportunities further down the school.

However, there is no doubt that vocational education requires revision. Alison Wolf quoted it to be,

“sclerotic, expensive, centralised and over-detailed”.

We need to look at the courses that she described as dead-end courses which lead nowhere and which are sometimes currently ascribed as equivalent to several GCSEs. Crucially, we need to listen to employers as to what they need from young people starting work, and it is clearly not just GCSEs that they are looking for. The CBI welcomed Wolf’s focus on English and maths, ensuring that young people continue to study them beyond 16 if they have not achieved a grade C GCSE. I agree with that proposal, but do the Government plan to accept it, too?

The Demos report also focuses on the importance of literacy and numeracy, but it adds three additional “proven labour market premiums” which, it says, provide the best insurance for young people against becoming NEETs. They are: a character premium, which is basically acquisition of the soft or wider skills; a technical premium, essentially a level 3 qualification; and a graduate premium. It calculates that, if you have all five, you stand the best chance of progressing in the labour market. It is on the soft skills that I want to speak finally.

There are many young people who do not get from their home environment communication skills, problem-solving, punctuality, perseverance, conscientiousness, the ability to work in a team, social and emotional maturity, drive and energy, initiative, ability to adapt to change, the skills needed to learn new things et cetera—all the things that make a successful employee. It is important for those young people that schools and colleges provide opportunities to develop all those. This is where PSHE comes in, as well as courses such as the Certificate of Personal Effectiveness, Wider Key Skills and other qualifications developed by ASDAN and other providers. Last week, I was at a function where employers told how, when they interview, they look for young people with these skills as well as the appropriate academic qualifications. That is why these courses are as important to making a child life-ready and work-ready as English, maths et cetera. That is why I would like reassurance from the Minister that the department will discriminate carefully between these high-quality courses and qualifications and those dead-end, over-equivalenced courses that Alison Wolf was talking about. Schools must continue to be credited for these qualifications in the league tables. If we are dedicated to improving social mobility in this country, and this Government are, we must ensure that the most disadvantaged young people, as they approach the end of their compulsory schooling, are given the skills for life that the more advantaged children learn at home.

19:27

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough, on securing this debate, not least because it took him nine months and I admire his perseverance. I also join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Fink, on an admirable maiden speech. I am sure that he will make a considerable contribution to the workings of this House and I look forward to witnessing it.

The Government tell us that the EMA has to go because it has not proved its worth. Yet research by the 157 Group has shown that, in some colleges, the EMA has boosted attendance and course completion to more than 90 per cent. Students at Lambeth College in south London who receive the EMA are 13 per cent more likely to pass their courses than those who do not.

In its report assessing the success of the EMA, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that it resulted in a 20 per cent increase in participation among females and 14 per cent among males. A DfES survey found that the figure was, across the board, some 12 per cent. Surely a policy that increases participation among those groups most prone to chronic underachievement by somewhere in the 12 to 20 per cent range is a successful one, and should be built upon and not destroyed.

Further, given already or soon-to-be implemented cuts to benefits elsewhere, not least in housing benefit, the impact of EMA would increase if it remained in place. Families are surely far more likely to be comfortable about a 16 to 18 year-old staying in full-time education with EMA.

As other noble Lords have said, Mr Gove says that EMA has too much “dead weight” and points to a lack of firm evidence that it makes pupils stay on. However, official government figures estimate that an extra 10 to 12 per cent of pupils stay on. Surely that is a significant number. We are talking about some 60,000 young people who would in the main be unqualified, unemployed and educational drop-outs otherwise. How can something that benefits at least 60,000 youngsters be worth doing away with? I am well aware of the counter-argument, that there are those who benefit from it who do not really need it. But it is a universal benefit like many others. It is a safety net for the less well-off and should not be done away with simply because there are some people who receive it who do not benefit from it. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, highlighted the winter fuel allowance which, like him, I have received. I frankly question its value in the grander scheme of things.

The Government seem to have reacted in some small measure to the widespread criticism of this savage cut by announcing last week an additional £180 million to help students from the poorest families continue with their education. That is to be welcomed because it is being targeted at those students most in need, including those in care and those with disabilities. Yet it means simply that the Government are cutting the resources associated with the EMA by 60 per cent rather than 90 per cent, leaving the support to enable young people to stay on at school or college still far short of the £575 million provided through EMA.

We hear that of the £180 million, £110 million is to come from what is described as a contingency fund within the DfES while the source of the remaining £70 million is not clear. It is simply entitled Treasury funds. I am sure that I would not be alone in welcoming clarification of where that additional funding will come from. I would particularly like confirmation that it will not come from other 16 to 19 budgets within the DfES. Now we learn that replacing the scheme will actually cost far more than the additional £180 million announced. Information received by the Opposition from the House of Commons Library reveals that the Government may have to find up to £130 million more to fund a promise to maintain EMA for students who started two-year college courses last autumn and who will receive weekly payments of at least £20 until the end of the next academic year. Because Mr Gove has promised to protect only those on the top rate of £30 a week—a payment that will be cut to £20—it is expected to cost around £130 million on top of the £180 million bursary fund that he announced.

As has also been mentioned, the Secretary of State can apparently anticipate a robust knock on his door from none other than his friend, London’s mayor, who is concerned about a disproportionate impact of withdrawing EMA on young people in the capital. “I don't think we have seen the end of this story”, Mr Johnson told the BBC “Question Time” audience last week. On this point, if on no other, we can only hope that the mayor is correct.

Colleges have welcomed the Secretary of State’s intention to entrust them with maximum discretion to determine how the additional resources are to be spent, as there will be freedom to use them to fund transport, food and learning materials. Following the Secretary of State’s original announcement of the ending of EMA, colleges and students expressed great concern about transport costs, which an Association of Colleges survey had identified as a key barrier to students continuing with their courses. Ninety four per cent of colleges have stated that abolishing the EMA will affect students’ ability to travel to and from college.

Since 2000, colleges and schools have been able to claim so-called entitlement funding, specifically for activities which support a broad education for young people, resources that they use to pay for tutorials, additional courses and so-called enrichment activities such as sport and the creative arts. Colleges use the entitlement funding to directly support student achievement in their chosen courses and qualifications and to help them progress into higher education or employment. The Government’s 16 to 19 funding statement announced a massive cut in entitlement funding from 114 hours to 30 hours, as well as cutting the maximum funding for each student by 10 per cent.

A number of colleges use their entitlement funding to assist students with their applications to university, particularly those groups who are less well represented in higher education. Many activities supported by enrichment funding provide students with additional information for UCAS personal statements which, as I am sure noble Lords are aware, are becoming increasingly important for acceptance into Russell group universities. Some colleges use the funding to provide additional one-to-one coaching for students to prepare them for Oxbridge interviews—the kind of support that students at private schools receive as a matter of course, with long-established outcomes. The Government should reconsider this cut, given the impact it will have on disadvantaged young people in preparing them for an enriching life of post-school education or employment.

One major benefit to flow from devolved government to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is of course that young people in those parts of the UK will continue to receive EMA. That means that, unlike their counterparts in England, those school pupils and college students most in need will not be forced to leave education earlier than they or their parents would wish. Another factor affecting young people in education, along with those who are older, in one part of the UK differently from those in others is the so-called 16-hour rule. Officially, the rule applies across the UK. In response to a parliamentary Question which I submitted last year, Lord Freud replied:

“All Jobcentre … staff are given the same appropriate advice and guidance relating to full-time and part-time study to ensure that the rules are followed consistently”.—[Official Report, 9/12/10; col. WA 80.]

That may be the theory but it is not the practice. What is required most of all on the 16-hour rule is flexibility in the benefits system and the relaxation of its strict application. The previous Government had announced their intention to trial a relaxation of the 16-hour rule in certain areas. This Government have chosen not to do so.

Last year, Scotland’s Colleges—the equivalent of the Association of Colleges north of the border—published a report entitled Back to Work, which concluded that where the 16-hour rule is implemented strictly it acts as a clear disincentive to study and therefore to make a meaningful return to the job market. Students forced to go part time rather than full time are delaying their potential entry into the workforce. Many students want to take up a full-time college place but cannot do so because if they do they will lose their benefits. Colleges would not advise students to come off benefits just to study full time if that meant they would be worse off. As a result, they study part time and claim benefits for longer.

It is not the actual government regulations but the interpretation of full-time education that are the problem. The deciding factor appears to be whether or not a course or qualification has been designated full time or part time by the learning provider. However, there can be flexibility as shown in the way that the regulations are interpreted in Northern Ireland, but a willingness to interpret the rule more sensibly is unfortunately lacking in other parts of the UK.

The benefits system in Northern Ireland is different, although the 16-hour rule still applies there, but education opportunities have been adapted to make studying on benefits possible. A student is classed as full-time for further education purposes if they attend a minimum of 15 hours a week for seven sessions over a 30-week period. This allows the college to receive funding to provide the learning, but students can still collect benefits, as they are available for work and the course is less than 16 hours a week. Why cannot this flexibility be extended across the UK so that all can benefit from it? A blanket lifting of the rule would be preferable but, if that is deemed unacceptable by the Government, I very much hope that there might be, at the very least, selective relaxation to cover areas of high unemployment.

19:36

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willis, on securing this debate. It is an extremely important time to be talking about these issues. He has a reputation from the other place and from his earlier career of being a terrier on these issues, a real champion of young people in education. It is good to see him continuing that.

I also thank all Members for their contributions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Fink, for his maiden speech. I was very pleased to hear that his priorities as a new Member of the House are the improvement of children’s health and education. They are very fine objectives and I very much look forward to hearing his contributions to future debates.

Among Members right across the House and among teachers, parents and others working with young people up and down the country, there is a growing concern about this generation of young people, particularly those aged 16 to 25. That concern, which in some ways is unintentional, is none the less the cumulative effect of many of the cuts being brought in by the Government and they are falling hardest on that age group. We have seen dramatic cuts in youth services, in Connexions, in services to address teenage pregnancy, NEETs and so on, limitations on the school curriculum, on sports, music and enrichment activities, tuition fees and rising unemployment for young people and for their families. In this context it is even more important that as many as possible of the subset of the 16 to 25 group, the 16 to 19 year-olds, can stay in education or training as long as possible. There are in fact a range of cuts that, taken together, make it more difficult for thousands of young people and they fall disproportionately on disadvantaged young people affecting their ability to stay on. We have seen the scrapping of the September guarantee, the abolition of the diploma entitlement, the abolition of the apprenticeship guarantee, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the abolition of the EMA. I want to touch briefly on the apprenticeship guarantee before talking about the EMA, as most Members have done.

The additional funding for more apprenticeship places for young people is very welcome, but I wonder whether the Minister understands that in this regard funding is the easy bit. From my experience in government, it is much more difficult to secure high-quality places, engaging employers and matching young people to those placements. The guarantee was designed to put the onus on local agencies and the providers to ensure that the apprenticeship placements were there and to give a guarantee to a young person. I am concerned that if this guarantee is abolished as the Education Bill proposes—the previous Government did not abolish it, they introduced it; the current Government are proposing to abolish it—then, despite the funding, we will not see a substantial increase in apprenticeships.

[Baroness Walmsley]

The noble Baroness has slightly misunderstood what I said. It was the guarantee for information about apprenticeships that was dropped, not the guarantee of an apprenticeship if suitably qualified.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the noble Baroness for her clarification but my point remains valid: there is a proposal to abolish the guarantee itself, which is arguably more important. What are the Government going to do to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of good placements?

Secondly, on the abolition of EMAs, despite repeated promises from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State before the election that they would not abolish them, and despite the independent evaluation from the IFS, to which my noble friend Lord Watson referred, that EMAs increased participation and boosted grades, even if you accept the Government’s dead weight costs, which are dubious, the cost of EMAs is still outweighed by the financial gain of getting young people into training. Despite all this evidence, there was a rush, without consultation and without any alternative plan in place, to abolish them.

The bursary scheme that has now been announced after fierce public protest and the threat of legal action from students in the middle of courses is not only much reduced, with about a third of the previous level of funding, but also has a number of questions about it which I hope the Minister can clarify. First, on the guaranteed bursary of £12,000 for a tiny minority of the most vulnerable students—less than 2 per cent—the Secretary of State made much of the claim rehearsed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that this is more than those students would have received under the EMA. It is more—it is 77p per week more. Does the Minister agree that it is only 77p more per week than those students would have received under the maximum EMA to which they would have been entitled?

Secondly, the Secretary of State also announced two other elements—a discretionary pot of the balance of £165 million for colleges to pay out, as well as transitional protection for those students already receiving EMAs to the end of the course. However, he did not make clear whether both of those elements are to be paid out of the £165 million that is left after the bursary for the vulnerable students. Can the Minister clarify this matter? Does he agree that the transitional protection for existing students at the level announced by the Secretary of State will come to about £130 million, as my noble friend said? Does that mean that there is a balance of only £35 million for the discretionary pot for colleges? They already receive £26 million, so if that is the case it is not much of an increase. If these two elements are not coming out of the discretionary pot, where is the £130 million for the transitional protection coming from and what other services have been cut to pay for it?

Thirdly, the Secretary of State claimed that the poorest students on free school meals would receive more than they do at present, with a potential under the discretionary pot scheme of £800 per annum. Does the Minister agree that with a household income of under £17,000, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, identified, to qualify for free school meals, these students would be entitled now to the maximum of £1,170 of the EMA and that therefore, under this scheme, they would face a reduction of over £300 a year?

Fourthly, does the Minister agree that many thousands of young people, whose hard-up families have an income of more than the threshold of just under £17,000 for free school meals but less than the threshold of £21,800 for the maximum EMA—let alone the £30,800 to get any EMA at all—will not be guaranteed anything under this scheme and could end up with nothing?

Finally, as the IFS pointed out, after the proposed discretionary scheme—and this is a very important point, notwithstanding the limitations that we have already identified—young people will not know from their colleges whether they qualify for any support from the discretionary pot before they decide to apply for courses. My big concern is that, unless many young people from very hard-pressed families have some certainty that they will get some financial support, they may well not take the chance and sign up for the course.

The noble Lord, Lord Willis, has made an interesting suggestion of diverting child benefit to preserve a larger budget for EMA under the scheme proposed by the Government. I think there were any number of ways, with the right commitment, that the Government could have approached this differently, with careful consideration and a real attempt to keep the main benefits of the scheme for more of those who qualify. As it is, I feel that the Secretary of State acted very rashly and irresponsibly on this, reneged on those pre-election promises and created a great deal of uncertainty and potential hardship for many hundreds of thousands of young people.

19:46

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough on securing today’s debate and setting out the issues, which he did quite clearly. I know he cares passionately about supporting young people to continue their education, a passion that everyone here today obviously shares. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Fink on his speech. He said, rather movingly, that he was taught to speak again after he had a brain tumour. We are all extremely glad that the noble Lord was taught to speak again and we hope that we hear him speak again on many occasions in your Lordships' House.

I shall try to respond to the main themes raised today. There were some specific questions which, if I may, I shall follow up if I do not respond to them all in the time that we have. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, I want to start briefly by setting some of this in a broader context.

I start with the question of why 16 to 18 education matters. It matters for the economy because to compete internationally we need a well trained and well educated workforce. It matters financially for the young people concerned because better-qualified people earn more in their working lives. But, above all, it matters educationally because, regardless of any financial benefits, education is a good in itself. It enriches lives and opens the doors of opportunity. For all these reasons, this Government, like the previous one, are committed to reaching full participation in education, training or employment for all young people up to the age of 17 by 2013 and 18 by 2015.

In difficult financial circumstances we have secured funding for 1.6 million places for 16 to 18 year-olds in education or training, which includes 230,000 apprenticeship places, for 2011-12. Total funding for 16 to 18 participation in 2011-12 is over £7.5 billion, which is a record. I recognise that there are concerns, which have been perfectly fairly spelled out by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, but overall it is important to emphasise that the commitment to full participation and the funding for 1.6 million places as well as the increase in the number of apprenticeship places—and I shall respond to the noble Baroness’s point on the guarantee—are all there. I do not pretend for one moment that this means that there will not be financial challenges for schools and sixth forms—there will be—but at a time when many other budgets are facing heavy cuts, it is a reflection of the priority we attach to 16 to 18 education.

We know we have challenges to overcome. Despite the best efforts of the previous Government, we have a wide gap in attainment between rich and poor. Half of our 16 year-olds fail to secure five decent GCSEs, including English and maths. As Professor Alison Wolf has shown in her recent report on vocational qualifications, too many of them, sadly, do not seem to be respected by employers and colleges.

I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Walmsley that it is important that we listen to employers. I also agree that some of the soft skills that she talked about—employees turning up on time, for example—are as important as some of the academic qualifications if they are going to get on in life. We also know that we have a group of 16 to 18 year-olds who are not in education, employment or training, although I am glad to say that in the last quarter the number of NEETs in that age group fell by 15,000.

What are we doing to raise standards and increase participation? We know that the biggest determinant of whether students stay on is their attainment at 16, and specifically whether they secure good GCSEs in subjects that universities and employers value. Therefore, we have introduced the pupil premium to try to tackle disadvantage from the earliest years and narrow the attainment gap. The funding for that will grow to £2.5 billion by 2014-15. We have announced a new focus on reading at age six; we have increased our emphasis on tackling under-performing schools; we have rolled out our academies programme; and we have introduced the English baccalaureate.

I take the point made by my noble friend Lady Walmsley about the disengaged. That is why we are also seeking to increase the number of studio schools, which I think can play an important part in engaging children who have not been turned on by what goes on in the classroom. By learning some practical skills—for example, how to lay a wall—they also learn about angles and measurements, so there are many benefits there too. We have announced a review of vocational qualifications and more funding for technical academies and UTCs. We have expanded the apprenticeships programme for 16 to 18 year-olds from 116,000 last year to 131,000 in 2010-11 and 133,000 next year. Given that we are dependent on employers to provide those apprenticeship places, we are not able to give a guarantee on their behalf. If employers will not make the places available, we cannot offer such a guarantee. However, I share my noble friend’s commitment to apprenticeships. I also agree with everything that she said about the importance of securing high-quality places, and we will need to work at that.

We have also switched more funding to tackle disadvantage post-16, building on the pupil premium. Therefore, within the overall budget of £7.5 billion that I mentioned, £770 million is being spent on supporting the education of disadvantaged 16 to 18 year-olds. That is £150 million more than would previously have been available to schools and colleges, and it is specifically for the education of the most disadvantaged 16 to 19 year-olds.

Perhaps I may say a few words to try to pick up the questions raised about the end of the education maintenance allowance and its replacement by the 16 to 19 bursary fund. Clearly, we want young people to stay on in education and training and not to be discouraged for financial reasons. The education maintenance allowance was used by the previous Government to provide an incentive for young people to stay on and I recognise that it led to an increase in overall participation. I do not accept the picture painted by my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, about the research into the impact of the EMA. This was not research conveniently commissioned by the new Government; it was commissioned by the previous Government to be carried out by a number of different research bodies. It seems that it was found that some 10 per cent of those in receipt of the EMA said that they would not have participated without it, yet it was paid to almost 45 per cent of young people at a cost of around £560 million. It is also the case that since it was introduced—and I recognise the argument that it was an incentive payment when it was introduced—we have moved further and further towards compulsory participation post-16. Therefore, the case for an incentive payment is, I think, reduced.

Rather than paying nearly half of all students an incentive to stay in learning when it is becoming compulsory, we argue that we should concentrate our resources on removing the barriers to learning which are faced by the poorest. Therefore, last week we set out our proposals. We have consulted extensively to ensure that we support those most in need, and we are grateful for the work that Mr Simon Hughes has done in helping us to refine our proposals. In response to the question raised by my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough and the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, I can confirm that there is new money from reserves at the Treasury exactly as was described.

As a result of that additional funding and the funding that we have found from within the DfE budget, 12,000 students—those in care, care leavers and those receiving income support—should receive an annual bursary of £1,200 if they stay on in education. That is only slightly more, I accept, than they received under the EMA. Asylum seekers are not caught by the category of entitlement that my noble friend Lady Walmsley raised, but they would be eligible for support through the discretionary fund which schools and colleges would have at their disposal.

We want those most in need who are currently in receipt of the EMA to be protected. All those young people who began courses in 2009-10 and who were given a guarantee by the previous Government that they would receive the EMA will still receive their weekly payments. Young people who started courses in 2010-11 and received the maximum weekly payment of £30 should now receive weekly payments of at least £20 until the end of the next academic year. In addition, those students will be eligible for support from the new post-16 bursary scheme. That can help to cover the costs of travel, food and equipment, particularly for poorer students and those in rural areas where transport is an issue. One hundred and eighty million pounds will be available for that bursary fund.

Reference was made to the £800 figure in relation to those eligible for free school meals. That was intended as an illustrative figure, to demonstrate the amount of the money, rather than saying that those in receipt of free school meals would be eligible for £800.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

Can I be absolutely clear? The Minister said that money has come from the Treasury reserves as well. Is the £130 for transitional protection coming from the Treasury? In other words, will the £180 million earmarked for the whole scheme be used exclusively for the two purposes of the bursary scheme and a discretionary pot?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Because the figures are complicated and time is short, I am very happy to set out the position as clearly as I can subsequently. The contribution from the Treasury is to help to cover the steady state of the scheme, and the other costs will be found from within the department, but I will clarify that for the noble Baroness.

Schools and colleges will have the freedom to decide on the allocation of the bursary because, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley said, they are best placed to know the specific needs of their students. We are consulting on the scheme. That will take eight weeks. I know how important it is that young people know what is happening, but it is also important that there should be a consultation.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Willis for his ambitious and imaginative proposal. It is probably career-limiting for me to respond in detail to his point, but I know that it is a discussion that he will continue to pursue in his terrier-like way.

In these difficult economic times, we are trying to prioritise the reform and investment that we need, particularly for those aged 16 to 18. We want all children to have the chance to benefit from education or training post-16. We believe that our package of measures and reforms, starting with the pupil premium, working through school, increasing the number of apprenticeships, funding post-16—which has increased—and providing a targeted package of support for 16 to 18 year-olds, will help to bring that greater participation about.

Committee adjourned at 7.59 pm.

House of Lords

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Monday, 4 April 2011.

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

Media: Ownership

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:36

Asked By

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what conclusions they have drawn from the recent public consultation on the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corporation.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The Secretary of State is currently considering all the responses to the consultation and will make a statement after the Recess. He is following a full quasi-judicial process in a fair and even-handed way. It will be his decision. I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate that at this stage I can talk about the process but not the detail.

[Lord Dykes]

With thanks for that Answer, can I none the less suggest to the Minister that, since there are still very widespread and serious doubts about the non-UK-taxpaying Murdoch dynasty acquiring such extra media power over an already large empire in the UK, it is right that the only outcome here should be referral to the Competition Commission for a serious independent investigation?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the issues of competition and market power were ruled on by the EU Commission on 21 December 2010. I hear what my noble friend says, but the Secretary of State will have options at the end of the consultation: to accept the undertakings, to reject them and refer them to the Competition Commission, or to consult on a revised set of undertakings.

[Lord Borrie]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, following the statement that was made on the consultation, I asked a question about how the independent directors of the new company would be appointed? In response to that question, I received a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, in which she said that,

“it is not important exactly how the independent directors are appointed providing that they are indeed independent”.

Is that answer not a bit disingenuous? Surely one wants to know how the independent directors are appointed to determine whether they are truly independent.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank the noble Lord for that. The criteria for the independent directors are listed in great detail in the articles here, which set out the connections that they must not have and the sort of people they must be. They must not, for instance, have close family ties to the Murdochs, News Corp or their advisers. The details of the criteria that those people must meet are set out extensively in the memorandum.

[Lord Fowler]

My Lords, does this case not show that there is an urgent need to reform the process to which the Minister referred? The decision rests with the Secretary of State but in the past few months one Secretary of State has accepted the assurances of Mr Murdoch, while his predecessor said:

“I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win”.

Would it not be better for everyone concerned for decisions in these media cases to be taken by politically independent bodies, which are able to judge what is the public interest?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, a great degree of independence is built in to the decisions that are taken. My noble friend is absolutely right: it is the Secretary of State who will ultimately take the decision, but it will be based on wide-ranging consultation, and will have the agreement of Ofcom and the other bodies that regulate the media.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I am sure that the Secretary of State will come to regret the very unconventional route by which he has approached this, which has not exposed this very complicated but important matter to a full competition inquiry. However, if the Secretary of State persists in his plan, can he at least give an assurance that the independent directors will be truly independent, the shareholders will not be under any influence from Murdoch and, indeed, that the company will remain an independent company and not see its other shares acquired by a party sympathetic to Murdoch?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the independence of the shareholders and the fact that they will not all be members of the Murdoch family are written into the undertakings. The competition aspects were ruled on by the EU Commission, so at the moment issues of plurality rather than competition are to be discussed. However, if the Secretary of State has any misgivings, he can refer the matter to the Competition Commission.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

My Lords—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it is a rule of the House that for it to be in order only one person should be on their feet at one time. I am sure that noble Lords on all Benches wish to abide by that. I am aware that my noble friend Lord Fowler has recently spoken. Perhaps we should hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, before we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Grade, unless another Member of the House wishes to speak first.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords, the Secretary of State said last week that the existing check on media plurality,

“may not be as robust as it should be”.

Does the Minister agree that in the upcoming communications Bill rules on media plurality and the merging of media companies should be strengthened?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend asks another key question on this. Certainly, the Secretary of State has indicated that there is a potential weakness in media plurality. The forthcoming Bill will indeed provide an occasion to consider this again.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness recognise the weight of opinion against the proposed acquisition? Not only does the latest opinion poll show that 64 per cent of the respondents think that it will give News Corporation too much power, all the media organisations are opposed to it, and virtually all media commentators are against it. Following the consultation, who actually is in favour of this acquisition?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has conducted this matter in a totally transparent way and has published all the documents that he could at the time that they could be published. It has been out to consultation and more than 40,000 responses have been received, most of them through an internet campaign. My right honourable friend is considering all those responses, after which he will make a statement. He has not gone into this with a closed mind; he is open to the views that will come in.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

I have watched dealings between different Governments and News International for 30 years and wonder whether the Minister agrees with me that the process we are going through is one of the most transparent and independent that there has ever been. In reaching a final settlement, what guarantees will the Government seek on the commercial viability of Sky News as an independent entity?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I do, indeed, agree with him. The guarantees of financial independence are underpinned by the carriage licensing for 10 years, which will guarantee funding and brand licensing for seven years. Those have to be approved by the Secretary of State. We have underwritings throughout this process to ensure that Sky will remain independent and financially viable.

Elections: Armed Forces

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:44

Asked By

[Lord Wills]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to improve the timeliness of the dispatch and return of postal ballots for voters in the Armed Forces.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, building on the work done for the elections held in May 2010 by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, the Government have put in place an initiative to support the participation of members of the Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan who wish to vote in the referendum and elections on 5 May.

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that response about the referendum vote. I hope he will agree that the many service voters who want to vote by post in all elections should be enabled to do so. However, he will recognise that deployment in remote areas, particularly in conflict zones, can create serious problems with achieving the timely dispatch and return of postal votes. Can the Minister tell the House whether his Government have continued the work set in place by the previous Government and agree, with the Front Benches of both the Conservative and the Liberal Democratic parties when they were in opposition, to consult on options for addressing such problems with a view to bringing in any necessary legislation by 2012? If they have not set up such a consultation, why not and when will they do so? If they have been consulting, when did the consultation start and when will they be publishing the results?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, we continue to build on the work initiated by the noble Lord. However, as he recognised, there are no simple solutions to the difficulty of servicemen voting in remote areas in battlefield conditions, et cetera, which is why we continue to advise servicemen to use proxy votes where possible as the most efficient way of being able to vote.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that what we really need is a slightly longer timetable for conducting our elections in this country, one that would allow a slightly greater time for people to register to vote, to apply for a postal vote and for postal votes to be dispatched and received? That would significantly benefit members of our Armed Forces serving overseas and enable them to participate to a greater degree in our elections.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, there is a lot of common sense in what my noble friend says. My honourable friend Mark Harper is considering these issues and the Government will put forward proposals when he has reached conclusions with colleagues. However, as I say, I think there is a lot of sense in allowing more time for elections to be processed.

[Lord Soley]

Does the Minister accept that he did not actually answer the Question put by my noble friend Lord Wills? I know that there were several questions, but will he answer them and put them in the Library? One of the most important ones was whether the Government are consulting and, if so, when the consultation started and when it finished. I think an answer in the Library would be very helpful because it is a very important matter.

[Lord McNally]

I am sure it would be and I look forward to reading it. Whether we have followed exactly the consultations initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, quite frankly I am not sure. Nevertheless, we are following all the initiatives that he brought in during that time and some new ones as well. I do not doubt that we want to see the military participating in elections, as did our predecessors. If that consultation is still going on somewhere, I will report it as the noble Lord requested. I assure the House that the various initiatives are still being pressed forward with due vigour.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, at the last general election, of the 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, only 500 were able to register a vote either by proxy or postal vote. This is totally unacceptable.

Furthermore, can we have some consistency in the length of time between, say, nine, 10 or 11 days for a nomination for a general election until polling day, and 25 days for others? Can we work very hard in the immediate future to make sure that we have the same length of time between nomination, close of nominations and polling day?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the call for consistency, which I think was also made by my noble friend Lord Rennard, is exactly the issue that Mr Mark Harper is looking at at the moment. As I said before, I think that there is a lot of sense in getting that kind of uniformity.

As to the turnout by troops serving in Afghanistan the last time, perhaps there were problems in getting to vote, but there is also a low propensity to vote among servicemen. That is something else that we are trying to address in terms of encouraging initiatives in the services by responsible members of each unit.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, does the Minister not recall that in the Committee stage of the AV and constituency-gerrymandering Bill, this side tabled amendments that would have extended the time for the distribution and return of ballot papers by servicemen and others? However, those amendments were rejected by the Minister—if he was there; he might have been ill at the time, but they were certainly rejected by the Government—and by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. Is that not the case?

[Lord McNally]

I do not remember us discussing the Bill that he described. A word in the noble Lord’s description was wrong. As I have said twice in response, these matters are being looked at, and the Government will bring forward proposals. As for the AV and constituency boundaries Bill, the noble Lord lost on most issues, as he will remember.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord and his department are consulting on these issues. Can he guarantee that a new system will be in place at the time of the next election, be it 2014 or 2015, because on all Benches we naturally wish to ensure that our service men and women have a greater opportunity to vote, if they wish to?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, this is certainly the Government’s intention. As the noble Baroness will know, we are in the process of carrying through a whole raft of constitutional reforms, and I am quite sure that any proposals on this matter will be as successful as the proposals that have been carried, thus far.

Defence: Military Commitments

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:52

Asked By

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which the resources available to the Ministry of Defence match the United Kingdom’s military commitments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)]

My Lords, first, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of Major Matthew Collins and Lance Sergeant Mark Burgan, both from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards. My thoughts are also with the wounded, and I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude with which they face their rehabilitation.

The Government are fully committed to providing our Armed Forces with the resources needed to carry out operations, as has been demonstrated in Afghanistan and more recently in Libya. The strategic defence and security review, while addressing the imbalance in defence that we inherited from the previous Government, established the policy framework for our Armed Forces and the capabilities that they will need to meet future challenges and to achieve success on operations.

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

From these Benches, I join my noble friend’s tribute. In the light of today’s remarks by the Chief of the Air Staff, is it not clear that we have gone from overstretch to critical stretch, and that the defence cuts have been too draconian? Libya, of course, exemplifies the unexpected. Does not the nation expect that a Conservative-led coalition will put defence as a number one priority? Is not spending 2 per cent of GDP just too tight, as many of us have been saying?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the Government’s primary responsibility is to ensure national security. Without healthy finances, we cannot create the public services or the national security we need. The SDSR established the policy framework for the Armed Forces and the capabilities that they will need to meet future challenges. Events in Libya have proved how right we were to design adaptability into defence so that we are able to be flexible as strategic threats change. The outstanding work of our Armed Forces demonstrates that Britain remains a key player that is able to project power and influence on the world stage.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, from these Benches, we associate ourselves with the Minister’s words of tribute to Major Matthew Collins and Lance Sergeant Mark Burgan of the Irish Guards. We too offer our sincere condolences to their families and hope that their pain will be eased a little by the knowledge that, in the eyes of the nation as well as of this House, Major Collins and Lance Sergeant Burgan are brave and courageous heroes.

We now have commitments in Libya that were not anticipated or even contemplated in the recent rushed strategic defence and security review, which has not survived its first encounter with reality. As a result, we have aircraft—and certainly one naval vessel—in theatre that were due to be decommissioned. Is it not time for the validity and relevance of the SDSR to be reviewed in the light of what is happening in north Africa and the new commitments that we have taken on? Is it not also the case that, if the Government decide to extend further our operational commitments, they have a responsibility to provide the additional resources and not leave our Armed Forces even more stretched than ever, as appears to be the case from the comments this morning by the head of the Royal Air Force?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Lord said about the two brave soldiers from the Irish Guards.

The SDSR states explicitly the need for an adaptable posture to defend our interests in the world. As a result, we have structured and resourced our forces to give us flexibility to conduct operations such as the one in Libya. The SDSR correctly predicted that we would need to carry out civilian evacuations, and rightly assessed that we could mitigate capability gaps resulting from the SDSR through working with allies, overflight and basing rights. We are continuing to develop and refine the SDSR, but it will not be reopened. Finally, the additional costs of operations in Libya will be fully met from the reserve.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, in his answer to a question on 15 February, the Minister said that the Ministry of Defence was planning on the basis of a flat real-terms budget after 2015. In his Statement on the defence review made in the other place on 19 October last year, the Prime Minister said that the outcome of the review—the 2020 structure—would be affordable only with real-terms growth in the defence budget after 2015. It seems that the Chief of the Air Staff was merely agreeing with the Prime Minister. Will the Minister therefore confirm that the Ministry of Defence is planning on a lower level of capability than that set out in the defence review, and will he tell us what that is?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has been very clear that the defence budget will have to increase in real terms beyond the current spending review period to deliver the Future Force 2020 structure set out in the SDSR. Our aim over the next four years will be to put our forces in a position to reach that ambition, given real growth in the later part of the decade. However, we cannot guarantee what the budget will be under the next Government. Spending post-2015 will be a matter for a new spending review and the next SDSR. Until then, the department will need to plan carefully for those new commitments that will entail significant additional expenditure beyond 2015.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, it is quite clear how uncomfortable the Minister feels about giving these answers. When the Minister looks at events across the whole Middle East, the ratcheting up of tension off the Falklands with statements made about oil prospecting, tension in Korea and the ongoing war in Afghanistan, is he really saying that the NSC will not put its slide rule over the strategic defence and security review? Everything that has happened must mean that there have to be changes. I cannot believe that this will not be looked at. Is the Minister saying that this will not be looked at by the NSC?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, of course we all want more money for defence. However, if we have financial difficulties in the MoD, we know where they came from. We went 12 years without a proper defence review. We are spending £120 million every day just to pay off the interest on the previous Government's debt. Every department must make its own contribution to deficit reduction, and the MoD is no exception. We have to put the economy on the right track for the sake of our national security, and across government we will do it as a team.

NHS Reform

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

14:59

Asked By

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they have reorganised primary care trusts with effect from April; and how that relates to the further reorganisation proposed in the Health and Social Care Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the NHS operating framework 2011-12 set out that, to retain effective management capacity in all PCTs until their abolition in 2013, subject to parliamentary approval, PCTs should form clusters managed by single executive teams. This clustering arrangement will support PCTs in preparing for and transitioning functions to GP consortia.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that too much reorganisation is more than the health service can stand? What on earth is the point of abolishing PCTs and re-establishing them in clusters two years before they are going to be abolished? It makes no sense at all unless the Government are going to change their mind about the main legislation.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, when we went out to consultation on the White Paper last summer, concerns were raised that the transition could lead to too much disruption and a decline in the quality of services, as well as a loss of accountability, so the department decided to expand the approach to managed consolidation of PCT capacity and establish the clusters nationwide. That has been done already in London and the north-east and will pave the way for the NHS commissioning board to develop its roles. It will maintain accountability and grip during 2011-12 and the subsequent year, once strategic health authorities have been abolished. We are using existing legislative powers and it will help to oversee delivery in the coming two years.

[Lord Kakkar]

Is the Minister able to confirm that the future GP commissioning consortia will be constituted in such a way that they are obliged to conduct their responsibilities according to the Nolan principles?

[Earl Howe]

That is a very interesting question. GPs should already be subscribing to the Nolan principles. They are attributes which they would wish to demonstrate in their working lives anyway—having said which, it is the responsibility of every public body to ensure that it takes account of the Nolan principles. Consortia will be public bodies, ergo they will have to take account of the Nolan principles.

[Baroness Jolly]

Would my noble friend tell the House whether any staff have already been seconded to the pathfinder commissioning consortia, as a result of the clustering of the PCTs?

[Earl Howe]

We are assigning particular staff to pathfinder consortia. Those staff will remain within the PCT clusters. They will not transfer officially to the consortia because the consortia are not officially in existence yet. The point here is to have staff who are dedicated to supporting the emerging consortia over the next few months. This is already in train.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, given the progress that has already been made in dismantling the PCTs and the strategic health authorities ahead of legislation, and the millions given to GP consortia to establish their role as commissioners, are the Government not in danger of pre-legislative implementation? Does it not beg the question as to where the role for pre-legislative scrutiny, or indeed any meaningful scrutiny in the House, might be on the matter? Will the Minister assure the House that, when we eventually receive the Health and Social Care Bill, reorganisation will not have progressed beyond the point of no return?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that her own party’s plans included a 30 per cent reduction in administrative and managerial costs throughout the health service. We agree with that and we have got on with it. It is right that, when a Government come in and announce their intentions, as we did, expectations should be managed, as we are doing, and uncertainties should be allayed. The way to do that is to get on with the process.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

Can the Minister tell us how the clinical governance arrangements in primary care will be safeguarded during a time of transition, particularly because clinical decision-making can be adversely affected when people are concentrating on many management restructures?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are clear that the essential functions of the primary care trusts should continue. That includes monitoring clinical governance within primary care. Having said that, I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that clinical governance in the primary care context has not been all that it might be, which is why we believe that the new arrangements will considerably strengthen that governance.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it was common knowledge that PCTs needed reorganising because they were not meeting patient needs? Furthermore, doctors themselves found that the PCTs were getting in the way of treating their patients properly. Frankly, had not PCTs also created a huge bureaucracy, so that money was being soaked up in bureaucracy rather than being used for patient care?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with every word my noble friend said. It is illustrative of the truth of his remarks that, in the final year of the Labour Government, the administrative costs of the NHS rose by no less than £220 million. The rise in administrative costs was exponential. My noble friend is right: at the moment we largely have an NHS that is managerially and administratively led, rather than clinically led. We want to reverse that balance.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords—

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords—

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Will the Minister give the House two assurances? One is that the Government have done nothing that is not legal in anticipation of the Health and Social Care Bill being passed. Secondly, although he may not have the figures with him, what are the relative administrative costs of private healthcare providers and the NHS?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not have the figures that the noble Baroness asked me for in the second part of her question. On the first part I can give a categorical assurance: the answer is yes.

Coinage (Measurement) Bill

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

First Reading

15:07

The Bill was brought from the Commons, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Export Control (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2011

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations 2011

Patents County Court (Financial Limits) Order 2011

Motions to Approve

Moved by

[Baroness Wilcox]

That the orders and regulations laid before the House on 16 February, 1 March and 2 March be approved.

Relevant documents: 17th and 18th Reports from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and 24th Report from the Merits Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 29 March.

Motions agreed.

Licensing Act 2003 (Royal Wedding Licensing Hours) Order 2011

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Equality Act 2010 (Public Authorities and Consequential and Supplementary Amendments) Order 2011

Motions to Approve

Moved by

[Baroness Verma]

That the draft orders laid before the House on 9 and 14 February be approved.

Relevant documents: 16th and 17th Reports from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Considered in Grand Committee on 29 March.

Motions agreed.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Report (3rd Day)

15:08

Clause 8 : Matters to be considered

Amendment 60A

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

60A: Clause 8, page 4, line 7, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
“(1) A Minister may make an order under sections 1 to 5 only if the Minister considers that the order serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions, having regard to—(a) efficiency,(b) effectiveness,(c) economy, and(d) securing appropriate accountability to Ministers.”

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, government Amendments 60A, 69A and 69B in this group are an important contribution to the Bill. They are designed to respond to the criticism of the Delegated Powers Committee that the Bill as drafted did not sufficiently define the purpose for which orders might be brought forward. In challenging the Government to provide such purpose, the committee sought a safeguard against the abuse of the powers that the Bill would grant to Ministers. I am happy to be able to respond to that challenge.

Amendment 60A establishes a purpose for the use of the main order-making powers of the Bill by amending Clause 8. If the amendment is accepted, Ministers will be able to make an order only if they consider that it,

“serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions”.

In making that assessment, a Minister would be required to have regard to the matters listed in paragraphs (a) to (d) of the amendment.

While I appreciate that the purpose as defined in Amendment 60A is relatively broad, I trust that noble Lords will appreciate why this is the case. During the numerous debates in Committee and on Report on the bodies listed in the Bill, the Government have demonstrated their intent to take forward a wide range of reforms. These include the cessation of unnecessary functions and bodies, the mergers of bodies to improve efficiency and the delivery of some functions outside the state sector, including through charities. What links these otherwise disparate reforms is the Government’s clear imperative to create a rationalised public bodies landscape in which necessary functions are delivered in an appropriate and effective manner. The purpose of Amendment 60A is to articulate this goal and to ensure that an order cannot be brought forward for a purpose outside the intended scope of the Bill as debated fully in Parliament.

Amendment 61ZA, tabled by my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart, would require that Ministers could bring forward an order only if they were satisfied that it met one of the objectives in subsection (1). I am not able to support this amendment because, as I have described, there is a single overarching objective in that subsection. However, I can assure my noble friend that Ministers will be required to have regard to each of the matters listed in paragraphs (a) to (d) of the subsection when making an order.

Amendment 60B, tabled by my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, would remove efficiency from the list of matters to which a Minister must have regard when considering whether an order would meet the purpose specified in Amendment 60A. I understand the noble Lord’s argument that, in practice, efficiency and economy are closely linked. None the less, the Government envisage circumstances in which an order might increase efficiency in the exercise of functions while not producing a significant economy. For example, the merger of the Pensions Ombudsman and the ombudsman for the board of the Pension Protection Fund will not produce a significant cost saving, as the bodies already to all intents and purposes operate as a single entity. However, their formal merger in statute will support a more efficient public bodies landscape by streamlining the legislative basis for their retained functions.

Amendments 69A and 69B provide a mechanism through which the Government would be held accountable for meeting the requirement in Amendment 60A. They add a requirement to the procedure set out in Clause 11 that will require the Explanatory Note accompanying any order to explain why and how the Minister considers the order to meet the purpose described in Amendment 60A. I hope that these amendments will assist the committees of both Houses in considering whether the orders made under this Bill fit the criteria that the Bill now describes.

Amendment 60AB has been tabled by my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree. I am afraid to say that my noble friend is not very well and cannot be with us today, but I hope that the House will excuse me if I address the issues that he raised because I am sure that he wants to know the Government’s reactions to his amendment. The amendment’s intentions are laudable and, as the noble Lord pointed out in Committee, at the heart of the coalition Government’s approach. The amendment would add fairness, openness, transparency and justice to the list of matters to be considered under Clause 8(1). I remain unable to support the amendment’s inclusion in the Bill simply because we believe that it would add an additional and, for the purpose of legislation, quite abstract evidential burden.

15:15

Put simply, we do not concede either that a Minister would not consider these issues in some form when deciding whether to make an order or that the consultation and procedural requirements that we have already built into the Bill will not ensure that Ministers are held to account in relation to the fairness, openness, transparency and justice of their proposals. Ministers will be required clearly to explicate the reasons for an order in the explanatory documents that will accompany it and Parliament will have ample opportunity to scrutinise these explanations. I do not, therefore, consider that the additional burden that the amendment would create would add value to the order-making process.

I make a similar argument in relation to Amendments 60AA and 60C in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, each of which would direct Ministers to consider the existing functions and aims of a body affected by an order. As I stated on 23 March, the amendments that the Government have proposed to Clause 8 make it inconceivable for a Minister, when considering making an order, not to have considered the aims, objectives or functions of the body concerned, both whether they remain necessary and whether any improvement could be made in their delivery. The amendments proposed by the noble Baroness also do not appear to take account of the fact that an order could in itself alter the aims or objectives of a body or office.

Specifically, I am resistant to Amendment 60AA on the grounds that the Government envisage that the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions may require a broader interpretation. For example, an order might abolish a body or some or all of its functions on the grounds that the Government had decided that those functions were unnecessary as currently set out in statute. Alternatively, an order may form part of a broader policy in which related changes, such as the establishment of new bodies or functions, are taken forward in a separate piece of legislation but are dependent on the order for their implementation. In such circumstances, the noble Baroness’s wording would make it difficult for a Minister to demonstrate that the order itself improved the exercise of public functions, even though such an improvement would clearly be the intent of bringing forward the order. I assure the noble Baroness, however, that I acknowledge the thrust of her amendments and consider that our drafting of Clauses 8 and 11 ensures that the functions, aims and objectives of a body will receive due consideration.

Amendment 61A, in the name of my noble friend Lord Newton, would require that Ministers could make an order only if they considered that it would,

“not remove any necessary independence or objectivity in relation to the assessment of any public service”.

Again, I have no issue with the spirit of my noble friend’s amendment; the Government have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that they do not intend to remove the necessary independence of those public functions that require it. However, I believe that the aim of this amendment is better addressed through Clause 16, which places specific restrictions on the power of Ministers to make orders that would have such an effect in relation to obligations imposed on a Minister. I also remind the House that under Clause 10(1)(f) a Minister is required to consult the Lord Chief Justice before making an order in relation to functions that relate to the administration of justice. I believe that that safeguard is pertinent to the intent of this amendment.

The government amendments in this group build on the improvements that we have already made to this Bill during its passage through the House. They clarify the purpose of the Bill’s delegation of powers and they provide a mechanism through which Ministers can be held to account for their actions in this regard. I beg to move.

Amendment 60AA (to Amendment 60A)

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

60AA: Clause 8, line 4, leave out “public functions” and insert “the public functions exercisable by the body, bodies or office to which the order relates”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I start by paying tribute to the Minister, because this Bill has improved enormously since Second Reading. We have obviously lost Clause 11 and Schedule 7. I think that we might have achieved what my earlier amendments in Committee and on Report sought to achieve: namely, that in using these powers in the Bill the Minister should have regard to the purpose for which any bodies that are going to be abolished or changed were created in statute. I therefore very much welcome government Amendment 60A, which lays out that powers may be used only,

“if the Minister considers that the order serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions”.

However, perhaps there should be a couple more tweaks. Amendment 60AA, the first of the two amendments in my name, might appear to be about drafting, but its intention is to make it clear that the “public functions” that are to be improved should relate to the bodies that are going to be covered in those orders. That might be the case, but I seek a little more assurance about what is in the Bill, otherwise it is not clear; it could mean any “public functions” of a government or anything else. I think the purpose is meant to be the purpose of the bodies that are being merged or amended or whose funding is being changed.

Amendment 60C would require the Minister to have regard to,

“the aims and objectives of the body where these are specified in legislation”.

I have reiterated a number of times that I do not believe that every body must exist for all times in the same form. In the words of the legal draftsmen, I think it concerns “having regard to” rather than being an essential part of what the Government are doing. Will the Minister therefore confirm whether what I regard as the objective of “having regard to” really is covered by the words “public function”? I shall give a couple of illustrations, to which perhaps the Minister could respond. First, something of the overall purpose of a body—for example, the Marine Management Organisation—could, if it is not considered properly or given regard to, be undermined by a change in funding. The Minister will be pleased to know that I have no complaints about it being in Schedule 4, but unless my Amendment 60A is accepted it would seem to be quite legitimate for its funding to be taken over by, for example, an oil company that was intent on deep-water drilling, since the Minister would not be required to consider the wider objectives of that body. Provided there had been consultation, the Minister could do what he will without regard to the original purpose and objectives for which that body was created.

Secondly, Consumer Focus has statutory powers to demand information across all sectors of the economy. Is that a public function? If not, again there is nothing in the Bill to ensure that those statutory powers remain. Thirdly, a duty is placed on Consumer Focus to promote sustainable patterns of consumption, an area of growing importance given the Government’s targets on carbon reduction. Noble Lords will be well aware of the work done by Consumer Focus—for example, on smart metering and the Green Deal. Again, is that duty a public function? If not, it would need Amendment 60C to protect it. Fourthly, does the statutory duty of Passenger Focus to represent the interests of the travelling public count as a public function?

Finally, I am pleased that, after some hesitation, Ofcom has agreed to its communications consumer panel continuing until at least April 2012. However, the uncertainty that surrounded its future for many months, and the consequent risk of an advocacy gap for consumers, shows how important it is that during the passage of the Bill, but also when it becomes law, there should be no weakening of vital protections for consumers. I hope that the new formulation will ensure that there is never a lacuna between the ending of one body and the start-up of its functions elsewhere. Will the Minister give those assurances and consider, particularly on funding, whether certain things could be retained without having regard to the objectives set down in statute? I beg to move.

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 60A. I am a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has given considerable thought to this. However, I speak for myself and not the committee—as is always the case, of course.

I remind the House that the committee’s 11th and 12th reports are in the Vote Office now. Paragraph 12 in the 11th report states:

“If these expansive powers are to be delegated by Parliament to Ministers, it is important that, as a minimum, the general purposes for which Parliament expects the powers to be used should be set out on the face of the Bill, and this is not currently the case. The Committee therefore concludes that, as they stand, clauses 1 to 5 remain inappropriate delegations of legislative power”.

Quite rightly, the Minister has indicated that that is what Amendment 60A seeks to address. I am sure that he has put his usual effort into it, because I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Hayter that the Minister has gone a long way to improving this Bill—not least with the sunset clause, as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee recommended, which is a very important move. Indeed, I suspect that if the Minister had control of this Bill from the beginning, it might not have been such a mess in the first place. He must take some credit for that. Whether that helps his career or not is another matter, but I am afraid I cannot handle everything from here.

The amendment still deals with the issues under which the Minister may make an order. It refers to these fascinating words:

“efficiency … effectiveness … economy, and … securing appropriate accountability to Ministers”.

I always wonder how courts cope with things like this. Presumably if a body, an organisation, or an individual for that matter, chose to challenge a decision, it would first have to show that it was focusing on one of these issues. Then, if the court were asked to adjudicate, it would have to adjudicate on that basis.

This is where we come to the second issue. In its 12th report—the latest one that came out the other day—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee says in paragraph 8:

“It is for the House to consider whether Amendment 60A provides an effective indication of the purposes for which Parliament will expect Ministers to use their very broad powers under clauses 1 to 5”.

I would like a little more from the Minister on that. I am not sure how anyone is to interpret the phrase:

“improving the exercise of public functions”,

and,

“efficiency … effectiveness … economy, and … securing appropriate accountability”,

without either giving up in the face of a stronger government position or challenging it in court. I do not think that I am not alone in having concerns over many years, and over many Governments, about this increasingly blurred area between what Parliament says and means and the courts having to interpret it, which gets harder by the day.

The phrase,

“improving the exercise of public functions”

could be used in almost any circumstance. You could put it into almost any Bill, stand by it and say, “This is what the Government have decided and we will now have the powers delegated to us to carry it out in the way we think fit”. We should remember that when we delegate powers in this way, we are handing very broad powers to Ministers, which was the issue that concerned the committee. I would also argue that these powers are not clearly defined, so I would like a little more explanation from the Government. Indeed, I wonder where the words,

“improving the exercise of public functions”,

came from. I have a sneaking suspicion that, having read the 11th report, the Minister or his staff decided that they had to come up with something better. Since there is nothing in the Bill, the best they could manage to come up with is this phrase. Again, it could appear in almost any Bill, but if we go down this road we will start producing Bills that will hand over even more power to the courts to interpret. It is a bit late in the day, but I wonder whether the House is really happy about Ministers having this much power delegated to them in increasingly difficult areas of definition.

15:31

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60B. I cannot resist following up the compliments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Soley, but when I recall that my noble friend Lord Taylor comes from Holbeach, he is now known for ever in my mind as the “Lincolnshire poacher” because he is the man who took the wretched Schedule 7 right out of the Bill. I thank him for that.

My amendment is designed to try to make the addition to the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, a little more manageable for the user, if I can put it that way—and I am not thinking of the judges. My noble friend anticipated what I might say by giving the example of two pensions bodies for which he felt the proposal might be efficient but not economical. He studiously avoided referring to the other epithet to be found in his amendment: “effectiveness”. My claim is that “effectiveness” covers precisely the point that he is seeking to maintain.

I am concerned about the duplication created by the words “efficiency” and “economy”. Indeed, I looked up all three words in the dictionary, and “efficiency” is part of the meaning of “effectiveness”. Given that the law of the land is that Parliament does nothing in vain, I wonder whether we are not creating a problem in the repetitive nature of “efficiency, effectiveness and economy”. Instead of eliminating “efficiency”, I suppose I could have eliminated “economy”, but I feel strongly that this is a bit like saying of the Minister that he is strong and powerful and effective. Someone reading those attributes might say, “Well, it is the sheer muscle power that must rule the roost in that description of his virtues”. What concerns me a little is that the same sort of approach may be taken not by a court but by a Minister himself or herself: namely, that efficiency and economy are the overriding requirements. In fact, I believe that effectiveness is always the most important virtue of the three. Effectiveness surely goes to the achievement of the purposes to which the effectiveness relates. You can be as economical and efficient as you like, but effectiveness is key.

I shall not labour the point, but I would like the Minister to consider what I have said about the example that he gave and, if he can—here I challenge him—to come up with an instance in which the elimination at Third Reading of the word “efficiency” or, if he prefers, “economy”, would in any way encumber a Minister in what he or she has to do under this very important clause. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)]

It might be of assistance to the House if the noble Lord would choose whether to move his amendment at the appropriate point. At the moment we are still considering Amendment 60AA, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, as an amendment to Amendment 60A.

[Lord Woolf]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly on Amendment 60A to add to the paeans of praise from other noble Lords on the way that the Minister has promoted the Bill. I was deeply concerned about the way that it was originally drafted, not least from the point of view of many judicial or quasi-judicial bodies that could have come to a summary end if amendments had not been made. I hope that this is not misunderstood but the Minister has showed exemplary understanding of the concerns expressed on all sides of the House. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was not concerned for the judiciary but perhaps I may put myself in a different category: I was concerned for the judiciary as it was. The Bill is now in immeasurably better form. Other noble Lords have said this afternoon that they would like the Minister to amplify on this or that comment, but I see no practical difficulty in regard to the Bill as it now stands.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I would like to add my words of appreciation to those that have already been made to my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach. When a Bill of such complexity and importance is produced early in the lifetime of a Parliament, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that the drafting would give rise to great concern. That concern has been reflected in the reports of committees of this House. Those committees—the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—are due warm appreciation because, although there was no prior, pre-legislative scrutiny, they have given it most careful scrutiny. I am particularly grateful for the 12th report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee which set out the matter that is to some extent covered by Amendment 60A, moved by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach.

The Minister referred to Amendment 61ZA standing in my name and to which I draw the House’s attention. That was intended to respond to the observation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that certain matters set out in Clause 8 are simply ones to which the Minister must have regard or consider. It was a particular criticism based upon the wider concern that the purposes of the Bill and the powers to be used by Ministers had not been adequately set out, and that this was a power of delegation to be embodied in the Bill which needed greater justification in terms of its purposes. I am grateful for what the Minister has said. The language of his amendment appears designed to tackle this gap, at least in part. There are certain differences between the drafting of my amendment and Amendment 60A.

[Lord Elton]

It may be of some interest to noble Lords who have the same print of the Marshalled List as I have to know that Amendment 61ZA to which the noble Lord refers is the one immediately after the withdrawn Amendment 61. I think that the number, 61ZA, has not been printed.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Elton for making that clear. There is a difference; in fact, there are at least two differences which may be of some significance, between government Amendment 60A and my Amendment 61AZ. The first is that in my proposal the Minister should be permitted to make an order only if he considered that,

“the order will achieve one or more of the objectives in subsection (1)”.

That embodies two points; first, that there should be an expectation on the part of the Minister that the power, “will achieve” one of the purposes; and, secondly, it does not require all the purposes to be achieved by the use of the power.

The Minister referred to my amendment as being in some ways less than his, in that it refers to,

“one or more of the objectives”,

whereas, in his amendment, the Minister has to consider,

“that the order serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions, having regard to—”.

It appears to me that the listing of,

“efficiency … effectiveness … economy, and … securing appropriate accountability to Ministers”,

is a collective, not a single test, or even one to be applied to two of these criteria. Therefore, I felt that the amendment that I had tabled was, in some ways, more realistic because it is quite often the case that effectiveness and economy are not necessarily the same and not necessarily both achievable by a measure of government. That is, it is desirable that they should all be achieved, but it cannot be certain and if there is a choice, it ought to be possible for the Minister to make that choice.

This is not a form of words, as I understand it, which just bows in favour of motherhood and apple pie; it is, as I see it, an opportunity for the Government to indicate, in the report that they will produce before Parliament considers the legislation, what it is that is moving the Government. I think it reasonable that, if they could demonstrate greater efficiency, greater effectiveness or greater economy, they should be able to say so and not necessarily have to tick all four boxes. However, this is probably a matter for construction by greater legal brains than mine and consequently, I hope that the matter might be reconsidered at a later date. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for the changes he has proffered to the House, which are a substantial improvement on what went before.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the amendments brought forward by the Minister. I, too, associate myself with all the tributes paid to him. I hope that the praise from your Lordships’ House does not cause him any embarrassment back at the ministry. I am a little disappointed, however, that he did not feel able to respond positively to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, who all noble Lords will wish to see back in his place as soon as possible. That amendment would add fairness, justice, openness and transparency to the list of factors to which the Minister must have particular regard. The Minister suggested in his opening remarks that to add such concepts to the clause would impose what he described as an “abstract evidential burden”. I am sure that on reflection he will recognise that the concepts introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, are no more abstract than the concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, economy and accountability that are included in his own very welcome amendment. I ask him to reflect further on the criteria in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Newton.

15:45

The answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, is that this clause is important not just, or indeed primarily, for what would happen in court if there were ever to be a challenge; the clause is much more important for the discipline that it imposes upon Ministers and indeed on civil servants when they are considering the exercise of these vital powers. The clause identifies what the Minister should have in the forefront of his mind when he performs this function, and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, would help to ensure that Ministers had at the forefront of their mind the vital need to exercise the powers fairly as well as efficiently. I therefore ask the Minister to think again about this matter.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter, specifically Amendment 62. I do not want to dissociate myself from the general praise for the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor; he has been the most flexible of Ministers that we have yet seen in this coalition Government, and we are all extremely grateful to him, not least for his Amendment 60A. However, it is still slightly lacking; if the Minister is now the Lincolnshire poacher, where does that leave the gamekeeper? Parliament is the gamekeeper, but with the whole of the Bill Parliament is letting go the central principle that primary legislation can be amended only by other primary legislation. If we are to do so—and I understand the logic and the safeguards that are beginning to be built into the Bill—then we need to be quite explicit about how we are letting it go.

My noble friend Lady Hayter’s amendments make it clear that, when the aims and objectives of a particular body are specified in existing primary legislation and when any Minister wants to activate one of these mergers, abolitions or changes in function, then as part of the process the Minister must go specifically through those aims and objectives and explain how they will be achieved in the absence of the body or after the proposed changes to the nature of the body have been made. In the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that means a bit more discipline. It requires Ministers to put before this House what the original primary legislation required of the body and how that will now be carried out. If that is to be transferred, that needs to be explicit; if that is to be merged with the requirements of another body, that needs to be explicit; if that is to be transferred to a private body, that needs to be explicit, with the other complications that arise from that; if that is to revert to the Minister, that needs to be explicit; or, if that is to disappear into the ether, Parliament needs to be clear what is happening. When we agree to these safeguards—and the Constitution Committee has now accepted that, broadly speaking, these safeguards meet the criteria—we need to ensure that the process runs through a check of what was set out in the original legislation. My noble friend’s amendment would take us a significant way towards achieving that and exerting that degree of discipline on the future use of this legislation by Ministers.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I add my praise to the Minister, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, expressed so well. Even so, some tweaks might be provided, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was saying. I entirely agree with him. I speak particularly in relation to Amendment 62 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, because the World Wildlife Fund, which I think the whole House will agree is an extraordinarily sensible organisation, is concerned for the Marine Management Organisation to which she referred. However, she referred to it in the earlier amendment and not Amendment 62. The problem the World Wildlife Fund sees as set out in the briefing I received—I am sure many noble Lords will have received it—requires at least some clear indication by the Minister that the Marine Management Organisation is not at risk. The bodies listed in Schedule 4 could have their funding arrangements changed by secondary legislation and the World Wildlife Fund is concerned that some degree of pressure—for instance, from drilling organisations—might imperil the Marine Management Organisation. It seems to me, if I may respectfully say so to the Minister, that either the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, should be accepted or at least the Minister should give a very clear policy decision that this could not possibly happen.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, it is my turn now to pay tribute to the Minister. This is a greatly improved Bill and it is with grateful thanks to our Minister in this House that those profound changes have been made. Amendment 60A is a testament to one of the big changes in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, was right to point out that many of the problems relating to the Bill came from the speed with which it was introduced. There was no excuse for that because the Bill should not have been introduced so expeditiously. I in no way blame the Minister for that and he has been exemplary in the way in which he has engaged with Members on all sides of the House.

In relation to Amendment 60A, I appreciate that the Government have moved substantially in setting the criteria for making an order. We particularly appreciate subsection (1) of the amendment:

“A Minister may make an order under sections 1 to 5 only if the Minister considers that the order serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions, having regard to”.

We believe that to be particularly important but I still think that improvements could be made. It is clear, as my noble friend Lord Soley and others have said, that there is still a nebulous area over which more discipline could be exercised and which could feed the fees of lawyers and be long debated in the courts. It would be good if there could be a little more clarification.

The Delegated Powers Committee said:

“It is for the House to consider whether amendment 60A provides an effective indication of the purposes for which Parliament will expect Ministers to use their very broad powers under clauses 1 to 5”.

I think the House will probably agree that the noble Lord has met the necessary criteria. However, as noble Lords have said, perhaps one or two tweaks could be made. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, who we miss greatly today, because I think he has done a fabulous job on this Bill; not just because he happens to have agreed with some of the things we have said but because he has been courageous to be a Member of the government Benches and to stand steadfast on things in which he passionately believes. His amendment, which we are discussing today, is particularly important. As the Minister himself said, the intentions of the amendment are laudable and at the heart of the coalition Government’s approach. I do not know why the Minister would not feel comfortable with having regard to the objectives of achieving fairness, justice, openness and transparency being in the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, other words have been included in the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, might say were otiose. It is a “belt and braces” approach. We would feel a lot more comfortable if the Government were able to accept the excellent amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Newton.

In relation to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayter, she has also done some sterling work during the passage of the Bill. Something that she has pressed for throughout is for Ministers to have regard to the purpose for which the bodies were created in statute. The Minister has moved a long way towards that and it has largely been accomplished. I, too, have received some excellent briefing from the World Wildlife Fund, especially in relation to its concerns on behalf of the Marine Management Organisation. We should like to have further clarification from the Minister on that point.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Unfortunately, I was not able to be here when the Minister spoke. Therefore, strictly I am being unmannerly in saying anything at all, but if he and the House will permit me to make a couple of brief remarks, I would be grateful to do so. No one is looking cross, so I will continue, briefly. I regard Amendment 60A as an important step forward. I do not think that Amendment 61A on independence will be necessary in the light of the changes that we made in Committee and the safeguards that we put into Clause 16 on restrictions on ministerial powers. Those deal with the necessary independence criteria and seem to be adequate.

With regard to the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I should be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether when his Amendment 60A refers to,

“improving the exercise of public functions”,

it is intended to mean the functions as defined in the legislation creating the body. If that is right, then it seems that what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is seeking to achieve, with which I agreed at Second Reading, is achieved. The Minister, in making the order, will have to have regard to the aims and objectives of the body as they are specified in legislation. For example, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s aims and objectives are defined in the Equality Act 2006. I assume that, when any change is made in relation to that body by delegated legislation, the Minister, in having regard to improving the exercise of the commission’s public functions, will have regard to those public functions as prescribed in the equality legislation. It could not really be otherwise because the functions are those defined by Parliament in that Act. If he could clarify that that is so, I do not think that the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would be necessary.

On Amendment 60AB, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, again, it seems that openness and transparency are meant to be dealt with by the super-affirmative procedure itself and the requirements that the Minister makes. I thought that we had dealt with fairness and justice in the changes that we made to Clause 16 when we were dealing with restrictions on Ministers’ powers, which were to achieve the rule of law and fairness in doing so. I do not regard those as necessary amendments. I am grateful to have been listened to.

16:00

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I did not want to object to my noble friend contributing to the debate but I felt like asking him whether he was going to be helpful. However, he has been helpful, and so have all noble Lords who have spoken. This debate has been illustrative of the discussions we have had on the Bill and gives me an opportunity, in winding up, to answer some of the questions that have been raised. I am pleased with the general welcome that has been given not only to changes made to the Bill, for which I am extremely grateful and modestly so, but also to the amendments that we are considering today.

The Bill team has been much exercised about the changes to Clause 8; it has not been an easy thing to get together. There is always a gap between precision on the one hand and abstract concepts on the other. We do not want the clause to be a prison which makes it difficult for the Bill to be used to reform public bodies, which I think is desired across the House, nor do we want it to be open to challenge. I have a slight interest in music. I always like triplets; they add something to things. This triplet of alliterative words can be seen as being a duplication of meaning or as being an extension of meaning across a range of measurable indicators to which Ministers will have to have regard. That cannot be said of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree, in which he introduced his more abstract concepts. There is a difficulty in that sense in that the definitions would be harder to pin down and more open to challenge than would be the case with those enshrined in Amendment 60A. It is true to say that even these are broadly defined precisely because the Government are proposing a wide range of reforms. However, the important point to note is that Ministers will be required explicitly to set out in an explanatory document accompanying any order why they believe the order will improve the exercise of public functions. I think the House agrees that that is very important and a great step forward.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was disappointed that we were not seeking to adopt my noble friend’s amendment but the breadth of the definitions involved would complicate the exercise of functions under the Bill. The most important thing is to ensure that, in exercising functions, we have the right checks so that Parliament can judge the issue using more measurable indicators. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, that the measure does indeed impose an abstract evidential burden. However, there is a discipline on Ministers, and that is very important. The key here is the explanatory document in which a Minister must justify why he considers that the order meets the objective in Clause 8.

I hope that I have explained to my noble friend Lord Phillips why I would like to keep in all three words. They merge and blur into each other. The English language lacks precision in relation to things such as economy, efficiency and effectiveness but, like most things, we know them when we see them. They can be defined by an observer who is skilled at looking at them. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will accept that I am not able to accept his amendment.

I would say to my noble friend Lord Maclennan that we do understand that he believes that any one of these things is sufficient. However, the fact that the three together have to be accounted for to Parliament in any order is the key to why we believe that Amendment 60A is sufficiently highly defined to assist Parliament in judging the orders when they come along.

I think the most interesting amendment to debate is the one tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. Indeed, I, too, received the briefing from the World Wildlife Fund. I have been on its mailing list ever since I challenged the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and, before that, on the Climate Change Bill. He and I know all about the Marine Management Organisation. It was something very close to my heart. Were the Marine Management Organisation to make an unreasonable decision that was not consistent with its aims and objectives—for example, if it showed bias—like any public body it would be subject to judicial review. My noble friend Lord Henley is here with me. I know that Defra does not propose to make sufficient changes to the basis of the MMO’s funding. Any changes made would be subject to the processes that the Bill sets in place. This would include, for example, any changes to the MMO’s funding.

The noble Baroness asked about functions in connection with Consumer Focus. Public functions are defined in Clause 25 as the statutory functions or functions under a royal charter. The order on Consumer Focus under Clause 1 will relate to its functions, including its statutory functions. Therefore, the purpose set out in Amendment 60A will apply. The Minister must consider,

“that the order serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions”.

I hope that I have managed to reassure noble Lords on the matters that have been raised. I beg to move Amendment 60A.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)]

The amendment before the House at the moment is Amendment 60AA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Clearly we are not worried about what present Ministers will do to the funding of the MMO; it is what any future ones might do that we distrust. However, I am grateful for the assurances and explanations that the Minister has given. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60AA (to Amendment 60A) withdrawn.

Amendments 60AB to 60C (to Amendment 60A) not moved.

Amendment 60A agreed.

Amendment 61 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendments 61ZA to 62 not moved.

Clause 9 : Devolution

Amendment 63

Moved by

[Lord Henley]

63: Clause 9, page 5, line 5, leave out from “in” to “an” in line 6

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, in moving the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor, I shall speak also to Amendments 64, 73 to 82, 84 to 87, 88, 89B, 90, 92, 93, 95 and 99. I understand that within this group we will also debate Amendments 83 and 87A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands.

The Bill contains a number of clauses that confer powers on Welsh Ministers. These clauses have been requested by the Welsh Assembly Government to enable them to give effect to possible institutional changes flowing from their ongoing review of how environmental policies are delivered in Wales. This review is linked to wider policy proposals to develop a more integrated ecosystems approach to managing the natural environment in Wales.

These proposals were set out in A Living Wales, the Welsh Assembly’s natural environment framework, which was subject to recent public consultation. The consultation specifically raised the issues of reviewing institutional arrangements. The Assembly Government rightly want to ensure that they have the most effective and efficient institutional arrangements in place to deliver the proposed new policy approach. More than half the responses to the consultation addressed the question of institutional arrangements and the majority of those responses were supportive of a much more integrated delivery approach, including the possible establishment of a new environmental delivery body.

The Assembly Government have looked at a range of options as part of the initial stages of the review and have now asked for more detailed work to be undertaken on the purpose and function of establishing a single environmental body for Wales and assessing the benefits and costs of establishing such a body. Any final decision to implement changes to the way in which environmental policy is delivered in Wales will be a matter for the incoming Assembly Government, following the National Assembly elections in May. However, I assure the House that it is the Welsh Assembly Government’s intention to hold a full public consultation on any proposals to revise delivery arrangements. Amendment 88 places a duty on Welsh Ministers to consult on orders under Clauses 12 to 14.

I turn to the detail of the amendments. A number of them serve more accurately to reflect the boundary between devolved and non-devolved matters. Amendments 87 and others widen the circumstances in which the consent of the Secretary of State or another UK Minister will be required. They also constrain Welsh Ministers’ powers in Clause 12 to modify or transfer functions of environmental bodies in relation to Welsh devolved functions. Amendment 82 seeks to amend Clause 13 and further to safeguard the interests of the United Kingdom Government by ensuring that Welsh Ministers cannot modify the constitutional funding arrangements of any cross-border operator, not merely the Environment Agency and the forestry commissioners.

Amendments 73, 77 and 79 serve to extend Welsh Ministers’ order-making powers in Clauses 12 and 13 to regional flood and coastal committees whose areas are wholly or mainly in Wales. This would allow the Assembly Government to modify or transfer the functions of these committees in light of the conclusions of the Assembly Government’s review of environmental bodies.

Amendment 80 aims to give Welsh Ministers order-making powers in relation to a short list of bodies that are wholly or mainly in Wales—namely, agricultural dwelling house advisory committees, agricultural wages committees, the Environment Protection Advisory Committee, regional and local fisheries advisory committees and forestry regional advisory committees. The amendment also provides Welsh Ministers with powers to modify the funding arrangements of drinking water inspectors and powers to modify or transfer the functions of internal drainage boards that are wholly or mainly in Wales, as well as powers to modify their constitutional arrangements. This is necessary in respect of the Welsh devolution settlement, because the bodies listed exercise devolved functions and are constituted in Wales or relate to areas within Wales. These powers are equivalent to those of United Kingdom Ministers under Clauses 1 to 6.

The intention is that those Welsh bodies will be abolished at either the same time as their English counterparts or in accordance with any programme initiated by Welsh Ministers as a result of the review that I mentioned of the principal environmental delivery bodies in Wales—the Environment Agency, the Countryside Council for Wales and the forestry commissioners. The purpose of the power to modify the funding arrangements of the Drinking Water Inspectorate is to enable inspectors to establish a charging scheme to recover the costs of its regulatory functions from water companies, while the powers relating to internal drainage boards are linked to the outcome of the review of environmental delivery bodies. It may, for instance, be the case that, if a new environmental body were established, the functions of the boards might be transferred to that body.

Amendments 63 and 64 are necessary to reflect the outcomes of the referendum on Assembly powers. They ensure that United Kingdom Ministers have a duty to seek the consent of the National Assembly for Wales when they wish to make orders under Clauses 1 to 6 of the Bill that may encroach on the Assembly’s legislative competence. Amendments 88 and 89A build in the same safeguards to the exercise of the powers of the Welsh Ministers as apply to the corresponding powers of Ministers of the Crown—that is, the duty to have regard to certain objectives and to consult on the exercise of order-making powers. Finally, Amendment 89 establishes a procedure for the National Assembly for Wales to consider orders of the Welsh Ministers that mirrors the equivalent parliamentary procedure for orders made by United Kingdom Ministers.

These new clauses and amendments have been developed in close consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government. Furthermore, the National Assembly considered and agreed a legislative consent motion for the Bill on 8 March, noting that it is content for Parliament to legislate in areas of its devolved legislative competence. I beg to move.

16:15

[Lord Rowlands]

My Lords, I will speak to my amendment, which would delete Clause 13, and to Amendment 87A, which suggests that parliamentary consent should be added to that of the Secretary of State for powers under the clause. I will preface my remarks by saying that my record shows that I have been a fervent supporter of transferring legislative competence to the Assembly through the procedures that we have had in the past. I refer to the legislative competence orders that were in Part 3 of the Government of Wales Act and to individual framework clauses in Bills that have come before the House in the past two or three years. I supported them because this was an important and useful way in which to transfer legislative competence until the referendum decided that the Welsh Assembly and Government should have full legislative powers. I am not an opponent of such transfers.

However, when I saw Clause 13, I thought that it was a step too far. This House has many times reflected deep concern and uneasiness about sweeping, ill defined powers granted to Ministers. The report of our Regulatory Reform Committee stated that the powers in Clause 13 were “insufficiently limited”. The committee made the same objections that it had made to Clauses 1 to 6, which was that Minsters were given,

“unacceptable discretion to rewrite the statute book, with inadequate parliamentary scrutiny of, and control over, the process”.

There have been many changes to the Bill, but the fundamental issue of the sweeping nature of the powers in it has caused serious concern. Henry VIII looks like a parliamentary democrat when one considers the powers that we are giving to Ministers in the Bill. I still feel extremely uneasy that an Act of Parliament is bestowing these powers on Welsh Ministers. This should be the National Assembly’s responsibility now that it has the power to do so after the referendum; that would have been a better process.

My second point, to which the Minister made no reference even though it is the reason for yet another new clause in the Bill, is that our Regulatory Reform Committee also drew attention to an extraordinary aspect of Clause 13. The committee states:

“The net result of what is proposed here is that Parliament should delegate to Welsh Ministers the power to amend Acts of Parliament in matters as respects which Parliament has not delegated to the NAW the power to amend Acts of Parliament by enacting measures, and all subject to no Parliamentary control at Westminster whatsoever”.

In other words, we were seriously blurring in Clause 13 the division of responsibilities between devolved and non-devolved powers. I accept that, since then, amendments have been made that clearly define the nature of the devolved functions and the powers that Welsh Ministers will have in Wales in relation to this Bill. I welcome that. However, in the Government’s response to this fundamental criticism that they were blurring the division of responsibilities, lo and behold the only two precedents that could be dredged up to justify such a power were the European Communities Act 1972, which everyone recognises is unique to say the least, and a subsection from planning legislation of 1998. I have looked at both and I do not think that they are comparable in any shape or form. Fortunately, it seems that, as a result of the pressures that have been applied and the criticisms that have been made, the clause defining the devolved and non-devolved powers relating to Wales has now been reasonably satisfactorily resolved.

What is remarkable is that here we are, post referendum, with power having been transferred to legislate in Cardiff on this and other issues, yet in a Bill of this House we are writing out in detail the procedures that Welsh Ministers have to go through to justify and consult. In other words, we are writing into Welsh Ministers’ responsibilities the super-affirmative procedures that we are applying to UK Ministers. Putting aside the general merits of the issue, I think that it is quite extraordinary that at this moment in time we are seeking to write into a Bill a remarkable clause that lays out in great detail the responsibilities of Welsh Assembly Ministers to consult. Again, I respectfully suggest that that should be the decision of the Assembly.

The Minister’s reply is that on 8 March we suddenly had an approval of all these proposals by the Assembly. Although the powers in Clause 13 have been evident since last October, it is quite clear that Assembly Members have not endorsed the original clause. That is why I have sought to remove the clause. I accept that since then there have been changes. Obviously the conversations that have gone on between Welsh Ministers and UK Ministers and officials have clarified the position in a number of important respects since I tabled my amendment, but I think that we ought to be wary about offering such powers at this stage to Welsh Assembly Ministers. They should seek them themselves from their own Assembly. Having said that, I accept that at this stage in the proceedings it is going to be difficult to turn back. Miss Jane Davidson, the Environment Minister, has fulfilled that portfolio with vision and commitment. She has now retired but I understand her desire to have these types of powers.

Finally, I hope that, if nothing else, the Minister will accept my Amendment 87A. Changes to these bodies will have consequences across the border. Quite rightly there is a provision that the Secretary of State has to consent to any changes made, just as consent has to be sought from the Assembly Ministers and the National Assembly to any orders that could affect Welsh devolved powers in relation to these bodies. However, in this case, only the Secretary of State’s consent is required. I accept that that consent is necessary on any cross-border issues, but surely both Houses here should approve such changes as well. Just as Assembly Ministers and the National Assembly are expected to confirm their consent to changes that might be made by a UK Government, I honestly believe that we should also insist that both Houses of Parliament should approve any Secretary of State’s consent that could alter and change the role, functions and money of the bodies that are covered in these clauses.

I accept and understand that now, because Clause 13 has been transformed and additional safeguards have been put in place, there is a clear distinction between devolved and non-devolved powers in the Bill, but I press the Minister to agree to Amendment 87A, if nothing else, so that this House and the other House have to approve the consent of the Secretary of State in relation to the clauses.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I pick up some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, which will no doubt exercise the House again in future because they touch on the lack of symmetry with regard to devolution. The powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland are different from the powers in Wales, even after the referendum that took place on 3 March. One of the arguments in favour of the changes that came through that referendum was transparency: people must be able to see clearly where responsibility lies so that the Government taking the decision can be judged and held to account. As the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, said, anything that blurs that question undermines the intent of the devolution settlement.

There is also the more general question of the way in which orders are used to effect changes. When one has the capability in democratic fora, such as the National Assembly for Wales, to do things more openly and transparently than when everything is done by order, that should be used. None the less, I take the noble Lord’s point that some concessions and changes have been made to try to meet some of those points as the Bill has progressed.

I believe that Ministers in the National Assembly are broadly content with the provisions and that the Presiding Officer, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, is likewise content. I have not tabled any amendments, but two or three issues would benefit from further clarification. First, can the Minister give an assurance that in every instance where matters are devolved, it is the Ministers in Wales who have the full powers with regard to any implementation of the Bill applying to Wales? I believe that that is the case, but I would be grateful if we could have that confirmed from the Dispatch Box.

Secondly, where there are cross-border issues, to which the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, referred, can we be assured not only that, when there is an initiative in Wales, Welsh Ministers should consult first with their Westminster counterparts, but that, likewise and equally, when Westminster Ministers propose changes that have a cross-border implication, they, too, will consult Welsh Ministers before taking any action? That again concerns symmetry and transparency and ensures that there is harmonious co-operation on such issues.

Thirdly, when Bills or orders before either Chamber in Westminster have an implication for Wales in matters that are devolved, can we have an assurance that consultation will take place much earlier in the process as the Bills or orders proceed through their scrutiny in Parliament? That earlier consideration would be very valuable, as it would have been in the context of S4C, for example, which we have debated under the Bill.

This applies not only to matters that are devolved; there are also matters that are not devolved or not fully devolved where there is specific relevance for Wales. I would imagine that, in the spirit of the co-operation described in the amendments, there will be full consultation on those matters also. I press that any such consultation should take place as early as possible so that there is full engagement and the response to consultation can be built into that process. With those few comments, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

16:30

[Baroness Gale]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister very much for explaining in detail how we reached the amendments, the redrafting of several clauses and the addition of five new clauses. I understand that all of these new clauses are in relation to the powers of the environmental bodies, the consequential provisions and delegations, the restrictions on ministerial powers and cross-border issues. Like other noble Lords, I am glad to learn that there has been consultation with the Welsh Assembly Ministers. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said, consultation is important and the earlier we can have it, the better. I understand that the consultation involved Jane Davidson, the Environment Minister, who is retiring. As my noble friend Lord Rowlands said, she has been an excellent Minister and has the environment at heart. She is stepping down from the Welsh Assembly, but I am sure that she is going on to other things. I wish her well in the new journey that she will be undertaking. She played a big role in the environment and in these discussions.

The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rowlands is what Welsh Ministers have been asking for. It gives Ministers in the Welsh Assembly the tools to do the job in matters relating to Wales. The changes clarify where responsibilities lie and certainly make it clear what the responsibilities are at the Welsh level. This Bill and the amendments before us enhance the way that the Assembly will be able to work in future. It is another step on the devolution journey, giving Welsh Assembly Members the power to act for the people of Wales on these matters.

Amendment 89B inserts a new clause after Clause 14 which deals with the procedure for orders by Welsh Ministers. Subsection (11) states:

“An order may not be made by the Secretary of State … unless a draft of the instrument containing the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament”.

Amendment 87A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Rowlands, is an amendment to Amendment 87. It is similar as the Secretary of State’s consent is required for an order under Section 12. Should there be a requirement for the approval of both Houses similar to that in subsection (11) in Amendment 89? What does the Minister feel about that? I support what my noble friend is saying in that amendment. We welcome the Government’s amendments. They respond to the wishes of the Ministers in the Welsh Assembly.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I start by making an apology to the House and correct something that I said in my opening remarks. I misspoke when I referred to Amendment 89A; I meant Amendment 86A. When I referred to Amendment 89 I meant Amendment 89B. I say this just for the sake of the record. Because so many amendments have been withdrawn and then redrafted, it is rather easy to make mistakes of this sort. I hope that the House will accept that apology and that minor correction.

I am relatively new to Welsh matters, but as always it has been a joy to be taking part in this debate. I hope that I can satisfy the various concerns that have been put forward by noble Lords. I will start with the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands. I accept that he is not averse to transferring greater powers to the Welsh Assembly Government, but does not like Clause 13. He feels that it goes too far and gives too much to the Welsh Assembly Government rather than to the Assembly. He also talked about a blurring of the lines but accepted that some of our amendments improved on that. I assure him that there has been considerable consultation between us and Welsh Assembly Government Ministers. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, I pay tribute to Jane Davidson, who is retiring. I met her only recently on cross-border issues, and I wish her well in her new role.

There has been a great deal of consultation on these matters, importantly not just between us and the Welsh Assembly Government, but also the National Assembly itself. As the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, will be aware, that National Assembly passed a Legislative Consent Motion for the Public Bodies Bill on 8 March, to which I referred. Such a Motion is required because some of the provisions of the Bill come within the legislative competence of the National Assembly rather than of Welsh Assembly Government Ministers. In passing the Motion, the National Assembly has indicated it is content for Welsh Ministers to have executive powers on the lines proposed in the Bill.

I do not quite understand the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, objecting to the Welsh Assembly Government gaining too much power, but he also appears to object to certain constraints placed upon them by this Bill. These matters have been discussed and we believe, as does the National Assembly, that there is a degree of agreement.

The second amendment of the noble Lord, Amendment 87A, requires the approval of both Houses of Parliament following the consent of United Kingdom Ministers under the new clause that will come in under new Clause 14. This is unnecessary because of the procedures already outlined by my noble friend. I hope, therefore, that he would feel able to withdraw or not move that amendment.

I turn to the various concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who raised three points. The first was the question on devolved matters and whether that would be a matter for Welsh Assembly Government Ministers; I can assure him that he is correct. Secondly, on cross-border issues, he asks whether there will be consultation between us and the Welsh Assembly Government Ministers, or the other way around. I can assure him there will be consultation going both ways according to how the cross-border issue happens to run. Thirdly, I can give no concrete guarantee about when consultation will happen on any given issue but we would always hope to get it started as early as possible. If consultation between the two sets of Ministers is going to be effective, it is important that it takes place as early as possible. All I can say is that we very much hope that this will happen and, having said so from the Dispatch Box, that we or our successors of whatever political persuasion or Government will bear this in mind.

From what has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, I have the impression that these amendments meet a great many of the concerns that have been put forward. I therefore hope that noble Lords will accept these amendments, which set out in greater detail the powers and duties of the Welsh Assembly Government Ministers in dealing with these matters.

[Lord Rowlands]

I listened to the Minister’s reply with great interest and I would like to put two points to him. First, on consent, Clause 9 provides that when UK Ministers want to make orders which could encroach on the Assembly’s legislative competence, they must seek the consent of the National Assembly for Wales, not just Welsh Ministers. If an Assembly Government issue orders which change or alter the law relating to those bodies and affect the cross border, is it not reasonable that not only should the Secretary of State’s consent be sought but also the consent of both Houses? If Clause 9 requires the approval of the Assembly, rather than the Ministers in the Assembly, would it not be a sensible procedure to require the reverse procedure? If, where the Assembly is making orders which could have considerable cross-border effects on the operation of that organisation and which therefore quite rightly require the consent of the Secretary of State, surely it should also require the consent of both Houses in just the same way.

My noble friend Lord Wigley asked about it. As he will see under Clause 9, there is a two-way process. UK Ministers have to seek the consent of the Assembly if they wish to bring in orders which could affect the performance of bodies in Wales. I would still like to press him on my Amendment 87A. I accept the changes that have now been made in relation to the other issues that I raised. He said that he could not quite understand why I seemed to object to the super-affirmative resolution. My objection is one of the principle of legislating in detail on the way in which Welsh Ministers should consult, when that should be determined by the Assembly. He says that that is covered by the 8 March decision. Before we conclude, perhaps he could tell us whether that decision included the reference to super-affirmative resolutions, because this clause has been introduced very late. Was it put before the Assembly? Was it part of the approval of the legislative consent process on 8 March? Before I decide what I will do about my Amendment 87A, will he respond to those points?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we are at a relatively late stage of this Bill. I appreciate that there is one further stage, Third Reading, and that there are limitations on what we can and cannot do. It probably would be right if I took away the points that the noble Lord has made on Amendment 87A and his secondary point. I am not sure whether I will be able to satisfy him but I am more than happy to consider these matters in consultation with colleagues in other departments. On his second point about the 8 March decision, I can certainly give an assurance that specific reference was made as part of the memorandum and that it did come up in the debate. On that, I think that he can be satisfied.

On his point in relation to Amendment 87A, it might be worth the noble Lord, colleagues in the Welsh Office and me having further discussions. I do not think that what he is looking for in Amendment 87A is necessary, so I make no promises. In the light of his generally very reasonable behaviour on these matters, I will give him those assurances for the moment. Therefore, I hope that he will accept that we can press forward with the amendments as they are.

Amendment 63 agreed.

Amendment 64

Moved by

[Lord Henley]

64: Clause 9, page 5, line 14, leave out subsection (8)

Amendment 64 agreed.

Clause 10 : Consultation

Amendment 65

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

65: Clause 10, page 5, line 22, after “consult” insert “the public, including”

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, earlier in our debate noble Lords paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for his conduct of the Bill, which I would certainly echo. He has brought forward some welcome amendments, which have strengthened the effective scrutiny of the Bill. I urge him to go one step further and respond positively to my amendments in this group. There is no doubt that, with Clauses 8 and 16 and the strengthening of Clause 10 on “Consultation”, there have been welcome additions. Will the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, agree to strengthen the Bill a little more as regards Clause 10? Essentially, what I would like to see is that, when a Minister proposes to make an order under Clauses 1 to 6, under Amendment 65, the public must always be consulted. Under Amendment 66, in relation to Clause 10(1)(a), I am suggesting that the body or the holder of the office to which the proposal relates ought to include staff and trade unions. In this Bill—despite the modifications that the noble Lord has brought, including one or two that we have voted upon—considerable powers still rest with Ministers to deal with the bodies contained in Schedules 1 to 6. In view of that, it is right that there should always be formal public consultation when an order is used under this Bill.

16:45

We have discussed this matter in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, took issue with me. He said, at col. 1722, that my amendment, as it would apply, would not be proportionate in relation to any proposed reform and that my approach runs contrary not only to the policy of the current Government but also to the code of practice on coalition, which, he pointed out, the previous Government had brought in June 2008.

I fully understand the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is making, but the circumstances have changed. We have a Bill that lists a whole raft of public bodies and, through an order-making power, the Minister can make considerable changes to those bodies. When one reads down the list of organisations and sees those that are to be abolished and those that are going to be merged or have their constitutional arrangements modified—and that means that a Minister can decide to change the constitution of such a body, or to modify their funding arrangements—it does not seem unreasonable to me that there ought always to be public consultation in relation to the use of an order. In respect of the staff of those organisations, I would have thought that, since they are likely in some cases to be very fundamentally affected by the use of an order, it would not be unreasonable for us to put in the Bill that they, too, ought to be consulted.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has been very constructive in his response. I hope he may have been able to reflect a little since Committee stage on this point. I beg to move.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, this group of amendments touches a matter that has been very extensively discussed. I hope that there will be an open mind on what can be done. I realise that we have now reached a late stage in the deliberations of the Bill, and the Government have given a great deal of thought to this. It appears that part of the concern about explicitly requiring public consultation is that it may lead to unnecessary overkill in involving a great deal of expenditure, but that depends on the way that the consultation is carried out. I recall a debate that a number of Members in this House will perhaps also recall prior to the dissolution of the previous Parliament, in which the responsible Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Abersoch, laid out the work of the Cabinet Office in respect of public consultation. It was clear that, notwithstanding a code for public consultation, there were enormous variations in the way it was conducted. The issue requires to be readdressed not only because that debate revealed that the code was not being followed in terms of the time being taken to reply and the great variety of practices between departments, but also because in some cases a much longer period for consultation is appropriate than in others. I hope that the Government will give some positive and practical thought to how that might best be achieved.

So far as public consultation is concerned, with modern methods of communication, particularly the availability of a website, it is possible that it could be done involving quite limited public expenditure. Of course it could lead to a deluge of replies, but that is unlikely in the case of some of the bodies we have considered in the course of our debates, which have not functioned for perhaps five years.

Although the Bill and the amendments are quite specific in indicating who should be consulted, referring in particular to people who appear to be representative of interests substantially affected by the proposal, there can be other individuals who could usefully be consulted beyond those who may have a direct interest. It is perfectly possible, given that these are public bodies, that people who have served on them—some of them may be in this place—may have some knowledge of how they might be made to work better. Those are the sort of people whose opinions, I believe, would be worth paying some attention to, even though they are not specifically mentioned in the listed categories.

We are making good strides in respect of consultation, but I think that there is scope for a little more reflection and I hope, before the Bill is enacted, that such reflection will be given. I hope that the Government will not feel that this is an attempt to stymie their measures or simplify the process unreasonably. Rather, it is to avoid the possibility of these important matters being introduced to Parliament with the opinions of those who could suggest useful improvements being left out of the consideration. As a consequence, I am broadly supportive of Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give some practical thoughts about it in his reply.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I support Amendment 65 moved by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and in doing so I shall speak to Amendment 67 tabled in my name, although I will not move it separately. This amendment, along with all the amendments in this group, seeks to improve the consultation process that holds Ministers to account by Parliament. Amendment 67 would place a duty on Ministers to consult with the relevant local government body and any relevant local authority. Who could be against that? I do think that Clause 10(1)(b) and (g) are specific enough on their own because they leave too much in doubt about what is happening. You could say that we are being left sitting in a ministerial fog when what we need is clarity. My amendment would give that clarity by placing a clear and unambiguous duty to consult local government where those functions which are going to be subject to an order have a bearing on local government.

I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. I think that my amendment will help the Government along towards working more closely with local government and should cause no problems. It could even be said that it moves the Bill a bit further along the localism road that the Government say they are so keen to promote. I shall leave it there. I echo the comments of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath in saying that I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, will feel able to move a little on this point.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Lord Colville of Culross. Lord Colville was serving on the Merits Committee when I joined it some five years ago. I am not serving on it now, of course, because I did my four years and then got cycled off. Lord Colville taught me an enormous amount about consultation. It was his subject: he knew it from A to Z.

The Merits Committee of your Lordships’ House considers more than 1,000 orders every year. It looks at the Explanatory Memoranda. I can tell you for sure that the members of the committee usually go first to paragraph 8, the consultation paragraph. There is an enormous amount of expertise in your Lordships’ House in assessing not only whether consultation has been properly done and whether the 12 weeks were sufficient but also what has been left out or might have been elided. Noble Lords are extremely skilled in going back to departments and questioning the presentation of these paragraphs. That also applies to the paragraphs in the impact assessment, if there is one required.

I imagine that the orders in the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be submitted to a committee of this House as well as, presumably, to a committee of the other place—that is clear from the language in the Bill. This clause includes, as well as paragraphs (a) and (b), paragraph (g), which says,

“such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate”.

If I am allowed from the Back Bench to give an assurance, I can give noble Lords a little Merits Committee assurance that, if a committee of your Lordships’ House considers that the Minister has missed out on who it is appropriate to consult, then his department will be pretty sharply told. I hope that we do not underrate the capability of this House to make sure that consultation is done in a really workmanlike manner. Of course, it is never satisfactorily done because there are winners and losers at the end of consultation. Nobody is completely satisfied for ever that the consultation has been properly done but if there is a way of monitoring consultation it certainly exists in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I support Amendment 65, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for three reasons. First, these remain very broad and extensive powers to abolish or modify a public body. It seems essential that there should be the broadest of consultation obligations so that the Minister is properly informed before a decision is taken. Secondly, public consultation does not require considerable expenditure if modern methods of communication are used—the point already made by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart.

Thirdly, if these powers are to be exercised in relation to public bodies—we are talking about public bodies—surely it is right and proper that the Government should consider the comments of all sections of the public who feel that they have something to say. Indeed, if there were to be no specific consultation duty in relation to members of the public and nevertheless a member of the public, knowing of the proposal, submitted representations to the department, then I assume that the department would consider them and take them into account in reaching its conclusion. With respect, I do not share the view of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who drew attention to Clause (10)(1)(g), which provides that the Minister must consult,

“such other persons as the Minister considers appropriate”.

It seems to me highly desirable that there should be clarity in the Bill that there is an obligation to consult members of the public rather than leaving it as a discretionary matter.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt and indeed the one referred to by my noble friend Lord Kennedy but I want to speak specifically to Amendment 66. First, I thank the Minister. At the last stage in this Bill, I moved an amendment relating to TUPE procedures. I had a quite lengthy meeting with the Minister and his officials and received a fairly clear letter, given that this is a complex area of law. Although there is still a bit of a grey area, I will the leave the issue of the exact procedures at that.

Amendment 66 relates to the staff of the public bodies we are referring to here and to the trades unions that represent them. However amicably we deal with the Bill, the Government must recognise that there is a suspicion out there that this Bill, which relates to quangos, is part of a more general attack on public sector employees, their terms and conditions, and their organisations. The Minister may deny that, but pronouncements by some of his colleagues and the media which support the present coalition give at least some justification to that concern. Therefore, a straightforward clause which makes it clear that when we are changing the nature of these bodies, there will be consultation with the staff and their recognised trades unions before the proposal is brought back to Parliament, would be a wise precaution. Like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I do not think that the general formulation effectively covers the need to ensure specifically that there is consultation with the employees and their representatives.

17:00

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate that has built on the progress that we have made since the Government started tabling amendments in Committee, way back in November when consultation was first discussed. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for moving Amendment 65 to set up the debate and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for his amendment on local government.

In speaking to Amendment 65, I will also try to deal with the other amendments in this group, Amendments 66 to 68. Amendment 65 would insert a requirement that the public are consulted on all proposals before an order is brought forward under the powers in the Bill. The Government support the principle behind this amendment, which is to ensure that the public are given an opportunity to make their views heard on the reform of public bodies. In many instances it will be entirely appropriate and desirable for the public to be consulted on the reforms that we are delivering using the powers in the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will know from first-hand experience, the Government publish guidance for departments on best practice in consultation, the current code having been issued under the previous Administration, of which he was a part.

The one-size-fits-all approach in Amendment 65 would not result in a better deal for the public. Where a full public consultation is appropriate, the Government will undertake one. Clause 10 does not preclude public consultation, which will be undertaken where the Government consider it appropriate, followed of course by the extensive parliamentary scrutiny required under new Clause 11. The evidence on whether the Government will act in a responsible and proportionate way is already there for your Lordships’ House to see. Take, for example, the consultation document on reforming the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This has been published in full on the Government Equalities Office website, has been laid in Parliament and will stay open for responses for three months. This is very clearly a reform that affects the public at large, which is why the Minister for Equalities and the Home Secretary decided to run a full public consultation.

However, the noble Lord cannot in all seriousness claim that it would be appropriate or proportionate for a full public consultation to be undertaken on the announcement and detailed implementation of the proposal to abolish Food From Britain, with all the associated costs of ensuring that such a consultation was accessible, widely distributed and adequately publicised, in line with best practice. That is why the Government believe that there should be adequate discretion in Clause 10 for the Minister to be able to carry out a consultation that is proportionate for a particular reform. I am not advocating complete discretion, and the Government have made it clear repeatedly in Committee and on Report that the powers of the Bill should be offset by clear and meaningful standards. Clause 10 plainly sets out these safeguards by defining a statutory minimum that the body or office-holder, and where appropriate the devolved Administrations, and the Lord Chief Justice must all be consulted.

My noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart rightly emphasised the importance of this consultative process. The Minister must comply with the Clause 10 requirements, and the details of the consultation must be included in the explanatory document that accompanies the draft order and proposal for Parliament to scrutinise. This is the point that my noble friend Lord Eccles made when he acknowledged his debt to the late Viscount Colville in the scrutiny of statutory instruments in the Merits Committee. It is not absolute discretion but, importantly, it builds in sufficient flexibility to ensure that on defunct bodies the Government are not compelled to run meaningless public consultations that incur unnecessary costs when we can least afford it.

Amendment 66, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, runs into two similar issues in that it would put into statute something that in many cases is unnecessary. First, there are cases in which consulting staff would not be appropriate, such as where the proposal is a change to constitutional arrangements that would alter the name or method of appointment of the chair. In this case, Amendment 66 would add an additional burden without producing a meaningful improvement in the consultation process.

Secondly, the noble Baroness’s amendment cuts across existing requirements to consult and inform in specific circumstances. This includes TUPE and redundancy—the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to the discussions that we have had on these—where there is already a requirement to consult trade unions, which was designed to build in a statutory guarantee for the situations in which such a requirement is appropriate. The problem with the amendment is that it would go beyond already well established requirements and codes of practice without considering whether such an additional burden was appropriate. I seek to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that the Government are mindful of our obligation to consult trade unions where it fits the requirements of the Bill and to account for that in the explanatory document that we produce with the statutory instrument.

It is a similar story with Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. There would be clear cases in which the groups and organisations captured by his amendment should and would be consulted. However, that does not mean that putting such a provision into the Bill would change the instances in which such groups or organisations are consulted in practice.

Amendment 68 in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Greaves—neither the noble Lord, Lord Judd, nor my noble friend are here, and I continue to wish my noble friend a speedy recovery—would require a Minister to publish the proposed reform on their department’s website, in the event that a full public consultation was not required.

I do not believe that such a requirement is necessary in the Bill. There are a number of ways of seeking input from interested parties that may or not include publication on a departmental website. It would obviously be a very effective way in a major consultation, but it would be likely to vary over time. It is therefore not possible or appropriate to place these as a statutory duty in the Bill. The code of practice—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is very familiar with it—encourages departments instead to,

“be clear about the reasons why the methods being used have been chosen”,

and further guidance supporting the code provides useful information on alternative forms of engagement that extend beyond simple publication on a website and that may be seen as a soft option when active engagement with stakeholders is preferable.

Consultation is an important issue and one about which the Government feel strongly. We believe that the amendments tabled and adopted in Committee, and which now make up Clause 10, represent a sensible and proportionate way to manage the diverse array of reforms that are being facilitated by the Bill. The amendments in this group, each in their own way, reduce the flexibility of the way in which consultations can be run, in many cases without substantively improving the quality or breadth of consultations.

Amendment 65 specifically requires that all consultations are full public consultations, regardless of whether such a consultation is necessary. It would therefore guarantee that all consultations incurred substantial costs without providing any meaningful improvement to the legislative scrutiny process. Clause 10, as drafted, provides a proportionate obligation to consult on the proposals to reform public bodies. I hope I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that it also provides that Ministers are accountable for that consultation process in the Explanatory Memorandum that they lay with any statutory instrument. Unless the noble Lord feels that the public need to be consulted, for example on the abolition of the already defunct Food From Britain, I urge him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. My noble friend Lord Whitty made some very important points about staff and trade unions, as did my noble friend Lord Kennedy about local government.

The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, referred to the Merits Committee. As the first chairman of the Merits Committee I echo his remarks and the tribute he paid to the late Viscount. I recall that looking at the consultative process undertaken by departments was a very important part of that scrutiny. I certainly take his point that any order that a Minister wished to make under this Bill, when it becomes law, would go through scrutiny by committees of your Lordships’ House. His argument would have more power were the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to intimate that he is prepared to accept my later amendment on the use of the super-affirmative procedure, but, alas, I do not see the noble Lord quite ready to intervene on that point.

The noble Viscount is certainly right about Clause 10(1)(g). It allows a Minister to consult “such other persons”, but should that be left to ministerial discretion? As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the powers contained in the Bill are considerable. As a result, there need to be safeguards. I believe that automatic public consultation is one of those safeguards.

The Minister said that he supported the principle behind my amendment and that in many instances it is entirely appropriate and consistent with best practice, but he also said that there may be circumstances in which public consultation is not appropriate, and he instanced an organisation that may have been in abeyance. Surely the response to that comes from the Minister’s friend, the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who say that consultation in those circumstances can be proportionate. Therefore, there could be a very modest public consultation in those circumstances.

17:15

My point to the Minister is this; notwithstanding the many safeguards that have now been built into the Bill, many organisations are listed over which a Minister will have considerable authority because of the order-making power that the Bill gives them. Because of that, there should be a clear statement in the Bill that there must always be public consultation. In some instances it will be a major consultation, but in others it will be very modest. The Minister would find that there would be greater confidence in the Bill, and in the process of review, if there were always public consultation. It is something that we should test in your Lordships’ House.

17:16

Division 1

Ayes: 199

---

Labour: 162
Crossbench: 26
Independent: 2
Plaid Cymru: 1

Noes: 212

---

Conservative: 126
Liberal Democrat: 61
Crossbench: 16
Ulster Unionist Party: 3

17:28

Amendments 66 to 67 not moved.

Amendment 68

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

68: Clause 10, page 5, line 40, at end insert—
“( ) Where the responsible Minister considers that the changes proposed do not warrant a full public consultation under subsection (1), the Minister must publish a copy of the proposal on the website of the relevant government department or make it otherwise publicly accessible.”

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, in the light of the debate, given that this is a very modest amendment, would the Minister consider accepting Amendment 68? I beg to move.

[Lord Pannick]

I support the noble Lord’s observation. The Minister, in his response to the previous amendment, agreed that a full public consultation would be highly desirable in many, if not most, circumstances, but in some cases it would not be appropriate to have a full public consultation, and it seems to me that Amendment 68 deals precisely with that point.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I am under instructions to resist—I think that is usually the phrase that is used. However, I understand the arguments that have been put forward by noble Lords to have a requirement, where public consultation does not take place, that at least the proposal is put on the website. I think that the Government are in a position to consider this and, if necessary, will bring forward an amendment at a later stage.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that is very handsome of the Minister and we look forward to coming back to this on Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 68 withdrawn.

Amendments 68ZA and 68A not moved.

Clause 11 : Procedure

Amendment 69

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

69: Clause 11, page 6, line 3, leave out “may” and insert “must”

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we come to a very important group of amendments that is concerned with the procedure-making processes in Parliament when it comes to an order. As we have already debated, it is very important, when a Minister seeks to make an order, that it enjoys stringent parliamentary scrutiny. We welcomed the Minister’s amendments to introduce greater scrutiny than was envisaged when the Bill was first drafted. There is no doubt that what he describes as extensive parliamentary scrutiny is an advance. However, I want to encourage him to go a little further.

The Minister will, of course, be aware of the advice that your Lordships’ House has received from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which reported to the House on four occasions. I refer noble Lords to the committee’s report of 7 March that reminded the House of the key differences between the noble Lord’s amendment that has been made to the Bill and my amendment. The report said that there are two key differences between the Government’s enhanced procedure and the provision in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 that introduced the super-affirmative procedure on which my amendment is based.

The committee said that under the 2006 Act,

“if a committee of either House recommends that no further proceedings be taken on a draft order, then any further proceedings are automatically stopped unless and until the recommendation is rejected by that House itself”.

The committee also reminded us in March that under the 2006 Act,

“a Minister wishing to proceed with an order unaltered after having been required to have regard to representations must lay a statement before Parliament giving details of any representations received”.

The committee pointed out that this matter would also enjoy enhanced scrutiny.

When we discussed this matter in Committee, at col. 1723, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, essentially said that because Schedule 7 had been removed, the scope of the Bill had been significantly narrowed and a more restrictive scrutiny procedure was therefore required than that in the regulatory reform Act. I understand where the Minister is coming from, but I do not agree with his conclusions. Even with the safeguards that the Minister has introduced and the removal of Schedule 7, the Bill still gives considerable powers to Ministers. When one looks through the Bill, the powers to abolish, to make changes to the financial arrangements, and to change the governance arrangements are considerable. The use of the super-affirmative procedure is, therefore, entirely appropriate.

I know that the noble Lord’s department has said that it believes that the super-affirmative procedure that I propose would risk derailing the Government’s reform programme, but I want to make it absolutely clear that I support the regular review of these public bodies. I have never had any difficulty whatever with the principle of the Bill. No public body should believe that it is entitled to exist for all time. It is right that public bodies should be reviewed. I have no problem at all with that principle in the Bill. However, we come back to the point of ministerial powers. I remember being reminded, when I was sitting or standing where the noble Lord is sitting at the moment, that ministerial powers need to be fettered. Under the Bill, many organisations doing public work can be affected by the use of ministerial power. Parliament needs and deserves the most stringent scrutiny powers possible. The super-affirmative procedure is not new. It is used within the confines of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act.

The noble Lord says that if we were to pass such an amendment, it would have an impact on the other place and its procedures. My argument is: let us see. Let this House pass the amendment, agree to the super-affirmative order and see how the other place responds. We are not at the last point of this Bill’s journey through Parliament and it would not be unreasonable for noble Lords to express the view that orders under the Bill should be considered under the super-affirmative procedure. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will forgive me if I do not go down the path of discussing his amendment in detail, as I am the chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. However, I will say that this group of amendments gives us the chance to discuss the wider issue of parliamentary scrutiny arrangements of orders made under the Bill.

The House should not try to pin down the Minister today on exactly how scrutiny under the Bill should be conducted, particularly as the other place has yet to consider the Bill. However, it is important to set out a few questions that should be asked at this stage. Under the Bill, every draft order has a 40-day period during which a committee of either House looks at it. This committee must report on the order within 30 days. Under the revised Bill, the committee can require an order to undergo a full, enhanced scrutiny procedure. At present, the Lords committee charged with looking at all orders coming before the House is the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, which has been spoken about a lot this afternoon. It may draw orders to the attention of the House either because they may be of interest or because they may imperfectly achieve the policy objective. The committee is already busy and meets nearly every week. The first question might be whether this is the right committee to look at orders made under the Bill, whether under the enhanced scrutiny procedure or not.

In the Delegated Powers Committee’s fifth, sixth and 11th reports, the enhanced scrutiny procedure on orders under the Bill was compared, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, to the super-affirmative procedure in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. As this is the nearest procedure to the one we are discussing, it may be worth restating that legislative reform orders come before the Delegated Powers Committee, but are significantly different in character from orders under the Bill. The two main differences are that the LRO procedure is not used for highly controversial matters, and that if a committee of either House recommends that no further proceedings are taken on a draft order, then proceedings are automatically stopped unless the House decides otherwise. The committee has looked at only 12 LROs since the 2006 Act.

However, the Bill is likely to generate a lot of work—and, at some point, an entirely new procedure. Therefore, it must be decided quite soon which committee should undertake the enhanced affirmative procedure if it is required. Although this will, of course, be a matter for the Procedure Committee and ultimately for the House, I believe it is worth thinking about now.

There are some fundamental questions to be asked about how a committee should carry out its work before either House decides on a suitable committee structure. Should it simply review the evidence taken during the consultation? Should it take evidence itself? That could be an expensive process. The only purpose in the Bill is, as we heard this afternoon, to improve the exercise of public functions, although it must have regard to the objectives of achieving increased efficiency, effectiveness and economy—the Minister’s triplet—and securing appropriate accountability to Ministers. Suppose the committee decides that the broad purpose of improving the exercise of public functions is not met, will the Minister think again? After all, he only has to have regard to a committee’s recommendations. Obviously the order will have to be passed by both Houses and there is always the possibility of it being voted down. That this House is reluctant to do this should not be taken for granted.

Turning very briefly to the procedure in the other place, the two Houses have different ways of looking at statutory instruments and different committee structures from each other. The only joint committee in this area is the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which just looks at the vires of an instrument with the parent Act. Although a superficially attractive idea, a joint committee is very difficult to establish. I understand that this is too early for any hard-and-fast decisions on how orders made under this Bill are to be scrutinised by Parliament, but it is not too early for Parliament to be thinking hard about the implications of the proper scrutiny of the delegated powers in this Bill.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, my Amendment 69AA is the second amendment in this group. I think that there has been some inadvertent misgrouping in this complicated Bill and I suspect that this amendment would have appeared more happily in the first group of amendments, alongside government Amendment 69A. However, with your Lordships’ indulgence, and since I have no intention of putting this to the vote, I will proceed to seek to persuade the House that this small amendment would serve a large purpose.

In the first group of amendments, the Minister laid great stress on the fact that no order can be made unless there is an Explanatory Memorandum produced so that Parliament can judge what is going on with regard to the order. Earlier today, the Government got through this House with approbation Amendment 60A, which changes Clause 8 and introduces various specific qualities that must be met by any order before it can be enacted: effectiveness, efficiency, economy and securing appropriate accountability to Ministers. Those are quite expressly, by the provisions of Clause 11, to be included in the Explanatory Memorandum. Not included in the Explanatory Memorandum, but a fundamentally important aspect of the protections in this Bill, are the provisions of Clause 16(3). I will read it because it is quite short. It simply says:

“Provision made by an order under the preceding provisions of this Act must be proportionate to the reasons for the order”.

I do not think that anybody sitting here tonight will need convincing that proportionality is one of the most important pillars on which good legislation is built, but there is no reference to proportionality in the provisions of the Bill dealing with the Explanatory Memorandum.

That is still the case after the amendments have been read into Clause 11. Clause 11 as amended requires the explanatory document to introduce and give reasons for the order. The first of those in the earlier government amendment is that,

“the order serves the purpose in section 8(1)”.

There is no reference to Clause 16(3). In simple terms—I do not think that this is contentious; indeed, it seems to me to be an improvement in the Bill, whichever way one looks at it—I want a requirement that the Explanatory Memorandum must also include the Minister’s justifications in terms of proportionality for introducing the order, so that that can be considered along with efficiency, effectiveness, economy and accountability. Whichever way that plays out in the Bill as it will emerge tonight, I hope that my noble friend will accept the amendment in principle so that it can be brought back at Third Reading in the proper place.

17:45

[Lord Dubs]

Amendment 96 is in my name and I feel that, if the mood of the House were different, I could have pushed it pretty hard. I shall briefly explain why I think that it is a matter of importance to the Bill and to our general approach to orders. At the moment, with almost no exceptions, orders are unamendable in this House. If we are unhappy about them, we can only vote them down, in which case we are breaching the convention that we should not undermine something that has come from the Commons where the Commons cannot have a second say. As your Lordships know, if we vote an order down, that is the end of it and the House of Commons has to start the process again. That is an unsatisfactory position on orders and something to which—unless the Minister accedes to the amendment today—I am sure the House will return when we consider Lords reform. The way that this is operating is not right.

When I was a Northern Ireland Minister, most legislation was done by order. Sometimes, the House would be faced with an order 40, 50 or 60 pages long—longer than many Bills—and yet it was totally unamendable. People in Northern Ireland were pretty fed up, saying, “There is a major change in our housing policy and it is going through without an opportunity for it to be debated properly here”. Now, of course, they can do it as they wish in Stormont.

We know that many orders are to give effect to EU legislation. If I understand the Government’s EU Bill correctly, there will be fewer of those in future, as they will be replaced by primary legislation. The EU Bill has not gone through and perhaps that part of it will not—I hope that it will not. If orders to give effect to EU legislation were amendable, we would save the Government a lot of effort with the need to have primary legislation and, at the same time, achieve the objective of giving this House a proper say.

I think that these arguments are pretty sound. I remember that, when I was in the Commons, we found a Bill under which there was an order-making power and, for reasons that totally escape me today, it was possible to amend that. We wondered at the time why Parliament could not amend orders. This seems a very reasonable proposition. I do not think that it would open the floodgates and it would make sense—nowhere more so than in this Bill. A lot of the argument about this Bill is due to the fact that, when the day comes and the Government table the order to give effect to changes to many quangos, we will have no chance to amend it. There may be consultation beforehand or other methods, to which my noble friend Lord Hunt referred, but, on the whole, we will not be able to make an amendment. This is such a simple proposition that I do not understand why it has not been adopted long ago and why it cannot be adopted in the Bill.

[Lord Adonis]

Can my noble friend clarify one important point? As I understand the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt, proposed new subsection (10) in effect gives the House the power to amend an order by agreeing to a recommendation by a committee that an amendment should be made. Does that not meet the point that my noble friend is trying to make in his amendment?

[Lord Dubs]

It does partly, but Amendment 96 is a little stronger, as it would mean that, when faced with an order, we could simply amend it without any preconditions. If I understand it correctly, the other amendment has a precondition in it, whereas this one does not. My argument is that that would be right not just for this Bill but for the run of orders.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Amendment 69 seems unexceptionable. I do not understand why the word “may” is included in Clause 11(1) and the word “must” is in Clause 11(2). I do not understand why there is a need for any discretion in that area. The clause refers to a situation in which,

“after consultation under section 10 the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under sections 1 to 6”.

If he is satisfied with all that, he or she should have the obligation to lay a draft order and explanatory document before Parliament. Unless the Minister has some special reason why he needs to retain a discretion, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on that narrow amendment.

My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury’s Amendment 69AA is on proportionality. This is a bit complicated, but I hope that I have got it right. I like to think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and I are godparents to Clause 16 and, especially, to including proportionality. The principle of proportionality simply teaches that you must use necessary and proportionate means to accomplish a legitimate aim. The Minister is proposing to leave out from Clause 11(2) the words,

“including reasons relating to the objectives in section 8(1)”,

so that it would just state,

“introduce and give reasons for the order”.

Another amendment changes Clause 11(2) to include a reference to purpose in what will be Section 8(1).

The Minister will explain all this, but the reason for leaving out the words,

“including reasons relating to the objectives”,

in Clause 11(2) is presumably that they are unnecessary, because the reasons will be the reasons and, once the reasons are given in the Explanatory Memorandum and otherwise, one has in the Bill the point that my noble friend is making—the Minister will have to state the reasons for the order and then under Clause 16 he or she will have to comply with the principle of proportionality. It therefore seems to me that, subject to drafting points, the substance of what my noble friend Lord Phillips is seeking is already catered for. The principle of proportionality is fully embodied in the Bill because it requires the Minister to state the reasons. When the Minister legislates by order, he or she must do so in a way that is proportionate to achieving the legitimate aims in the reasons. I hope that that is more or less intelligible. I think that I know what I am saying, but others may not. Anyhow, that is the best I can do.

[Lord Adonis]

The case made by my noble friend Lord Hunt in respect of the super-affirmative procedure is extremely strong. There is a fundamental point of principle here: do we take ourselves, the House of Lords, seriously as a legislature? If we do, I do not believe it right that we should delegate the degree of power that we are delegating to the Executive without retaining more of the power of control simply to debate and amend the proposals that come forward in respect of the merger, abolition or reconstitution of public bodies. The critical factor at stake is that all these bodies were established by statute. They are all important bodies—you just need to read the schedules to see the importance of the bodies listed—and they were all subject to lengthy debate in Parliament when they were established. All that my noble friend Lord Hunt is seeking to do, with the full authority of the relevant committee of the House, is to give the House a somewhat larger power to amend orders and to require proper debate and a proper account by the Government to Parliament where they are not minded to take account of that debate and any amendments that are proposed. It seems to me that, if we are not prepared to stand up for the rights and responsibilities of this House to that extent, we are quite wrongly denuding ourselves of our proper responsibility as a legislature.

[Lord Whitty]

I can only agree with what my noble friend Lord Adonis has just said with regards to Amendment 71. However, I rise in the regrettable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, to speak to Amendment 69D. This refers to the functions of those bodies that are to be abolished in Schedule 1 and would require the Government to give a clear indication of which functions are to be retained and by whom they are to be carried out.

I draw attention to this and have become active on this Bill because of an interest of mine as the former chair of Consumer Focus. Consumer Focus is still in Schedule 1, but, as I have previously argued, that is probably the wrong place, in that the Government have indicated that they want to transfer its functions rather than to abolish them. While Consumer Focus remains as a body to be abolished, it is right that the legislation should require the Government to specify to whom its functions should be transferred. The Government’s current indication is that they wish to transfer the majority of its functions to Citizens Advice and some of its functions to a body relating to Northern Ireland law, the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland. Citizens Advice is a charity incorporated under English law and separately under Scottish law. It is not at all clear that the Government will actually transfer all those functions to Citizens Advice or, pre-empting an amendment that the Minister will move in the last group, whether Citizens Advice would necessarily agree to take on those responsibilities; as an independent charity, it has a right to refuse to do so.

Developments in Scotland and Wales may well also result in somewhat different arrangements being set up after the forthcoming elections. Indeed, arguments relating to the regulated industries are different from the general run of consumer issues. Given all that uncertainty at this stage when we are passing the primary legislation, it is surely incumbent on Ministers or future Ministers to give a clear indication to Parliament of where the current functions set down in primary legislation are going to go or whether they are going to lapse. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, would achieve that objective and therefore I see no reason why the Government should not accept it, if not tonight then at some later stage.

In the mean time, I endorse the general view expressed by my noble friends Lord Adonis and Lord Dubs and by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, that at some point we are going to have to look at the way in which we deal with the secondary legislation under this Bill, because the normal form of so doing will not be adequate for many of these changes.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, I am not convinced that the additional procedures set out in Amendment 71 are necessary. I should stress that since I am a member of the Delegated Powers Committee, and a board member of an organisation that is referred to in the Bill, I am speaking in a personal capacity.

Because of the way in which the powers of the Government have been limited as the Bill has passed through the House and the Government have introduced amendments, the proposal that is now set out in the Bill for an enhanced affirmative procedure does what is required. It gives committees the opportunity to state issues and make the House and the Government aware of those issues, and gives the Government the opportunity, which they do not have normally, to amend the order to take account of those concerns. That is an appropriate and proper amendment.

However, I am nervous about transferring more power to any committee for it, of itself, to seek to amend these orders. Moving power from the Floor of the House to those committees would take the role of committees further than it should be taken. As I see it, the role of the committees works well when they are advising the House and they are raising issues. Generally, they deal with such contentious areas—

18:00

[Lord Adonis]

Would the noble Lord be prepared to give that power to the House as a whole, because at the moment there is no other means of amending a statutory instrument? If he is not prepared to give that power to the House as a whole or to a committee, he is not prepared to accept that the House has any power to amend a statutory instrument, which is the central point of principle at stake in this amendment.

[Lord Blackwell]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I was going on to say that, if there were to be a change in procedures, the change would out-favour the one recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to enable that debate to take place on the Floor of the House. However, I am reluctant to see a committee venture into areas that became highly controversial and that moved outside the narrow debate around the appropriateness of the regime and its constitutionality, and end up, in effect, having votes in committees that should be votes on the Floor of the House. It would be a wrong step to try to move committees into taking that view.

Given the way in which orders are dealt with, there is an argument for considering the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. A more significant issue is whether we ought to have and exercise the power genuinely to vote on these orders. Frankly, if we do not, it is all a bit of a charade anyway. Therefore, I support those who have suggested that it is worth, in the wider scope of things, looking at reforms to procedures to allow amendments to be made and voted on on the Floor of the House and reconciled with the other House. However, that is not achieved by the Opposition’s amendment to move to a super-affirmative procedure, which would create undesirable complications. The way in which the Government have proposed to deal with it is the best compromise within the existing structure of orders.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, on Amendment 69 and “must” instead of “may”, it is a normal convention on the whole that Ministers, if they have the power to do something, are left with that, but it is not a major point one way or the other. However, as for the enhanced procedure and the super-affirmative procedure, that is primarily a matter for Parliament to consider generally, not just in relation to the Bill. The way in which I have seen this Bill develop suggests to me that everyone in the House is agreed that there should be a procedure for a review of public bodies from time to time. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made that very clear in moving this amendment.

We have gone a long way to developing that kind of procedure for the future, because the Bill has in it the power to continue with amendments to the schedules. It now provides for certain entities in the schedules to drop out after a time—a type of sunset clause for the schedules. Therefore, you can always bring one in. If and when another review is required—who knows, it might not be until another Government come along—the procedure that has been laid down here would work perfectly well simply by introducing a public general statute to amend the schedules. It might be among the shortest statutes ever proposed, which of itself would be a good thing.

Here we have a situation whereby, before the procedures start, you have to get the body in question into a public general statute such as the one that we are considering now. Parliament has already used its power to allow that; what the procedure should be thereafter is a matter to work out in practice as the Bill goes forward. I am not in favour of enacting the super-affirmative procedure where Parliament has already decreed the particular subject matter of the Bill. I prefer that that is left. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, suggested, this whole subject needs to be considered in due course, but not as part of the present Bill. After all, we have done a fair amount on the Bill already and there is a limit to what is practically possible.

[Lord Neill of Bladen]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, expressed the view that there should be an opportunity for parliamentary review when the Minister has decided that the situation is one in which he wants to make an order. Imagine the situation; there has already been consultation with whoever are the proper people to be consulted and, in the light of that, the Minister has concluded that it would be appropriate to make an order. What we are contemplating now, under Amendment 69, is the fact that under the Bill the Minister has time to consider whether he will tell Parliament what he wishes to do, complying with the obligation of setting out an explanation of what he is up to and what the evidence tells him, or whether he will just not tell the Houses what his intentions are, if this is going to be embarrassing or if he does not have the time. That is a discretion that ought not to be conferred. If the consultation has led the Minister to a particular conclusion and he is about to make an order, it is entirely appropriate that we, as Parliament, retain the power to look at his reasons and form our own view about the matter.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Is the noble Lord suggesting that Clause 11(2), which requires an explanatory document to be produced to Parliament before the order is laid for consideration, is different from what he is suggesting?

[Lord Neill of Bladen]

No, my Lords. The word “must” is already in Clause 11(2), and attention has been drawn to that fact. There is no “must” in line 3 on that page, which is where there ought to be a requirement. That is what the amendment is dealing with.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I think it was Hegel who got us all into the categorical imperative of “must”. I have certainly tried to organise my life on the basis of using the word as infrequently as possible, but I defer to more expert opinions as to whether it should be “must” rather than “may”. I would like to emphasise the point, which was made much more elegantly than I can by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that we are considering this Bill. I, too, have very strong views about the way in which orders and statutory instruments are laid and the way in which the House considers them.

In thinking about that, my mind goes back to home information packs and the big casino in Manchester. It is not unknown that this House decides that it is not going to live with what at that time was an ordinary affirmative order rather than a super-affirmative order, but Amendment 71 is in danger of over-elaboration. If both Houses of Parliament take Clause 11 as it is in the Bill at present, they have the opportunity for full and adequate scrutiny and, by the recommendations of committees, to put Ministers in the position where they will have to bring forward an amendment.

On the question of amendments, the point is well illustrated by the Bill. Not many amendments are moved by Members of this House that, even if they are approved, remain as they were on the day of approval. They need to go back to the parliamentary draftsmen. The committees of this House do not have parliamentary draftsmen. As an amending and revising Chamber, we do our best work when we persuade the Government that they should take an amendment away and make it into something that will really work as legislation.

Very briefly on the matter of over-elaboration, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, would make us go back to the consultation and the representations made in that consultation three times—not just the first time because the Minister must lay it out a second time and then, as in the proposed subsection, a third time. That is overly repetitious, because unless it is also specified that something should be put out to a new consultation, the process will be overly elaborate.

I should like to make one other point. If a draft order is referred to committees of both Houses and those committees have the power to put forward amendments but those amendments are in disagreement, it will take a very considerable time to sort out that kind of disagreement between the two Houses. Given that many of the things that will be done when this Bill is enacted are in fact pretty straightforward, simple and not very controversial, to over-elaborate the process is a mistake.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I rise briefly to say that I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. The issue raised by Amendment 71 is of great importance and ought to be considered in the wider space of the practices of the House as a whole. It does seem anomalous that we cannot amend secondary, subordinate legislation, and therefore it would be attractive if proposals could be referred to committees for consideration because it could be a time-saving approach. It would allow committees to consider in detail matters that cannot effectively be considered in a debate on a statutory instrument that lasts one and a half hours. However, we have some of that process in the House already.

The wide-ranging effects of Amendment 71 would delegate too much power to committees. I take the view that a case still has to be made that committees should have binding authority to prevent legislation being considered on the Floor of the House. That, as I understand it, is what this amendment could result in. It is also not entirely clear if the committee considering whether or not a draft order should be approved under proposed subsection (9) would be an existing committee that took it upon itself to do so. I think that more than one committee has that power, or a power to consider draft orders. It might be the intention of the noble Lord who has moved the amendment that this should be for a special ad hoc committee and not for the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. That is not made clear. However, if an ad hoc committee had to be set up, that would be another stage in the process of deciding whether the measure was of sufficient importance to require that to be done.

This is not a matter to be decided on Report, however important it may be—I am quite clear that it is immensely important. It should be referred for wider consultation in the House, perhaps by the Procedure Committee. This is also a matter that should be considered in conjunction with another place because both Houses have an interest in it. It might make more sense to do that in a Joint Committee.

18:15

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been an important debate and probably gets to the nub of how this particular Bill can be handled by Parliament and how the secondary legislation which it empowers can be properly scrutinised. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in it.

In particular, I hope I can reassure noble Lords that the bespoke scrutiny process that the Bill provides for is the proper one for Parliament, giving Parliament proper input into the shape of the secondary legislation. As noble Lords will know, it has been specifically designed for the Bill and included in government amendments. I am grateful for the support of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who has been prepared to give advice on the Bill and the particular constitutional challenge that it has presented, and for the support of my noble friends Lord Blackwell and Lord Eccles for the way in which they have recognised that the process that now exists in the Bill provides for a proper scrutiny process.

I start with Amendment 69, which was first debated in Committee on 9 March. I do not apologise for in effect repeating my remarks from that debate as this amendment is quite technical in nature. It would make it explicit that a Minister wishing to make an order following a period of consultation “must” lay before Parliament a draft order and explanatory document. While Clause 11 states that a Minister “may” lay a draft order and explanatory document, it would in practice not be possible to make an order without following this procedure. Our current drafting reflects the fact that, following a period of consultation, the Minister is not obliged to proceed with the proposal. To my mind, this appears right and proper. I think my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill indicated that this was his interpretation of the current wording.

On Amendment 69AA, tabled—

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and sorry to interrupt. I was trying to grasp why one needed a discretion, and the Minister has indicated that one needs one because not every order will be required to go through this procedure. That is why it says “may” and not “must”. If that is the position, then I understand it.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I can confirm that every statutory instrument will have to be accompanied by an Explanatory Memorandum. That is very important if a statutory instrument is proceeding under this Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am sorry, too, but would like this to be clarified. At the moment, the clause says:

“If after consultation under section 10 the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under sections 1 to 6”.

The Minister has already decided, in the light of consultation, that he is going to proceed with the order. That is not now in doubt because he,

“considers it appropriate to proceed”.

Surely it should then say that the Minister “must” lay that before Parliament. I do not understand why it is not “must”.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I make my point quite simply: if he does not lay an order, he will not get it approved. It is as simple as that; that is the nub of the issue. In order to get the change he requires, he has to lay an order and “may” is the correct word to use, in parliamentary terms, as the noble Lord will know.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The next subsection uses “must”. I know that this is a very familiar argument, but it is quite clear that “must” is often used in legislation and I do not see why it is not used in this case.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I am in more of a muddle now than I thought I was. Clause 11(1) proceeds on the basis that,

“the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under sections 1 to 6”.

That is the premise. If that is the premise, surely the Minister will have to lay a draft order and an explanatory document. If that is the position and there is no scope for discretion at that stage—because he or she has already made the determination that it is appropriate to proceed—I do not understand why it does not say “shall” or “must”. It says “must” elsewhere and it seems to me that it is a situation where it is a “must” and not a “may”. Maybe I have got it wrong.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, the point that is covered by “may” rather than “must” is that, in the light of the consultation, even if the Minister wants to make an order, he may well think it is right to do something else first; for example, have further consultations and make modified proposals before he proceeds with the order. That is why, in this context, the word “may” is often used when many of us might have thought it was going to happen anyway. That is the reason and I believe it is a good reason.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I hate to disagree with a noble and learned friend and former Lord Chancellor, but I have to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. It is quite clear that this is posited on the basis that, having had the consultation, having considered all things, the Minister then considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order. That is perfectly clear. He is then en route to making an order. It then goes on to say,

“the Minister may lay before Parliament”,

but surely, once the Minister is committed to making an order, he must lay it before Parliament.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I am sorry to respond, because this is Report and it is the last thing I want to do, but it seems to me that the point is that it says, “make an order”, it does not mean to say that it is an order in anything like the form that is thought of so far. The consultation might well open up new possibilities altogether. The Minister wants to make an order, he wants to proceed, he may do it this way or he may do something else in the way of further consultation and then go ahead with an order different in substance from what he had proposed in the original consultation. That is the reason for it.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

As it is Report and we are not supposed to be arguing in this way on these matters, I hope the House will accept what I said. This is the advice that I have received and, indeed, the House has received from a number of noble and learned Lords—well, one noble and learned Lord and other noble Lords who might also be learned, but not in the parliamentary sense.

I move on—I will be on safer ground, perhaps—to look at Amendment 69AA, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury. It would require an explanation of why a Minister considers the order to be compatible with Clause 16(3), which refers to the need for an order to be proportionate to the reasons for it. We have not included such a provision within the Bill on the grounds that the explanatory document accompanying an order will set out the reasons for that order as a requirement of Clause 11. It will then be for Parliament to decide whether to approve an order and, if necessary, for the courts to assess subsequently whether an order is proportionate in relation to the reasons given.

As we know, my noble friend Lord Newton is not here, but I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, spoke to my noble friend’s amendment, because Amendment 69D would require a Minister, when bringing forward an order under Clause 1, to set out whether any of the functions of a body to be abolished would continue and if so, where they would be exercised in future. I consider this amendment to be unnecessary as such information would as a matter of course form part of the consultation on the proposal required under Clause 10 and the reasons for the order required by Clause 11(2)(a), so we are back to the process of consultation and the explanatory document providing for that.

In connection with Consumer Focus, I remind the noble Lord that Clause 1 allows for the transfer of functions. We will be consulting on our proposals specifically in respect of Consumer Focus, as I have explained, later this year.

The effect of Amendment 96 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, would be to clarify the date at which an order made under the Bill, if amended by Parliament, would come into force. I remind the noble Lord that there is currently no facility in the Bill for orders to be amended by Parliament, and I do not propose that such a facility should exist. However, I remind him that, under the enhanced affirmative procedure contained in the Bill, a Minister is at liberty to lay a revised order following the 60-day period. The Minister can take account of representations from Parliament and elsewhere in considering the form of the order as it proceeds.

The wording of Amendment 96 appears to be drawn from the Civil Contingencies Act—that was well spotted by someone, but not me—which was designed to create a framework for dealing with emergency regulations that necessarily circumvent the usual channels of parliamentary scrutiny. In such a specific circumstance, the argument for the amendability of orders is of a different order, but I do not believe that the Public Bodies Bill is of a comparable nature.

I turn to the question of the mechanism by which Parliament will scrutinise these orders, and specifically to whether the very unusual form of super-affirmative procedure proposed by Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, is an appropriate mechanism for the Bill. When we last debated this matter in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, noted that I had been “forthright” in rejecting this proposal. I would not take issue with that assessment; I have told him privately of the red line that I see on this issue.

I am sure that by now the noble Lord is fully aware of the reasons why the Government will not accept this amendment. Accordingly, I ask the noble Lord to reflect on how far the Bill has come since we first debated this issue during the first Committee session. Since that time, a combination of the expert scrutiny of the committees of this House and a genuine willingness on the part of the Government to engage have led to a series of changes that have significantly restricted the scope of the powers that the Bill gives to Ministers. Government amendments on consultation and procedure have been accepted and now form part of the Bill, ensuring a robust and thorough scrutiny process. Clause 16 now firmly and objectively protects the necessary independence of some public functions—precisely those functions that had caused this House such concern during the early debates on the Bill. Schedule 7 and Clause 11, as was, have of course been removed, dramatically reducing at a stroke the scope of the Bill. The entries in the Bill’s schedules will now be sunset after five years, ensuring that bodies do not remain subject to the Bill’s powers in perpetuity. Lastly, and I take this to be most crucial, this House has thoroughly debated, in primary legislation, whether it is appropriate for each of the bodies in the schedules to be subject to the powers in the clauses to which those schedules apply. In some cases, this House has exercised its right to remove bodies from the schedules.

18:30

In this context, it is clear that the scope of the powers granted under this Bill will simply not be of the same order as those attached to legislation which has often been cited in comparison, such as the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. I need not remind noble Lords that that Act gives Ministers a general power to amend primary legislation without any equivalent to the debates on the entries in the schedules we have had during the passage of this Bill. If Amendment 71 was accepted, a Select Committee of either House could veto or amend any order laid under this Bill, regardless of the fact that each House will have necessarily given its consent, through primary legislation, to confer a power on a Minister to make such an order in relation to the body or bodies involved. The Government cannot accept that, given this prior scrutiny and expression of the will of Parliament in primary legislation, a single Select Committee should thereafter be able to frustrate the order-making process in this way.

Under our own proposals, the draft order will have already been subject to appropriate consultation as set out in Clause 10, and the current procedure in Clause 11 gives both Parliament and its committees a full opportunity, if they desire it, to scrutinise the order and to make recommendations in relation to it before the order is approved. Following this scrutiny, it will be open to a Minister to amend the order or to withdraw it completely if appropriate. I remind noble Lords that by allowing for an extended scrutiny period, and providing the opportunity for committees of the House to make representations, our enhanced affirmative procedure captures much of the essence of a super-affirmative process set out in paragraph 42 of the Delegated Powers Committee’s 5th report.

Perhaps it is appropriate now to thank my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester and her committee for its series of reports which presented us with a considerable challenge with this Bill. Meeting that challenge has greatly improved the Bill and we owe a great debt of gratitude to her committee for the way in which it has scrutinised this legislation—it has greatly helped the evolution of this Bill. She made interesting comments on the way in which committees of this House might work in scrutinising the statutory instruments that might come up under this Bill. My noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart was correct. This is something that the Procedure Committee has to consider—it is not a matter for this Bill.

The Delegated Powers Committee’s 5th report on the Bill suggested that a provision for Parliament to amend secondary legislation would be extremely difficult to implement, particularly given the absence of a mechanism for resolving differences between the two Houses. However, my fundamental objection to Amendment 71 is that the Government, reflecting a manifesto commitment of both coalition partners and the coalition agreement, have taken the decision to reform public bodies. This is not a decision with which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, disagrees. He has been supportive of the process throughout. The Government brought forward a Bill in relation to these proposals which has received intense scrutiny in this House. The Government have, furthermore, worked with noble Lords to limit the scope of the Bill in a number of significant ways and devised a procedure that will allow for proper scrutiny of the detailed orders that follow. To impose a veto on these orders by a single Select Committee of either House and a capacity for Parliament to amend orders under this Bill is excessive, bearing in mind that Parliament will have given its explicit consent both to the Bill as a whole and to the inclusion of each separate body in the schedules through primary legislative process before any such orders could be laid.

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will see that this is what makes this Bill somewhat different from the Regulatory and Legislative Reform Bill. We are dealing with specific proposals laid before Parliament in primary legislation. I am not opposed to proper parliamentary scrutiny of government policy; my approach to this Bill and the Government’s proposed enhanced procedures demonstrate that. However, I am opposed to a procedure that would not increase the quality of such scrutiny, but would endanger our ability to deliver the more efficient and effective system of public bodies that the public rightly expect. That was promised in the coalition agreement and has the support of noble Lords from all sides of the House and, indeed, from the Benches opposite. I therefore ask the noble Lord to reflect on the consequence of his position in the light of my remarks and to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for his extensive response to this debate. I will make three short points. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, is right to raise the wider question of how secondary legislation is dealt with in your Lordships’ House. The Royal Commission on Lords Reform looked at this extensively. One of the outcomes was the development of the Merits Committee but I am sure we need to go further. I hope that when draft legislation on House of Lords reform finally reaches us, we will see that there has been some discussion of that matter. I do not believe you could elect a second Chamber, or make proposals to do so, without looking at the implications for secondary legislation.

On the question of “may” and “must”, I have looked again at the wording of Clause 11. This order falls to be made only after the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order. On that basis, the word should be “must”. On the question of Amendment 71 and the super-affirmative procedure, I accept that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has tabled several welcome amendments to improve the Bill and allay many concerns. I just say to him that, none the less, this Bill gives Ministers considerable powers to amend primary legislation through what can be dramatic changes to a number of the public bodies listed in the Bill. On that basis, it is right that Parliament should assert to itself the ability for strong and robust scrutiny. My super-affirmative proposition allows that to happen. I very much hope the House will support me in that regard. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

18:38

Division 2

Ayes: 189

---

Labour: 148
Crossbench: 29
Independent: 3
Bishops: 1
Conservative: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Noes: 206

---

Conservative: 131
Liberal Democrat: 61
Crossbench: 7
Ulster Unionist Party: 2

19:04

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester)]

Before calling Amendment 69A, I must advise the House that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 69AA for reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 69A

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

69A: Clause 11, page 6, line 8, leave out from “order” to end of line 9

Amendment 69A agreed.

Amendments 69B and 69C

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

69B: Clause 11, page 6, line 10, after “that” insert—
“(i) the order serves the purpose in section 8(1), and”

69C: Clause 11, page 6, line 11, at end insert—
“( ) if the order contains provision made by virtue of more than one entry in Schedules 1 to 5, explain why the Minister considers it appropriate for it to do so, and”

Amendments 69B and 69C agreed.

Amendments 69D and 70 not moved.

Amendment 71

Moved by

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

71: Clause 11, page 6, line 31, leave out subsections (7) to (10) and insert—
“(7) If, after the expiry of the 60-day period, the Minister wishes to make an order in the terms of the draft, the Minister must lay before Parliament a statement—
(a) stating whether any representations were made under subsection (6)(a); and(b) if any representations were so made, giving details of them. (8) Subject to subsection (10), the Minister may after the laying of such a statement make an order in the terms of the draft if it is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(9) A committee of either House charged with reporting on the draft order may, at any time after the laying of a statement under subsection (7) and before the draft order is approved by that House under subsection (8), recommend under this subsection that—
(a) the draft order should be approved in its current form;(b) the draft order should be amended;(c) no further proceedings be taken in relation to the draft order; or(d) it is more appropriate for the proposals raised in the draft order to be progressed through a bill rather than a statutory instrument, having regard to—(i) the public interest in the functions or decisions of the body;(ii) the need for a body to act independently of government or ministerial direction;(iii) whether the body considers issues of national importance.(10) Where a recommendation is made by a committee of either House under subsection (9)(b) in relation to a draft order, the House may not proceed unless the recommendation is in the same session—
(a) rejected by a resolution of that House; or(b) the House has approved the order as revised by the committee.(11) Where a recommendation is made by a committee of either House under subsection (9)(c) or (d) in relation to a draft order, no proceedings may be taken in that House under subsection (8) unless the recommendation is in the same session rejected by a resolution of that House.
(12) If, after the expiry of the 60-day period, the Minister wishes to make an order in the terms of the revised draft with material changes, the Minister must lay before Parliament—
(a) a revised draft order; and(b) a statement providing details of—(i) any representations made under subsection (6)(a); and(ii) the revisions proposed.(13) The Minister may, after laying a revised order and statement under subsection (12), make an order in the terms of the revised draft if it is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(14) However, a committee of either House charged with reporting on the revised draft may, at any time after the revised draft order is laid under subsection (12) and before it is approved under subsection (13), recommend under this subsection that no further proceedings be taken in relation to the revised draft order.
(15) Where a recommendation is made by a committee of either House under subsection (14) in relation to a revised draft order, no proceedings may be taken in relation to the revised draft order in that House unless the recommendation is, in the same session, rejected by resolution of that House.
(16) For the purposes of subsections (8) and (13), an order is made in the terms of a draft order if it contains no material changes to the provisions of the draft order.”

18:53

Division 3

Ayes: 158

---

Labour: 138
Crossbench: 12
Independent: 3
Conservative: 1

Noes: 218

---

Conservative: 131
Liberal Democrat: 59
Crossbench: 19
Ulster Unionist Party: 2

19:04

Amendments 72 and 72A not moved.

Clause 12 : Powers relating to environmental bodies

Amendments 73 to 79

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

73: Clause 12, page 7, line 5, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c) and insert—
“(b) the Welsh devolved functions of the Environment Agency,(c) the Welsh devolved functions of the Forestry Commissioners, or(d) the functions of a Welsh Flood and Coastal Committee.”

74: Clause 12, page 7, line 11, leave out “public functions in relation to Wales” and insert “Welsh devolved functions”

75: Clause 12, page 7, line 12, leave out from “any” to second “to” in line 13 and insert “Welsh devolved function of the Environment Agency or the Forestry Commissioners”

76: Clause 12, page 7, line 17, leave out “public functions in relation to Wales” and insert “Welsh devolved functions”

77: Clause 12, page 7, line 17, at end insert—
“(3A) The Welsh Ministers may by order transfer any function of a Welsh Flood and Coastal Committee to—
(a) a new body,(b) the Welsh Ministers, or(c) any other person exercising Welsh devolved functions.”

78: Clause 12, page 7, line 31, leave out subsections (7) to (11)

79: Clause 12, page 8, line 23, at end insert—
“( ) In this section “Welsh Flood and Coastal Committee” means a Regional Flood and Coastal Committee established under section 22(1)(c) of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 for a region wholly or mainly in Wales.
( ) The Welsh Ministers must consult the Secretary of State before making an order under subsection (1) or (3A) relating to a Welsh Flood and Coastal Committee for a region not wholly in Wales.”

Amendments 73 to 79 agreed.

Amendment 80

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

80: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Powers relating to other bodies
(1) The Welsh Ministers may by order abolish any of the following—
(a) an agricultural dwelling-house advisory committee for an area in, or consisting of, Wales;(b) an agricultural wages committee for an area in, or consisting of, Wales;(c) the Environment Protection Advisory Committee established pursuant to section 12(6) of the Environment Act 1995 (Wales);(d) the regional and local fisheries advisory committee established pursuant to section 13(5) of that Act (Wales);(e) a regional advisory committee maintained under section 37(1)(b) of the Forestry Act 1967 for a conservancy in, or consisting of, Wales.(2) An order under subsection (1) may include provision transferring functions from the body being abolished to—
(a) the Welsh Ministers, or(b) any other person exercising Welsh devolved functions.(3) The Welsh Ministers may by order modify the funding arrangements of inspectors appointed by the Welsh Ministers under section 86 of the Water Industry Act 1991 (assessors for the enforcement of water quality).
(4) In subsection (3),the reference to modifying funding arrangements has effect as if the reference in section 4(2)(a) to a Minister were to the Welsh Ministers.
(5) The Welsh Ministers may by order do any of the following in relation to an internal drainage board for an area wholly or mainly in Wales—
(a) modify its constitutional arrangements;(b) modify its functions;(c) transfer any of its functions to—(i) the Welsh Ministers;(ii) any other person exercising Welsh devolved functions;(iii) a company limited by guarantee;(iv) a community interest company;(v) a body of trustees or other unincorporated body of persons.”(6) The Welsh Ministers must consult the Secretary of State before making an order under subsection (5) relating to an internal drainage board not wholly in Wales.”

Amendment 80 agreed.

Clause 13 : Powers relating to environmental bodies: consequential provision etc

Amendments 81 and 82

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

81: Clause 13, page 8, line 25, after “12” insert “or (Powers relating to other bodies)”

82: Clause 13, page 8, line 27, leave out subsections (2) to (4) and insert—
“(2) Where an order under either of those sections transfers functions, the power in subsection (1) includes power to make consequential or supplementary provision—
(a) to modify the constitutional or funding arrangements of the transferor or transferee (subject to subsection (4)),(b) to modify functions of the transferor or transferee, or(c) to confer powers of direction on the Welsh Ministers in relation to functions transferred.(3) Where an order under either of those sections modifies functions of a body or office-holder, the power in subsection (1) includes power to make consequential or supplementary provision to modify the constitutional or funding arrangements of the body or office (subject to subsection (4)).
(4) Subsections (2) and (3) do not confer power on the Welsh Ministers to modify the constitutional or funding arrangements of—
(a) the Environment Agency, (b) the Forestry Commissioners, or(c) any other cross-border operator.(5) In subsections (2) to (4) references to modifying funding arrangements have effect as if the reference in section 4(2)(a) to a Minister were to the Welsh Ministers.
(6) The Secretary of State may by order modify the constitutional or funding arrangements of a person referred to in subsection (4)(a) to (c) in consequence of an order made by the Welsh Ministers under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies).
(7) The reference in subsection (6) to modifying the funding arrangements of a person includes modifying the extent to which the person is funded by Welsh Ministers, but the Secretary of State may only modify the extent to which a person is funded by the Welsh Ministers with their consent.”

Amendments 81 and 82 agreed.

Amendment 83 not moved.

Clause 14 : Delegation etc

Amendments 84 to 86

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

84: Clause 14, page 9, line 2, leave out subsections (1) to (3) and insert—
“(1) A person to whom this section applies may make arrangements with another such person for—
(a) a Welsh devolved function relating to the environment exercised by one to be exercised by the other;(b) co-operation in relation to the exercise of their respective Welsh devolved functions relating to the environment;(c) the provision of administrative, professional or technical services by one to the other for purposes relating to the exercise of functions in or as regards Wales.(2) This section applies to—
(a) the Environment Agency;(b) the Forestry Commissioners;(c) any other person exercising Welsh devolved functions relating to the environment.”

85: Clause 14, page 9, line 15, at end insert “(including provision about the extent to which a fee may be charged in respect of anything done under the arrangements)”

86: Clause 14, page 9, line 16, leave out “an order under subsection (4)” and insert “arrangements under this section involving, or an order under subsection (4) which affects—
(a) the Environment Agency,(b) the Forestry Commissioners, or(c) any other cross-border operator.”

Amendments 84 to 86 agreed.

Amendment 86A

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

86A: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“Purpose and conditions for orders made by Welsh Ministers
(1) The Welsh Ministers may make an order under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies) only if they consider that the order serves the purpose of improving the exercise of public functions having regard to—
(a) efficiency,(b) effectiveness,(c) economy, and(d) securing appropriate accountability to Welsh Ministers.(2) The Welsh Ministers may make an order under either of those sections only if they consider that—
(a) the order does not remove any necessary protection, and(b) the order does not prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which that person might reasonably expect to continue to exercise.”

Amendment 86A agreed.

Amendment 87

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

87: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“Consent of UK Ministers
(1) The Secretary of State’s consent is required for an order under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies) which transfers a function to, or confers a function on—
(a) the Environment Agency,(b) the Forestry Commissioners, or(c) any other cross-border operator.(2) The Secretary of State’s consent is required for an order under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies) made by virtue of section 13 which in any other way modifies the functions, other than Welsh devolved functions, of a person referred to in subsection (1).
(3) A Minister’s consent is required for an order under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies) which transfers a function to, or modifies the functions of, the Minister.”

Amendment 87A, as an amendment to Amendment 87, not moved.

Amendment 87 agreed.

Amendments 88 and 89B

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

88: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“Consultation by Welsh Ministers
(1) Where the Welsh Ministers propose to make an order under sections 12 to 14 they must consult—
(a) any body or person exercising public functions to which the proposal relates,(b) such other persons as appear to them to be representative of interests substantially affected by the proposal, and(c) such other persons as they consider appropriate. (2) If, as a result of consultation under subsection (1), it appears to the Welsh Ministers appropriate to change the whole or part of the proposal, they must carry out such further consultation with respect to the changes as seems appropriate.
(3) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether consultation is carried out before or after the commencement of this section.”

89B: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“Procedure for orders by Welsh Ministers etc
(1) If after consultation under section (Consultation by Welsh Ministers) the Welsh Ministers consider it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under sections 12 to 14, the Welsh Ministers may lay before the National Assembly for Wales—
(a) a draft order, and(b) an explanatory document.(2) The explanatory document must—
(a) introduce and give reasons for the order ,(b) explain, in the case of an order under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies), why the Welsh Ministers consider that—(i) the order serves the purpose in (Purpose and conditions for orders made by Welsh Ministers)(1), and(ii) the conditions in section (Purpose and conditions for orders made by Welsh Ministers)(2)(a) and (b) are satisfied, and(c) contain a summary of representations received in the consultation.(3) The Welsh Ministers may not act under subsection (1) before the end of the period of twelve weeks beginning with the day on which the consultation began.
(4) Subject as follows, if after the expiry of the 40-day period the draft order laid under subsection (1) is approved by a resolution of the National Assembly for Wales, the Welsh Ministers may make an order in the terms of the draft order.
(5) The procedure in subsections (6) to (9) shall apply to the draft order instead of the procedure in subsection (4) if—
(a) the National Assembly for Wales so resolves within the 30-day period, or(b) a committee of the Assembly charged with reporting on the draft order so recommends within the 30-day period and the Assembly does not by resolution reject the recommendation within that period.(6) The Welsh Ministers must have regard to—
(a) any representations,(b) any resolution of the National Assembly for Wales, and(c) any recommendations of a committee of the Assembly charged with reporting on the draft order,made during the 60-day period with regard to the draft order.(7) If after the expiry of the 60-day period the draft order is approved by a resolution of the National Assembly for Wales, the Welsh Ministers may make an order in the terms of the draft order.
(8) If after the expiry of the 60-day period the Welsh Ministers wish to proceed with the draft order but with material changes, the Welsh Ministers may lay before the National Assembly for Wales—
(a) a revised draft order, and(b) a statement giving a summary of the changes proposed.(9) If the revised draft order is approved by a resolution of the National Assembly for Wales, the Welsh Ministers may make an order in the terms of the revised draft order.
(10) For the purposes of this section an order is made in the terms of a draft order or revised draft order if it contains no material changes to its provisions.
(11) An order may not be made by the Secretary of State under section 13(6) unless a draft of the instrument containing the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”

Amendments 88 and 89B agreed.

Clause 15 : Procedure for orders under sections 12 to 14

Amendment 90

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

90: Clause 15, leave out Clause 15

Amendment 90 agreed.

Clause 16 : Restrictions on Ministerial powers

Amendments 90A to 90C

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

90A: Clause 16, page 9, line 26, leave out “the preceding provisions of this Act” and insert “sections 1 to 5”

90B: Clause 16, page 9, line 37, leave out “the preceding provisions of this Act” and insert “sections 1 to 5”

90C Transpose Clause 16 to before Clause 8

Amendment 90A to 90C agreed.

Clause 18: Restriction on transfer and delegation of functions

Amendment 91

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

91: Clause 18, page 10, line 13, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
“(1) An order under the preceding provisions of this Act may not transfer any function to—
(a) a charity, or(b) a person not otherwise exercising public functions who is not a charity,unless the charity or person has consented.”

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to introduce this final group of amendments of what has been an excellent Report stage. In moving Amendment 91 I shall speak to the remaining amendments.

Noble Lords will know that considerable concern has been expressed in debate about the relationship between the Bill—and the proposals arising from it—and charities. I am pleased to be able to confirm that the amendments mean that the consent of charities to receive functions as a result of activities under the Bill will have to be sought under the legislation. The amendments are designed to effect that change and I hope that the House will be prepared to accept them.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

I thank the Minister for responding to the concerns that we have expressed throughout the Bill about charities. We think that these amendments fit the bill.

Amendment 91 agreed.

Clause 20: Transfer schemes

Amendments 92 to 94

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

92: Clause 20, page 11, line 27, leave out “the transfer of a function under section 12” and insert “an order under section 12 or (Powers relating to other bodies)”

93: Clause 20, page 11, line 36, leave out from “transferred” to end of line 37 and insert “to the Welsh Ministers, a person exercising Welsh devolved functions or a body corporate”

94: Clause 20, page 11, line 37, at end insert—
“(3A) A transfer scheme may not transfer anything to a charity unless it has consented.”

Amendments 92 to 94 agreed.

Clause 21: Transfer schemes: procedure

Amendment 95

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

95: Clause 21, page 12, line 37, at end insert “or a cross-border operator”

Amendment 95 agreed.

Clause 24: Orders: supplementary

Amendment 96 and 97 not moved.

Clause 25: Interpretation

Amendments 98 to 103

Moved by

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

98: Clause 25, page 14, line 6, at end insert—
““charity” has the meaning given in section 1(1) of the Charities Act 2006;”

99: Clause 25, page 14, line 8, at end insert—
““cross-border operator” means a person exercising functions or carrying on activities in or with respect to Wales (or any part of it) and England (or any part of it), but does not include—
(a) an internal drainage board, or (b) a Regional Flood and Coastal Committee established under section 22(1)(c) of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010;”

100: Clause 25, page 14, line 25, at end insert—
““Wales” has the same meaning as in the Government of Wales Act 2006;
“Welsh devolved function” means—
(a) a function conferred under an Act or Measure of the National Assembly for Wales;(b) a function which is exercisable in or as regards Wales and could be conferred by an Act of the Assembly;(c) a function in relation to which a function (other than a function of being consulted) is exercisable by the Welsh Ministers, the First Minister or the Counsel General to the Welsh Assembly Government,and references to a person exercising a Welsh devolved function do not include a person exercising such a function by virtue of arrangements under section 14”

101: Clause 25, page 14, line 28, at end insert “or the National Assembly for Wales”

102: Clause 25, page 14, line 29, after “(2)” insert “in relation to an order laid before Parliament”

103: Clause 25, page 14, line 31, at end insert—
“( ) For the purposes of subsection (2) in relation to an order laid before the National Assembly for Wales, no account is to be taken of any time during which the Assembly is dissolved or is in recess for more than four days.”

Amendments 98 to 103 agreed.

NHS Reform

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Statement

19:10

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement that was made in another place this afternoon by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health. The Statement is as follows:

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement about NHS modernisation. At the outset I should say that modernisation of the NHS is necessary, it is in patients’ interests and it is the right thing to do to secure the NHS for future generations.

The Health and Social Care Bill is one part of a broader vision of health and health services in this country, which are among the best in the world, where we have world-leading measurement of the results that we achieve for patients, where patients always experience ‘no decision about me without me’, where national standards and funding secure a high-quality, comprehensive service available to all, based on need, not ability to pay, and where the power to deliver is in the hands of local doctors, nurses, health professionals and local communities.

The House will know that the Bill completed its Committee Stage last Thursday. I was also able to announce last week that a further 43 GP-led commissioning consortia had successfully applied to be pathfinder commissioning groups. We now have a total of 220 groups representing 87 per cent of the country; that is 45 million patients whose GP surgeries are committed to showing how they can further improve services for their patients. In addition, 90 per cent of relevant local authorities have come forward to be early implementers of health and well-being boards, bringing democratic leadership to health, public health and social care at local level.

This progress is very encouraging. Our desire is to move forward with the support of doctors, nurses and others who work in the NHS and make a difference to the lives of so many, day in, day out, but we recognise that this speed of progress has brought with it some substantive concerns, expressed in various quarters. Some of those concerns are misplaced or based on misrepresentations, but we recognise that some are genuine. We want to continue to listen to, engage with and learn from experts, patients and front-line staff within the NHS and beyond and to respond accordingly.

I can therefore tell the House that we propose to take the opportunity of a natural break in the passage of the Bill to pause, listen to and engage with all those who want the NHS to succeed and subsequently to bring forward amendments to improve the plans further in the normal way. We have, of course, listened and improved the plans already. We strengthened the overview and scrutiny process of local authorities in response to consultation and in Committee we made amendments to make it absolutely clear that competition will be on the basis of quality, not price. Patients will choose and GPs will refer on the basis of comparisons of quality, not price.

Let me indicate some areas where I anticipate that we will be able to make improvements in order to build and sustain the support for the modernisation that we recognise to be crucial. Choice, competition and the involvement of the private sector should only ever be a means to improve services for patients, not ends in themselves. Some services, such as A&E or major trauma, clearly will never be based on competition and people will want to know that private companies cannot cherry pick NHS activity, undermining existing NHS providers. That competition must be fair. Under Labour, the private sector got a preferential deal and £250 million was paid for operations that never happened. We have to stop that. People want to know that the GP commissioning groups cannot have a conflict of interest, are transparent in their decisions and are accountable not only nationally but locally through the democratic input to health and well-being boards. We, too, want this to be the case. People want to know that the patient’s voice through Healthwatch and in commissioning is genuinely influential. Doctors and nurses in the service have been clear that they want the changes to support truly integrated services, breaking down the institutional barriers that have held back modernisation in the past.

As I told the House on 16 March, we are committed to listening and we will take every opportunity to improve the Bill. The principles of the Bill are: that patients should always share in decisions about their care; that front-line staff should lead the design of local services; that patients should have access to whichever services offer the best quality; that all NHS trusts should gain the freedoms of foundation trust status; that we should take out day-to-day political interference through the establishment of a national NHS Commissioning Board and through strong independent regulation for safety, quality and effectiveness; that the public’s and patients’ voice must be strengthened; and that local government should be in the lead in public health strategy. These are the principles of a world-class NHS that command widespread professional and public backing. All these principles will be pursued through the Bill and our commitment to them as a coalition Government is undiminished. We support and are encouraged by all those across England who are leading these changes nationally and locally and we want them to know that they can be confident in taking this work forward. Our objective is to listen to them and to support them as we take the Bill through.

No change is not an option. With an ageing and increasing population, new technologies and rising costs, we have to adapt and improve. Innovation and clinical leadership will be key. We want to reverse a decade of declining productivity. We have to make productive care and preventive services the norm and we must continue to cut the costs of administration, of quangos and of bureaucracy.

The House knows my commitment to the NHS and my passion for it to succeed. To protect the NHS for the future must mean change—not in the values of the NHS but through bringing forward and empowering leadership within the NHS to secure the quality of services on which we all depend. Change is never easy, but the NHS is well placed to respond. I can tell the House today that the NHS is in a healthy financial position. Waiting times remain at historic low levels, as promised under the NHS constitution. Patients with symptoms of cancer now see a specialist more quickly than ever before. MRSA is at the lowest level since records began. We have helped over 2,000 patients to have access to new cancer drugs that previously would have been denied to them. This is a testament to the excellent work of NHS staff up and down the country and we thank them for their efforts to achieve these results for their patients.

This coalition Government are increasing NHS funding by £11.5 billion over this Parliament, but the service cannot afford to waste any money. We can sustain and build on these improvements only by modernising the service to be ever more efficient and effective with taxpayers’ money. The Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set the NHS on a sustainable course, building on the commitment and skills of the people who work for it. Our purpose is simple—to provide the best healthcare service anywhere in the world. I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

19:17

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Earl for repeating the Statement. I have to confess that this is a very puzzling moment. I do not recall a Statement in the middle of the proceedings of a Bill—a Bill that has only just finished in Standing Committee in the Commons. I would be grateful if the noble Earl could tell me whether there has ever been a Statement announcing a break, natural or otherwise, in the middle of the passage of a Bill. I wonder what might happen in this natural break, whatever that is. Perhaps the Minister can define this new parliamentary term. How long will it be? Why is it really necessary? What is likely to take place during that period? What exactly are the Government intending to do during that period? It seems to me that the things that the Government have said that they are going to do during that period should have happened anyway before the Bill was introduced and that they should have been ongoing. This should not be necessary.

However, I welcome the recognition in this Statement of the concerns that people have about the speed of change. I question the use of the word “continue” in the Statement in the context of listening and engaging. Frankly, if Mr Lansley had been listening and engaging, this Statement would probably not have been necessary. However, if it means that the Secretary of State really is going into listening mode, I welcome that and look forward to seeing it.

I welcome the fact that the Statement touches on the areas that are of concern to people. I also welcome the recognition in the Statement of the 10 years or so of investment by my Labour Government, which is why the NHS is as successful as it is today. However, I also note that the Statement, just like Andrew Lansley’s Second Reading speech when the Bill was introduced in another place, elides the question of Part 3, which gives great powers to a utility regulator—the new economic regulator, Monitor. Therein lie many of Mr Lansley’s problems, because people have worked out what the implications of that part of the Bill are for the NHS. When will Mr Lansley start to listen to the concerns that have been expressed by the Health Select Committee, all the royal colleges, the health regulators, all the bodies representing employees and staff in the NHS, including the BMA, the patients’ organisations, his partners in this Government, the Liberal Democrats, many of the voluntary organisations involved in health—those concerned with diabetes, heart disease, cancer, asthma and dementia, for example—and, in particular, organisations concerned with long-term conditions?

We can build a picture of what has happened in the past week or so. First, the Prime Minister was wrong-footed by Ed Miliband on 16 March on whether the health service would now be subject to European Union competition law. It seems to me that he went away, found out about it and confirmed that that was the case. Will the Minister confirm that? There has been a stream of media stories reflecting serious concerns about the Health and Social Care Bill. Most recently, in the Daily Telegraph, Sarah Wollaston MP urged her party to drop plans for the radical reorganisation. On 1 April, Elizabeth Rigby, chief political correspondent of the Financial Times, reported concerns about the rapidity of change.

On 2 April, the Telegraph said that the Prime Minister was drawing up key changes to the Bill and planning amendments. This article is remarkably detailed about meetings at Downing Street with David Nicholson, the head of the NHS, and Mr Lansley. It says that Mr Lansley was not for compromising and that reforms had gone too far to be undone, which was the subject of a question that I asked in Oral Questions only today. I ask the noble Earl to confirm whether that is the case.

The Statement also reflects the fact that Mr Lansley is very firm about the Government’s intentions for the NHS, but it is not consistent with the stories in the media about the activities at No. 10 Downing Street. Will the noble Earl tell us who is correct about these matters? I will draw a veil over what the noble Lords, Lord Owen and Lord Tebbit, have said about this matter in the past few days.

I am concerned about exactly what will happen during this natural break, which brings me to my final questions. My concern is that this break is being taken in order to strike a deal. I can just imagine a possible conversation between Nick Clegg and the Prime Minister. Nick Clegg says to the Prime Minister, “We want local accountability strengthened”, which I think many of us here would agree with. The Prime Minister then says to Nick Clegg, “Okay, but your people in the Lords must deliver Part 3 of this Bill to establish the economic regulator, Monitor, without dilution of its powers”. There is no doubt that that would be the prize for the Conservatives. It has been recognised by the noble Lords, Lord Owen and Lord Tebbit, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. I fear that this is about keeping the coalition together rather than any assessment of what the NHS might need at this moment. The past few days have seen David Cameron conceding that he and the Health Secretary have failed to get their message across. There have also been anonymous briefings from No. 10, to which I have referred.

I am further concerned that this is about playing politics with the NHS. Will the Minister reassure the House that that is not the case? This is too important to be used as a political football or to see decisions taken about the NHS simply to save David Cameron’s face or Nick Clegg’s face. What is required now is a rethink, a pause in the legislation and some root-and-branch changes.

19:24

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her not entirely critical response, in that she acknowledged that we are listening to the concerns that have been expressed. I am almost tempted to remind the House of that dictum of Oscar Wilde or at least to modify it: if there is one thing worse than not listening, it is listening.

I believe that it is right for the Government to take advantage of a few weeks where Parliament is going into recess in order to take stock of some of the criticisms that we know are being voiced about the possible effects of the Bill; indeed, some arose in last Thursday’s debate in your Lordships’ House.

Let me answer the noble Baroness’s points in turn. We are clear that the modernisation of the NHS is a necessity and not an option. There is significant evidence that our reforms across the country, as evidenced by the pathfinders mentioned in the Statement, are welcomed by general practitioners. We have been engaged in a continuous process of listening and engaging. The consultation process following the publication of the White Paper, our response to that and our clarification of the kind of competition that we wish to see in the health service are all examples of that approach.

We remain completely committed to the principles of the Bill that patients should be involved in decision-making about their care, that there should be a stronger patient voice and that there should be stronger clinical leadership in the way in which services are commissioned. We are completely committed—I hope that the House will hardly need me to say this—to the founding principle of the NHS: universal access free at the point of use, regardless of the ability to pay. Indeed, that is what the reforms are about. They are about protecting the NHS now so that it can survive into the future.

This pause—and that is all it is—is about taking advantage of the short break in the parliamentary process of the passage of the Bill as we go into the Easter Recess by listening to how these measures are being received on the ground and taking stock of the feedback that we get. It is about ensuring that those implementing the changes on the front line have everything that they need to help the NHS to improve for the better.

We have listened and we will continue to listen. The noble Baroness was a little doubtful that the Government had ever been in listening mode. I hope that she will recognise that, in response to the White Paper consultation last summer, we made a number of changes to our proposals: strengthening the role of health and well-being boards; creating a clearer identity for Healthwatch England; increasing the transparency in commissioning by requiring all GP consortia to have a published constitution; and changing our proposal that maternity services should be commissioned by the NHS Commissioning Board. All those were a response to feedback that we had had. When we introduced the Bill in January, we amended it in a number of ways to respond to particular concerns that had been raised in another place. I have already mentioned competition only being on the basis of quality and not price. We are continuing to listen to the messages that have come out of Committee stage in another place.

It is a pity to hear the noble Baroness criticise our plans for an economic regulator, as that is the way in which we see a fairer playing field emerging for providers to the NHS. We do not have the guarantee of a fair playing field at the moment. As the Statement pointed out, her Government—for the best of motives—engaged the independent sector in providing services to the NHS, but they did so on very preferential terms, which in my book were unfair to and disadvantaged the NHS. We want the system to be blind to the ownership of providers so that patient choice and the quality of services determine where care is provided for the individual patient and so that there is no bias, or as little bias as possible, in the system. You can achieve that only through independent regulation.

It is not true to say that we want a market free-for-all; that is far from the truth. Again, however, this listening exercise will enable us to take stock of opinions on that score. Moreover, if there are some unintended consequences emerging from the Bill as worded, we will certainly address them. We have no wish to get this wrong. As the noble Baroness said, this is too important a matter to get wrong. I hope that, despite her scepticism of and opposition to much of what the Government are seeking to do, she will seek to engage constructively in order to ensure that we take advantage of the opportunity that we now have to drive further efficiencies and quality in the way in which care is commissioned in the NHS. We want to put the patient truly at the centre of healthcare and thereby create a more cost-effective service for the taxpayer. I believe that we will come out of this period of reflection stronger, because no doubt we will have some clear messages that we will need to reflect and act on.

19:31

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for repeating the Statement made in another place and I will not rehearse our support on these Benches for reform of the health service. Some of those reasons were wonderfully spelt out by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, in his debate on the NHS last week. However, it is no secret that Members on these Benches do not regard the Bill as it presently stands as perfect. Despite the fact that it did not receive a great deal of attention in the speculative narrative of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, it is known that my colleagues want to see changes and indeed have welcomed some of the changes that we have already seen.

I wonder if I may press my noble friend on two issues. The first was also raised by the noble Baroness—the timescale. My noble friend indicated that he sees the timescale as using the Recess, but the Health Secretary wishes to engage and consult with a substantial number of people. Given that, when the Bill comes back after Report in the other place with amendments, which we would welcome, can we expect it to come to this House before the Summer Recess or will the natural break take us a little further? That may be necessary, and some clarity would be helpful, if my noble friend can provide it.

Secondly, in repeating the Statement my noble friend mentioned increasing accountability,

“locally, through the democratic input to the Health and Wellbeing Boards”.

I and my colleagues welcome this, but can he spell it out a little further? At present, the locally elected democratic input to health and well-being boards is extremely modest, so we would be keen to see an indication that something rather more substantial might be possible.

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to my noble friend. In answer to his first question, it is likely that the period of listening and engagement will extend through the Easter Recess and beyond. The precise duration of the intermission has not been fixed yet because much will depend on the volume of feedback that we receive. While I have not spoken to the usual channels about this, I am still working on the premise that your Lordships’ House will receive the Bill prior to the Summer Recess. I believe that, if the House agrees, we can thereby reach the Bill’s conclusion within a reasonable space of time. That will enable us to adhere to the current timetable for the implementation of our proposals. But that statement does come with what I might call a health warning because we are clear that we want to listen to the opinions of everybody who counts in this, and it could be that the period of reflection may extend into the late spring. But no doubt I will be able to enlighten him further in due course.

My noble friend mentioned the democratic input at health and well-being board level. This is one of the issues that we will want to receive opinions about because I know there has been disquiet on this front. He knows that his party was instrumental in building into our plans the democratic element of health and well-being boards and the fact that they should be situated at local authority level. That was a very positive contribution made by the Liberal Democrat Party which has, by and large, been widely accepted. If there are ways we can bolster that democratic accountability without cutting through the core principles that we have articulated for decision-making in the health service, then we are willing to look at them.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, the Minister said that the NHS was in a healthy financial position and that the Government intend to increase NHS spending by £11.5 billion over the life of this Parliament. Yet, in the last financial year, the NHS had an underspend of £5.5 billion and the forecast this year is a further underspend of another billion. The Chancellor has said that he intends not to hand this money over to the NHS but to keep it in the Treasury. The Nuffield Trust says that this is a retrospective cut in health spending. Does the Minister agree?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord needs to bear in mind that the forecast surplus for 2010-11 represents a very small proportion of the department’s budget. It is greatly to the credit of the health service and the department that they have managed to come in on the right side of the line and by a margin that, in the scheme of things, is not significant. I say that without being at all blasé about the figure of £1.4 billion. I suggest to the noble Lord that that represents good financial management. Yes, the money that represents the surplus cannot be carried forward into the subsequent year but that is not the same thing as saying that providers, for example foundation trusts, may not use their carry-forward balances. That is still possible at provider level. I hope, on reflection, that the noble Lord will not think too badly of the way the service has been run in the past few months.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister must be correct that, in a reform of this scale and magnitude, it is right to take as much advantage as possible to listen to those who can help in the implementation and timing of the reforms. I hope he can also assure the House that the Government will not be diverted from the essential purpose of these reforms by those who have never accepted that public services do not need to be run by a central organisation in a public monopoly. As my noble friend will be well aware, we were already some way down this road in 1997 with GP fundholder practices. We wasted five years when the then Government reversed those changes and went back to a centralised organisation before realising that that would not work and had to restart the process of introducing delegation and alternative providers into the NHS.

We are now 10 years further on from that and it is important that the changes are not lost in the voices that will always oppose changes that are necessary to reform the way that the NHS works. I hope that, while listening to those voices, the Minister can assure us that these essential reforms will be carried through and that the period of uncertainty for the NHS will not be any longer than it needs to be before we can get to the kind of reformed NHS that we all want to see.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and can give him those assurances. He is right: we have somehow got ourselves into the position of having a National Health Service that is, in essence, managerially and administratively led instead of being clinically led. That has happened by a process of accretion and slow and steady development. We need to get back to one of the principles that the incoming Labour Government articulated in 1997 when they introduced primary care groups. That was an attempt by them to do exactly what we are trying to do: to have clinically led commissioning in the health service. Unfortunately, to my mind, primary care groups morphed into primary care trusts and thereby became administrative units which became more and more divorced from clinical decision-making.

I can reassure my noble friend that we do not want to dilute the principle of clinically led commissioning. We believe that it is right and that we can build on the experience of the past; not just primary care groups, but also the good parts of fundholding, which had some good elements, and practice-based commissioning groups, which the previous Government introduced. This is an important opportunity, as I said earlier, to capitalise on the NHS as it now is and to shed some of the unhelpful elements that get in the way of driving quality and patient care.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the Statement suggests that the Government are satisfied with the performance of the health service, both fiscally and in the quality of care it provides. It is therefore surprising that the Statement also says that we need to improve productivity and quality. How does an economic regulator promote competition based on quality?

[Earl Howe]

The economic regulator will do two things. It will fix prices for the purposes of the tariff and it will preside over the marketplace—such as it exists—in healthcare so that anti-competitive conduct will be prohibited. It will bear down upon conflicts of interest and anti-competitive practices of all kinds and, in conjunction with the NHS commissioning board, it will ensure that the pricing system in the NHS incentivises quality. There are, as the noble Lord knows, a number of levers that we can use to do that through the tariff.

[Lord Warner]

Is the Minister aware that many people are concerned about whether the Government will listen excessively to those who make the greatest noise among some of the vested interests that the Bill tries to tackle? Is he aware that many people wish to look at the Bill forensically to make sure that changes in commissioning lead to more competent commissioners, something we have not achieved in the past: that we start to dismantle some of the barriers to entry in order to create more diverse providers; and that we look very seriously at the pricing system to make sure that it does not just put money into the pockets of acute hospitals, but brings more care closer to home?

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, whose book, I may say—without indicating that I am in receipt of a commission for saying so—deserves reading by every thinking healthcare commentator. He is right, of course; we need to ensure that the vision that I think is shared by many in this House, regardless of party, can be successfully implemented. I recognise the implication of his question, which is that this House is eminently capable of examining the Bill forensically. When it comes to us I have no doubt that we will do that however long it takes, and I look forward to that. However, it would be a rather cloth-eared Government who were insensitive to the voices that have been heard in recent days outside this Chamber and another place. We need to dispel many of the misunderstandings that exist as well as address some of the genuine misgivings that people have. It is right that, without losing too much momentum in the process, we take these few weeks to do just that.

[Lord Ribeiro]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement. The health reforms are necessary because they address the complexity and cost of medical care, which are growing daily as our population also grows. Our elderly population is growing simply because of the improvements in healthcare over the past few years. Here I acknowledge the unprecedented funding provided by the previous Government to stimulate the health service in its development. This Government have agreed to enhance that funding.

The noble Lord, Lord Darzi, signalled a change from process management to service delivery based on quality. This Government have accepted the challenge to pursue a quality agenda, knowing that, although quality care is costly, at the end of the day—particularly in my speciality, surgery—there is no question that good quality care, particularly the use of minimally invasive surgery, leads to early discharges of patients and better outcomes. I hope that this principle of quality is something that the Government will pursue. Is it my noble friend’s intention that the emphasis in health reforms should remain on quality outcomes being the bedrock of the reforms?

[Earl Howe]

I can reassure my noble friend Lord Ribeiro instantly on that. He will know, I am sure, that the acronym that was coined by the previous Government, QIPP, which stands for “quality, innovation, prevention and productivity”, is symbolic of a whole series of workstreams not just in the Department of Health but throughout the health service to ensure that quality is maintained and enhanced in the service. Unless we deliver higher quality to patients, the service will not be sustainable. Some people say that higher quality care costs more money but, as my noble friend will know from his own craft speciality, the better the care that you deliver the less costly it often is because care that is delivered in a substandard way often results in unintended consequences, such as patients returning to hospital with complications. We need to drive safe care and right care in the system.

Many of the levers that we have to improve quality are not in the Health and Social Care Bill at all—for example, the need to roll out the information agenda, without which there can be little transparency of quality. Those activities are being pursued with energy and drive in my department.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords—

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords—

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I think that we have time for both speakers. It is time to hear from the Labour Party and then the Cross Benches.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, months after the Bill was launched upon an unsuspecting world—including, apparently, the Prime Minister—it seems to have been admitted to the fracture clinic if not to the intensive care ward. A number of questions arise from the Statement itself. For example, the Statement says:

“Some services, like A&E or major trauma, clearly will never be based on competition”.

Is not the implication that other services will be based on competition? Will the Minister comment on the predominant role of Monitor as a promoter of competition, as opposed to being simply an economic regulator?

On the GP commissioning groups or consortia, will the Government look again at the composition of those groups as well as their degree of local accountability? Will he also look at the powers of the health and well-being boards? Does he have any views about those in addition to the question of their composition?

As for the NHS being in a healthy financial position, does the Minister have any comment on tonight’s story in the Evening Standard about people who were made redundant last Friday having to be re-engaged by PCTs and other organisations, at considerable cost to the NHS?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, those who have been re-engaged by the health service, having taken redundancy or early retirement, will forfeit their redundancy pay because there is a clawback arrangement in force, as I told the House the other day.

The noble Lord asked a number of questions. I want to be very brief because I am aware that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, wants to get in before the time is up. Monitor was described as a promoter of competition. Expressed in stark terms like that, it sounds as though its job will be to go around drumming up competition where there is none already. That is not a correct reading of its functions; it is there to bear down on anti-competitive conduct and to ensure fair competition. The composition of consortia is a concern that we have heard about, and we will listen to that concern. It is now up to the pathfinder consortium to think about this kind of question. The early implementers of health and well-being boards are starting to think about those powers and how they can be used and we will listen to whatever they have to tell us.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that patients very often cannot get an appointment with the GP of their choice so there is no continuity? If GPs have to undertake administration on the consortia, will this not get worse? Would it not be better if the consortia consisted of a mixture of GPs, specialists, nurses, administrators and patients? Working together would surely be better than working in conflict.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right about working together, and our vision for good, clinically led commissioning is that all clinicians, not just GPs but everyone with a stake in the patient pathway, should join together and determine what good care looks like. However, she is mistaken in her first assumption. We are not asking thousands of GPs to become administrators. It will take only a very few to took after the commissioning of care in consortia, and the administration will be taken care of by management employed by the consortia.

Draft Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 (Remedial) Order 2010

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

19:52

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the draft order laid before the House on 20 December 2010 be approved.

Relevant document: 9th Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the purpose of this draft remedial order is to abolish the certificate of approval scheme to prevent sham marriages. A certificate gives migrants written permission from the Home Office to marry. I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its support in this matter.

In its first report on the order published on 16 November 2010 the JCHR agreed that the scheme should be abolished. It also agreed with the Government’s approach in using this order to achieve abolition. The Government laid a revised order in December 2010 making minor technical changes recommended by the JCHR. In its second report published on 14 March the JCHR recommended that Parliament now approve this order.

The Government want to bring this order into force subject to your Lordships’ agreement. We are doing so for two reasons. First, the domestic courts have declared that the scheme is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Abolishing the scheme will remove this incompatibility. Secondly, changes made following rulings from the domestic courts have weakened the scheme and the Government do not consider it any longer to be an effective method of dealing with sham marriages.

The certificate of approval scheme was introduced in 2005 by our predecessors to protect the immigration system and marriage laws from abuse, in particular from those entering into sham marriages. The scheme did not and still does not apply to Anglican marriages taking place in England and Wales and this different treatment for non-Anglicans is at the heart of the judgments against the scheme. The House of Lords ruled the scheme unlawful in the case of Baiai by making a declaration of incompatibility relating to the discrimination between civil and Anglican marriages.

The scheme has been modified in several ways to comply with court rulings. This included allowing people who had been excluded from the original scheme to apply for permission to marry—for example, illegal immigrants—and we also suspended the application fee. However, the current scheme is now frankly a shadow of its former self. It is ineffective as a means of preventing sham marriages and we believe that there is no merit in continuing with it. The Government therefore intend to end the scheme, subject to approval, on 9 May. Your Lordships may ask what the effect will be. Indeed, it is hard to know. There is a risk that reports of sham marriages from registrars will rise when the scheme ends. Common sense indicates that this could well be the case. The Government will do their level best to combat the risk with the remaining powers at their disposal, which I am about to outline.

Reports of sham marriages are already rising. In 2009, there were 561 reports of suspected sham marriages; in 2010, there were 934 such reports. We do not know the extent to which this constitutes a real rise or simply better reporting. Either way, there is a problem here to tackle, which must be of concern to everyone in this House. Therefore, when the scheme is abolished, the UK Border Agency will use the powers it still has to tackle sham marriage abuse. It is looking at ways in which it can use them more effectively to stop what is obviously covert immigration. It will obtain sham marriage information from the register office.

The registrars will play a very important role in the future. It is already a key role and it will become even more important. Civil registrars will continue to exercise their duty to report any suspicious marriage to the UK Border Agency, under Section 24 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The existing rise in the number of reports reflects the work that is already being undertaken by registrars to focus on tackling this abuse. This work will be intensified. It will also ensure that migrants will still be permitted only to give notice to marry at one of a number of designated register offices throughout the UK. This will mean that the UKBA can focus resources on a limited number of locations.

The UK Border Agency will also act on information so that immigration officers will be able to disrupt sham marriages scheduled to take place in churches. The UKBA is building on existing relations with the Anglican Church so that suspicions about sham marriages are reported by clergymen and clergywomen. The UK Border Agency has developed training for members of the clergy to help them identify potentially suspicious marriages. Immigration officers and police will continue to work together to arrest facilitators, brides, grooms, witnesses and guests—anybody who is involved—at ceremonies across the country that are, in fact, sham.

The aim will be to destroy a criminal business if one is taking place. We have already had some notable successes. In the north-west, for instance, seven Czech nationals were recently sentenced to between 16 months and five years for their part in facilitating sham marriages, some of which were also bigamous. Two of the group also received custodial sentences. An operation in the Midlands has so far seen 13 people convicted, with sentences totalling 20 years. Last month the agency mounted its largest sham marriage operation to date, which saw officers swoop on geographically spread addresses in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Devon and Kent, while a simultaneous operation took place with the Dutch police in Rotterdam and Tilbury. There have also been a number of successful operations where churches have supplied information when they believed a marriage might be suspect. This included the conviction of an Anglican vicar, Alex Brown, and his two co-conspirators, who were recently found guilty of facilitating more than 300 sham marriages.

The UK Border Agency will also prevent a person who has entered into a sham marriage acquiring any immigration rights. The legal position is clear. Those who enter into sham marriages are not able thereby to rely on that marriage to obtain leave to remain or to acquire the right to reside in the UK as the spouse of an EEA national. Third-country nationals wishing to enter the UK on the basis of a marriage to a British citizen or person settled here are and will remain subject to our Immigration Rules. If we believe a marriage to be a sham, an application for leave to remain under the Immigration Rules will be refused. That still has to happen. Those who are discovered taking part in, or facilitating, sham marriages will be prosecuted.

We are closely scrutinising the marriage route to the right to remain and looking at measures to tighten it. We have already announced that we intend to consult on extending the spouses’ probationary period before settlement beyond the current two years. An additional period would allow a longer time to test the genuineness of the relationship. As I said, the Government will do their best to combat the abuse of immigration through sham marriage. I commend the order to the House.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, of course we welcome this order, which corrects a serious error of judgment by the previous Government. We also welcome the Minister’s careful explanation of its purpose and consequences. She said that there was evidence of an increase in the number of sham marriages in the figures for 2009 to 2010. If I have the correct figures, the number of sham marriages increased from 561 in the first of those years to 934 in the second. However, is it not a fact that people do not acquire any additional rights to remain as a result of a marriage when they have entered the country for some other purpose? It would be interesting to find out what the subsequent immigration experience of the people was whose marriages were reported as possibly being sham. I am sure that the UK Border Agency carefully followed up all the reports that the Minister has mentioned. For future reference it would be useful to know how many of the people were subsequently prevented from remaining in the country because it was established that the marriages were not only suspected of being sham but were actually false.

The Minister also spoke about the experience of the police in detecting particular cases. She mentioned the Czechs who were convicted and sentenced to between 16 months and five years for facilitating sham marriages, and said that in some cases those marriages were proved to have been bigamous. Obviously, an offence was committed by those people quite apart from the immigration offence and they would have quite properly been convicted for that reason.

When the Labour Government introduced certificates of approval for marriages between people, either or both of whom were subject to immigration control, there were immediate warnings from those with experience of immigration law and the European Convention on Human Rights that the scheme was discriminatory. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association briefing to your Lordships for the Third Reading of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act said that the provisions on sham marriages did not apply to those who marry in the Church of England and were therefore discriminatory against all other religions, a point that was taken up by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its report of 30 June 2004 and by every single court that subsequently ruled on the matter.

The incompatibility with the convention was identified by the domestic courts as early as 2006, so the remedial order that we are now considering, which is intended to be “fast track” corrective action following a declaration of incompatibility, has taken five years to mature. Not surprisingly, the Joint Committee on Human Rights regrets the substantial delay. Having set out their intention to use a non-urgent remedial order under Section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, this Government acted as quickly as possible to abolish the certificate of approval scheme in response to the House of Lords judgment in the case of Baiai, which had been delivered on 30 July 1998. Will my noble friend say whether it would have made any difference if the matter had been treated as urgent? Does she think that there is any way of speeding up the process generally in any future cases, of which, fortunately, there have been very few so far?

The lesson to be learnt from this episode, however, is that it is dangerous to rush solutions to immigration problems through Parliament towards the end of the proceedings on a Bill without any consultation and in the face of reasoned criticism. The clauses embodying the certificate of approval scheme were introduced on recommitment, a wholly unsuitable mechanism for radical proposals that affect the very institution of marriage, as we said at the time. We were not satisfied that the scheme was effective, proportionate and compatible with the ECHR. The failure of the previous Labour Government to listen to the warnings by the Liberal Democrats, the JCHR and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has cost the taxpayer perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds in litigation and compensation, and there may be further claims still to come. In particular, there is one case before the European Court of Human Rights, and the JCHR proposed in its 31st report of Session 2007-08 that where there are multiple claims for compensation, the Government should adopt an approach that minimises the burden on the court and expense for the taxpayer. The Government do not consider that there is a significant risk of multiple repeat cases because potential litigants have had plenty of time to challenge the certificate of approval scheme since it was ruled to be unlawful.

There was a scheme for reimbursement of the certificate of approval fee of £295, or £590 where both partners to a marriage were subject to immigration control, but only where the payment caused the applicants real financial hardship at the time of payment. Of the 1,213 requests for repayment of the fee, only 170 had been granted and 49 remained outstanding at the end of January this year. In his letter to the JCHR of 21 December 2010, the Minister said that ILPA was wrong to say that the test for repayment was difficult to satisfy, because anyone able to meet the financial hardship test would qualify. However, the point that ILPA was making was that there was a four-and-a-half year interval between the introduction of the scheme and the date on which the UKBA first made arrangements to reimburse those who had suffered financial hardship. Most people do not keep records for that length of time and might well be unable to produce the evidence required. It does not seem to have occurred to the Minister that this could partly explain the relatively small number of applications for repayment and the 82 per cent failure rate of the ones that were made. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that measure.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, this order removes the requirement, known as the certificate of approval scheme, for those who are subject to immigration control to obtain the Secretary of State's written permission to marry in the UK. The Minister has set out the Government's reasons for terminating the scheme on 9 May this year, namely that our courts have ruled that the scheme is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, and the changes that were made following those rulings have significantly weakened the effectiveness of the scheme.

The certificate of approval scheme was introduced in 2005 and clearly had a not inconsiderable effect on addressing the issue of sham marriages. During the life of the scheme there were 120,000 applications for a certificate of approval, of which 5,463 were refused. As has been said, under Section 24 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, civil registrars have a duty to report any suspicious marriage to the UK Border Agency. In 2004 there were 3,578 reports of suspected sham marriages. Following the introduction of the certificate of approval scheme in 2005, reports fell to 452 in 2005, or one-eighth of the total in the previous year, and stayed below 400 cases each year until 2009, when 561 reports were made.

In the light of the court judgments, we support the order, but we need to know a little more than the Minister told us about the measures that the Government are now taking to address the issue of sham marriages, and why they believe that those measures will be successful. The Government have said that the increase in 2009 and the further increase in 2010 to 934 reports of suspicious marriages is an indication of the work that they have undertaken with registrars to focus on this issue. In other words, if the figure increases, we are having more success. However, the figure reduced dramatically when the certificate of approval scheme came in during 2005. That would suggest that a reduction in the number of reports, rather than an increase, indicates success. It could well be, in the light of the current Supreme Court ruling that has reduced the effectiveness of the current scheme, that those involved in sham marriages have started to become somewhat bolder again, and that the increase in the number of reports in the past two years is because of a significantly larger increase in the number of sham marriages.

It would be helpful if the Minister could say why she believes that the possible scenario that I have painted to explain the increase in the number of Section 24 reports is not likely to be the case, and that the scenario that the Government have painted to explain the increase in the number of Section 24 reports is correct. Mr Damian Green MP, the Minister for Immigration is on record in Hansard as saying that the increase in the reports of suspected sham marriages in 2010,

“shows that the certificate of approval scheme was becoming less effective, as well as the success of our crackdown on sham marriage and the subsequent publicity”.—[Official Report, Commons, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 29/3/11; col. 4.]

That could be the case; but if it is, what is the hard evidence that shows that the recent work by the UK Border Agency is actually having an impact on reducing the number of sham marriages, as opposed to simply scratching the surface of an increasing problem?

The Minister for Immigration also referred at the end of last month to more than 130 operations having been carried out over the past 10 months, leading to more than 150 arrests. There is, of course, a big difference between being arrested and being charged, and between being charged and being convicted. Of the 150 arrests to which the Minister for Immigration referred, how many led to charges and how many then led to convictions in relation to sham marriages? Are we to assume from the comments of the Minister for Immigration that the number of people being charged and convicted for involvement in one way or another with sham marriages has increased in the past couple of years as the number of reports of suspicious marriages has started to increase again?

If the number of sham marriages being reported is increasing, how many more years can there be, with figures increasing year on year, before the noble Baroness is no longer convinced that more reports are a reflection of the work done by the UK Border Agency and instead that the increase in reports could be because the measures the Government are pursuing are not as effective as the certificate of approval scheme, and that the problem of sham marriages is getting worse?

I appreciate that targets have gone out of fashion as far as this Government are concerned, but how do they intend to measure the success or otherwise of the measures they are taking to combat sham marriages that were set out in the letter dated 21 December 2010 from the Minister for Immigration to the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights? I should also be grateful if the noble Baroness could say something about resources available to combat sham marriages, both human and financial—particularly since sham marriages are a route for illegal immigration—and that dealing with sham marriages is a declared priority for the Government. What will be the number of full-time equivalent staff at the UK Border Agency at the end of this year dealing with sham marriages, compared to the number of full-time equivalent staff in the agency doing so at the end of last year? Is the number projected to increase or decrease in future years? Is the Minister satisfied that sufficient resources are being devoted to this issue to prevent an increase in the number of sham marriages, and is there a plan B if there is compelling evidence that the number is increasing?

For the reasons that I have mentioned, we support the order, but I hope that the Minister will respond to some of the points I have made.

20:15

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I take an interest in these matters because I believe that when I represented the constituency of Glasgow North East there were more asylum seekers in my constituency than in any other in Scotland. That must have been the case, because when I held surgeries on a Friday night after I had finished Speaker's work and come to Glasgow, I used to finish at 8 pm, but when the asylum seekers came in large numbers, it was more like 11 pm.

If I understood the Minister correctly, she said that approved register offices would accommodate immigration officers. It should be remembered that the marriage of a young local girl to someone from abroad is in most cases a time of celebration. Often, friends and relatives want to come along to witness the marriage. If the dedicated register office for the young lady and her new husband to get married in is a distance away from where that person lives, it will create a social difficulty and mean that relatives cannot come along to the marriage.

There is something else that I would like to know. I keep hearing the term “sham marriages”. I understand what is meant by it, but I would rather use the term “suspect marriages”. Has the Minister given any thought to arranged marriages? I have experience of situations where a young girl who is a member of a family that comes from the Indian subcontinent has left her native city of Glasgow and gone back to marry a young man. In the eyes and in the tradition of that family, it is a genuine marriage: the family would not call it a sham marriage. However, the groom may have ideas of getting into the country as a married man and, at a later stage, will perhaps apply to join his bride. They have not been married in this country but abroad. Has the Minister given any thought to arranged marriages where these circumstances often arise?

The second paragraph of the Explanatory Note refers to,

“persons who are subject to immigration control”.

I well understand that someone who is an asylum seeker is subject to immigration control. However, my experience as a Member of Parliament was that often the asylum seeker was refused the right to remain. Sometimes he exhausted the appeal process but stayed in the country for longer than the period when he was applying for asylum. In other words, he stayed on as an illegal immigrant for longer than he had enjoyed the legal status of being an asylum seeker, in the hope that the community would support him or that he might find a lawyer who would find a new way of allowing him to remain in the country. What about the person who has been refused, having exhausted all legal applications and tribunals to stay, but decides to remain? It has been my experience that, in some cases, those who have remained after exhausting all the procedures have sometimes stayed three or four years in the country. Is that person subject to immigration control or is there another category for them? Sometimes before a couple get married they enter into a partnership which may produce children before the actual marriage takes place. What consideration is given to the children of that union and the opportunity for a father or a mother to visit their children in this country?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, a number of points have been raised. I will deal first with those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. He is right to say that no additional rights are acquired by this conduct. On the question of the measures that we might be putting in place to deal with the absence of the certificate, I will say two things. The noble Lord asked whether we could have done this more speedily. We laid the orders within three months. The other thing is that it is wise, in order to limit the extent of the abuse and the absence of having the certificate scheme, to intensify and put in place really effective measures. One of the things we have been doing during the time between laying the order and being able to bring it to the House is ensuring that the measures that we have in place are as effective as we can make them. So the time has not been wasted. We have been as fair as we can be about the question of payments and when there has been a question of hardship the money has been refunded. The reason why there are relatively few applications, as the noble Lord said, is that people have had good warning. We do not believe that there is going to be a great splurge of demands following the repeal of this order.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, misquoted me and then asked me to approve a whole lot of assertions that I had not made. I did not say that I had a strong belief or confidence that our remaining powers would be effective. It is most unfortunate that the previous Government put in place, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, rightly said, a scheme which they were warned would be discriminatory and which has now been struck down. It would have been better if they had put in place one that was capable of continuous implementation. What I said was that it was hard to know what the effect of the abolition of the certificate would be. I also commented that we did not know the extent to which the rise in numbers was attributable to better reporting or to increases.

[Lord Rosser]

The quote I gave was actually from Mr Damian Green, the Minister for Immigration, who is on record in Hansard as saying that the increase in the reports of suspected sham marriages in 2010,

“shows that the certificate of approval scheme was becoming less effective, as well as the success of our crackdown on sham marriage and the subsequent publicity”.—[Official Report, Commons, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 29/3/11; col. 4.]

So the person to whom I was attributing the success of the Government’s measures was not the noble Baroness but Mr Damian Green, the Minister for Immigration.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My honourable friend in another place was pointing to the efforts that the Government are making to compensate for the absence of a scheme that, had it not been discriminatory, might still exist. Great efforts are being made to ensure that the hinge position now occupied by registrars will be effective. That is why the links between UKBA and registrars’ offices are being increased and intensified, why guidance is being issued to the clergy and why registrars’ offices are being given training to ensure that they can recognise an application for a suspicious marriage if it comes their way.

We have to intensify all those methods. It is difficult to know at this stage whether that will be effective. The Government will do our very best, because it is important and in the public interest that this should not be a route for covert immigration, which it has been becoming—people have been engaged in what we can only call organised crime to get people into this country via that route. We have conducted two publicity campaigns, as my honourable friend in another place mentioned, designed to alert both those who enforce and those who may try to abuse the system that measures are being taken against that.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, that in Scotland all register offices are designated, so the issue of having to travel does not arise. Only the application has to be made through approved offices. For people who marry abroad, other immigration rules still apply, including an English-language test, so not all the barriers against abuse fall away as a result of the absence of the certificate scheme. The answer to the noble Lord’s question—is a failed asylum-seeker subject to continuing immigration control?—is definitely yes. Anyone without status that enables them to stay will certainly be subject to immigration controls.

No other route will arise from the absence of the certificate scheme that will make it easier for people to abuse the system. We are doing our very best to ensure that the absence of the certificate scheme does not render either the sham marriage route—the suspect marriage route—or any other route to abusing the immigration system any easier to operate. As a general proposition, I think that the House would agree that there is increasing effort both to publicise the fact that the Government intend to act against abuse of the system and to put in place effective measures to ensure that, having said that we will do that, that is the outcome.

Although there is some anxiety in the House, which I share, about our ability to control the situation, we will be monitoring it carefully and making our best efforts to ensure that that route is not used. I hope that the House will feel it necessary to abolish the scheme and, on the basis of the Government putting in place the best methods that we can to control this, approve the order.

Motion agreed.

House adjourned at 8.30 pm.