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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.
Drugs (Roadside Testing) Bill
(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Before I speak to my Bill, may I, on behalf of the whole House and my constituents, congratulate His Royal Highness Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, on his 90th birthday today?
My Bill, which I hope will receive a Second Reading today, is part of an iterative process to try to maintain pressure on the Government to take seriously the issue of drug-driving. They talk the talk—I refer to both the present and the previous Government—but they have not delivered on the action. Since I was a Minister with responsibility for road safety and then a shadow Transport Minister, I have taken a deep interest in the subject of trying to get evidence to ensure that people are deterred, detected and punished if they are guilty of driving with drugs in their body.
There have been some horrific fatal accidents and accidents causing serious injury. I remember one on the A31 in my constituency, in which a young student was killed in a head-on crash because a lorry driver was on the wrong side of the road, having gone to sleep after taking a lot of amphetamines. There is a real problem here, as the Government accept. As recently as last Sunday, the Minister with responsibility for roads, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), produced an article saying that it was essential to get to grips with the issue. My concern is that unless or until the Government enable roadside drug testing to take place, we will never get to grips with the issue.
Back in 2003 I served on the Standing Committee on the Railways and Transport Safety Bill, which was enacted that year. That Bill included provisions to alter the road traffic legislation to allow a roadside drug test of people suspected of having drugs in their system. The test was to show not whether they were impaired by drugs, but whether they had drugs in their system. We were told then that the technology existed and that in due course the test would be available. It was spelled out in the Bill, however, that Home Office type approval was necessary.
That was back in 2003, and not only do we still not have Home Office type approval for a roadside drug- testing device, but the Home Office has not yet even been able to draw up a specification against which type approval might be given. Until a specification is drawn up, it is not possible for the experts in the field to submit their ideas. The best the Government can do is say that they have agreed a specification and type approval for a testing device which could be retained in police stations. That is something, but it is not the answer to the problem. It means that the police will have to have grounds for arresting somebody at the roadside before taking them to the police station. One can assume that relatively few people will be taken to the police station because of the difficulty of establishing at the roadside a reasonable suspicion that a driver has drugs in his system.
Why can we not have a system of roadside drug-testing devices? The irony—it is so sad—is that in this country we are trying to achieve an export-led manufacturing recovery for our economy. It is British experts and British manufacturers who are the key players in the technology. A firm called Concateno is already exporting devices to enable roadside drug testing to take place. It is exporting them all over the world. Various countries, including Finland, Croatia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have introduced legislation to enable roadside testing for drugs to take place, often utilising the very same devices produced by Concateno. Even more ironically, these drug-screening devices are used by the police forces themselves to screen police recruits to see whether they have drugs in their system. They are also used by the Ministry of Justice in the Prison Service and by quite a lot of schools, where pupils who have been caught with cannabis or other drugs are put on a drug abstinence regime which is then reinforced by these screening devices. These devices are therefore widely used.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that the police, and by implication the Home Office, should have sufficient confidence in these devices to use them to test members of the police force, and yet they apparently do not have enough confidence in them to test drivers at the roadside?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. When presented with such evidence, one has to question the motives. Why has the Home Office been so slow in coming forward with a specification against which it might be able to give type approval for these devices? It may be because it knows that were there to be such roadside testing, there would be a lot more work for the police to do, because many drivers have drugs in their system and if they were detected by such screening devices at the roadside following an accident, the whole process of law would come into play and many of them would end up with a conviction. We know that there is a cost associated with that, and I suspect that behind all this delay is a reluctance by the Home Office to open up a Pandora’s box of increased detection of offences and increased burden on the court system, and ultimately, perhaps, increased numbers of people in prison.
What could be happening? Funnily enough, on Wednesday of this week there was a short post from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from the Limestone Coast police in South Australia, which said:
“Statistics released by Limestone Coast police have shown significantly more people are being caught driving under the influence of drugs, than under the influence of alcohol. Superintendent Trevor Twilley says 6 per cent of people tested for drug driving are coming back with positive results, while less than half a per cent are returning positive results for alcohol.”
That is a direct consequence of the state of South Australia equipping its police with the technology and the means to do roadside drug tests. It is relatively new in South Australia but it is already having a major impact. If it can be done in South Australia, why can we not do it here, and now?
My Bill, like previous Bills along the same lines, says that a type approval for this drug-testing device must be in place within 12 months. My original Bill, introduced under the ten-minute procedure in April 2007, had the exclusive support of those who were at that time Opposition Members. Among those who supported that and subsequent Bills are a number of distinguished Members of the House. The Bill that I introduced in December 2007, which was identical to my ten-minute rule Bill, was supported by none other than my right hon. Friend the Leader of House, who I am delighted to see in his place today, and also by four colleagues who are now Select Committee Chairmen, and one colleague who is now a Deputy Speaker of this House, as well as, of course, what might be described as the more usual suspects, my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Shipley (Philip Davies). The legislation thus had a wide range of support, and that was back in 2007. The Bill then said that the type approval should be produced within one year. My right hon. Friend was obviously keen that that should happen. He is now in a very powerful position in the Government—arguably even more powerful than the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who will reply to the debate.
Why cannot the Government, with the support of the Leader of House and that of the Minister with responsibility for roads, who was also a signatory to one of my Bills in identical terms on this subject, deliver on this reasonable proposition that we should have type approval for a roadside drug-testing piece of equipment? I am sure that it would result in far fewer people driving on our roads under the influence of drugs or with drugs in their system. Far too few people are being brought to justice at the moment, so people think they can drive with drugs in their system with impunity. It is relatively rare that the courts are asked to deal with people who are guilty of drug-driving, because it is quite hard to detect at the moment.
One of the most famous recent cases was reported on 14 September 2010 when somebody called George Michael was jailed for eight weeks for drug-driving. He crashed his car while under the influence of cannabis and was given a five-year driving ban. He had also been guilty of driving under the influence of drugs on a previous occasion. I am not sure what Members of the House will think about the sentence that was imposed, but it shows that this illegal activity of drug-driving is taking place in this country, and the police themselves suggest that it is much more widespread than has so far been recognised by the Government.
We have had any number of Government initiatives promising to clamp down on drug-driving and have a publicity campaign about it. Even this week, in the Mail Online, there is an article similar to that in The Sunday Times to which I have already referred, saying that the Minister is determined to do something about it. All he has to do, if he really has the will, is to go to Concateno and ask what type approval would be needed to ensure that we can have a roadside testing device. Concateno would be able to give him that information relatively easily and the specification could be drawn up and the testing device given type approval sooner rather than later.
In the Government’s most recent road safety programme, they refer to this issue but only in the most general terms. Even the target that was set as recently as March, that the type approval for the device that would be used in police stations would be completed, has not yet been met. It was said that it would done by the end of April, but we are now in June and it still has not been completed. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be candid in explaining the reasons. For one reason or another, we have still not got the type approval that we need for both the roadside testing device and the testing device to be used in police stations. Until we get that we will not have an effective regime for dealing with the scourge of drug-driving.
The principle that Ministers should apply is this: where there is a will, there is a way. If the ministerial team has the will to do something about this and is prepared to override the block in the Home Office, particularly in its scientific branch, they will be able to deal with this. I think that it is an indictment of the Home Office’s scientific branch that, despite all its expertise, it is still unable to come up with the type approval specification.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Is the Home Office not right to be cautious about approving a device that could lead to someone getting a criminal sentence, and possibly going to jail if the accident is serious enough? On this occasion, delay may be wise and prudential, rather than the folly of bureaucracy.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is certainly right that it is absolutely vital that the devices used in police stations to provide conclusive evidence that a person has drugs in their system are 100% accurate. We are on the threshold of having type approval for such devices. I am dealing with screening devices that could be used at the roadside and that are comparable to the devices used to identify those suspected of drink-driving. Those screening devices, which people have to blow into through a tube, indicate prima facie whether there is excess alcohol in the system. It might turn out that those people, even if they have a positive breath test, are found not to test positive when they get down to the police station and a blood sample is taken. The device is a screening device. It enables the police, following road traffic accidents or offences, to screen people they suspect of having alcohol in their system. I am suggesting that we urgently need a similar system for people who are suspected of having drugs in their system.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. Press reports are saying that the screening devices used for drug-driving will be made evidential in and of themselves, without a second test back at the police station. Would it not be rather peculiar to have two different standards for roadside testing, one that had to be checked at the police station and one that had become evidential in itself?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is right, but he has read reports that these roadside devices will be used to provide evidence of guilt in themselves. As a lawyer, not to mention as a politician, I would be rather concerned about that, because I think that trying to streamline the processes in such a way could lead to an enormous amount of injustice. On the most recent sitting Friday we heard that quite a lot of criminal records are inaccurate. If the criminal records are inaccurate, how can we be sure that a roadside device for indentifying whether someone has excess alcohol in their system will be 100% accurate?
In response to my hon. Friend’s reasonable concerns, I would argue that we should keep the existing system for detecting alcohol, which has proved successful and resulted in a significant reduction in the number of people driving with excess alcohol in their system. We should keep the system of a roadside test and apply the same screening principle to people suspected of having taken drugs or whose driving is impaired as a result. We should then ensure that there is a cast-iron, rigorous system at the police station for ensuring the accuracy of those tests.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case and I agree with much of what he says. We hear of the dangers of passive smoking, so if a person has been in the presence of someone smoking cannabis and has ingested the fumes passively, might that not show up in some tests? Can we be assured that someone would not be found to have taken drugs when there had been a passive intake, rather than a distinct taking of drugs?
Mr Chope
I am afraid that my hon. Friend leaves me speechless, because I know nothing anything about how people can be contaminated by others smoking cannabis and so cannot comment on that. Perhaps he will in due course make a further contribution to the debate and explain a little more of his background knowledge—and how he acquired it. To be candid, I do not know the answer to his point.
Whatever the answer is, it should be within the capabilities of the Home Office’s scientific branch to reach a conclusion within an eight-year time scale, as it has already been working on this for eight years and we are now talking about another two or three years. If all the promises that have been made are treated in the same way in future, we will still be debating this in five, six or seven years’ time. Meanwhile, people will continue to be killed and maimed on our roads as a result of drug-driving. Drug-driving kills or injures people on our roads every week. I know that the Government and the Minister responsible for road safety take the issue seriously. They talk the talk, but can we please ensure that we introduce roadside drug-testing systems sooner rather than later, which means before the end of this year?
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for showing such determination and persistence in bringing the Bill before the House. I think he has been hiding his light under a bushel to some degree, as he has attempted no fewer than four times to get his Bill a Second Reading. Today is very much a red letter day in the life of the Bill. It was first brought to the attention of the House in April 2007 under the ten-minute rule. A similar, if not identical, Bill was presented to the House on 10 December 2007. Sadly, as the time-honoured phrase “due to lack of parliamentary time” so aptly describes, it befell the fate of so many private Members’ Bills and proceeded no further than that first hurdle.
Unperturbed by this and remaining convinced of the merits of the case, my hon. Friend presented the Bill for a second time in the following Session and it had its First Reading on 26 January 2009. Sadly, the legislative gods again did not smile kindly on the Bill. Despite being on the Order Paper so many times, it failed to make any further progress. Until I looked at the list of sponsors of those previous Bills, I was unaware that I, as a sponsor of this Bill, was replacing one of the Deputy Speakers or the Leader of the House. Had I known that, I certainly would not have changed my decision to support it.
We have already heard my hon. Friend explain the thinking behind the Bill and what it seeks to achieve. I think it makes good parliamentary sense, because essentially it seeks to amend what is effectively a dormant provision in an Act of Parliament.
It breathes life into the provisions of section 6C of the Road Traffic Act 1988, so that rather than being just words they can be used in practice, which is no doubt what was intended so many years ago when they were introduced as an amendment to the 1988 Act. The whole purpose of the Bill is to make it easier for the police to detect those who drive under the influence of drugs.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) quite rightly raised concern that if machines are not accurate innocent drivers might be convicted and receive a criminal record. I acknowledge that risk, but, as I will outline later in more detail, medical evidence shows that even an infinitesimally small amount of drugs can impair one’s driving ability. The reading from the machine will not represent proof beyond all doubt, because it will be for the courts to assess its strength and validity, but it surely must be better than what happens at the moment.
There are penalties for people who drive under the influence of drugs, and the police are advised about the steps to take if they think that someone is doing so. Five exercises are designed to assess their abilities: a pupil dilation test, designed to test for the presence of drugs; counting out 30 seconds; walking in a straight line, nine paces forward and then back—the classic test to check co-ordination and balance; raising a foot in the air 6 to 8 inches off the ground, which is designed to test the balance; and touching one’s finger to one’s nose with the eyes closed.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
It occurs to me that those tests are rather unfair on people who are not necessarily particularly numerate or athletic, and that standing on one leg with one’s foot 6 to 8 inches off the ground might be rather difficult for a lot of people on a normal day.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The police are concerned that many completely sound people, who had never been within a mile of a drug or been involved in any drug taking whatever, would fail such a test. I would doubt my ability to perform all those functions without some error, and I have to concede that it would be difficult for even a sober person to pass all those tests easily.
In the Romberg test, for example, motorists are asked to stand up straight, tilt their head back, close their eyes and count to 30. If they sway and lose count those are regarded as an impaired ability to drive. It is like a scene from a Hollywood movie, seeing a suspect have to walk nine paces in a straight line and then nine paces back, and the idea of somebody having to stand alternately on their left and right legs without falling over is really rather ridiculous, so anything that moves away from those subjective tests and puts things on a more scientific basis can only be a step in the right direction.
The evidence obtained by the police must be of sufficient quality to enable them or the Crown Prosecution Service to secure a conviction in court, and it is important to determine what is meant by “drugs”. We all might think that we know what is meant, but what does the legislation state? Fortunately for us, and for the purposes of the 1988 Act, we are enormously assisted by section 11, entitled “Interpretations of sections 4 to 10”. Section 11(2) states that
“‘drug’ includes any intoxicant other than alcohol”.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That is an enormously important point. I do not know whether my hon. Friend reads the Daily Mail regularly, but it pointed out earlier this week that if one had five cups of coffee in a day one could hallucinate, so under the Bill will we roadside-test people who have had just one extra cup of coffee?
Mr Nuttall
That is indeed a problem, because caffeine can be regarded as an intoxicant, as indeed—I was very surprised to find out—can water. Those apparently harmless substances, if consumed to excess, can result in intoxication, so the definition in section 11 captures not just the obvious drugs that we think of when we hear “drugs”.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
The road haulage industry is in a quandary, because a number of lorry drivers drink high-caffeine drinks, such as Red Bull and Relentless. Is there not a danger that such hauliers, who are just trying to ensure that they are very aware of what they are doing as they drive down the road, and just trying to do the best that they possibly can in maintaining control of their vehicle, could be subject to the Bill and find themselves breaking the law?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend raises an interesting issue. I appreciate that he says such drivers are not doing anything wrong, and are just trying to do their best in their job, but medical evidence may well show that, although they think they are doing the best they can, by ingesting so many intoxicants, which is what they are doing according to the definition, they are putting themselves in a state of well-being whereby they are prepared to take chances that they might not take if they were completely sober.
It would be for a court to weigh up the evidence of whether a person was driving under the influence of drugs, which, under an earlier section of the 1988 Act, is the offence in question, and one can easily see how a bench of magistrates or a jury might decide that a lorry driver who had drunk several cans of highly concentrated caffeine-based drinks had subjected their body to such external influences as to result in their having driven under the influence of drugs.
The fact that the definition in the Road Traffic Act is so widely drawn is one of the reasons it is necessary to bring this Bill before the House. I suspect that it is also one of the reasons there has been such a delay in having a device approved by the Secretary of State for the carrying out of a preliminary drug test within the scope of section 6C. Perhaps when that that legislation, and the amendment to it, was drafted, section 6C should have used the word “devices” instead of “device”, because that might have made it easier for scientists and developers to devise and manufacture one device to deal with one set of drugs and another to deal with another set of drugs. The use of the word “device” has meant that the manufacturers, the scientists and the Home Office Scientific Development Branch have had to work towards coming up with a catch-all machine that is capable of detecting any number of substances. The Act is drawn so widely that a large number of substances could be termed a drug.
Apart from all the obvious drugs, which I will, for ease of reference, call illicit drugs, it is arguable that, as we have heard in my hon. Friends’ interventions, the definition will cover other substances—not only substances that we take in every day, such as coffee and water, but prescribed medical drugs. Intoxication is one of a number of conditions that come under the umbrella term “substance-related disorders”. Of course, the drugs most likely to cause impairment are those whose use is prohibited by law. I want briefly to explain the different ways in which such drugs can affect people. Different drugs affect different people in different ways, and the effects can last for several days, sometimes without people even realising it.
Cannabis slows the actions, affects concentration and often has a sedative-like effect resulting in fatigue and affected co-ordination. I would not be surprised if somebody suggested that cannabis was rather like one of my speeches on a Friday. The parliamentary correspondent from the BBC might put that in one of his reports.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
Cannabis is often the drug of choice for younger members of society. Is my hon. Friend aware that RAC surveys of young drivers show that they are more likely to have been driven by somebody who has used illegal drugs than by somebody who has used alcohol?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Although the statistics show that thousands more people have been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol than of drugs, whenever a survey is carried out we find that people, especially if they have been to a club, will admit that they are more likely to have been driven in a vehicle by somebody who has had drugs than by somebody who has had alcohol.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
This is a very interesting discussion of the effects on people’s behaviour. One of the most dangerous ages for driving is 18 to 25 for young men. If they are having accidents because they are going too fast, and cannabis slows them down, are you saying that they ought to be using cannabis when they drive?
Mr Speaker
I am not saying anything, but I think that the hon. Gentleman might be.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) said, people may think that by taking certain substances they are doing themselves great benefit and putting themselves in a state where it will be easier for them to drive. If they are feeling all pumped up and hyped up after being in a nightclub, they think that taking cannabis might slow them down and get them back on the right track. I would submit that it is very dangerous for anyone to go down that road.
That is cannabis. Secondly, there is cocaine.
Mr Chope
I am glad that my hon. Friend has dealt with cannabis.
It is thought that one of the reasons prison officers are so relaxed about the widespread use of cannabis in prison is that it keeps the prisoners—or inmates, as the politically correct would describe them—in a relaxed state.
Mr Nuttall
That might be so, but the fact is that the use of such drugs is illegal. I hope that one of these devices will be authorised for roadside drug testing in the near future, because it would then be a small step for them to be used in prisons, making it easier to ascertain which of the inmates has had access to illicit drugs.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is some concern about the fact that if these devices are to be used purely to detect whether drugs are present in a person’s system, that creates the possibility of a greater move towards a police state, because the current legislation states that the authorities must prove that the individual was impaired by the use of drugs in driving the vehicle, as opposed to having drugs in their system?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Ultimately, however, it will be for the courts to decide, not the police, so I do not think it could be said that we would be living in a police state. The police will put the evidence before the magistrates court or, in appropriate cases, the Crown court, where the jury will weigh up the evidence and decide whether the person is guilty of the offence. Let us stick to what we are talking about, which is driving under the influence of drugs.
Cocaine causes over-confidence and can cause erratic behaviour. After a night out using cocaine, people often report that they feel as though they have flu. Some people, however—I said that different drugs can affect people in different ways—feel sleepy and lack concentration.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) commented that drug taking among young people, particularly in nightclubs, is still very prevalent. One of the principal drugs used in those circumstances is ecstasy. Ecstasy makes the heart beat faster, which can cause a surge of adrenalin and result in a driver feeling over-confident and therefore taking additional risks that could, and do, cause accidents.
LSD can, depending on the individual concerned, appear to speed up or slow down time and movement, making the speed of other vehicles difficult to judge. It can distort colour, sound and objects, and users often see objects that are not there. LSD can cause people to feel panicky and confused—obviously a dangerous state to be in while driving.
Speed makes people feel wide awake and excited. Of course, I refer to speed, the drug, rather than vehicle speed. People who have taken speed find it difficult to sit still and have difficulty sleeping. Someone who has taken speed and has not been able to sleep at the weekend would probably be tired and dangerous on the road. Speed can also make people feel very panicky.
The problem is complicated by the fact that medicinal drugs that are legally prescribed by a qualified medical practitioner can also adversely affect a person’s ability to drive. It is, of course, the responsibility of the driver to ensure that he does not commit an offence when driving under the influence of drugs. Doctors do, however, advise patients of the dangers of the side effects of medication. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency issues advice to general practitioners on the possible effects of a variety of drugs. GPs are advised to assume that the majority of adult patients are actual or potential drivers.
The Medical Commission on Accident Prevention has published a booklet, which is available to all GPs, setting out its views on the commoner conditions that affect one’s fitness to drive safely. The booklet, entitled “The Medical Aspects of Fitness to Drive”, contains chapters on prescribed and illicit medicines and driving. Various suggestions are offered to GPs on the advice that should be given to patients, such as not driving at all until any side effects are known, not driving if feeling unwell, and not combining alcohol with drugs. As will be seen from the cases I refer to later, the combination of alcohol and drugs is sadly all too common in cases of death by dangerous driving. GPs are also advised to warn that stimulants and euphoria-producing drugs may lead to unnecessary risks being taken.
In addition to that advice, the DVLA issues the “At a glance guide to the current medical standards of fitness to drive”, which contains sections on driving while taking medication for psychiatric and cardiovascular disorders. Specific illnesses such as epilepsy and diabetes are also covered. A review of the effects of over-the-counter medicines and the associated potential for unwanted sleepiness was published in 2004.
We should not forget the impact of the internet in this area. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency noted in its evidence to the North review, to which I will refer later, that
“there is an increasing trend of buying prescription only medicines over the Internet.”
Clearly there are dangers that medicines purchased in that way may be misused, because there is no opportunity for an individual to be given advice about the possible dangers and side effects.
Publicity was first given to the problems of driving under the influence of drugs, particularly lawful drugs, by a report published as long ago as April 1995 by the Institute for Human Psychopharmacology, entitled “Drugs other than alcohol and driving in the European Union”. Compared with the research into drink-driving, there was little real understanding of the effects of drugs on one’s ability to drive.
Mr Nuttall
That might be so, but, as I have pointed out, drugs are defined as anything that is an intoxicant, and that includes not just illicit drugs but medicinally approved and prescribed drugs and common drinks such as those containing caffeine and, in extremis, water. Although the focus will be on illegal drugs when the device is eventually brought into use, the producers of the device ought to look at the definition of the word “drug” and produce a device that covers both illicit and medically prescribed drugs, because both are dangerous.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again; he is being enormously generous. Are not the same drugs sometimes illegal and sometimes legal? Drugs that are banned for use in the wrong circumstances, such as opiates, may be prescribed by physicians to treat pain. Such drugs would be illegal if you bought them—sorry, Mr Speaker, I mean if my hon. Friend bought them, because I think it inconceivable that you would buy them—in a corner shop in Cheam.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes the valid point that a drug that for all other intents and purposes is illegal becomes legal if it is prescribed by a GP. As Members on both sides of the House will be aware, we are often lobbied by those who feel that cannabis should be more widely available to make it easier for those with certain medical conditions to bear the symptoms. I understand that cannabis can make it easier for people to bear certain symptoms that are otherwise unbearable.
Chris Heaton-Harris
To return to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), is the problem not that the Road Traffic Act deals with whether a drug impairs someone’s ability to drive and does not prescribe a limit for how much can be contained in the blood or urine?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend raises a good point. With alcohol, the law sets a specific limit of 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. It is relatively easy to test whether someone has more or less than the proscribed amount of alcohol in their blood, whereas a subjective decision has to be taken on whether someone is driving a vehicle under the influence of drugs. The 1988 Act is specific about that. That is indeed part of the difficulty that the Home Office has faced in proposing an appropriate device, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, no standard for device specification has been set. As I will say later, some studies show that as little as 1 nanogram can adversely affect one’s ability to drive.
Fortunately, those who have to draw up the specification will be aided by the fact that some research has been carried out on the appropriate level to be set. A research programme was initiated by the Department for Transport, the Home Office, the Coroners Society and the Association of Chief Police Officers, aimed at establishing systematically the incidence of drug use among fatal road casualties—not just illicit drugs but those that are prescribed or sold over the counter. The interim results were released in February 1998 and included in the road safety White Paper entitled “Tomorrow’s roads: safer for everyone”, published in March 2003. That White Paper stated:
“Studies have shown that compared with ten years ago, five times as many people killed in road accidents had a trace of an illegal drug in their body. Cannabis was by far the most common illegal substance found. However, whilst it is likely that shortly after use the active ingredient of cannabis impairs driving, traces of the drug can remain in the body for up to four weeks, long after it has ceased to have any effect. This can present difficulties for enforcement until we have further research findings.
Class A drugs are most likely to have an adverse effect on driving. According to interim survey results, they were found in 6% of cases (compared with 12% for cannabis). This was a small increase compared with 10 years ago.
In the studies of road accident fatalities referred to above, it was found that there had been no change in the incidence of medicinal drugs over the period. There is scope, nevertheless, to improve enforcement and to make people more aware of the risks of driving while their ability is affected by drugs.”
The RAC has also surveyed a group of young drivers and found that young people are twice as likely to have been driven by someone who has taken illegal drugs than by someone over the drink-drive limit. A Transport Research Laboratory report on the effects of cannabis on driving was published in December 2000, and found that there were measurable effects on driver performance and that drivers could be impaired. A report on the effects of cannabis and alcohol was published in 2002, which confirmed the earlier observations and judged that the general medical examination and standardised impairment testing applied by police surgeons were generally effective in determining impairment.
It may well be that those reports led the Home Office to think that the testing that was already being done was generally satisfactory, and that the matter was therefore not as urgent as supporters of the Bill feel it is. However, there have been several other small-scale qualitative and quantitative studies that have examined patterns of recreational drug use and driving. I wish to refer in particular to one, undertaken by the Scottish Executive. It was published in 2001 and examined aspects of driving while under the influence of recreational drugs. It identified general patterns of personal drug use. When stopped on a toll bridge, some 3% of survey respondents aged 40 and over, and 13% of those aged 17 to 39, had taken an illegal drug in the previous twelve months. Among those attending dance clubs, 76%—three out of every four—had taken illegal drugs in the previous month. Drug-driving was particularly evident among those attending nightclubs.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend says that 76% of those who have been to dance clubs have been taking drugs before driving. Ought we therefore to have a test for people who have been to dance clubs, since it seems so many of them will be unfit to drive when they leave?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point indeed. The statistics that I mentioned show the importance of the police monitoring closely those who seek to drive a car after leaving a dance club where drugs must clearly have been available.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I would hate the public listening to this debate to think that everyone here believes that anyone who goes to a club for a good night out is much more likely than others to take illicit drugs and then drive illegally when impaired by them. Most people go there for a damn good time, and they manage to do that. They might well have a drink or two, and they might well have a good boogie in what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) might refer to as a discotheque, but most of them are law-abiding citizens just enjoying themselves on a night out.
Mr Nuttall
I could not agree more. I am merely drawing the House’s attention to the findings of a particular survey. I do not seek in any way to draw any further conclusion from it, but there is clearly a problem if that survey—and it is only a single survey—is to be believed.
Mr Chope
Is there not an even more important survey, which is the one that shows that half of the young people who admit to driving with drugs in their system say that they would not do so if they thought that there was a possibility of their being subject to roadside testing for the presence of those drugs?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I shall touch later on the fact that the lack of roadside testing, and the knowledge of that fact among young people, may well lead to widespread use of illegal drugs.
I mentioned that 76% of respondents to a survey who had attended dance clubs had taken illegal drugs in the previous month. Drug-driving was much more prevalent among those attending nightclubs than among the general population. The study showed that 85% of those who had attended a nightclub had driven after taking illegal drugs on at least one occasion. Some 37% per cent reported that they drove after taking illegal drugs on at least a weekly basis, most of whom—89%—were cannabis users. However, whereas drug-driving appeared to be widespread among the sample of those interviewed who attended clubs, it was not identified as being widespread among the general population.
In a separate survey in 2001, the Transport Research Laboratory measured the incidence of drugs among fatal road accident casualties. An earlier study published in 1989 had found that the incidence of medicinal drugs, at 5.5%, and illegal drugs, at just 3%, was relatively low in comparison to alcohol, which was at 35%. However, the 2001 study, based on results collected between 1996 and 2000, found that the incidence of medicinal and illegal drugs in the blood samples of road traffic fatalities was three times higher than in the previous study, at 24%, while the incidence of alcohol had fallen slightly to 31%.
It is a matter of conjecture whether those changes arose as a result of the legislative framework that existed—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made the point that it is well known that there is no device for roadside drug testing—or whether they were merely a result of social changes. I venture to submit that it was probably a combination of both those factors.
The findings of further research, which was sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council and led by Dr Philip Terry, were set out in January 2004 in a paper entitled, “Indirect harm from regular cannabis use”. It was found that 52% of those surveyed had driven while under the influence of cannabis and of those, 70% believed that that had impaired their driving.
In December 2005, no less a publication than the British Medical Journal published an extract of a paper by—I apologise in advance for my pronunciation—Bernard Laumon, Blandine Gadegbeku, Jean-Louis Martin, and Marie-Berthe Biecheler on cannabis intoxication and fatal road crashes in France. The research was based on a sample of 10,748 drivers, with known drug and alcohol concentrations who were involved in fatal crashes in France. The paper found that of the drivers studied, 7% tested positive for drugs and 21.4% for alcohol, including 2.9% for both drugs and alcohol. Men were more often involved in crashes than women, and were also more often positive for both cannabis and alcohol, as were the youngest drivers and users of mopeds and motorcycles. Positive detection was more commonly associated with crashes that happened during the hours of darkness.
In the light of that growing body of academic evidence, it is perhaps no surprise that Parliament legislated against driving while under the influence of drugs. Under section 3A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, as amended by the Road Traffic Act 1991, the offence of causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs requires the prosecution to show that the driving caused the death of another person and fell below the standard expected of a reasonable, prudent and competent driver in the circumstances; and that the driver was unfit through drink or drugs, or that the level of alcohol was over the prescribed limit, or that there was a failure to provide a specimen. Such a charge can be heard only in Crown court. The maximum penalty is an unlimited fine and/or 14 years imprisonment; an obligatory disqualification for at least two years, or a disqualification for three years if there is a relevant previous conviction; and the obligatory endorsement of the driver’s licence with between three and 11 penalty points. The maximum penalty was originally five years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine, but that was doubled to 10 years imprisonment from August 1993 as a result of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, and it was increased again to 14 years in February 2004 under the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
Under section 4 of the 1988 Act, it is also an offence to drive or to be in charge of a vehicle, as we have heard, while unfit to drive through drink or drugs. The maximum penalty for driving or attempting to drive while unfit is six months in prison, a £5,000 fine and disqualification. The maximum penalty for being in charge while unfit is three months in prison, a £2,500 fine and a disqualification, or 10 points on a licence.
In January 2007, the Sentencing Advisory Panel announced a consultation on advice about “causing death by driving” offences. In January 2008, the panel published its new advice to the Sentencing Advisory Council on those offences. In total, the panel made 18 recommendations. Among them, the panel recommended that when there is sufficient evidence of driving impairment, the consumption of alcohol or drugs prior to driving will make an offence more serious. It said that consuming alcohol or drugs unwittingly before driving can be regarded as a mitigating factor, but that consideration should be given to the circumstances in which the offender decided to drive or continued to drive while their driving ability was impaired.
In November 2008, the Department for Transport published a consultation document on road safety compliance and asked for views of the public on the proposed creation of a new offence for driving with drugs in one’s system. The consultation paper explained:
“We could explore the viability of creating a new offence to target those who drive after taking illegal drugs—those that are controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—which can impair a user’s ability to drive. The public rightly perceive users of these drugs who drive as a danger to road safety.”
Tracey Crouch
I have always thought that the insurance industry has a role to play. Currently, when somebody’s driving is impaired by drugs or alcohol and they are involved in an accident, if they have comprehensive cover, they can get their car repaired, regardless of the offence that they committed of why they committed it. There is a great deal of benefit in the argument that someone driving under the influence of alcohol should have their third-party liabilities covered, but that damage to their car or their injuries should not be covered, because that damage occurred as a consequence of their taking drugs or alcohol before driving.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point indeed. I am not an expert on insurance policy contracts, but I suspect that it is possible for an insurance company to write such a provision into a contract—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) wants to contribute, he can do so.
Mr Nuttall
It is possible that such provisions are already written into contracts—I would be unsurprised if they are. If they are, perhaps they should be more widely advertised. People might know about driving while unfit from alcohol, but they may be unaware that driving under the influence of drugs risks invalidating insurance policies.
Andrew Bingham
Does my hon. Friend agree that if a measure such as the one outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) were implemented, insurance premiums for a great many law-abiding motorists would be reduced, which I am sure would be welcomed by one and all?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point indeed. That is one beneficial and happy side effect of the Bill. As a result of fewer people driving under the influence of drugs, there will hopefully be fewer accidents. Therefore, insurance premiums for everyone else would be much lower.
If I may, I shall continue my brief explanation of the contents of the Department for Transport consultation document, which states:
“The public rightly perceive users of these drugs”—
drugs that are controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—
“as a danger to road safety. As this paper has shown, it is difficult for the police to deal with these offenders. The nature of the effects of the drugs they take mean it is inappropriate to regulate the use of impairing illegal drugs using a prescribed limit based on the same principles as the limit for alcohol, even if it was acceptable to do so…Such an offence could be framed in such a way that a driver could be convicted of a new offence if an appropriate test showed such an illegal drug in their body. The effects of particular drugs on different individuals are complex, and, as set out below, there would be a lot of further work to do to develop this possibility, but our ultimate aim would be to treat in this way any illegal drug that is capable of impairing driving…The penalties for drivers exceeding the prescribed limit for alcohol are the same as for those convicted of the alternative offence of driving while unfit through drink or drugs. We therefore envisage that penalties for the possible new offence should be the same as for the existing offence of driving while unfit through drugs, which is a mandatory minimum disqualification of 12 months; offenders may also be fined up to £5,000 and sent to prison for up to 6 months.”
That consultation closed in February 2009, and in December 2009 the then Labour Government announced that they would seek further advice on the matter from Sir Peter North—it was his review that I referred to earlier as the North review. Although Sir Peter North provided initial advice to the then Minister, Lord Adonis, before last year’s general election, his final report was not published until 16 June last year, which of course was after the change of Government. The main recommendations of the North review relating to drug-driving were that police procedures enforcing current drug-driving laws should be improved, and that there should be early approval for saliva testing. The press notice accompanying the review stated:
“The Review also assesses Great Britain’s less well-understood drug driving problem, challenging the lack of reliable statistics, out-dated research and police emphasis on drink driving detection. In the short term, Sir Peter recommends that police procedures enforcing current drug driving laws are improved, making it more straightforward for police to identify and prosecute drug drivers by allowing nurses, as well as doctors, to authorise blood tests of suspects. Medium-term, he recommends early approval of saliva testing of drug driving suspects in police stations, which will largely overcome the environmental problems in roadside use that had previously slowed technological development of so-called ‘drugalysers’.”
On the question of a new law setting banned drug levels, Sir Peter was keen to say:
“The focus should be on public safety. Any new offence should therefore focus on establishing levels of drugs in the blood at which significant impairment – and therefore, risk to public safety – can be reasonably assumed, as is the case now for drink-driving”.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way for what must be the dozenth time. Has the issue of cannabis remaining in the body for up to a month been settled in terms of this type of testing? If limits of this kind are to be set and people have not taken an illegal substance for a month, would it be reasonable to penalise them? Is the testing yet sophisticated enough?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is one of the difficulties arising in this area. It might well be that the body retains chemical traces of an intoxicant drug—if I may use that term, as we have now learned that it is perhaps the correct way to describe these drugs. The question would be whether that trace was having any effect on the ability of that person to drive, and that would be a matter for the court to determine. The court might well decide that a person was guilty of the offence—if it were to be an offence—of driving while having drugs in the body. Were that to be made an absolute offence, of course they would be guilty of it.
I made the point that the focus should be on public safety, and that any new offence should therefore focus on establishing levels of drugs in the blood at which significant impairment—and therefore the risk to public safety—can be reasonably assumed, as is the case now for drink-driving. Responding to concerns from patients and health care professionals that people taking medicines would be banned from driving, Sir Peter stresses that this is not his intention. Instead, he highlights that although medicines can be as impairing to driving as illegal drugs, there is an important opportunity for the relevant parties to work together to improve public awareness and the driving patient’s safety.
The power that the police have to conduct roadside drug testing was introduced under schedule 7 to the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003. However, in the absence of any approved device, testing was of a rather more subjective nature. Guidance was issued in December 2004 on the conduct of the preliminary impairment tests. As I mentioned earlier, the police may ask drivers whom they suspect are under the influence of drugs to perform a series of physical tests, usually at the roadside, such as walking along a straight line, touching the tip of their nose with their finger, and standing on one leg. The police also examine drivers’ pupils to see if they are dilated while checking for slurred speech and poor co-ordination. If the police officer is not satisfied, the suspect is taken to a police station and a blood test is undertaken.
The problem with these tests is that they are subjective and not scientific compared with breathalyser tests. However, the police still feel that they are successful in identifying those who have been taking drugs. Moreover, the law does not make a distinction between illegal or misused drugs and over-the-counter prescription drugs taken as directed by a medical practitioner. For these reasons, there were often problems associated with prosecuting those who drove under the influence of drugs. In practice, the police have preferred to use the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, as amended, if they stop a person whom they suspect of taking drugs. Section 5(1) of the Act makes it unlawful to possess a controlled drug unless authorised by regulations under section 7. It may more often be the case that drivers thought to be unfit to drive and found with drugs in the vehicle would be prosecuted for possession of drugs and not for driving while unfit. However, problems may arise with the prosecution of a driver found in possession on the basis of a positive blood or urine sample, because once drugs have been consumed their character is altered and the person consuming the drugs is no longer considered to be in possession.
The same problem was highlighted in the submission by the Department for Transport to the North review team last June:
“The complex nature of drug pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics makes it difficult to establish values that would represent impairment in the general population. The main challenges in determining suitable cut-offs include: individual variations, drug tolerance, interactions with other drugs, and the variable effects of the same blood concentrations of drugs depending on whether the concentration is rising or falling. One review of the evidence for levels of cannabis related to impairment has suggested a cut-off for THC in whole blood of between 3.5–5 ng/ml, although a population-based study in France suggests that impairment is evident at lower levels (above 1 ng/ml). Attempts to develop comparable levels for amphetamines, however, have found greater variation in the association between blood concentrations and tests of impairment and thus recommend that per se cut-offs are inappropriate for this drug group. Tolerance issues and interactions with other drugs suggest that identifying suitable cut-off values for other drugs may also be inappropriate. Within Europe, a variety of drug driving policies has been adopted by the different countries, ranging from zero tolerance per se limits (e.g. Sweden) to proof of impairment (e.g. current UK laws), each with subtle variations. A zero tolerance approach overcomes the difficulties associated with: a) proving impairment; and b) deciding on scientifically valid cut-offs from conflicting sources of data. However, zero limit per se laws also have the potential to penalise drivers who are not impaired and pose no risk to safety. Studies of the effectiveness of Sweden’s zero tolerance laws have found them to have been unsuccessful in deterring DUID”—
driving under the influence of drugs—
“re-offenders. Further research into the correlations between blood concentrations of certain drugs and impairment may help to move toward developing suitable cut-offs (like those developed over time for alcohol). However, ‘before’ and ‘after’ studies of newly introduced laws to evaluate the performance of these various approaches in practice may be more useful.”
Perhaps I should add by way of explanation that pharmacodynamics explores what a drug does to the body, whereas pharmacokinetics explores what the body does to a drug. It is also worth bearing in mind the infinitesimally small amounts of a substance that have to be detected. The review of evidence that I have just quoted stated that some studies had found impairment at levels as low as 1 nanogram per millilitre, and a nanogram is one billionth of a gram.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I know that we are tied up heavily with the European Union, but I wonder whether my hon. Friend could translate that into ounces.
Mr Nuttall
I am sure that there is a method of doing so, but I could not do it now. However, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I will briefly touch on the European Union later. In all seriousness, however, 1 nanogram is one billionth of a gram, which may account for why it has taken the Home Office so long to produce a realistic specification for such a device, given the extremely small—indeed, unbelievably small—levels that it is expected to detect.
With all that in mind, it is perhaps worth considering some of the tragic cases of people losing their lives as a result of drivers taking the wheel while under the influence of drugs. It is perhaps all too easy to get bogged down in the technicalities and the dry scientific details of the drugs that we have been considering, and to forget the human tragedies that lie behind the problem. The road safety charity Brake has briefly and helpfully summarised some of those cases on its website. For example, it cites the case of a 20-year-old young woman, Katharine Davis, who was killed by a banned driver, Lee Fitzgerald. The case was reported in The Northern Echo, which stated that Fitzgerald was not only almost two times over the legal drink-driving limit, but had taken a cocktail of drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy. He then got behind the wheel of a friend’s car and gave a lift to Katharine and a work colleague. As he was being followed by the police, he crashed the car and Katharine lost her life. Fitzgerald was jailed for five years.
In another case, a young girl, Lucy Bellamy, aged only nine, was hit and killed while on a pelican crossing by one Andrew Wilkinson, who at the time was just 20. Wilkinson admitted to police that he had been smoking cannabis through a makeshift pipe. He apparently had not even tried to brake, even though he was approaching a pelican crossing. He was jailed for four and a half years. Further such cases arise all the time.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. I apologise for not having been here for the start of the debate and I do not know a great deal about this area, but is there any scope in such circumstances for using legislation on driving dangerously? There is no specific law on the use of illegal substances, but could the offence of driving dangerously or of causing death by dangerous driving be used instead against someone who had taken an illegal substance that prevented them from driving safely?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is perhaps one that those with greater knowledge of the workings of the criminal law—particularly as it relates to road traffic offences—would be more able to deal with.
There are two more recent cases that I would like briefly to raise, because I do not want people to think that everyone convicted of driving while under the influence of drugs is sent to jail. There was a case reported in the Dudley News of a Dudley man who was handed a suspended jail term for driving while unfit to do so through drugs. He was given a six-week jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and banned from driving for 18 months. To run consecutively, the defendant was also jailed for six months, suspended for 18 months, for possession of a class A drug, heroin. He was ordered to pay £600 compensation and court costs at Dudley magistrates court.
Chris Heaton-Harris
My hon. Friend has been generous in giving way to me throughout this debate, which I very much appreciate. He has listed a whole bunch of terrible tragedies that no one in this place would wish had happened, although the criminal justice system has then caught up with the characters involved and punished them—perhaps not accordingly, but it has at least punished them. Surely the art in this case is in stopping people taking drugs and getting in a car in the first place. Even the devices that he was talking about earlier do not do that. Perhaps we need a much stronger education campaign about the effects of drugs on drivers.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Such education starts at school, with teachers and parents explaining the dangers of drug taking and the terrible damage that it can cause to the individual and, if they get behind the wheel of a car, to others. We would do well to send that message out loud and clear this morning.
Let me turn to the very heart of the Bill: the drug-testing device. For about a decade now, the Home Office has been developing a type approval specification for a drug- screening device—known as the “drugalyser”—that will help police at the roadside to detect the presence of drugs. A Metropolitan police trial took place between January 2001 and 2002. It had some success, but was hampered by the fact that testing had to be voluntary. In their February 2007 review of road safety, the then Labour Government stated that the first devices developed to specification could be available by the end of 2007, and that the Home Office was developing a prototype device that could both screen and analyse samples, and which was likely to be ready in two to three years. In February 2008, the then Minister told the House of Commons that the Home Office scientific development branch,
“in consultation with the Department for Transport, continues to discuss possible improvements to the field impairment test currently used by the police…HOSDB continues to investigate a possible impairment measuring device through established contacts working in this area. Opportunities for partnership with a suitable university or other outside agency continue to be sought.”—[Official Report, 19 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 582W.]
This is rather like a mirage of an oasis in the desert—the nearer we get to it, the further away it appears to be. The Times subsequently reported that the Home Office was “preparing to approve” hand-held drug-screening devices, and that
“Philips…announced that it will start deliveries to police next year”—
that is, 2009—
“of a machine that detects five different drug groups, including cocaine, heroin and cannabis, in just 90 seconds from a single saliva sample”.
However, no type approval has yet been given. There is the rub: the Home Office might have thought that it was about to approve such a device, but, as we know, that never happened.
I have seen a picture of the machine, and it is a very simple device. A person is asked to provide a sample of saliva, which is placed into a small tube that is inserted into the machine. The sample goes into the measurement chamber, which contains magnetic nanoparticles coated with ligands that bind to one of the five different drug groups. This delivers test results in one and a half minutes. Philips had apparently been busy developing that device since 2001. It was built as an optical device that would be easy to mass-produce for law enforcement purposes.
Sir Peter North’s review reported on the problems as follows:
“To date a type-approval specification for such a device has not been produced. Consequently, while a range of commercial drug screening devices is available, none is suitable for enforcement purposes in the UK.
Home Office Scientific Development Branch has been working on the development of a roadside screening device based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) over the last 10 years, both in house and externally. A SERS based device would be a considerable advance over existing commercially available devices in that it would be capable of identifying any drug.
Following an expert peer review in 2008, the in-house development by HOSDB of the SERS substrates required for such a device was halted and the emphasis placed on developing external technologies, including those based on SERS. Following two calls for research initiated at the start of 2009, two external research contracts were placed, with the aim of developing prototype devices within the next three years.
With regard to drug screening devices for use at the roadside, the preferred matrix for analysis is oral fluid, which is easy and convenient to collect, and any drugs detected in this medium are indicative of recent use.
Early trials of roadside drug screening devices based on oral fluid…concluded that none of the devices tested at that time was suitable for use in enforcement at the roadside. However, recent evaluations of drug screening devices have highlighted continued improvements in sensitivity and the general performance of oral fluid drug testing devices, but also that the reliable detection of cannabinoid use and benzodiazepines still remains problematic.”
Mr Deputy Speaker, you can imagine my delight when I discovered that the long tentacles of the European Union had found their way into this subject. I promised my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that I would touch on this matter. It appears that there is a project funded by the European Commission—using some of the billions of pounds that we contribute to the EU each year—and I hope that you will not think that I am straying from the subject if I mention the word “DRUID”. It is actually an acronym for the project funded by the European Commission, and it stands for “driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol and medicines”—[Laughter.]
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That reveals another criticism of the European Union. They cannot even spell.
Mr Nuttall
It is a kind of organised acronym. We have the D and R from “driving”, and the U from “under”. Then we miss out the “the”, adopt the I from “influence”, miss out the “of”, adopt the D from “drugs” and miss out the “alcohol and medicines” bit. That is how we get to DRUID.
Mr Nuttall
But I am not a druid! I am a practising member of the Church of England. I am not sure whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has commented on this matter yet, but no doubt he will later.
The DRUID report includes an analytical evaluation of several on-site oral fluid screeners. The final report is still in production but early results suggest that police evaluations of the devices tested were broadly positive. Eight of the 13 evaluated devices were rated as “promising” and were subsequently included in a scientific evaluation focusing on sensitivity and specificity.
Stephen McPartland
Were these devices tested in the UK or in the European Union?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend asks a good question, but I do not know the answer. I suspect that they might have been tested throughout the European Union, although I would like to think that at least some of them were tested in the United Kingdom.
Early drafts of the report go on to state that research papers in the press have reported on the evaluation of four of the devices. While one device was considered unsuitable, three demonstrated excellent sensitivity for amphetamines and moderate sensitivity for the detection of cocaine and cannabis. A newer version of one of the devices using new generation oral fluid screening tests demonstrated improved sensitivity—as high as 93%—for tetrahydrocannabinol.
A recent evaluation of the zero tolerance approach adopted in parts of Australia is particularly informative. A report on the first 12 months of the new law in Western Australia reveals that 9,716 roadside tests were conducted during that period. Of those, 517 tested positive for one or more proscribed drugs, which equates to 5.3% of the total.The results suggest that a zero tolerance policy utilising roadside screening devices has distinct advantages over the UK’s impairment-based approach. Specifically, the process is simple, straightforward, quick to administer and unambiguous.
Drug-impaired driving legislation, which is akin to our own impairment-based approach, was introduced in conjunction with the roadside oral fluid testing procedures. However, drug-impaired driving appears to have been largely ignored as an anti-drug-drive measure, in favour of the roadside oral fluid testing approach. During the study period, only five drivers were charged with drug-impaired driving. Police officers appeared to be more comfortable with administering the roadside oral fluid tests than with trying to demonstrate impairment in order to secure a conviction for drug-impaired driving. The Australian experience suggests that, were the UK to move to a zero tolerance system, one effect would be that police officers would be less likely to pursue a case for driving under the influence of drugs under section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
Since the Bill had its First Reading last year, there have been significant developments in this area by the Government. First, in written evidence to the Transport Committee submitted in September 2010, the Department for Transport set out the Government’s views on how they intended to proceed in the area of drug-driving. In March this year, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport set out how the Government would proceed. Subsequently, on 11 May this year, the Department for Transport published its strategic framework for road safety. This stated:
“On drink and drug driving our priority is to deter driving when unfit through drugs or alcohol, and to ensure that those who persist in this dangerous behaviour are detected and punished effectively. Considerable progress has been made in the abatement of drink-driving, but we now aim to achieve similar results with drivers who are impaired through the use of drugs. The prospect of an effective means of detecting and deterring drug-driving will—for the first time—allow a serious enforcement effort against this dangerous behaviour. That is our first priority, which we believe is shared by the police.
It can be just as dangerous for people to drive impaired by alcohol or drugs, and it is currently unbalanced that it is easier to get away with one than the other. We want to give the police the means to identify drug-drivers and allow them to request evidential samples for testing. There needs to be a clear message that drug-drivers are as likely to be caught and punished as drink-drivers.
Our strategy is to focus resources and any legislative changes on measures which will have the most impact in reducing dangerous behaviours. There are therefore two main priorities to continue the successful abatement of drink-driving and achieve similar success against drug-driving;
To give the police effective tools to identify and proceed against drug-drivers;
To streamline the enforcement process for drink and drug driving to relieve pressure on police and other enforcement resources, and enable these to be targeted better.
We have issued a specification to manufacturers for drug testing technology that will be able to be used in police stations. It is for manufacturers to supply, and police forces to obtain, approved devices and put them to use. We are also finalising the additional requirements for type approving such devices for use at the roadside.”
At that point, one might add, “About time, too”. It continues:
“We will explore the case for introducing an offence of having a specified drug in the body while driving in addition to the current offence of driving while impaired by drugs. An objective measure of whether a drug driving offence has been committed should deliver a significant improvement in the enforcement of drug driving.
This is a complex issue and so we will continue the research and other work that is necessary before any decisions can be made. We cannot at this stage pre-empt that work by describing any additional offence, or give a firm date for its potential introduction. Any proposals will be subject to further consultation, regulatory clearance and other impact assessments in the usual way.”
I look forward to hearing from the Minister what further progress the Government have been able to make in this area since that report was issued. Finally, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in commending the Bill to the House.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on pushing this matter as he has in this debate. I know he has a significant long-term interest in the subject and has been frustrated over a long period of time about the lack of movement in securing the appropriate checks for the roadside detection of drug use. That is why I congratulate him and rise to support him as best I can.
I also obviously welcome the brief comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who has demonstrated in some detail his considerable knowledge of this area of policy, with its history and accompanying problems. I am also waiting for the debate on my Onshore Wind Turbines (Proximity of Habitation) Bill, in which I shall tilt at windmills. Perhaps we will reach that fourth debate in the fullness of time, although I am not so sure.
I have followed road safety issues for a number of years—ever since, indeed, the sister of one of my closest school friends was killed by a drink-driver just after I left school at the age of 18. I have toured around many a primary school in my constituency to talk about road safety in general terms. This is another side of the coin: it is not just about making people aware of what they should do when they cross the road, but about ensuring that we protect those who use our roads and those who walk beside them.
Most people in the UK see driving under the influence of drugs as a growing problem and a growing mess. It is one of those areas where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North described, the devil is in the detail. We all agree that we want to get rid of this menace; it is a question of having the appropriate method of detection, being able to stand up in court whatever evidence the police have found and then to secure appropriate convictions. That should act as a deterrent to those who might be considering such a course of action.
The public and the press—and, indeed, most hon. Members—would really like to see some action on this matter. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North about all the problems that the detail brings, but we have had a lot of time to think about it. I flicked through some research in preparation for this debate and thought it was interesting to see how past Governments had tackled the issue. There is cross-party agreement on it, so I refuse to make any party political points; there is little distance between the two main parties’ positions—or among any of the parties, for that matter.
If we go back to 31 May 2005, we find BBC reports saying:
“Police officers could soon be using special hand-held detectors in a roadside crackdown on drug-driving. The machines would be used to test motorists for recreational drugs or tranquillisers—which can seriously affect them—at the wheel.”
We then get to what I guess is the main point:
“The Home Office is expected to release its specifications for a testing device soon”,
which we will find is a common theme of the press releases. It continued:
“In December 2004, police were given new powers to carry out roadside impairment tests on drivers they suspected of being under the influence of drugs. Prior to that drivers could choose to take part in the impairment tests, but refusal became an offence in the same way as failure to provide a breath test.”
Back then, a company was touting its wares in this field, with a device that it claimed could pick up a number of the problem drugs.
Moving to 10 May 2009—we should note that all these dates seem to be around the time of local or other elections; that is not a criticism of Labour, because we have done the same this year ourselves—we see a newspaper article which states:
“Motorists face roadside drug tests under Government plans.”
It is as if it has been lifted from the BBC and rewritten, which is quite odd because normally the BBC lifts its information from other news organisations. This is a report in The Daily Telegraph—[Interruption.] There is no one from the BBC up there in the Press Gallery; they will watch us later! The article goes on:
“The Government is ready to change the law so that any driver can be prosecuted for getting behind the wheel with any illegal drug in their bloodstream. Officers would be issued with so-called ‘drugalyzers’ to enable them to screen motorists for a number of substances including cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine. Should the tests prove positive, the driver would be arrested and taken to the police station for a doctor to take a blood sample”—
and so on and so forth in the process outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North.
It continued:
“The change in the law would bring Britain into line with a number of countries, including Italy, Romania, Croatia and part of Australia, where roadside testing is already in place.”
Although discussions had started in 2005, it was not until 2009 that the Home Office was talking to a number of companies about a design that could be used by the police in Britain. The article went on:
“Detailed specifications are expected to be drawn up by the Home Office and Forensic Science Service within the next few months”—
of 2009—
“and roadside tests could become a reality in two to five years.”
Two years later, I could turn to yet another press release—but I will not, because Members will guess what it contains.
The public are beginning to get a tiny bit hacked off with politicians. We all know that they are hacked off with us in general—they think that we do not do as much as we should, or as quickly as we should, and that what we do, we do badly. We have great public support for action in this field, and they do not understand why it has taken us so long to move from recognising the problem to having a workable solution out on the streets that helps the police to detect a crime that causes so many accidents.
Chris Heaton-Harris
My hon. Friend is correct: the saga continues. A game of table tennis seems to be going on between the Home Office and the Department for Transport. The public, and I, would like to see some action. Approval should be given for detection devices for use by police officers in testing. They have been developed, and a number of them are in existence. We ought to get our bureaucratic processes sorted out, so that we can have them available for use across the police forces of the United Kingdom.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North detailed the Department for Transport’s consultation document on road safety compliance back in November 2008. Produced just a handful of years ago, that paper stated:
“We could explore the viability of creating a new offence to target those who drive after taking illegal drugs—those that are controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—which can impair a user’s ability to drive. The public rightly perceive”—
this had already been spotted—
“users of these drugs who drive as a danger to road safety”
and to everybody on the roads. The public wanted action to protect themselves.
People who drive under the influence of drugs increase the number of accidents on our roads, and they increase the cost of insurance for all those drivers who drive innocently and honestly on our streets. As we have heard, the human cost of the accidents that they cause can be massive.
The Labour party issued a consultation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North detailed, and it asked the right questions and got the right answers. Sir Peter North’s consultation was very good and was received well on both sides of the House, although the final report was not published until 16 June 2010. The main recommendations of the North review relating to drug-driving were that police procedures enforcing current drug-driving laws should be improved and that there should be early approval for saliva testing and a device that can do that. Both those recommendations have great cross-party support.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I agree with my hon. Friend that there is great support for such a measure in broad principle, but is it possible to have a machine before we have clearly set out the limits?
Chris Heaton-Harris
That goes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North. In England, the law concerns itself with impairment to your ability to drive. You might be impaired three days after you smoked a joint—it is down to the individual. I do not mean you, Mr Deputy Speaker—a member of the public might be impaired.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I hate to think that we would think it more likely for a member of the public to take drugs than a Member of the House. Surely our electorate do not do such things—not in North East Somerset at any rate.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I am sure that my hon. Friend is completely correct—[Interruption.] Let us not go back down that route; I will stick to where I was going.
It is impairment of an individual’s ability to drive that we are seeking to identify—there is a line that one might cross, and different individuals’ bodies will metabolise drugs, as they do food, in different ways. We have already accepted that with regard to alcohol, so let us make a bold leap. Why not introduce tests for the five main types of recreational drugs—those listed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North—that tend to be found in individuals who have caused an accident to which the police are called? This hinges on getting approval for a device, and that is the bureaucratic nonsense behind it all. Having accepted the principle of introducing a level—I would push for a zero level, as in Sweden, because that is much easier for everybody to come to terms with—why should we not bring forward such devices?
In his review, Sir Peter North said:
“The focus should be on public safety”.
The protection of our constituents from those who take drugs and then decide it is fine to jump in a car is one reason why we are all interested in this debate. Such drivers might not feel that their ability is impaired, and even if they do, they probably do not care too much for the other individuals concerned. Sir Peter continued:
“Any new offence should therefore focus on establishing levels of drugs in the blood at which significant impairment—and therefore, risk to public safety—can reasonably be assumed, as is the case now for drink-driving.”
That is a fairly simple statement. We have accepted levels for alcohol, so let us accept them for some of the more commonly used recreational drugs, and get the type review device approved by the Home Office and out on the streets, adding to the deterrents that we have.
Under schedule 7 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, the police have the power to conduct roadside drug tests, so there is no problem with that side of the argument. Guidance was issued back in December 2004 on the conduct of the preliminary impairment tests detailed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North. There is a host of reasons why we should put more pressure on the Government to get on with this job.
Having had private conversations with the Minister, I think he understands that there is a great deal of anxiety about how long the process has taken. The crime is relatively new, but it is also one of the crimes most on the increase. As my hon. Friends have detailed, the problem is the scientific ability of drug-screening devices to detect what we would like them to identify.
For about a decade, the Home Office has been developing a type approval specification for a “drugalyser” that would help police at the roadside to detect the presence of drugs. The Metropolitan police took part in a trial between January 2001 and January 2002 which, although reasonably successful, was—according to the official phraseology—“hampered” by the fact that testing had to be voluntary at that time.
In their February 2007 review of road safety, the Labour Government stated that the first devices developed to specification could be available at the end of that year, and that the Home Office was already developing a prototype device which could both screen and analyse samples and was likely to be ready in two to three years. In February 2008, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), then a Minister, told the House that the Home Office’s
“Scientific Development Branch… in consultation with the Department for Transport, continues to discuss possible improvements to the field impairment test currently used by the police… continues to investigate a possible impairment measuring device through established contacts working in this area. Opportunities for partnership with a suitable university or other outside agency continue to be sought.”—[Official Report, 19 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 582W.]
Clearly there has been no lack of work, and that work has been carried out for a host of years. However, someone sitting in the beautiful village of Flore in my constituency as traffic rattles along a road that desperately needs to be bypassed, and fearing that one night, on one of the bad bends, a person who has had far too much of a good time and used illegal drugs will pile into the side of their house, may feel that, given the length of time for which this deterrent had been talked about, a Government of any colour should have acted much earlier.
As we know, The Times reported in 2008 that the Home Office was “preparing to approve” hand-held drug-screening devices, and that
“Philips…announced yesterday that it will start deliveries to police”
early in 2009. I wonder where those deliveries have got to. There is a problem somewhere, and I hope that, in his considered reply, the Minister will tell us how he is trying to unblock the channels that seem to be blocked.
Mr Nuttall
Is my hon. Friend aware of a report that has appeared in the Daily Mail in the last few days? Apparently police in Australia are launching trials of a testing system this week, and similar equipment is already in use in Finland and is being tested in Italy.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I was aware of that. It was in one of the press releases that I chose not to read out earlier. It adds to the frustration that people feel, which I hope I have been able to convey to the Minister.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North mentioned the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), the road safety Minister. Not long ago, he said:
“Drink and drug driving are serious offences and drivers should be in no doubt that if they are caught behind the wheel under the influence this summer they risk losing their licence as well as facing a fine and even a prison sentence.
We are taking forward measures to make it easier for the police to tackle drink and drug driving and protect law abiding road users including plans for drug testing kits to help detect drug drivers and tightening the law on drink driving.”
We would all welcome that, but I have a sneaking suspicion, based on the press reports that I read out earlier, that Ministers have been heard to utter those exact words before. If there is a drug-testing kit that we are happy to put on the streets in the summer, let us arrange for it to be type-approved by the Home Office and supplied throughout the country.
Back in December, the Minister—this Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire)—said:
“Any equipment for use by the police in this country must be of a type approved by the Secretary of State. Type approval is granted on the basis of compliance with a specification which sets out the detailed requirements a device has to meet and the testing regime which it has to pass to be suitable for use in British operational conditions and within the British legal framework. We hope to issue very shortly the specification for a device for use in a police station and are continuing work towards the specification for a roadside device. It will be for manufacturers to submit for testing and approval any devices which they think meet the specification.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 1098W.]
Given that we have been waiting for specifications for so many years, can we please get them out quickly? The question of when the devices will be available is of concern to our constituents throughout the country.
I do not wish to condemn a certain section of society too much, but it is possible to see examples of it daily on the Jeremy Kyle show. There is a type of person who is much more at risk of taking drugs and getting into a car without realising what he or she has the potential to do as a result of lack of education, awareness or care. Such people tend to be young, and they tend to be uninsured and untaxed. They tend to be breaking the law simply by getting into their cars, let alone having taken drugs beforehand. They are probably either going to or coming from a location that is known to the police. Obviously such locations do not exist in North East Somerset, and I should of course be stunned and surprised were there any in Northamptonshire. Indeed, such people tend to be known to the police themselves. I am afraid that there are not too many surprises when the police stop them and subsequently find that they have been driving under the influence of drugs, and when their names flash up on the system in connection with an earlier drug-related offence.
I suggest to the Minister that there is a certain group of individuals out there who need to be targeted—not as in police targeting but for education purposes, so that they can come to terms with the fact that in taking an illegal drug and then getting into a car, they are not just already committing a crime but are about to drive a lethal weapon that could potentially kill someone’s child. Although this debate is about roadside testing, surely the whole point of it is the need to stop people even being tempted to take drugs before getting into a vehicle, so that none of us have to experience a tragedy in our constituencies or among our friends, as I have in the past and as so many other Members have.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on securing this important debate and moving the topic of drug-driving higher up the agenda. It is a great pleasure to follow the brief remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris).
Although I agree with many of the principles associated with the Bill, I am unable, for a number of reasons, to agree with the Bill as it is currently worded. Before I go on to detail those reasons, I stress that I am a trustee of a charity in Stevenage called The Living Room, which tries to break the cycle of addiction, specifically drug and alcohol addiction, and the devastating impact that that has on the lives of those who are addicted and, more often than not, their families. In many cases, the involvement of those individuals in criminal activities has a devastating impact on the victims and their families.
Drugs are a huge problem in our society and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry suggested, we must focus more on education, on ensuring that people who enter a world of drugs to escape their current reality recognise that that is not the right path, and on identifying why they take that line.
One of the issues that I have with the Bill is the nature of the offences as detailed. Primary legislation would probably be required for its provisions to be introduced. At present the offence is driving while impaired by drugs or causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs. Although a roadside screening device can identify whether someone has drugs in their system, that will not necessarily be a criminal offence. The police need to have reason to believe that the person’s driving was impaired by having the drugs in their system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North mentioned some tragic cases that were the result of an individual causing death by careless driving because of drugs. Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the penalty was increased to 14 years, so the five years that such an individual would receive under the present law would be increased to 14 years. Section 4 of the 1988 Act stresses the need to show that the person was unfit to drive while under the influence of drugs. My hon. Friend detailed well the Department for Transport’s consultation in 2008, which asked for views on the creation of a possible new offence—driving with drugs in one’s system. That consultation closed in February 2009 and in December 2010 the Government announced that they would seek further advice from Sir Peter North.
My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry referred to Sir Peter North’s response. On the question of a new law setting banned drug levels, Sir Peter stated that the focus should be on public safety. Any new offence should therefore focus on establishing levels of drugs in the blood at which significant impairment and therefore risk to public safety can be reasonably assumed, as is the case now for drink-driving. That brings me back to my concern about the Bill. It would require primary legislation to introduce a new offence of driving while having drugs in the system.
Mr Nuttall
I am not entirely convinced that the Bill seeks to establish a new offence. It calls on the Secretary of State to approve a device for administering the preliminary drug test, which was envisaged in section 6A(1) of the 1988 Act. Will my hon. Friend expand a little on his objections to that?
Stephen McPartland
Indeed. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, the device used to establish drink-driving, the breathalyser, provides the evidential basis. My concern is that if a drug-screening device is produced in the next 12 months, it will identify whether people have drugs in their system, as opposed to the police stopping someone because they thought his driving was impaired by having drugs in his system. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch cited a case in which an individual was prosecuted for crashing his car and received eight weeks in prison for being under the influence of drugs.
As the law stands, if the police stop a driver because they feel that he is driving the vehicle irrationally and is impaired in some way, they have the power to take him back to the police station and test whether he has drugs in his system. Increasing the powers of the police would move us closer towards a police state, as they could stop anybody and test them for drugs, because the drug- screening device would have evidential power, whereas at present only a blood sample is allowed to be used in court.
Hon. Members have given a number of examples—discotheques in North East Somerset, dance clubs where one boogies in Daventry, or dance clubs in Bury North. Statistics show that 76% of young people surveyed admitted to having drugs in their system. That brings me to my second objection to the Bill, which is the social aspect. We would not want the police to use a drug-screening device to target younger people leaving such premises to identify whether they had drugs in their system. My concern is the practical one of the device being used in a slightly different way.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I understand my hon. Friend’s argument, but surely some existing drug-screening devices are appropriately used—for example, to detect drug use among the prison population. It is a case of horses for courses. If we try to keep ourselves focused on a device that is proven to work for a limited amount of illegal drugs for roadside use by the police, hopefully we can, with debates in the House and pressure on Ministers, maintain it for that use and not have it spread further in ways that might impinge on people’s liberty.
Stephen McPartland
I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments. As I have said, I also agree with many of the sentiments in the Bill. My concern is how it will be applied in practice. My real concern is how individuals will use these devices to target specific sections of society and then use that evidence to say that people are under the influence of drugs.
Mr Chope
The Bill would not introduce random testing. At the moment we do not allow random breath testing for alcohol and the Bill would not allow random testing for drugs. It would allow testing where the motorist has either been seen to be committing a road traffic offence, or been driving in a way that has caused the police to believe that he might be driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Stephen McPartland
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I agree with much of what he says, but the key point is that the police can already tell such individuals that they believe they are under the influence of drugs and will test them at the police station. I am not sure many police officers in Hertfordshire would be keen to allow an individual to get back into a vehicle and continue driving if they felt that the individual was sufficiently impaired to stop and question them in the first place. In nine cases out of 10 they would no doubt take them back to the police station and test them.
There is also the issue of costs and road safety. The previous Government and this Government have done a lot to highlight road safety. A number of excellent charities such as Brake are doing everything they can to ensure that people are educated in improving road safety and, for example, are made more aware of the fact that if people drive at 20 mph in a residential area instead of 30 mph, small children will be less likely to be killed. A lot of work has gone into that and I would refute the suggestion that the reason for the delay by parties on both side of the House was cost. The real reason, as the previous Government concluded, is that none of the previous devices have been considered sufficiently reliable to be used for roadside testing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry spoke about specifications, and the Bill seeks to introduce the specification in the next 12 months. If the previous Government concluded that none of the specific kit out there is sufficiently reliable, I am not sure that we should simply say that one of those pieces of equipment should be taken on board within the next 12 months. My fear is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) mentioned on more than one occasion, that would endanger innocent people, and delay may not be the result of bureaucracy but of ensuring—
Mr Nuttall
All that the courts have to go on at the moment are roadside tests that make people walk back and forth and stand on one leg. Does my hon. Friend agree that they might welcome being able to look at scientific evidence produced by one of these devices?
Stephen McPartland
I hope that the Minister will respond to that point, and that the scientific evidence for the devices is being considered. Some of the statistics and evidence we have heard today do not provide any reliable comparisons, and we need to look at this further. I agree with the concept and know that we are all frustrated that we are not moving fast enough, but I am concerned that if people felt they were being wrongly prosecuted it would be open to judicial review and would drag on an awful lot longer. If we get the specification right to begin with, the process will move on much faster and further, and in practice rather than in theory.
It has taken such an unreasonably long time for the specification for a device to be approved because it has to be very detailed and precise, and no doubt one problem will be that the Government will want it to adhere to a specific rationale and the manufacturers will want it to be commercially viable, so there is that tension. Will the Minister invite manufacturers to propose specifications so that devices can be tested scientifically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North has suggested? Is the specification unrealistically demanding? I do not think that any specification is unrealistically demanding if it prevents innocent people from being prosecuted unnecessarily, which is a key issue. We have to do what is right to ensure that innocent people are allowed to carry on with their lives and are not caught up in this process.
That brings me to a point about medication. I am not a scientist and so am unaware of how much theory, evidence and scientific support there is for the device. I can only identify the number of drugs that might be tested for—I cannot repeat their names, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North did so eloquently, no doubt challenging the Hansard reporters to spell them correctly. I am not sure whether medication would be picked up by the devices in the same way as some illegal drugs would be. Some people who take medicine prescribed by their doctor for health reasons could be accused of taking illegal drugs and, as a result, taken down to the police station and prosecuted. All that rigmarole will have a huge impact on their lives simply because they are taking medication. It is really important that the drug-screening device, which I fully support, does the right job at the right time and that we ensure that we stop people who are under the influence of illegal drugs.
Finally, I feel that the delay is of paramount importance to protect innocent people who are taking medication. We do not want the drug-screening device to be used to stop and search people. It is very important that those who are considered to be driving under the influence of drugs are prosecuted in exactly the same way as they are at present. Although I fully support the actual intention of the Bill, I cannot support it at the moment because of its current wording and its instruction to the Government to agree on a device within the next 12 months.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I almost entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), who put absolutely clearly and rightly his point that most people want this desperately serious issue to be dealt with fairly and forcefully. There is undoubtedly a scourge in the country of people taking illegal substances and then doing unwise things, which include driving cars, but, although we are talking about cars, we need also to talk about carts and horses, because with this Bill the cart is being put in front of the horse, for one very obvious and clear reason: we have the test, but we have not set the limits that apply.
We have heard learnedly from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) about nanograms, a term that I had not previously been particularly familiar with, but if we are dealing with nanograms of substances in people’s blood we need to say whether a nanogram is a legal or illegal nanogram when we test it, because if we have not established that, we will not know what the benchmark is; hence the cart is in front of the horse.
In that context, a great deal more work needs to be done, because, as has been widely discussed, there are varying views on what level of substance in somebody’s blood could impair their driving and, indeed, what combination of substances could impair or unimpair their driving. Earlier, we discussed the person—the youth perhaps, or the dangerous driver—who was calmed by taking cannabis. But then he might have had a cup of coffee to pep him up, so how are we going to balance those substances in one little drop of spittle, which I must say is not an ideal way for the police to go around collecting samples?
I feel rather sorry for the officer on duty at the roadside who stops somebody driving in zig-zags and not absolutely on the straight and narrow and then has to get him to spit. I feel sympathy for the enforcers of law and order, given that we cannot find a better roadside test than one based on spittle. We need to be clear, as we are with alcohol, however, about the amount that is allowed before we can make the test effective.
If I have misunderstood this point, I hope that somebody will intervene on me to explain it more clearly, but the current law states that one has to be shown to be impaired, hence the roadside tests, the standing on one leg and all that, because the police can turn up in court and say, “Mr Bloggins couldn’t stand with one leg 8 inches from the ground for more than 30 seconds while counting up to 100,” or whatever the test is. That is evidence either that he is a poor unbalanced man anyway, or that he has taken illegal substances and that conclusion might be backed up by a blood test taken at the station, showing that an offence of operating a motor car when under the influence of drugs has been committed.
First, let us be absolutely clear: we have not set the benchmarks, so the test does not test anything particularly evidential. Secondly, however, there is the point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North again made so wisely and rightly, about drugs themselves and what is legal and illegal. [Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend want to intervene? He looks as if he is about to spring from his perch, coiled as he is.
Mr Nuttall
I wish merely to comment on my hon. Friend’s previous point about what the offence is. He is quite right that it is not an offence merely to have drugs in one’s body, because that is not what the 1988 Act states. It states:
“A person who, when driving or attempting to drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place, is unfit to drive through drink or drugs is guilty of an offence.”
The difficulty facing the court is in determining, first, whether the person was unfit to drive and, secondly, whether it was as a result of drink or, in this case, drugs.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend, in his opening remarks, put it extremely clearly that the courts should determine these matters, but I do not agree. The courts should not determine the levels. They can determine the individual case. They can say, “Yes, we accept what the police are saying, yes we accept that that person was unable to hold his leg 6½ inches off the ground for two hours”—or whatever it is—“and that therefore he was affected by drugs.” However, it would not be right for the courts to establish the broad principle that 1 nanogram of some substance was the limit, or 2 nanograms. I could keep counting up to one full gram; on another occasion, Mr Deputy Speaker, I may find it advisable to do so, but not today. This should be decided by Parliament, because that is what we are here for—to determine the principles that are then applied by the courts.
I worry when we give either too little or too much discretion to the courts, because it depends so much on the area that is covered. When it comes to the appropriate sentence, we should set the maximum, and possibly the minimum, but we do not want to set the finer details. With quantities of drugs, likewise, we want to set the minimum and the maximum for legality, but we do not want the judges to develop their own precedent that gives them a power that rightly belongs to Parliament. That is why the Government are right to consider this. I have not suddenly decided that I am in favour of bureaucratic dithering, because it is not bureaucratic dithering; it is a right understanding of the very difficult issues that exist.
I move on to the question of what is legal and what is illegal. I thought of quoting Coleridge:
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree”.
That was written under the influence of what would now be an illegal substance. Coleridge had been taking opium for some time beforehand, and he wrote out his poem until interrupted by a gentleman from Porlock, which is notably in the county of Somerset. Taking opium was perfectly legal at the time. He was not committing any offence by doing so, nor are some people today who are prescribed opiates for the relief of pain. If somebody is prescribed an opiate for the relief of pain and is driving perfectly well, is it conceivably reasonable to say to them, “We’ve found a nanogram of this substance in you and therefore you’ve committed an offence and must be banned from driving for a year”? It is not the same with alcohol, because very few people absolutely need to take alcohol. That is not entirely true, as I knew a man who was prescribed gin and tonic by his doctor towards the end of his life, but that was for more complex reasons than as a curative—I think it was more of a palliative. Some people need these serious and otherwise illegal drugs for good and proper medical reasons, and therefore a blanket test could be a very unfair and unjust way with dealing with them. That is why the Government are right to consider this thoroughly and properly so that ultimately we can not only set the limits but differentiate as regards where the limits ought to be set and what we are trying to include and to exclude.
Beyond the drugs that are illegal in certain circumstances and legal in others, there are the drugs that are always legal but can, in certain quantities, create an impairment. That leads to a balance of advantages. Lots of people suffer from hay fever, for example. If someone is driving along and has a fit of the sneezes, that is quite dangerous, as they could drive into a ditch, or something worse. If they take a more old-fashioned type of antihistamine, they may find that it makes them feel a little sleepy if they have that type of reaction to antihistamines. Are we suddenly going to say that someone who takes an antihistamine cannot drive because it is better that people should have a fit of the sneezes? Would it show up in the test anyway?
The broad problem that, I am afraid, often comes up on Friday mornings is that the laws that we look to pass are about motherhood and apple pie. They are saying, for example, “The world is simple and it’s all very straightforward—we’ll have a nice test, and bingo, we’ve got the drug dealers and the drug users off the roads.” But it is not quite like that; the situation is much more complex and nuanced, regarding not only the levels but the legality and the illegality, and then some of the broader general principles.
I want to return to the piece in the Daily Mail on coffee earlier this week. I was astonished to read that anybody who has five cups of coffee a day is likely to hallucinate. I should think that I have had at least five cups of coffee every day since I was a young teenager, and I have never, to my knowledge, hallucinated; it may be that one does not notice these effects. I would be very reluctant to see the Government introduce some hand-held device to test Members of Parliament as they drive out of New Palace Yard to see whether they have too much caffeine in their system. After some of our sittings that last until 4 in the morning, quite a lot of Members have a lot of caffeine in their system, not to mention some who might have other things in their system. I would not think it right for the police officers on duty to ask us to spit at them, as I mentioned earlier, which would be most unpleasant and improper. There are real issues and difficulties in how we deal with legal and illegal drugs, and the measuring of them.
There is also the general principle. I have a certain sympathy with the US constitution, and the fifth amendment in particular, which allows people not to incriminate themselves. We have made an exception for drink-driving. The motorist, oddly, is the one person in British life who is not protected from the general principle of non-self-incrimination. The motorist who does not reply to a speeding ticket is guilty of an offence and therefore incriminates himself, and occasionally members of his family. There are obvious questions over the breathalyser, because a failure to provide a sample without good reason is an offence and one incriminates oneself by failing to give one. Already with drug-driving, as I have said, it is an offence to refuse to stand on one leg for the specified time with the other leg a specified number of inches from the ground. That ought to worry us constitutionally.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I know that it is unwise to interrupt his flow of words, eloquent and beautiful as it is, and especially so after five cups of coffee on a Friday morning. There is another group of individuals in the position that he has detailed. Sportsmen and athletes have to report in about where they will be going in hourly or three-hourly segments—I cannot remember which—and they have random drug tests. This is not just something that is proposed in the Bill; we accept the concept that drug testing should be allowed in some circumstances. Surely when a person is pulled over for a road traffic offence and the police suspect that they have been taking drugs, the police should be equipped with a device so that they can test the person there and then.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that my hon. Friend’s point is slightly disconnected, because belonging to a voluntary body, the rules of which state that one must subject oneself to a test, is very different from Her Majesty’s Government and Parliament, through legislation, taking away one’s right not to self-incriminate. One does not have to be an athlete—I never could be anyway. It is not compulsory to be a runner or a jumper. It ought to be compulsory to be a cricketer, but sadly it is not. However, if the Government get involved, one may commit an offence by going about one’s ordinary daily life and that is a higher degree of intrusion. The same point applies to the earlier intervention about the Home Office testing the people who work for it with these machines.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Where the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) is slightly wrong is that a sportsman who does not take a drug test does not commit a criminal offence, although he may be banned by his sport. However, I understand that it is a criminal offence for airline pilots and crew not to give samples when required by the aviation authorities. Is not the bar set so much higher for airline pilots and drivers because they are responsible for other people’s lives?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I was merely making the point that this is something that we should be concerned about, and that we should be aware of what we are doing. The fifth amendment in the United States gives a clear protection. Our constitutional system does not have such clear protections. It is therefore quite easy for Parliament to eat into them and gnaw away at them slowly, sometimes without really thinking. Once we have done it for drink-driving, we say, “Well, why don’t we do it for driving on drugs?” We then say, “Well, drugs are illegal anyway, so why not just test the whole population and see whether they are committing a criminal offence?” That might not be hugely popular in all our constituencies.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend refers to the fifth amendment, but he will be aware that there is statute law in the United States stating that there is implied consent on the part of every driver of a motor vehicle. By taking out a driving licence, they are not covered by the fifth amendment, because by implied consent in law they agree to be subject to a test if the police suspect that they have an illegal substance in their body while driving. I am not sure that he is comparing like with like, because a similar statutory regime exists in the United States notwithstanding the fifth amendment.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend’s intervention is extremely helpful, but we can see how clear America is about understanding the process that is followed, and about what it is doing in relation to people’s constitutional rights. That is what I am highlighting.
If we do what is suggested in the Bill, we have to be aware of the very important principle that is, to some extent, being undermined. It is not necessarily disproportionate to do it, and it may be absolutely essential—I would not begin to say that we should not have the breathalyser and the assumption that if someone refuses a test, they have probably committed an offence anyway. I do not think that is disproportionate, but it is important to be aware of the risk that we are taking with our constitution, and we must ensure that we are very careful if we ever take the idea further. The next time an hon. Member introduces a private Member’s Bill that would do something that looks very good and would improve society, we must consider whether we are doing anything to the constitution that we should be very careful about.
That is another reason for supporting Her Majesty’s Government in this particular area. They are right to be slow and deliberative. The worst thing to do would be to get some fancy bit of kit introduced—made by Philips, as I think was suggested earlier, or perhaps by Samsung Electronics—that comes in, absolutely whizzo, and tests for all drugs but one, or takes just one reading. This “nanogram” thing really makes me suspicious, because it must be easy to find a nanogram from somewhere if that is what one wants to do, or for a nanogram to be stuck in the machine from the last person, who might have come from Gloucestershire. The police might cross over into Somerset, and then some good Somerset fellow would spit on this thing and find himself caught out by a Gloucestershire nanogram. I am very concerned about Gloucestershire nanograms.
I urge Her Majesty’s Government to be very careful about the testing of the machines, and to ensure that they really do what they are said to do. That is the other great point of complexity. When a Labour Transport Minister, one Barbara Castle, introduced the breathalyser in the late 1960s, it was simply a few crystals that changed colour if somebody was over the limit, and they then went for a test. The machines have obviously become much more sophisticated, but they are testing for one thing and one thing only. They are not about finding out whether someone has had five cups of coffee, or whether they have been in one of those dance clubs that we were hearing about earlier, where 76% of people have taken drugs. I must say, I was shocked by that. We have tea dances in Somerset, where I do not think such things take place. The machine that we have is accurate and accepted, but the machines that are yet to come in may be given increasing evidential value despite testing for so many things and being at greater risk of getting things wrong. The Government really need to be, and clearly are being, very cautious.
We have heard a lot of comparisons with Australia. It is not always the model for the United Kingdom to follow, although it sometimes is. In its drink-driving laws, it has accepted random testing for a very long time, because it felt that it had a very serious problem. We have never accepted that. Australia may feel, in its circumstances, that having something relatively untested is necessary in the light of the problems that it has faced.
I am sorry to say that I will not go on with such eloquence and at such length as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North. I am full of admiration for him, and I wish that I could do so. I wish to conclude with some key points that we have to remember. First, I hope that the Minister will ensure that we put the cart behind the horse—we have to get things the right way around—by establishing the levels that make a substance legal or illegal. Secondly, we must look at the question of somebody using a prescribed drug that in other circumstances is illegal. Will we simply ban them from driving whenever they go through that course of treatment? If we take the zero-reading approach that an hon. Friend suggested, we would do so. Thirdly, we must always bear in mind the deep constitutional principle of non-self-incrimination. We may accept that it can be overridden, but at least we would know what we were doing. Fourthly, we must consider the quality of the machine, and ask whether it will really work. Finally, we must keep the process in the hands of Parliament and not delegate these nanograms to judges. Noble, lordly and wise as they are, we need to make the law, so that they can enforce it.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
I have listened with great interest to today’s debate, and I broadly support the idea of drug testing. As we have heard, drug use is now more prevalent. We may be in a similar situation to that in 1967, when Barbara Castle introduced drink-driving tests. I support the principle, but as other hon. Members have outlined, there are a few queries and wrinkles that get in the way of the Bill at the moment.
I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) in an intervention about passive drug taking, which might be prevalent in the clubs about which we have heard a lot—I have not visited them, but I am perhaps too old for that sort of thing nowadays. Even so, if people are in an arena where others are taking cannabis, will they inhale the fumes and then be tripped up by a drugs test because of that passive intake?
I realise that performance-enhancing drugs are not illegal, but in 1988, when Ben Johnson fell foul of a drugs test at the Seoul Olympics, Linford Christie, who was initially a bronze medallist, was also tested. After much thinking about whether his test was positive, it was thankfully found to be negative, and he was duly elevated to the silver medal position. The problem was that he had had a cup of ginseng tea. As far as I am aware, ginseng tea is not a performance-enhancing drug, but it created an anomaly. It is alleged in today’s newspapers that Kolo Touré, the Manchester City footballer who is currently serving a ban for taking a performance-enhancing or other drug, had taken a water tablet. Those are queries and anomalies with drug testing. As I said, those are not illegal substances, but the problems with tests for illegal substances could be similar. Will such tests produce rogue readings? That needs to be ironed out.
As we have already heard, there is a problem with caffeine in coffee, and as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) mentioned tea dances, I should say that there is also caffeine in tea. He could find that the good burghers of North East Somerset end up cluttering up the cells on their return from a tea dance because they have taken too much Typhoo or Brooke Bond.
I have been in the Chamber for the most of the debate—I left it only briefly—but I am unsure whether the issue of thresholds has been addressed. We are talking about illegal substances. If any such substance is found in a test, will someone then be taken away for a more detailed test? Is my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch proposing a threshold, as there is with alcohol, of which people are allowed a certain amount? Does any amount of an illegal substance mean that a person will fall foul of the law?
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has told me of a drug- driving incident in Cambridge—not Gloucestershire, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset will be pleased to hear—and it bears repeating. The Cambridge News reported:
“A drug driver who led police on a seven-mile chase around Cambridge at speeds of up to 80 mph has been spared jail.”
He
“overtook on blind corners and ignored red lights as he tried to shake off officers in the early hours of the morning.”
The deployment of a stinger device did not stop him despite puncturing his tyre. The report goes on to say that the gentleman
“had taken cannabis and mephedrone, before he was eventually arrested in Great Shelford. He pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving and cannabis possession, denying that he was the driver, but was convicted…and…given a nine-month”
suspended sentence.
He was told by the recorder:
“'You were driving very fast, you overtook on blind corners, and you ignored a number of red traffic lights. It was…a miracle nobody was killed or injured.'”
We were hearing such stories 10 or 20 years ago to do with alcohol and drink-driving, but the world has moved on, and we now hear a lot about the prevalence of drugs and drug taking. Are we now in a position with drug-driving that we were with drink-driving many years ago?
We should urge the Government to take action as quickly as possible. However, for reasons that have been eloquently dilated upon today, I still have concerns about the mixture and the substances. I remember somebody saying many years ago, “Would you be done for drink-driving if you had had too many portions of sherry trifle?” We are now talking about illegal substances, which someone might have ingested unwittingly, and they could be criminalised for doing so. I support the idea in principle, and I think that we should move quickly, but let us not rush head over heels and make a mistake, and end up criminalising people on their way from a perfectly harmless tea dance in North East Somerset.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I echo the words of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) in beginning the debate. I am sure that he spoke for the whole House when he wished the Duke of Edinburgh a happy 90th birthday.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing yet another Bill on a Friday, and on enabling the House to debate this important topic. The contributions of Government Members demonstrated the dilemma facing the Government in dealing with this problem. The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) actually put forward both sides of the argument—for and against rushing to introduce roadside drug testing, and on the problems that the technology presents. We welcome in principle what the hon. Member for Christchurch is seeking to achieve with this Bill, but I wonder whether it has been superseded by the attempts of previous Governments and this Government to achieve the same thing. On 4 June, the Daily Mail reported that the Home Office had indicated its intention to introduce laws paving the way for drug tests, and that those will be put before Parliament at the earliest opportunity—possibly later this year.
I noted the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Christchurch about why the Government might be dragging their feet, but I ask him to reflect on what he said. I am sure that we all agree that this is a serious problem, and we all want action taken as soon as possible to deter people from driving while under the influence of drugs, but he suggested that the Home Office had an ulterior motive for delaying introduction. It is not my place to stand at this Dispatch Box and defend the Government, but I do not think that anyone would stand in the way of preventing serious accidents caused by people under the influence of drugs. Were there a technological solution, any Government, regardless of persuasion, would want it introduced without delay. I ask him to reflect on that point when deciding whether to press the Bill to a vote at the end of the debate.
As early as 2001, the Transport Research Laboratory published a report on the incidence of drugs and alcohol in road accidents. It conducted a study of 1,884 incidents in which people were killed on our roads, and found that 20.9% of drivers and 20.3% of riders had “impairing drugs” in their blood, which represented a threefold increase on figures for the mid-1980s. A drug-driving test system has been in development for a number of years, and has, I believe, been installed in about 170 police stations. I understand that trials of a hand-held device will continue before the roll-out, which highlights the problem that successive Governments have faced in trying to deal with the issue. Several attempts have been made to develop a device that can detect the presence of illegal or performance-limiting drugs in drivers—whose ability to drive may thereby be impaired—and that has led to several false starts. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) referred to several press releases that perhaps wrongly gave the impression that the roll-out was imminent, when we are in fact still in the testing phase.
As the contribution from the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and the amusing but insightful contribution from the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) demonstrated, testing people for the presence of such drugs is not a simple matter. There are sometimes reasons why drugs will be present in the blood—or the saliva, even—of people stopped at the roadside. What has proven difficult is determining whether the nanogram of the substance in question is a legal nanogram or an illegal nanogram. That brings us back to the point made by the hon. Member for Daventry. Should the limit for illegal substances present in the blood of somebody who has been tested be zero, or should we set a legal limit, because we recognise that, as the hon. Member for North East Somerset pointed out—the hon. Member for Stevenage made a similar point—some people may be prescribed drugs that contain opiates or other normally illegal substances? That is the dilemma that has confronted successive Governments, including the current Government.
We have quite rightly placed an emphasis on tackling drink-driving and punishing those who do it; around 70,000 people are caught each year. There is evidence—and certainly anecdotal evidence that I am aware of—that young people today are extremely aware of the dangers of drink-driving and take steps to avoid it, such as by designating one of their friends as somebody who will drive but not drink when they go out for an evening. I see lots of evidence of many young people taking a responsible approach in that regard. However, there is also evidence that they might not take the same approach to the effects of the drugs that they may take from time to time—perhaps when they are out in the discotheques of places other than North East Somerset—or that they might not understand the danger in which they are placing themselves and others while driving under the influence of such drugs.
In 2009, the last Government had a drive—pardon the pun—to educate people, and particularly young people, about the dangers of taking drugs and driving. They also introduced the new FIT test—the field impairment test, to which the hon. Member for Bury North referred—to determine whether people were incapable or impaired, and should therefore not be driving. The test took various forms, which he described, one of which was for the driver to close their eyes, put their head back and attempt to place their finger on their nose. We would all agree that, if there is a technological equivalent to that, we would want it introduced.
Previous Governments—and, I am sure, this Government —have recognised that driving while under the influence of drugs is a problem. As many hon. Members have said, other countries have introduced roadside testing, not least Australia, Croatia, Italy and Romania, among others. It will be interesting to see whether the Government will think that the implementation of roadside testing in those countries gives us any guidance towards taking that step ourselves.
We welcome the fact that the technology is being developed in the UK, as the hon. Member for Christchurch said. Cozart Bioscience, based in Oxford, is developing the device, and Concateno is manufacturing it. One of the board members at Cozart Bioscience, Dr Chris Hand, has made some bold claims for the device. If he is correct, I am sure that we can look forward to its introduction up and down the country. He stated:
“Historically, the argument against such devices has been that the technology is not available. That is no longer true. We can adapt it to meet specific requirements of legislation.”
I shall be interested to hear whether the Minister agrees with Dr Hand, and whether the Government intend to introduce the equipment soon.
When the Conservatives were in opposition, their then transport spokesperson, the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), said that he was satisfied that sufficiently developed technology was available for the process to be rolled out. Speaking about the police, he said:
“They are not being given the tools to catch these dangerous drivers. The Conservatives would change the law so the police could use a drugalyzer for roadside testing as they currently can with a breathalyzer. The Government say that the technology isn’t ready but it is already being used in countries like Australia.”
Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether that is also his view, and whether, as the Daily Mail suggested on 4 June, we can now expect legislation from the Home Office to enable a roll-out of this equipment?
I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch on allowing us to have this important debate. Whether the Bill goes through or not, it is clearly playing an important part in our scrutiny of what the Government are doing in this area. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I should like to join other hon. Members in congratulating His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on his 90th birthday today. He has been a great servant of our country over an extended period, and we all wish him well today.
I commend the commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) to the cause of road safety. He said that he had had a genuine interest in these matters for a long time—in fact, since he was a Minister with responsibility for road safety. I understand his commitment to the underlying issues, and his view that we need to treat the matter extremely carefully. We have heard today about the appalling tragedies that can arise as a consequence of drug-impaired driving. I also understand his reasons for introducing the Bill. However, I do not think that it is necessary, or the best way to proceed, and I hope that I will be able to persuade him and the House of that.
This has been a good debate on the important issue of drug testing and road safety. The debate has been good natured and there is a great deal of agreement across the House. I greatly welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), speaking for the Opposition and recognising some of the challenges and complexities that have developed over time.
It has also been a humorous debate in many ways, drawing together references to druids and Coleridge. Although we have had lots of references to impairment in the debate, there has been no impairment in the contributions, although I could not see from my place on the Front Bench whether my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) was delivering his speech while standing on one leg. I think I can safely say, however, that if my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) had attempted to do that, he would probably have required some medical attention, as it would have been quite a feat.
It has also been a full and well-informed debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for bringing this matter to our attention through his Bill. I certainly understand the frustration that he and other Members have underlined in respect of equipment for drug testing—whether at the roadside or in police stations—being brought forward. I will explain the steps that the Government have taken and where we are now in making progress on the issue.
It would be remiss of me not to underline the huge tragedies that these incidents can bring—the very personal cases that Members have brought to our attention today. We need to view the issue in that broader context. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North—and also my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris)—who highlighted the impact of these incidents on young people. I can certainly think of many good local projects that involve working with young people to highlight the dangers of drug-driving and drink-driving and the importance of responsible driving, by which I mean not driving too fast, in the knowledge that young lives have literally been cut short as a consequence of some of these appalling incidents.
Drawing together the work of the medical profession, Highways Agency staff who keep our highways safe and the police, it is possible to go into schools and focus on prevention through hard-hitting messages. I have sat through some hard-hitting presentations myself and know that the victims of incidents are sometimes involved, which can make for powerful road safety messages for our young people and help to prevent these appalling tragedies. The breadth of our debate has been useful in that context.
Chris Heaton-Harris
My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the organisations that tour around the country, teaching young people road safety and, indeed, the impact and consequences in the justice system of breaking the law. Has he heard of the “Prison? Me? No Way!” scheme? It involves crashing a car in school and calling the emergency services to cut people out; the magistrates sometimes come in to go through the legal process and prison guards may be on site, turning the classroom into a prison. It takes school kids through the whole thing. It is a fantastic scheme that has gone ahead in the whole of Northamptonshire and many midlands schools. It is exactly the sort of thing that improves people’s knowledge in this regard.
James Brokenshire
I am not aware of that specific scheme that operates in Northamptonshire and the midlands, but I am familiar with a number of innovative locally developed programmes that bring various agencies and organisations together to send out preventive messages about drug-driving, drink-driving and speed. I remember spending an afternoon watching one of those presentations and seeing some of the hard-hitting images. I saw a victim in a wheelchair and the lifelong impact that being involved in a road accident had had on him. The impact that that real-life context had on the young people who received that presentation was palpable. To get across road safety messages to young people, we should look at the broader context and underline the real-life consequences of thoughtlessness in relation to those who might be in the car or vehicle with them on the road.
Clearly, road deaths are a tragedy, and road traffic collisions are the leading cause of death for young adults aged 15 to 24. They account for more than a quarter of deaths in the 15 to 19 age group. Injuries caused in such collisions lead to suffering and distress, and can result in a serious lessening in quality of life. It is not only the victims who suffer, but their partners, children, families, friends and all those associated with them.
There is also a serious detrimental impact on the emergency services, on health costs, on economic output, and on the roads. It is estimated that preventing all collisions could benefit the economy by £16 billion a year. Insurance payouts for motoring claims alone are now more than £12 billion a year. That is why I say clearly to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, who implied that there was a financial reason why measures had not been advanced more speedily, that that is absolutely not the case. Given the costs to society arising from such incidents, we need to move forward as quickly as possible to deliver on road safety and drug-driving. As the many contributions to the debate have highlighted, there are levels of complexity, and there are issues that need care and attention. Even so, we should get on with this and ensure that the relevant “drugalysers” are available in police stations and, thereafter, on our roads. There are, however, some complex issues and dilemmas in relation to how that will fit into the context of the existing law and in relation to appropriate changes to the law to make arrangements more robust.
Road deaths are not all a result of drug-driving—we do not know the level of drug-driving. A survey of a sample of victims of fatal road crashes between 1996 and 2000 showed traces of drugs in 18% of drivers—six times more than a survey 10 years earlier. Hon. Members who read their newspapers this morning may have read a survey by the insurer Direct Line, which highlights the potential scale of the problem. We are in no doubt about the seriousness of the issue and the need for it to be addressed effectively and appropriately.
Nevertheless, we can say that more than half of road deaths are associated with one or more of the following: driving while impaired by drugs; drink-driving; speeding; careless or dangerous driving; and driving while distracted and not wearing a seat belt. Drug-driving is a serious problem that we as a Government must address. We will address all bad driving behaviour, not just speeding, as sometimes appeared to happen in the recent past. Drug-driving, like drink-driving, is something to which we want to give particular attention.
As has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North and others, we set out our plans in the Government response to Sir Peter North’s report on drink and drug-driving law and to the related recommendations of the Transport Committee. Last month they were included in the Department for Transport’s new strategic framework for road safety. We agree, in principle, with the main thrust of the 23 recommendations in the North report. The steps recommended are
“to approve preliminary testing equipment which can be procured by police forces for use initially in police stations, and later at the roadside; to implement other measures to make the law against drug-driving work more effectively; to continue research into equipment which could be approved for the police to test for these substances; on the basis of this work, to examine the case for a new specific offence—alongside the existing one—which would relieve the need for the police to prove impairment case-by-case where a specified drug had been detected.”
The report proposed that
“priority should be given to type approval for, and supply to police stations of, preliminary drug testing devices… type approval ought in the first instance to focus on devices capable of detection of those drugs or categories of drugs which are the most prevalent, including amongst drivers, recognising that more than one device may be needed to cover the whole range.”
There has been discussion of both the nature of the drugs involved and the interrelationship between different drugs. Drugs are often not taken in isolation. They may be taken along with other substances, including other drugs. The concept of polysubstance, or multiple-substance, drug abuse is well known. The science and technology that can provide meaningful, reliable readings in the context of different substances taken together are not entirely straightforward. The need to assure those in the criminal justice system and those who may be required to take tests that neither false positives nor false negatives are being created, with all the consequences that that may involve, has informed the careful approach that has been taken.
Our priority is to deter people from driving when impaired by a drug, and to ensure that those who persist in such dangerous behaviour are detected and punished effectively. Considerable progress has been made in reducing the level of drink-driving, but drug-driving can clearly be just as dangerous, which is why we are anxious to do more work in that regard.
I noted the discussion between my hon. Friends the Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Bury North about the need for clarity on the provisions of the current law. Under section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, it is illegal to drive, attempt to drive or be in charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle when unfit to drive through drink or drugs, whether legal or illegal. The offence is to be unfit, not simply to have a drug in the body. “Unfit” in this context means having, for the time being, an impaired ability to drive properly. Section 6 empowers the police, subject to certain conditions, to conduct at the roadside or at a police station compulsory preliminary or screening tests for impairment and the presence of a drug. If a preliminary test is positive, the police can immediately require the suspect to take a blood test. In the absence of a positive preliminary test, a blood test can only be authorised by a doctor.
While I think it right to engage in broader discussion of whether the law itself should be changed, the availability of equipment enabling the initial test to be conducted can itself make a difference in speeding up the process because the authorisation of a doctor is not required at that stage, thus ensuring that the process can be conducted more efficiently.
I want to clarify the fact that only the evidence from a blood test can be used in a prosecution to support a constable’s opinion that a person was driving while impaired by a drug. People might think that simply having a drug in one’s system creates the offence, but it is attempting to drive while unfit that creates the substantive offence.
The hon. Member for Eltham and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset referred to the field impairment test, which can be persuasive in demonstrating impairment when presented in court, but other evidence can be provided. It is not essential that the impairment test is failed. Other factors can be presented to the court, and ultimately it is for the court to determine, on all the evidence, whether the driving was impaired and whether the person was driving while unfit through drink or drugs. The various elements fit together.
The police can already take a suspected drug-driver to a police station and require him or her to provide an evidential blood specimen. Currently, however, the requirement can be made only if a medical practitioner is called to the police station and advises that the person’s condition may be due to a drug. The availability of an approved device will mean that if a positive reading is obtained, a blood specimen can be taken immediately, potentially by a custody suite nurse, without the need to call out a medical practitioner. Clearly, this will save time and money and, we believe, will be effective in ensuring that more people are brought to justice.
In that context, according to the latest figures I have on drug-driving, 1,598 were convicted of the offence—that is, the impairment offence. If one has more than the prescribed number of milligrams of alcohol in one’s blood, that is the strict liability offence, which my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset highlighted. The vast majority of cases are dealt with in that way, although probably many people who fail the drink-driving test have taken drugs as well as alcohol. It is therefore difficult to get specific figures for the conviction of those who have driven illegally, having taken drugs.
The essence of the Bill is that we need to do more. The coalition agreement sets out our commitment to authorising drug-testing technology, which will streamline procedures, for use in tackling drug-driving and we will fulfil that commitment. The analysis will show whether drivers had a drug in their system that might have caused impairment. In a prosecution it will support a police officer’s opinion that a person was driving while impaired by a drug.
In the debate we heard a number of contributions relating to the assessment of the device and the type approval process. Such a device must legally be of a type approved by the Secretary of State, and no devices are yet approved. Drug screeners are already commercially available, but they are designed for other purposes and use in other settings.
Successful use of a testing device—for example, where someone is referred for drug treatment—is not the same as testing to justify an invasive physical procedure for evidence that could support a criminal charge. Use of devices in other countries might be dependent on their different operational powers, requirements and practices, their different laws and legal conditions, and their particular social and political expectations. It is relevant to highlight experience from other countries, but it is also difficult to ascribe direct read-across in the way that perhaps has been suggested, albeit that we should learn from overseas experience.
The concept of type approval for drug screeners is parallel to the long-established type approval of devices used for other traffic law enforcement, such as speed and red light cameras, and breath-alcohol test devices. The primary purpose of type approval and its requirements is to ensure that the approved device is reliable, consistent, precise and accurate. This prevents repeated court challenges on the grounds that the reading allegedly justifying subsequent police action came from a device in which no confidence could be placed. If the level below which a device was not required to detect was raised, for example, some people pharmacologically affected by a drug might not be detected. If a device falsely gave a negative reading, a suspect might be allowed to continue driving, which apart from frustrating the ends of justice could clearly be dangerous. Not letting the suspect go despite a negative reading would be time-consuming and bureaucratic for the police, and might be seen by the suspect as oppressive and give rise, understandably, to complaint. Type approval of devices without requiring them to satisfy a detailed specification with clear standards and rigorous extensive testing, as required for all other type approvals, might be liable to judicial review on the grounds of unfairly favouring current manufacturers and of being irrational. But in saying all of that, I do not use that as an excuse for not getting on with things. I simply seek to set the context of the work that is required.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend talks about type approval, but surely the first thing is the specification. Am I right in believing that the Home Office has still not finalised the specification for the roadside drug-testing equipment? What is the problem in drawing up the specification?
James Brokenshire
As I have already said, we are seeking to prioritise, as was reflected in the North report, the creation of drug-testing equipment within the police station as the first step. We have worked on the specification for that and we want to see station-based devices available before the end of this year. Six devices are going through field trials and detailed laboratory tests are also necessary. Timing of approval depends on device performance, manufacturer’s reaction, and how quickly it is able to sign the agreement required with the Home Office before the Secretary of State signs the approval order. Purchase and deployment of the devices would then be matters for local police decision. We are pressing hard to see that by the end of this year. That then feeds through to the next step, which is the roadside testing, and our advisers are finalising the additional environmental requirement that devices would have to meet for use at the roadside. Obviously, the environmental issues are different out on the street compared with being in the police station. I can assure my hon. Friend that the specification document is going through final quality assurance, and we expect to receive it shortly. It will then be put to Ministers to decide how best to proceed further. I assure my hon. Friend that we are not just sitting on our hands. We are getting on with the work on the use of the device within the police station and are taking steps forward in relation to a device that can be type-approved for the roadside.
Mr Chope
Will my hon. Friend therefore confirm that the Government’s response in March 2011 to the North review that they hoped to take decisions on type approval for the machine in the police station by the end of June is still on the programme, and can he assure me that the specification for the roadside test will be published before the end of this calendar year?
James Brokenshire
I can certainly assure my hon. Friend about the joint working between the Home Office and the Department for Transport, because I have had conversations with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who, like me, is seized of the need to progress quickly with the work that is required to deal with this issue. As I have indicated, we want to see the equipment in police stations by the end of the year and are moving forward with all expedition on the necessary specification for the roadside device. I am unable at this point to give my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch the assurance he seeks, but I can say that work is ongoing and that we recognise the need to get the specification sorted out and make progress on the roadside device. However, I would urge caution in relation to getting the approvals and the specification correct.
Clive Efford
Will the Minister tell us what decisions are required of the House to implement roadside testing and whether the comments of the Home Office, quoted in a Daily Mail article of 4 June, that any decisions required of the House will be brought forward some time later this year, are accurate?
James Brokenshire
When we move from the specification to issuing the type approval, as it is known, a formal legal document has to be drawn up with the necessary approvals and presented to give that consent. In order for police forces to have the equipment in their police stations by the end of the year, the necessary legal documentation to facilitate the type approval, building on the experience of the pilots to which I have referred, would need to be in place. It is the approval that is absolutely key.
Reference has been made to experience in Australia, but recent research has shown that in western Australia, where roadside drug screeners have been brought into use, one in four tests was found to be inaccurate and more rigorous analysis of the specimens in a laboratory led to the exoneration of a number of motorists. Clearly we want to ensure that we get this right, and also recognise the need to take into account experience developed overseas.
On the issue of possible new offences and the question of whether there should be a different offence, and not simply looking at equipment to test or being able to support impairment, we are giving separate consideration to the case for introducing a simple, objective offence of having a specified drug in the body while driving. In addition to simplifying police enforcement, this could give a stronger message against drug-driving and act as a more powerful deterrent. Such an offence would also immediately make a roadside testing device much more valuable. The new offence would be in addition to the current offence of driving while impaired by drugs. Removing the need to prove impairment could deliver a significant improvement in enforcement.
We will, however, keep the impairment offence for those cases where impairment has been caused by a non-specified drug, such as one available on prescription or over the counter. That reflects a number of points that have been made by hon. Members in the debate. Introducing a new offence would be a very complex issue and there would be a need to consider a number of questions of principle, policy and practicality. In many ways that alludes to the comments made by hon. Members in our discussions on the Bill.
We will continue the research and other work that is necessary before any decisions can be made, but at this stage I cannot pre-empt that work. Any proposals that we produce will be subject to further consultation, regulatory clearance and other impact assessments, and implementation would clearly and, for the reasons that have been highlighted today, require primary legislation.
To conclude, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in wanting effective action against drug-driving. I applaud his dedication to the cause, and I recognise his frustrations and, indeed, those of previous Governments and other Ministers in taking action. It has therefore been good for us to hold this debate and to underline those issues today, but I hope he agrees that we are pursuing the goal vigorously and in the most appropriate manner, and in that context I hope that he will not press his Bill to a vote.
Mr Chope
With the leave of the House, may I respond to what has been an excellent debate?
When I became a Member we used to have one day a year on a Friday for a road safety debate, and in a sense this debate has been about one aspect of road safety, highlighting the deep interest that Members from all parts of the House have in the subject. I am very grateful to my hon. Friends for their contributions and to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) on the Opposition Front Bench for what he had to say.
I accept the bona fides of the Government and of my hon. Friend the Minister, but I remain disappointed that we are not going even faster. My hon. Friend was not even able to reconfirm, as the March response to the North review stated, that the Government hope to take decisions on type approval by the end of June. That has been replaced by a target for the devices to be in some police stations by the end of the year. So it goes on, as my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) so brilliantly said, quoting from various press releases over the years. Action always seems to be just around the corner, but we never quite get there. Let us hope that we do get there in the end.
In responding to the points that have been made, rather than going into a lot of detail, I commend to Members a brilliant analysis by Tina Cafaro, clinical professor of law at the Western New England college school of law, writing in the Western New England Law Review in 2010, under an article entitled, “Slipping Through the Cracks: Why Can’t We Stop Drugged Driving?”
In 70 or so pages, Professor Cafaro goes into the detail of what has happened in other countries and the differences between drug-driving and drink-driving, concluding that we will never make good progress unless we have a system of zero tolerance for illegal drugs in the body when people drive—leaving to one side the problem of prescribed and legal drugs. She comes down in favour of zero tolerance, rather as a number of my hon. Friends have during this debate, and I hope that we will now have a widespread debate about where we go from here, because the Government recognise that we should do more.
I hope that the road safety lobby, and other colleagues who are concerned about civil liberties and so on, will engage positively in a debate on whether we should introduce new legislation to deal not only with people who drive while impaired by drugs but with those who drive with illegal drugs in their system.
Having said all that, and bearing in my mind my conflict of interest, given that I wish to proceed quickly to the next item on the Order Paper, I seek the leave of the House to give the Government the benefit of the doubt, reminding them that we will be here to hold them to account if the things said today are not delivered. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Volunteering Bill
(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As several hon. Members will know, this is volunteering week, so I am delighted that we have the chance to discuss this important issue. Given the interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) in European matters, he will like to know that 2011 is the European year of volunteering. There is therefore a lot to celebrate about volunteering.
This simple Bill is designed to meet the concerns that have been expressed right across the House, and by no less a person than the Prime Minister, about the need to reduce the red tape and bureaucracy surrounding people’s ability to get access to volunteering. In preparing the Bill, I have been much assisted by working with the organisation WorldWide Volunteering, which is based in Somerset. Its chairman is John Dunford, whom many people may know as a former general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. WorldWide Volunteering is a national charity founded in 1994 which provides tailored services to inform, inspire and make it easy for people from all walks of life to volunteer. It has control over the United Kingdom’s most comprehensive and easy-to-use online database of volunteering opportunities, which offers over 1.6 million opportunities per year from over 2,500 different charities, and it provides a flow of much-needed volunteers to those charities at no cost to either party. It works in partnership with charities to achieve the best outcomes. It also works, to a great extent, within our schools.
WorldWide Volunteering has a number of people working for it whose job is to go out into schools—often schools that are not in the most privileged neighbourhoods of the country—to try to encourage youngsters to come forward as volunteers. One of those people said to me that it is sometimes difficult enough, in the sort of schools that she is going into, to get young people enthused about volunteering, but if one succeeds in doing so, they will probably, being young and impetuous, want to indulge in that volunteering sooner rather than later. They do not want to have to hang around for a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to be jumped before they can start what they have decided to do.
This week there has been a brilliant series of articles in London’s Evening Standard about volunteering to help with reading. The initiative was inspired by royal patronage. It is supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and, notwithstanding that, by many of the newspaper’s readers. The articles asked why people do not get out there, go into schools and provide reading help to the disappointingly large proportion of youngsters who seem unable to read aloud and have not had that experience. What disturbed me was the emphasis placed on the requirements for doing this. One of the requirements was that the body organising it should interview the potential volunteers; there is no problem about that at all. Another requirement was that each person who wanted to engage in volunteering had to have a criminal record check. Why did they need a criminal record check? That seems quite unreasonable.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an eloquent point, which he started to make in connection with young people. Many of my constituents reach the volunteering stage of their life in retirement, at the end of a full working life. A number of them have contacted me to make this exact point about volunteering in retirement. They say, “Mr Freeman, I have built a business, had a family and lived in my community. Why should I be assumed to be a criminal? Could we not have a simple way for my bona fides to be established in a single certificate that applies to all my volunteering activities in the community?”
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. My Bill is designed to find such a simple solution. Clause 1 would establish a fit and proper person certificate. If an organisation or individual wanted to take on a volunteer, instead of having to get a criminal record check, they would be able to accept a declaration from the volunteer that they do not have a criminal record or any convictions. In the case of somebody under the age of 18, such a statement would have to be countersigned by a parent or guardian. Such a statement would, by definition, be up to date. A person could provide one this week to volunteer for reading in London and another next week to work with a diving company or the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Criminal record checks do not necessarily identify someone who is weird at all, but just whether someone has a criminal record. Most of the people who wish to do harm are well under the radar because no one knows about them until suddenly they do something. I absolutely agree that criminal record checks are totally inappropriate in volunteering. We must get rid of this red tape so that people who want to help young people, for example, can do so almost instantly.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I remind hon. Members that when addressing the House, they are supposed to turn to address the Chair and not face backwards. That may seem odd, but it helps with the proceedings of the House.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. People want to be able to get on with volunteering very quickly and with the minimum bureaucracy. Even if there are criminal record checks, what does that prove?
In the last week, there was the most horrific account in one of the national newspapers of a worker at a nursery who filmed the rape of a toddler and was involved in countless other ghastly offences. The nursery had been inspected by Ofsted some five weeks before the individual was arrested. The inspection concluded that the nursery offered a “safe and secure” environment for children, with
“appropriate recruiting and vetting procedures”
for staff. When challenged about what had happened, the spokesman for Ofsted said, I thought rather wisely:
“Inspection can only ever provide a snapshot of a nursery on the day of inspection.”
It can provide only a snapshot of what the inspector is shown or sees. The spokesman emphasised:
“It is the nursery’s responsibility to ensure it takes the necessary action to keep children safe and well looked after.”
My Bill would give that responsibility fairly and squarely to the people who recruit and supervise the volunteers.
George Freeman
Does my hon. Friend agree that in framing legislation to promote volunteering—I note that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who is responsible for the big society, is on the Front Bench—it is important that we embody notions of trust and responsibility in the culture of the revolution that we seek to trigger? Otherwise we are in danger of legislating for distrust.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I will explain to hon. Members why it is necessary to face the Chair. The rule of the House is that when the Speaker or Deputy Speaker is on his or her feet, no other Member will stand. If a Member has their back to me, they will not see whether I am standing. It has been some time now—let us try to ensure we get it right.
Mr Chope
Perhaps it is my fault, Madam Deputy Speaker, for sitting right at the back so that others have to turn around. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the interest that the debate is generating among my hon. Friends.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of responsibility. The Minister for Equalities, who has been dealing with the Protection of Freedoms Bill in Committee, has made it clear on a number of occasions that the ticking of boxes cannot be a substitute for people taking responsibility for their charges or for volunteers who should be under their supervision and control, and whom they are responsible for recruiting.
Why have we suddenly got into the situation whereby it is thought necessary to have a Criminal Records Bureau check for tens or hundreds of thousands of volunteers? I examined the coalition agreement after the general election and saw that we were promised the Protection of Freedoms Bill. That has now come forward, but I am not sure that it goes far enough in introducing simplicity and common sense. There is a lot of talk about common sense and, indeed, “A Common Sense Approach” is the title of the report carried out for the Government by Sunita Mason, the independent adviser for criminality information management, on the impact of the vetting and barring system on volunteering and other activity. She recognised that there was far too heavy a hand in relation to all this, but I am not sure that the solutions that the Government have come up with in their Bill are not still unnecessarily complex.
We know that 95% of people who have CRB checks are cleared. An individual knows whether they have a criminal record, so they should be quite capable of signing a declaration of whether they do. If they do not, and they sign a declaration to that effect, on the face of it that should be sufficient evidence that they are a fit and proper person to engage in volunteering activity.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I totally agree with the sentiment that my hon. Friend is outlining, but I very much hope that his Bill will also explain how volunteers can navigate through all the health and safety red tape that has been put into place over the past 13 years. A lot of people in my constituency are put off voluntary work because of the inordinate amount of health and safety regulation and the tick-box mentality that they have to go through in order to volunteer.
Mr Chope
The subject that we are discussing at the moment is the need for people to get a criminal record check before they can even have their application considered, and that is one of the biggest deterrents to volunteering. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had the chance to read the text of my Bill, but my approach to Friday Bills has always been, as far as possible, to keep them simple. Like most of my Bills, this one is on one side of paper. It basically proposes the fit and proper person certificate as a substitute for a CRB check, which takes time—many weeks—and costs money. The price has gone up to £44, and somebody must pay for that.
George Freeman
I am very grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this third opportunity to intervene correctly. I will not take my eyes off you, which is my gain and my hon. Friend’s loss.
Does my hon. Friend think that volunteers for schemes such as the community car schemes in my constituency—a number of elderly volunteers help out in their community through such a scheme—should be subject to the CRB checks to which they are currently subjected? A number of people in my constituency have contacted me to say that they have taken part in volunteering activity all their lives, and that they resent, at this late stage, being required to prove that they are not criminals. What does he make of that situation?
Mr Chope
I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. I must congratulate the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on raising from 40p to 45p the allowance for volunteer drivers, and also on including the 5p per passenger addition, which means that someone can claim 50p per mile for taking one person to or from hospital and 55p per mile for taking two people. That is an important and useful initiative, but I am not sure—I hope the Minister will have a chance to respond to this point—that under the current law, such volunteers need a CRB check. It is absolute madness if they do.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Here’s looking at you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Without wishing to give the House the impression that I am a great proponent of pettifogging CRB checks, may I ask my hon. Friend about his proposed declaration certificate? How should somebody who signs such a certificate erroneously be sanctioned, because if there is no sanction, surely there is no point in those certificates?
Mr Chope
I am not sure that that is correct, because obviously, making a false statement is potentially an offence. However, my hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to tell the House where I got the idea of the fit and proper person certificate from. I got the idea from none other than Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. You will know about this, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you perhaps invented it when you were a distinguished Treasury Minister.
HMRC decided that people who run or who are trustees of small charities might run off with the funds or take advantage of charitable exemptions under tax law. It therefore introduced a fit and proper persons test and declaration for people who run charities. The test applies essentially to managers, trustees of charities, directors of corporate charities and so on. In a typical smaller local charity, a manager, for the purposes of the fit and proper persons test, could include the chairperson, the treasurer, the secretary or someone on the management committee who has control over expenditure.
The HMRC leaflet on the test states:
“The ‘fit and proper persons’ test exists to ensure that charities,”
community interest associations
“and other organisations entitled to charity tax reliefs are not managed or controlled by individuals who might misuse the valuable tax reliefs the organisation receives. Unfortunately fraudsters have been known to exploit charity tax reliefs so the fit and proper persons test exists to help prevent that”.
What does ‘fit and proper’ mean?
“An individual is ‘fit and proper’ if they ensure that charity funds and tax reliefs are used only for charitable purposes.”
What must a person do to satisfy HMRC that they are a fit and proper person? The guidance states that they must sign a declaration that sets out the name of the organisation, the name of the individual and their role in the organisation. The person must declare that they are not disqualified from acting as a charity trustee; have not been convicted of an offence involving deception or dishonesty; have not been involved in tax fraud; are not an undischarged bankrupt; have not made compositions or arrangements with creditors from which they have not been discharged; have not been removed from serving as a charity trustee in the past; and that they have not been disqualified from serving as a company director. They must also assert that at all times they will seek to ensure that the charity’s funds and tax reliefs are used only for charitable purposes. So that is all right for managers of charities handling probably quite substantial sums of money. The Treasury is saying, “We will take these statements on trust”. If we are to have a responsible society, we have to trust people. People say, “Well, what happens if the person turns out to be a rogue?” Exactly the same thing would happen as happened in the ghastly Plymouth day nursery case or in the case I cited earlier: the person would be brought to justice, although probably not until after a lot of damage had been done.
However many controls and regulations we bring in, we cannot pre-empt the activities of fraudsters, villains, inherent, compulsive liars, paedophiles or whoever. We have to be proportional and say, “What is the benefit of having CRB checks, bearing in mind that they do not prevent somebody who clears one from subsequently going off the rails?” What would be the benefit of not having those checks and having a much simpler system? My Bill, which adopts a simple system rather along the lines of the fit and proper person test for charity trustees, would meet the principle of proportionality. It deals only with volunteers. We are not talking about people engaged in full-time or part-time employment; we are talking about volunteers and people who, by their very nature, want to make a difference and add something to the equation. It is important for society not to deter, but to encourage those volunteers to come forward, so by removing the need for CRB checks, and making it nice and simple and easy, we will promote volunteering, which is the whole purpose of the Bill and volunteering week.
Bob Stewart
I am very much looking at the Chair, and I am not going to look behind me, Madam Deputy Speaker. In fact, I am going to keep my eyes permanently on you.
Bob Stewart
And I will get on with it. I am a 61-year-old father of young children, and I want to take my children from school to sports matches, but I am told by the school that I have to have a CRB check to take two or three people in my car. I am hoping that this sort of red tape can be done away with. I think that I am a fit and proper person.
Bob Stewart
I resent that remark from the hon. Gentleman. I hope that this sort of red tape will stop.
Mr Chope
I am grateful once again for my hon. Friend’s support.
The Bill would reduce bureaucracy and costs, and promote volunteering. If for some reason—I am sure there may be all sorts of technical reasons—my hon. Friend the Minister cannot accept the Bill, perhaps because it is inadequately drafted, it would be possible to introduce new clauses on Report of the Protection of Freedoms Bill to deal adequately with these concerns. The Government have—this is the substance of my remarks—made some welcome statements pointing in the right direction of reducing the burden of bureaucracy, and have said on a number of occasions that they do not want people who volunteer to be viewed as suspects until proved otherwise, and that they want to encourage as much volunteering as possible.
Clause 2 makes some technical changes to ensure that those under 21 would not have to get criminal records checks in any circumstances and that the Police Act 1997 would not apply to volunteers, but only to paid employees.
Having said all that, and being grateful to all my hon. Friends who have shown support for the Bill, I move that it receive its Second Reading.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Let me say to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) that, just because in some cases people fall through the current safety net, it is not rational to argue that we should get rid of the safeguards altogether. However, I shall also challenge some of the premises underpinning the Bill.
Members from all parts of the House will know from their constituencies just how fantastic and inspirational the work of volunteers is. Whether in a local homework club, at a homeless shelter or in a voluntary group that encourages reskilling and training, volunteers add an immeasurable amount to our neighbourhoods and communities. I am personally greatly encouraged by their enthusiasm and energy. For that reason and a host of others, it is vital to encourage people to become involved in their communities and take up voluntary work whenever and wherever they can. To that extent, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Recent research shows that 54% of people volunteered informally at least once in the last year, with 29% volunteering informally at least once a month.
However, there is not only a social and ethical case for volunteering and encouraging it in the community; there is a serious economic case for it. Volunteering not only helps the voluntary group concerned, but creates a greater sense of community life and a more cohesive social fabric, and it is a fundamental part of living in a better society. However, volunteers need to be supported, trained and managed. It is wholly unclear how the Bill’s proposal for a system of fit and proper person certificates would work. The Bill does not say who would run it. Perhaps most importantly, there is a serious danger that such a system would undermine the current safeguards, putting extremely vulnerable people at risk. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman’s intention may be to encourage people to volunteer, but this Bill has neither the capacity nor the ability to do that; indeed, it actually introduces a serious element of risk into the system. I am afraid that the Bill gives no serious consideration to the issue of safeguarding vulnerable people, creating a huge danger that it will put people at risk.
Mr Chope
The hon. Lady seems to be incredibly negative about the Bill, but can she answer this question? My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile)—he apologises that he cannot be here for this debate—told me yesterday that he had to have a CRB check to become a school governor. Surely that is unnecessary bureaucracy. Why does he need a CRB check to become a school governor?
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I can indeed answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, because I am a school governor and have just completed a CRB check myself. It was amazingly straightforward, and I understand absolutely why one was carried out: because we want to ensure, as far as that is possible, that people working with or alongside children have nothing in their past that would put those children at risk.
I want to talk about the reasons and motivations behind people becoming involved in volunteering, and what holds them back from doing so. In so doing, I shall challenge some of the hon. Gentleman’s assertions. There is a great deal of research into the reasons why people volunteer and what holds them back. Those reasons are multifarious in nature. The document “Why participate? Understanding what motivates people to get involved”, produced by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, presents an excellent picture of the reasons that people seek out voluntary work in their communities. The research suggests that the reasons are complex and diverse, and that they vary according to the personal, cultural, environmental and structural circumstances of the individual in question.
Similarly, in the Helping Out survey, volunteers reported a wide range of reasons for starting to volunteer. The most popular reason, given by 53% of those surveyed, was to improve things and help people. That was followed by two more reasons, each given by 41% of respondents. The first was that the cause was important to them; the second was that they had spare time. This research presents an interesting and complex picture. There are many other reasons for volunteering. In the survey, 30% of people said that they wanted to meet people and make friends; 29% said that there was a need in the community; 27% said that they wanted to use their existing skills; 19% said that they wanted to learn new skills. On and on it goes. There are lots of reasons for people volunteering.
Research carried out by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations also shows what prevents people from volunteering. It suggests that it is usually related to a lack of resources, and that there might be problems related to education or a lack of training, time or disposable income. The regulation involved is not, however, at the top of any list of barriers, and there is little evidence that that would be the primary reason that people might be put off.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s argument, and I appreciate that a CRB check would not present a problem to the innocent prospective volunteer who had committed no crime. It does, however, present problems for the small charities who want lots of volunteers. They have to pay for the checks, and the cost is prohibitive if they want to engage lots of volunteers.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I shall talk about this issue from the charities’ point of view in just a moment.
Many people in the sector have written about what should be done to encourage more people to volunteer.
Mr Chope
Is the shadow Minister saying that she completely disputes the evidence that I adduced from WorldWide Volunteering? It shows that there are real difficulties in encouraging young people from schools to volunteer in deprived areas because the present procedures prevent them from translating their enthusiasm into an immediate act of volunteering and make them wait many weeks to be approved.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I am querying whether that is the major disincentive. I have already been through the list of other barriers that affect the group of people that the hon. Gentleman describes. What I am suggesting is that regulation might not be the primary barrier. Indeed, across the sector, a great deal of information and research backs up my point.
What, then, do we know from the sector about how to promote volunteering and remove barriers? Paul Emery, head of community and social organisations at Zurich tells us:
“Choose a cause that people really care about. Our research shows that people do want to volunteer and take on more in the places they live, but they don’t want to be used as a resource to replace public services.”
That is something that we have not heard much about in the debate so far. He also stressed the importance of people being able to
“show communities what they can do”,
for which they need to acquire additional skills. It is necessary to keep people informed and to work with local authorities and other local bodies to do so.
Similarly, Brian Carr, chief executive of the Centre for Voluntary Action says that it is really important to offer people opportunities and that it is necessary to “build volunteers’ confidence”. For him, one of the biggest barriers to volunteering was not regulation, but “lack of confidence”, which is
“exacerbated for individuals who’ve experienced exclusion in other areas of life.”
It is essential that volunteering opportunities provide the necessary support and that there are procedures in place to boost mental health—if necessary—employability and self-esteem. It is therefore essential to increase the support available in organisations.
David Hopkins, the national programme manager at Catch 22, says it is absolutely essential if we are to get people volunteering to promote a strong support network. As he says, people do not want to
“undertake social action in glorious isolation”.
They want to be “supported by like-minded individuals”.
In a similar vein, Alison Blackwood, head of policy at the London Voluntary Service Council, says that it is important to design specific programmes for volunteers:
“There is evidence from Greater London Volunteering that volunteer centres are better at engaging people who don’t normally volunteer or who are at risk of social exclusion.”
She then mentions some Government suggestions that might undermine the very volunteering centres that are necessary to support our volunteers. It is of great significance that she, as someone who supports a large number of small voluntary organisations, says that
“Time not bureaucracy is the problem”,
and that the
“red tape barrier is a bit of a red herring: as the top barrier to not getting involved, 82% of those surveyed… stated it was lack of spare time—
and not regulation—that was “the main barrier” to involvement in the local community and taking up whatever volunteering opportunities might be available.
Before I move on to clarify what should be done, it is worth setting out the legislative context of the Bill. We should remember that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 was enacted in response to the inquiry following the Soham murders. It established a vetting and barring scheme for those who wished to undertake the two types of regulated activities that are controlled. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Christchurch mention that the entire legislative context is now being reviewed by the Government under legislation currently going through the House. I am somewhat surprised that the Bill was not framed more exactly in terms of, first, the Protection of Freedoms Bill that is currently going through the House, and secondly—and perhaps more significantly in this context—the taskforce established by the Government to consider how to cut red tape for small charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. I do not necessarily agree with the proposals in the Protection of Freedoms Bill or from the taskforce, but nevertheless I would have thought that the Bill would refer specifically to them.
I start with the relevant proposals under the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which seeks to merge the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority to form a streamlined new body. The Bill, it is said, is proportionate in terms of barring and the criminal records checking service; it will bring about a large reduction in the number of positions requiring checks, so that only those working closely and regularly with children and vulnerable adults will need CRB checks; there will be portability of criminal records checks between jobs to cut down bureaucracy; there will be an end to a requirement for those working or volunteering with vulnerable groups to register with the vetting and barring scheme and then to be monitored; and it will stop employers knowingly requesting criminal records checks on individuals who are not liable for to them.
It seems, therefore, that the Bill currently going through the parliamentary system goes some way towards addressing the issues that the hon. Member for Christchurch has raised today. That is acknowledged, to some extent, by voluntary sector organisations. For example, Volunteering England has said that it welcomes the broad proposals to revise the safeguarding systems announced as part of the Protection of Freedoms Bill. It says that the portability of criminal record checks would be widely seen by volunteers and volunteering organisations as helpful, and that the lower level of involvement for people and roles will also reduce a significant barrier to volunteering. Today’s announcement is beneficial for the volunteering movement.
However, Volunteering England also expresses some concerns. Justin Davis Smith, its chief executive, has said directly in response to the Volunteering Bill:
“Whilst we welcome the move to reduce the red tape surrounding volunteering, we do not believe the proposals in Mr Chope’s private member’s bill are the answer. Safeguarding is an important issue, and we hope that reforms to the current CRB system within the Protection of Freedoms Bill will strike the appropriate balance—ensuring vulnerable people are protected whilst making sure volunteers aren’t put off.”
Interestingly, he also mentions the deregulation taskforce, to which I will refer in a moment:
“Volunteering England has worked with Lord Hodgson’s De-Regulation Taskforce to identify the barriers to volunteering and how we can work together to overcome them. Our campaign to Free Volunteering from Red Tape is underway”,
and he says that Volunteering England will continue to do all that it can to support the taskforce.
We have the first report from the taskforce, entitled, “Unshackling Good Neighbours”. It is interesting that, after taking extensive evidence from the sector, including large and small charitable organisations, and interviewing many people across the voluntary and community sector, the taskforce does not find that red tape is the major barrier to volunteering, even though the taskforce was established to consider how to cut red tape for small charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises.In fact, fear of litigation is at the top of the list. The first answer to the report’s question, “What stops people giving time?” is “Risk of litigation”.
The report goes on to make some suggestions, referring to “Commissioning”, “Withdrawal of Cheques”, “The Role of Local Government”, whether people are employed, whether there are training opportunities, and the role of the planning system. However, it neither mentions the bureaucracy that currently exists nor suggests any ways of getting rid of it. If the
“Report of the Task Force established to consider how to cut red tape for small charities”
does not refer to the requirement for CRB checks and for some regulation to protect vulnerable children and adults, why do the hon. Member for Christchurch and the supporters of his Bill think that it is the No. 1 disincentive and barrier?
The last Government had a strong record of developing and encouraging volunteering and voluntary groups. An estimated 778,000 people were employed in the voluntary and community sector in 2010, some 17% more than in 2004. As I said earlier, we know that a large number of adults volunteer formally at least once a month. If the number of volunteers is to continue to increase, which is what the Government want—it is part of their big society programme—the Government must support voluntary organisations so that they can not only give their volunteers a helping hand, but encourage those volunteers to do the same for other members of the community.
What is thought to be having a negative impact on volunteering opportunities is not lack of regulation but other factors, which are causing great concern. They may be to do with individuals, but they may also be to do with charities themselves. Many have commented. The Charity Commission, for instance, says that it faces a 33% real-terms spending cut over the next four financial years, and is worried about whether it will be able to perform its functions as it currently does. The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations have developed a website referring to the amount of money being taken from the voluntary and community sector. People in the sector are saying that the real challenge is posed not by red tape, but by funding cuts and the money being taken out of voluntary organisations.
Another challenge is being presented by the fact that the whole landscape of training for volunteers is under review. Julie Wilkes, chief executive of Skills—Third Sector, has said:
“Charities have been holding their breath on staff cuts in the last quarter, waiting to hear if their contracts with government will be renewed. The next two quarters will be the real test of the state of the sector as they include the end of the financial year.”
As the House can see, there is clearly a danger that the Government’s public spending cuts of more than £3 billion to charities could drive many to the wall. The Government talked time and again about the transition fund for community and voluntary organisations, but that does not reach all charities and, in any case, is hugely oversubscribed. A number of organisations have been dealing with the impact of announcements made in the emergency Budget in June 2010. They were doing that and experiencing difficulties in advance of the most recent round of cuts. There is also a great deal of concern that, across the country, the impact of the cuts varies according to the area where the voluntary organisation is located. Analysis from NCVO shows that northern local authorities have been hit hardest by the reductions.
The organisation Skills—Third Sector, which as I said earlier is the strategic body for developing skills in charities, social enterprises and voluntary organisations, has said that good-quality training programmes, linked to standards where possible, are needed to encourage volunteering, and that as it is facing rising demands across the board, with less money available, it does not know whether it will be able to continue to deliver services.
I suggest to the hon. Member for Christchurch that in order to encourage volunteering, rather than imposing additional or alternative processes and requirements on those wishing to become involved he should engage with the organisations doing that work, which are facing difficulties in encouraging the retention and support of volunteers across the country.
Mr Chope
I cannot let the hon. Lady traduce my Bill by suggesting that it will create additional burdens for volunteers. It will eliminate the need for a mass of volunteers to get Criminal Records Bureau checks. Instead, they will be able to produce a certificate which they will simply sign and present to the voluntary organisation for which they want to work. It will reduce the burden on volunteers, thereby encouraging them.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
What I am suggesting to the hon. Gentleman is that his Bill does not address the real barriers to people volunteering in their communities, and that if he wants to address those barriers, he should persuade those on his Front Bench to put more money into the voluntary and community sector, or at least stop taking quite so much money out of the sector so quickly, leaving it unable to respond to the demands not only of its volunteers but of the communities that it seeks to represent.
To sum up, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman, like all Members of the House, wants to encourage higher levels of volunteering, but the Bill does not do that. It presents something of a circular argument. It is not clear who, if anybody, would check the background of the people who signed the statement or what system would be in place to verify what they had stated, who would administer the certificate system, how long the so-called fit and proper person certificate would last, and whether it would need to be updated after a number of years. Given the questions still outstanding, I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that a rethink on the Bill is needed.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
May I add my voice to those wishing the Duke of Edinburgh a very happy birthday today? May I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on his prodigious fertility in terms of private Members’ Bills in this Session, but also, in the case of this particular baby, on its characteristic simplicity in terms of its structure? The Government cannot support it, for reasons that I will go into in whatever detail I can in the time that we have, but it is, as the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) also took the opportunity to say, a welcome opportunity to recognise the astonishing contribution of millions of people in constituencies throughout the country who give time to help others, and those groups, such as WorldWide Volunteering, but there are many others, which help people to use that time and inspire and connect them with opportunities to help others. It is that generosity in that landscape of that ecosystem of civil society organisations that is one of the things that makes this country great, and we should absolutely recognise it.
It is also right regularly to be asking ourselves the question: what can we do to make it easier in 2011 in modern Britain, with all the pressures on people’s time and, at the moment, money, to get involved, to support each other, to help to create the changes that people want to see? It goes to the heart of how we build a stronger sense of community where people have more power and responsibility for their lives, their communities and the services they use—the absolute aspiration of the big society vision. When it comes to encouraging and supporting social action, which is the context of the Bill, it is clear that we need to do something. We are a generous country—the statistics show that clearly—but it is also clear that giving has flatlined and there are worrying signs of decline, not least in terms of the giving of time. We have a sense of this from our own constituencies and community associations, and the difficulties that they have in finding new people to come forward. The charity world is increasingly concerned. Some people say that we cannot change this, that it is as good as it can get, but we do not accept that decline is inevitable, and our research and consultation suggest that there are people and organisations who would like to do more and could do more, but too many things get in the way.
As the hon. Lady said, there is an issue around lack of time in 2011, or perception of lack of time for many people. Often people find it difficult and complicated. For too many, the experience of volunteering, given time, is not as rewarding as it could or should be. There is a lack of awareness of opportunities, or where to start looking. There is an issue around bureaucracy—I do disagree a little with the hon. Lady here—and there is an issue around the CRB. She tried to make a case about why Lord Hodgson ignored this issue. There is a simple explanation: he recognised that other reviews of vetting and barring and of the CRB regime were going on and he took a view, I think quite sensibly, that he needed to focus the efforts of a limited resource exercise on areas where he felt that he could add more value. But his report “Unshackling Good Neighbours”—I recommend it to all colleagues—is a dose of common sense, when common sense is needed.
There is an issue around the CRB checks. I remember going to talk at a forum in Westminster and a gentleman coming up to say that he had 80 people waiting to volunteer, but they were being frustrated and held back because of the time it was taking for their CRB checks to come through. As the hon. Lady knows, there is frustration out there with the lack of opportunities to carry CRB checks around the system—the portability issue.
That brings me to the Bill. There are reasons why we cannot support it, however well intentioned it is. I hope to have the chance to summarise those reasons and our preferred approach. I hope that I can satisfy my hon. Friend about two things. In the specific context of the Bill we want to reduce bureaucracy and the cost attached to it, but without diminishing public protection, because we have duties in this regard that we cannot trivialise or walk away from. Secondly, we are fully committed to promoting volunteering, which is the Bill’s stated aim.
We have considered the Bill carefully in the time that we have been allowed and, although we welcome its aims, we oppose it principally for three reasons, the first of which is the most important; the other two flow from it. The first reason is that for the proposed fit and proper person certificate to be successful, a means of independent verification and checking for accuracy would be required. We simply could not, with any sense of responsibility, leave that as a free-for-all. There is of course a balance to be struck between protection and trust, but we think that a basic level of protection and independent verification of claims is necessary and believe that the CRB check fulfils that role, although we are very clear that it needs to be reformed and retuned in terms of proportionality and a return to common sense.
Mr Chope
I am not surprised that that is the Minister’s approach, although I am disappointed. How, then, does he think it is reasonable that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can allow trustees of charities to deal with large sums of money on the basis of a mere declaration that is subject to no independent verification?
Mr Hurd
I think that the contexts are completely different. As I go on to explain what we are doing to reform the CRB process, I hope I will go some way towards satisfying my hon. Friend that we intend to reduce bureaucracy without undermining basic protection.
Our other concerns flow from the premise that some form of independent verification is required, and the Bill is silent on how that will work. Our concern is that we will be replacing one form of bureaucracy with another, and with costs attached. I will set out briefly a summary of what we are doing in relation to the existing CRB system in the light of the concerns that have been expressed.
We announced in the coalition programme for government a commitment to
“review the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and scale it back to common sense levels.”
The outcomes of the reviews were published on 11 February and three of the recommendations are particularly pertinent to the Bill. First, CRB checks will in future be provided only to the applicant, which will enable them to challenge any disputed or inappropriate information before it is seen by an employer or volunteering organisation. That is an important issue. I had a constituency case only two weeks ago in which a gentleman was appalled to see the information on his statement, so this change is important.
Secondly, and critically, CRB checks will be made more portable between different employers by introducing an updating service. This will enable employers to check whether a previous disclosure certificate is still valid, reducing the need for repeat checks. Thirdly, CRB checks will not be provided for anyone under the age of 16, an important point relating to clause 2, which proposes that CRB checks be restricted to those over 21. As my hon. Friend knows well, these recommendations require legislation and are being taken forward in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which is currently going through the House. The Government believe that the current CRB check process and the implementation of the February 2011 recommendations provide the fit and proper person certificate process described in the Bill.
Mr Hurd
My understanding is that there are three levels of criminal records check: a basic disclosure, a standard disclosure and an enhanced disclosure. I may be corrected, but I do not believe that there is any proposal to change those. The changes we are making are those I have just summarised, and the most important one in this context is the one relating to portability, because that is something I hear a great deal of frustration about in the system. In summary, the most important point is the need for independent verification. Those are the reasons why we cannot support the Bill and believe that reform of CRB is preferable to abolition.
Let me close by updating my hon. Friend and the House on what the Government are doing to promote the giving of time and of money. We published a Green Paper in December 2010, to which we have received 400 written responses, and following that we published a White Paper in May, the premise of which is that everyone can make a difference.
Our approach to supporting more giving is based on three strands of activity. The first is about making it easier to give by helping it to fit into everyday life, so the White Paper sets out new ways we will support the giving of money, such as through donations at ATMs. In terms of time, we explicitly support the pilots of flexible, self-managed volunteering platforms, which allow people to give small amounts of time. Time can be a major constraint, but entrepreneurs are developing models that allow people to control and to deliver time in more flexible packages, and we want to support more of that.
We want also to give people better information about opportunities, which is why we are spending £1 million on the Do-it volunteering database and working with it to open up those data so that they can be accessed more widely. We are using challenge prizes to stimulate innovation and giving people new ways to access opportunities through mobile phones in order to give time—a critical development, particularly in relation to inspiring and connecting young people.
We are also investing in community organisers— people who are literally going to walk the streets, knock on doors, find out what people care about and get them together to take action, connecting them with local support and, not least, local businesses, which in my experience want to do more but want to be connected with the right opportunities that really meet local need.
We are, as I have laboured to make clear in this debate, looking at bureaucracy and red tape—the things that frustrate—through CRB reform and the red tape review that I have mentioned. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend refer to the Budget and the changes to the volunteer expenses allowance, because that was definitely a real frustration in constituencies. Making it easier to give is the first strand; the second is about making it more compelling to give. The Budget introduced new incentives to give money, but we also want to support new models that incentivise people to give time, such as what are known as complementary currencies, which give people credits for volunteering. That is why we are investing £400,000 with the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts in developing a pilot of Spice “time credits”, whereby in return for giving time people get discounts on local services.
Through the social action fund that we announced in the White Paper, we are looking to support the best ideas because, as I said, it is quite clear that many social entrepreneurs are building fantastically exciting platforms to make it easier and more compelling for people to give time and money. This Government want to support that entrepreneurial energy through the social action fund.
We have an £80 million community grant programme called Community First, which is focused on deprived neighbourhoods—and that is a match fund. The proposition is to put money into the hands of neighbourhood groups to help them to implement their own plans, but it will be matched—partly in time, not just in money. The fund is about incentivising people to step up, get involved and create the change that they want to see locally.
We are strong believers in leading by example, which is why we are introducing new proposals to encourage civil servants to spend more time in their communities, not just because it ticks a box on corporate responsibility, but because we expect better civil servants to result from the initiative and because we want to send a strong signal to other employers that encouraging employees to give time in their communities is a very good thing to do and in the employers’ commercial interests. Leading by example extends to an expectation that Ministers will give one day a year—the one-day challenge—to volunteering. It is sometimes dismissed as a gimmick, but it is not, because leadership by example is hugely important in that context.
The third and final strand, which the hon. Member for City of Durham touched on, is better support for those who provide and manage opportunities to give—the civil society ecosystem that I mentioned. Such individuals often perform heroic tasks locally, trying to connect people and to support front-line organisations. It is a terribly difficult operating environment, as we well know. Resources are often spread too thinly across too many organisations, and we want to use public investment as a catalyst for more efficiency in the sector, so that such individuals can be more effective with the front-line organisations in their communities. That is why we have announced £30 million as a local infrastructure fund, the details of which will be announced shortly. That follows a recommendation by the NCVO funding commission. It is about trying to support the development of more efficient local hubs, a better online resource bank for front-line organisations, and much more effective local partnerships between business, statutory agencies and local charities. I know from my own constituency that we have barely scratched the surface of what can be achieved, and we can do more.
Alongside these programmes, we are supporting the European year of volunteering, Her Majesty the Queen’s award for voluntary service, and the National Citizen Service.
Business without Debate
onshore wind turbines (proximity of habitation) Bill
Dairy farming Bill
CREDIT REGULATION (CHILD PORNOGRAPHY) BILL
GANGMASTERS LICENSING (EXTENSION TO CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY) Bill
illegally logged timber (prohibition of import, sale or distribution) bill
TAX AND FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY BILL
LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMAN (AMENDMENT) BILL
MEDICAL INSURANCE (PENSIONER TAX RELIEF) BILL
BUILDING REGULATIONS (REVIEW) BILL [LORDS]
Gangs and Youth Violence
(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I am grateful to have the opportunity to introduce this short debate on gangs and youth violence. I am pleased to see some colleagues here on a Friday afternoon to offer support and show the importance of this topic. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who has also been raising this issue in Parliament over recent months.
I decided to request a debate on this topic a couple of weeks ago when I was standing vigil with the mother of a young man, Daniel Smith, who was gunned down this time last year, at the age of just 22, as he stopped for a takeaway in Harrow road in Paddington, in what appears to have been a case of mistaken identity involving gangs. Winklet Smith, his mother, is one of several local women I know who are grieving. They include the mothers of Kodjo Yenga, who was killed in 2008 at the age of 16, Jevon Henry, who was killed at the age of 22, and Amro El-Bedawi, who was killed when he was just 14 years old.
On 20 April this year, a young man died in St John’s Wood after what was believed to be a gang fight that started just over the borough boundary. In the previous weeks, a teenager on the Mozart estate was stabbed 13 times and was lucky to survive, and another boy was kicked into a coma. Both incidents are believed to be gang related. In the months after the new year, two teenagers were attacked with bottles in completely unprovoked attacks, which were also believed to be gang related. Shortly before that, a 13-year-old was kidnapped off the street, held overnight and beaten up, in one of a loop of attacks and retaliations swirling around between youths in north Paddington, south Kilburn and north Kensington.
Ten days ago, on attending a meeting, I watched a fight involving, by the time it finished, 30 to 40 young men, who materialised out of nowhere. Using mobile phones and BlackBerrys, the young men called in support from other young people. A small conflict quickly escalated to a substantial and frightening one that ended with bottles being broken over heads and one young man being stabbed in the face with a screwdriver.
That list of events on the streets of north Westminster—not an area normally associated with high levels of gang or youth violence—is the tip of the iceberg, as discussions with young people, youth workers, schools and residents of the estates where these problems are inevitably concentrated will confirm.
A couple of weeks ago, a young mother and her baby in a minicab were surrounded by a group of youths who indicated, possibly untruthfully, that they had concealed weapons, because the gang across the border had been sending spies into their area in minicabs. Maybe they were armed or maybe not, but there is enough evidence of weapons, including guns, in the area to make the threat plausible.
The sister of the teenager who survived 13 stab wounds wrote to me recently:
“I saw about 20 young boys on bikes last Saturday and this Saturday just gone, Bandannas and riding around…What is the best thing to do in this situation? I suppose call the police, but they will have gone by the time they arrive?! Every time I see them and then see another young boy on their own my heart skips a beat”.
That is the experience of life even in communities in north Westminster. As my hon. Friends will testify, the toll of injury and death is far worse in parts of east and south London, and in some towns and cities in the north. I want, however, to focus on the impact on my constituency. It seems to me that if I think there is something approaching a crisis in my area, it is implicit that there is a problem on a far greater scale than has previously been appreciated.
There are excellent people working on this issue in my community. I cannot list them all, but I pay tribute to the safer neighbourhoods police officers, council staff, youth workers, teachers and volunteers. Their efforts deserve praise beyond words. I say to the Minister, however, that those efforts are insufficiently supported and increasingly look like straws in a wind that is blowing in the opposite direction.
Neither gang conflict nor youth violence are new phenomena. The statistics do not indicate a worsening picture of crime overall, but the figures for London obtained by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham illustrate the fact that serious youth violence is a growing problem. Over the past five years, 107 London teenagers have been killed in knife and gun crimes. The welcome drop in the murder rate for all age groups in London since 2006, from 172 to 125, has not been mirrored by an equivalent fall in teenage homicides. That figure was unchanged between 2006 and 2010, although as we are all aware there was a peak in 2008, which was followed by a concentrated effort that brought down the number significantly in 2009, and I pay tribute to everyone involved in that. Serious youth violence is up. In 2008, there were 6,675 instances of youth violence in London. That rose to 6,859 last year. There is something of a consensus that the involvement of gangs in these problems is getting worse. Indeed, the Prime Minister confirmed that at Prime Minister’s questions this week.
I would like to spend some time talking about the definition of gangs, although I do not want to digress too much. Although serious organised crime gangs are operating across the country, the definition of a gang is much looser and more fluid in the case of young people. Gang identity is a factor in the behaviour of some of our young people and the conflicts they get into, but we should not be too easily diverted into trying to define exactly what a gang is and which individuals belong to which gangs. There is a danger, in so doing, that we will lose the opportunity to divert a wider group of young people from involvement.
I find myself increasingly aware of the striking fact that people such as me walk different streets from those that are walked by young people in our cities. At least in our major cities, there is an increasingly dark and disturbing story that only partly shows up in the crime figures, and it often passes by the adults who live in the same community as the young people affected. It is almost like a science fiction story in which we inhabit parallel worlds. Our young people are going out on to the streets and experiencing something completely different from what we experience, and it is often chillingly frightening.
Not only are thousands of young lives being blighted by the violence and criminality that I have described, but fear and anxiety about youth violence is spread much more widely. When I visited a primary school recently, I was stunned to hear the majority of children of seven and eight years old talk about their awareness and fear of the violence that stalks our streets, which involves groups of young people and can readily spill over into fighting. According to the Citizenship Foundation, in a report that was commented on in the media last week, knife crime is in the top three concerns named by nine and 10-year-olds. I find that completely astonishing and deeply disturbing.
Less surprisingly, I have discovered from discussions with secondary school heads the extent to which gang tensions have percolated through into their schools. Possibly saddest of all, when we talk to street-smart young men of 16 and 17, we should not be surprised if they tell us that it is impossible for them to consider, in the case of those from north Westminster, visiting a sports centre in Ladbroke Grove or walking a major road into Kilburn safely. No doubt young people in Kilburn would say that it was impossible for them to go swimming in the Jubilee swimming baths in north Westminster. The invisible boundaries of postcode areas are chalked deeply into their consciousness.
We know that the factors underpinning gang membership and youth violence are complex and multi-layered. They are social, cultural and economic. “Fear and fashion” is a slogan used to campaign for anti-gang work, and both elements of it have truth in them. Many young people associate themselves with gangs and carry weapons out of fear that if they do not do so other people will be armed and they will be put at a disadvantage. We know that coming from a damaged and dysfunctional family in which drugs, alcohol, domestic violence and mental illness are factors can increase the risk of gang involvement, but I have known violent young people to emerge from the strongest and most loving families because the pull of the street can be so strong.
We know that children who are out of school because of exclusion, or young people who are not in employment, education or training, are disproportionately at risk, and that their number has grown. The absence of diversionary activities and work opportunities cannot be an excuse for violence, but such factors are contributory. It is no coincidence that our gravest problems are often rooted in our poorest neighbourhoods.
We need a sustained focus on the underlying causes of gang membership and youth crime and violence. We know that there will not be any quick fixes, but we need swift action to limit the worst of the challenges that we face today and prevent a deepening crisis. That lead must come from the top—from the Government, the Home Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Education, the Mayor, the Metropolitan police and local councils.
Of course, some investment is being made, and I am not for one moment arguing that nothing is being done. However, I do not believe that the level of attention or resources is equal to the task, which is likely to get harder. Policing is vital, but insufficient. Stop-and-search powers must be applied, but they must remain proportionate and intelligence-led. We must not lose sight of the importance of maintaining relationships between young people and the police.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on holding this important debate in this important week, in which I lost one of my young constituents. Does she agree that the House must send a message to communities up and down the country that it is essential that people give what intelligence and information they have to the police when these acts are perpetrated? It is not a question of snitching, as has been put about in some boroughs in London, including mine, but a question of people protecting their family, friends and communities. The problem could affect any family. It affects not only families whose children are involved in gang violence, but those who get caught in the crossfire. That will not stop unless people come forth with intelligence.
Ms Buck
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If intelligence of such activities is not passed on, young people will die. It is as simple as that. I could not agree more with him.
My hon. Friend underpins the point I was making. The relationships between young people and the police, who in this context are represented in the best way, in most cases, by safer neighbourhood officers, are critical, but above all are the relationships between young people and youth services. We are most likely to build the relationships of trust that ensure that intelligence flows between young people and voluntary or statutory youth services.
One of my big concerns is that the scaling back of youth services is leading to reduced capacity to provide diversionary activity and to work and build connections with those young people, but in addition there is an increasing tendency—this did not start in May 2010, although I sense that it is becoming more entrenched—for so many projects on gangs and young people who are at risk of being drawn into violence to be short-term, piecemeal and fragmented, although I pay tribute to the quality of those projects. In Westminster, the Brathay project works with young men in Queen’s Park. The UNCUT project went and came back—but for how long? A local scheme called ENDZ United does mediation work, which is one of the most constructive ways in which we can deal with gang violence, but its funding is for only 30 weeks. It is almost counter-productive for young people to build up a connection with a scheme that will be gone after six months or a year, and those relationships of trust between youth workers and young people are dissipated.
When I talk to young people after such projects end, they respond by saying, “I’m afraid that just goes to show how little anybody cares about us, because no sooner do we get connected with important schemes than they are over.” The consistency of project work is critical, as is the scale of the work that we do with young people. Despite the good work that I have mentioned, sadly, Westminster is cutting £225,000 from its youth service this year. Although around £100,000 is being put into various anti-gang initiatives, Westminster managed a few weeks ago to find £100,000 just to replace railings in Sussex gardens, and it has spent £144,000 to send managers on away days. That is a problem with spending priorities.
We need to do better than we have been doing on cross-border liaison. Brent council, which is central, has such major problems on the Stonebridge estate that it has been unable to focus as much as I would like on south Kilburn and Paddington. Kensington council, I am afraid, has something of a head-in-the-sand attitude—it seems to think that it does not have a problem at all.
In conclusion, I want to ask the Minister a few questions. Is he satisfied that there is a coherent, strategic approach to gangs and youth violence across Departments, and if so how is it demonstrated? Will he take steps to satisfy himself that boroughs such as mine that were not previously regarded as high risk do not sink into complacency, but develop their own strategic plans and monitor progress towards them? Will he liaise with his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education to review the impact of spending cuts on youth services, especially in higher-risk areas? How can the Government help to ensure that interventions aimed at those at risk are not always short-term, fragmented programmes whose premature end undermines so much of the value that may have been achieved? Far too many lives are being lost on our city streets, and an even greater proportion of young lives are being blighted under the shadow of violence, at least some of which is accounted for by the growing problem of gang association.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
This is an extremely important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing it. The House spends an enormous amount of time talking about the bad things that young people are responsible for, of which this is one, but does she agree with me, and no doubt the rest of the House, that there are many things for which young people are responsible that we should, and do, celebrate? Neither this debate nor the bad things we read in the media are indicative of what young people are for.
Ms Buck
I absolutely agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. In an way, it is because I see so many young people whom I admire and love, and because I see the damage that violence and the fear of it are doing to them that I am motivated to come here and raise this issue. Many—almost all—of the young people whom I see who commit crimes do bad things but are not bad people, and they deserve the chance of an alternative life and rehabilitation.
That is the context. We have heard much about the many tragedies affecting south London, Nottingham, Manchester and so on. That was confirmed again by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham. I know that many of my parliamentary colleagues will want to return to this issue, but I have to tell the House that when a problem this grave affects even the streets of a place such as Westminster, we have a graver problem than anyone has recognised, and I look to the Government to help us respond to and deal with it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing this debate. I know, from the debates and discussions she and I have had in the Chamber and outside over a number of years, how seriously she takes this issue. I know how keenly she feels about the matters she has brought to the House’s attention, and about the need to ensure that the Government, at all levels, are doing all they can to safeguard our communities and the opportunities of young people growing up in them. That is why I appreciate the opportunity to respond to this short debate.
I am pleased to see a number of hon. Members here this afternoon, despite it being a Friday and a time when the House might not normally sit. That underlines the commitment of many people across the House to identifying the solutions—not the short-term fixes, but the long-term sustained effort required to deal with a problem that is complex and has different facets. Those include society, family and the breakdown in certain communities across our country, and it will take a lot of focus, effort and time to get things right. I value the chance that the hon. Lady has given the House to consider these matters.
I pass on the House’s thoughts and condolences to all those who have suffered as a consequence of youth violence and violent crime, whether in London or across the rest of the country. I obviously note that the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) is in his place this afternoon, and our thoughts are with the family of Nana Darko-Frempong. That is a recent tragic case of a young life being cut short. I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s efforts to bring this matter to the House’s attention not just today or this week, but over an extended period. He has done that in a measured and non-partisan way. He should be congratulated on the work he has done.
Although the overwhelming majority of young people are law-abiding and responsible citizens, sadly a small minority engage in intimidating and violent behaviour. Their actions can have a terrible and lasting impact on the lives of victims, their families and local communities, as the hon. Lady acutely highlighted. There are a range of issues being addressed—I will talk later about those issues—through the work that the Government are doing, as well as through the local action that Westminster city council and other councils are undertaking, along with the Mayor of London, to deal with what is a serious problem.
The Centre for Social Justice review of street gangs in Britain, “Dying to Belong”, which was published in 2009, found an increase in gang culture and associated violence in Britain over the previous decade. The report found that the composition of gangs and the nature of gang culture had shifted. Gang members are getting younger, and geographical territory is an increasingly important factor, which is related to the concept of the “postcode beef”—that is, the lines in the road that we do not see, but which young people do, and the impact that has on their ability to use community facilities and live their lives normally in the way that we did when growing up in our communities. The report also found that violence is increasingly chaotic and without sense.
We face specific challenges in relation to gangs and youth violence, but it is important to put the issue in context, as the hon. Lady did. Overall levels of violence have fallen by around 56% since 1995. The most recent recorded crime statistics show a 6% reduction in police recorded violence against the person in the 12 months to December 2010, and an 11% reduction in offences of actual or grievous bodily harm involving knives or sharp instruments. Data published by Professor Jonathan Shepherd also show a 16% reduction in accident and emergency department admissions as a result of violent assault among teenagers over the same period. In addition, the British crime survey report on “Children’s experience and attitudes towards the police, personal safety and public spaces”, which was published last month, found that only 1% of 13 to 15-year-olds said that they had carried a knife for protection in the last 12 months. However, that is 1% too many. Any child carrying a knife is a matter of extreme concern, and when young people are drawn into gangs and violence, we need to take all possible action to stop this happening. The Government are committed to making our communities safer places for everyone.
Last June, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary asked Brooke Kinsella, whose brother Ben was tragically murdered in 2008, to undertake a fact-finding mission about schemes in local communities that are working to stop young people committing violence, including violence using weapons. Brooke’s report, “Tackling knife crime together—a review of local anti-knife crime projects”, was published in February. Her recommendations include anti-knife crime awareness in schools; better information-sharing between police, schools and other agencies on local issues; a best practice website for local organisations; and more work with young children to stop them getting involved in youth violence.
Responding to Brooke’s report, the Home Secretary announced a substantial funding package for anti-knife crime initiatives over the next two years. The package is fully in line with Brooke’s recommendations and includes £10 million for prevention and diversionary activities, and engagement with young people at risk of becoming involved in crime; £3.75 million for London, Manchester and the west midlands, the three police force areas where more than half the country’s knife crime occurs; £4 million for a “Communities against gangs, guns and knives” fund to help local voluntary organisations across England and Wales work with young people to stop involvement in knife and gang violence; funding to provide free materials to schools to help young people keep themselves safe from knife and gun crime; and £250,000 for the Ben Kinsella fund, to be administered by the Prince’s Trust, for young people to run anti-knife crime projects in their local areas.
The funding will support vital police work where it is most needed too, and, most importantly, will give support to young people and local voluntary organisations working at the heart of our communities, because we need to look at this issue in that context too—a point that the hon. Lady also made. Indeed, I noted her comments about Westminster city council and getting local join-up. I was interested to note that Westminster is developing relationships with the youth offending teams in Kensington and Chelsea and in Brent, as well as with the safer neighbourhood teams. It has established a monthly gang meeting to identify problematic young people who offend or cause trouble in neighbouring boroughs and to share information and intelligence on those young people.
The hon. Lady made it clear that there is a need for a cross-over between council areas and communities and for a joined-up approach to ensure that information can be better shared between agencies within a local council area and, when a pervasive problem spreads beyond that area, in a way that will bind the process together more effectively. It certainly sounds as though there is more work to be done, although I was pleased to note that that thinking was taking place, and that the problem is being looked at in a broader context to ensure that the solutions are more effective.
As well as preventing young people from getting involved in violence and gang activity, action must be taken against those who break the law. To help local agencies to prevent gang-related violence, the Government introduced a new type of injunction across England and Wales in January. I went to Waltham Forest to launch the gang injunctions at the time. Initially for use against adults, gang injunctions give the police and local partners an additional tool to prevent serious violence and, above all, to protect the community. These injunctions allow the courts to require gang members to keep away from other gangs’ territories or to participate in activities to get them out of gangs. The first gang injunction was obtained by Southwark council in February, and it stopped one particular gang member entering a specific area and mixing with other gang members. We are aware of other action being taken as well.
The Home Secretary’s “guns, gangs and knives” round-table seeks to bring together all those who have a valuable role in developing the work on youth violence, including the work on the involvement of women and girls in gangs. It therefore provides a top-level way of bringing this together and engaging the Home Office in these matters. I pay tribute to all those working in this arena to prevent gang crime and youth violence. I want to assure the hon. Lady of this Government’s commitment to freeing up local areas so that they can tackle this problem in the way that works best for them. I also want to thank all those who work so hard to keep our communities safe.
Ministerial Correction
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Defence
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to give persons entering the armed forces under the age of 18 the right to leave on attaining the age of 18 if they consider at the age of 18 that they have been mistaken in their decision to enlist.
[Official Report, 10 January 2011, Vol. 521, c. 3W.]
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on 10 January 2011.
The full answer given was as follows:
Mr Robathan
There are no plans to change the current policy. Service personnel under 18 years who have completed 28 days of service have the right to discharge at any time before their 18th birthday provided they give the required 14 days notice. A service person under the age of 18 years three months who registered before their 18th birthday, their clear unhappiness at their choice of career can request permission to leave the armed forces. They do not have discharge of right at this age but it is exceedingly rare for such an individual to be refused permission to leave. These safeguards help to ensure that young servicemen or women under the age of 18 years may, if they wish, leave the armed forces and that any commitment to service is both considered and voluntary.
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Robathan
There are no plans to change the current policy. Service personnel under 18 years who have completed 28 days of service have the right to discharge at any time before their 18th birthday provided they give the required 14 days notice, and are within six months of enlistment. A Service person under the age of 18 years three months who registered before their 18th birthday their clear unhappiness at their choice of career can request permission to leave the armed forces. They do not have discharge of right at this age but it is exceedingly rare for such an individual to be refused permission to leave. These safeguards help to ensure that young servicemen or women under the age of 18 years may, if they wish, leave the armed forces and that any commitment to service is both considered and voluntary.
For the sake of clarity, I should emphasise that neither the original nor the corrected answer reflects the current policy. In a written ministerial statement of 19 May 2011, Official Report, columns 24-26WS, I announced a change in the policy whereby the ability to be discharged should be a right up to the age of 18.
Written Ministerial Statements
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Double Taxation Conventions
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
A new Double Taxation Convention with the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was signed on 9 June 2011. The text of the convention has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and made available on the HM Revenue and Customs website. The text will be scheduled to a draft Order of Council and laid before the House of Commons in due course.
Dry Weather Conditions
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
The House will be aware that the current dry spell has created one of the driest springs on record. Indeed it has been the driest spring across England and Wales since 1990 and the driest spring on record in south-east and central southern England. Today, the Environment Agency has announced a move to drought status for Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, parts of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire and western Norfolk, triggered by river and ground water levels, and risk to the environment and to farmers. Most of the south-east (except an area covering central and northern London) is at risk of drought.
Some reservoir levels are below normal for the time of year and ground water levels are in decline as we expect at this time of year. But it is our rivers that are seeing the greatest impact. The majority of rivers across south-west, central and eastern England have below average river flows with some experiencing exceptionally low flows.
These low flows are impacting on farmers that rely on spray irrigation during dry spells in the growing season to water their crops. Water for spraying is abstracted from our rivers under licence and conditions attached to those licences have meant that some farmers have had to stop taking water for irrigation. In addition, a small number of notices have been issued to prevent abstraction for irrigation to protect the Romney Marsh site of special scientific interest.
I have been monitoring developments closely and held a drought summit last month with the farmers, water companies and environmental groups, to hear first hand the impacts on different sectors and to agree actions that could be taken. The Environment Agency will report back later this month on the situation and potential impacts on water supplies, farmers and the environment. Natural England is also meeting conservation groups on 14 June and will report back to me on actions to reduce the impact on wildlife. A further meeting is taking place today with representatives of farming, water and energy companies and environmental groups to consider actions that can be taken in the short-term to make their water go further and to look at actions to build resilience in the future. I shall convene a further drought summit later this month to review progress and consider what further actions we may need to take.
We are working closely with farmers, growers and their organisations as they monitor the situation. Wherever possible, the Environment Agency is working with farmers to encourage voluntary restrictions on water use before imposing formal restrictions on spray irrigation. More widely, the agency has worked with water companies and water users to develop plans that minimise the risk of short-term restrictions on water use.
For those areas that have moved to drought status, the Environment Agency is working with water companies to remind people and businesses to use water wisely. Natural England has issued guidance to farmers and is ensuring that appropriate environmental stewardship derogations are made available to farmers in agri-environmental scheme agreements as a result of drought-related conditions.
Most water companies are reporting that they have sufficient reserves and do not predict the need for restrictions on use. Just one, Severn Trent, has informed its customers that restrictions may become necessary should the dry weather continue. Water companies have statutory drought plans that set out how they will manage the impacts of a drought. These plans include early triggers to bring all available water sources into supply before restrictions are imposed on the public water supply. Should there be a need to conserve water for the public supply then water companies may impose temporary restrictions on certain non-essential uses of water to help reduce the likelihood of more stringent demand restrictions that impact on customers and businesses.
Householders can get good advice on how to make best use of water from their water supplier, and from Waterwise (www.waterwise.org.uk). Water companies are increasing their engagement in this respect.
The “Natural Environment” White Paper, published on 7 June, announced our intention to reform the water abstraction management regime to provide clearer signals to drive investment decisions to meet water needs and protect ecosystems. The “Water” White Paper, due to be published in December, will provide further details.
I will continue to monitor the situation and will keep the House updated if there is any material change in the situation.
E. coli
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)
The Secretary of State for Health informed the House on 7 June of how the Government are taking all possible measures to monitor the serious E. coli 0104 outbreak that is centred in Germany and to assess and deal with any associated risks should any arise for consumers in the UK. I will not repeat what he has said in relation to the background of the outbreak.
It is deeply regrettable that this outbreak has resulted in the loss of life. It has also had a disruptive economic impact on growers and others within the supply chain for fruit and vegetables across the EU, including our domestic industry.
At retail level, prices for domestically produced salad—lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and courgettes—have remained relatively stable, although demand has declined, with the result that more produce is being sent to the wholesale market, which is experiencing movement in prices. I welcome the support for UK producers shown by the big retailers who have in some cases increased their offering of UK salad produce, in response to consumer demand for our home crops.
One impact of the decision by the Russian Federation to impose a ban on EU fruit and vegetable produce is that surplus produce has been directed to alternative EU markets, including our own. The consequence has been to depress values in the wholesale market, with volumes down, although here again, I understand that prices for English produce are faring better than those for imported produce. But the situation continues to develop and the latest indications from our trade organisations are that the market has deteriorated.
The impacts of the overall situation are being felt across the EU and because of this, the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 7 June discussed the need for exceptional measures to address the market situation and to provide financial support for growers affected. Proposals were discussed by Ministers at Council level and considered by officials at the EU Fruit and Vegetables Management Committee but no package has yet been agreed for implementation. Discussions will continue on 14 June.
The proposals build upon existing measures that are available within the fruit and vegetable aspects of the common agricultural policy via its Single Common Market Organisation (sCMO) of agricultural markets. No brand new measures are proposed. The total budget proposed would be €210 million, which would come from the existing European Agriculture Guarantee Fund (Common Agricultural Policy) budget to cover tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and also peppers and courgettes. No additional funding is proposed. The proposals cover the extension and relation of the rules covering market withdrawals. In the main this means that produce will go for destruction, because the perishable nature of fresh produce means that intervention is not a viable option. Compensation would be paid only in respect of the withdrawal of produce and it would not extend to compensation for loss of earnings nor to pay for the difference between current and normal expected market value. Details of the proposal are as follows:
Separate maximum compensation rates at €/100kg would be established for tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers and courgettes, to represent about 50% of the usual average June price for such produce.
The measures would be open to all member states to implement.
The allocated funding would be available on a first-come first-served basis—there are currently no plans for an allocation per member state.
In general withdrawals of produce must be made via Producer Organisations (POs) recognised under the sCMO. There is already such provision through POs’ existing funding programmes but the proposed new funding will be additional. However, under amended proposals, the Commission are considering an alternative route via the Paying Agency direct, which would be helpful for growers who are not members of a PO.
The proposal is for a temporary measure, to apply retrospectively from 26 May to 30 June, or when the budget is exhausted—whichever is sooner.
At a later stage, the Commission will consider whether a promotional campaign for fruit and vegetables could also be considered, to support the restoration of consumer confidence in the market.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will continue to maintain close contact with the Food Standards Agency and with industry organisations and is discussing with the Rural Payments Agency and other Government Departments how to implement the proposed measures.
Work Programme Launch
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I am delighted to announce that the Department for Work and Pensions is launching the Work programme today. The Government’s vision of a high-quality, personalised employment programme for those benefit claimants throughout Great Britain who need more intensive support is now a reality.
The Work and Pensions Select Committee report published last month was very positive about DWP’s management of the procurement process despite the “very ambitious timescales” set. Thirty-eight of the 40 contracts have now been signed. The two remaining contracts are all on track to be signed—week commencing 13 June 2011.
Today, I will be personally visiting a provider in west London to meet their first participants and see first hand how they are starting to use the freedom we have given them to innovate and design personally and locally tailored support.
The Government will publish providers’ minimum service offers to all claimants in due course. This will ensure that claimants are aware what they can expect, and that providers live up to what they have told us they will deliver. We will also be publishing the details of the local voluntary, public and private sector organisations that make up the prime providers’ supply chains.
Unlike in previous employment programmes, the Government have adopted genuinely long-term goals in the design of the Work programme.
Providers will be in place for up to seven years, giving them time to invest in building strong relationships with local partners and to innovate to find what works, enabling them to deliver the best quality back to work support possible.
Claimants will join the programme for up to two years, so providers will have a real chance to address the most serious disadvantages some of our claimants face in the labour market.
Once claimants have found a job we will pay providers to help them keep it for up to 18 months for mainstream jobseekers, and up to 27 months for an employment and support allowance claimant moving from incapacity benefits.
I am confident we have given the Work programme every chance of making a real difference to long-term worklessness. We expect to see substantial indications of the success of the programme from spring 2013. A full independent evaluation has been commissioned for that year as the first customers complete their two years and I look forward to sharing the results with the House as soon as possible.
House of Lords
Dog Control Bill [HL]
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Redesdale
leave out “is to” and insert “must”
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 1, I wish to raise a couple of issues about how we have tried to deal with some of the questions raised at earlier stages of this Private Member’s Bill. Obviously, Private Members’ Bills rarely become law, but they provide a fabulous test bed to make sure that the wording and sentiment of the proposal are correct so that, hopefully, when the Government come to their senses and decide that this is one of the most worthy pieces of legislation to be placed before them, they will immediately grab it with both hands and at a later stage bring forward a Bill reflecting almost every aspect of this Bill. I would like to address some of the concerns highlighted at Committee stage in March surrounding the issues of how and by whom it is decided what “dangerously out of control” constitutes within the Bill, as raised by the noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Pearson of Rannoch. One of the reasons for doing this is that I have had a large number of letters on this matter, so I thought it as well to deal with the issue by way of formulating the amendments that have been put forward.
The Bill’s intention is not to see responsible dog handlers and owners penalised but to deal with those owners who give others a bad name so that we can better protect the public by dealing with potentially dangerous dogs at the first signs of a behaviour problem. It is important to note that dogs are protected from the overzealous officer by writing into the Bill specific circumstances when a dog can be excused for being aggressive. A dog that bites a burglar or a mugger does not commit an offence, as the burglar or mugger is in the wrong. Equally, police and service dogs are protected. If the dog is attacked by a person and bites, no offence is committed. I believe that these rules achieve a sensible balance between protecting the public from unwarranted dog attacks and allowing dogs to behave normally. The Bill expects that the enforcers of this legislation will have adequate competency in dealing with dog-related issues to distinguish between a true act of aggression and normal acceptable canine behaviour. The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, which has been in force since February, has not led to an influx of barking dogs being brought before court or issued with dog control notices. It is important to keep in mind that the final decision on whether a dog is dangerously out of control must lie with the court on the evidence presented to it.
I will address the specific concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, at the previous stage of the Bill. He sought clarification on why the words “aggressive or” were removed from Clause 2(1)(a) while the same words were left in Clause 2(1)(b), and he wanted to know whether this was intentional. The decision to retain “aggressive or” within Clause 2(1)(b) was intentional, as it refers to the person who is responsible for encouraging a dog to be aggressive. Clause 2(1)(a), however, simply refers to allowing a dog to be aggressive, which I conceded at Second Reading could be open to abuse or misinterpretation. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, is immediately looking straight through the Bill with his usual “dogged” determination—
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, that is nothing compared to the jibes which I have had from these benches over the course of this Bill, so I thought I would poke a little fun back.
Obviously, this is a very difficult question to deal with, because it raises so many issues. Many dog owners feel that this has raised a number of issues which will put them at risk and, therefore, I was using this opportunity to put the record straight and maybe to stem some of the flow of letters that I will probably receive after this stage.
Amendment 1 would delete “is to” and insert “must” in Clause 3(6). It deals with and acknowledges the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in Committee in relation to the terminology,
“the appropriate national authority, local authority or police authority is to satisfy itself”.
The recommendation is that this wording be changed. I hope that this addresses the issue. I beg to move.
Lord Redesdale
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I was slightly taken aback by that exciting debate. I realise that I am obviously winning the argument this morning.
Amendment 2 deals with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, during the previous debate and rectifies a drafting error within paragraph 3(3) of the Schedule. As the Bill covers both England and Wales, “Secretary of State” has been removed and “appropriate national authority” has been included in its place. I do not intend to speak a great deal on this issue, but it does show the value of being able to use the knowledge of this House to scrutinise and pick out issues that are difficult to spot for those putting forward Private Members’ Bills. I thank all those, especially those from the dangerous dogs study group, who have taken part in helping with the amendments.
I very much hope that, at the next stage of the Bill, we will receive some indication from the Government that their position may change and move forward, especially considering the results of the consultation, to which 4,500 have replied.
On that basis, I beg to move.
Lord Richard
As the noble Lord was kind enough to refer to me, perhaps I may briefly respond. I have to say that I do not think that this is a very well-drafted, apposite or timely Bill, but on the other hand I think that the thrust of it is good. What the noble Lord is trying to achieve on the whole might be a desirable thing. However, the one thing he will not be able to do is legislate in this way by means of a Private Member’s Bill. He has done a service to the House in exposing both sides of the argument, and it is now for the Government to decide whether they wish to pick up this issue and deal with it. As far as I am concerned, it is an issue that the Government ought to deal with. I know that we are considering a specific Private Member’s Bill—as your Lordships may have gathered, I am not too keen on the actual Bill itself—but, nevertheless, it does seem to me an issue that the Government ought to take seriously and look at.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
I was rather hoping that I would be able to get away without intervening at all. The Government have made their views fairly clear at both Second Reading and in Committee, when my noble friend Lord De Mauley dealt with this Bill. I will say very briefly again that we cannot give our support to this Bill, but we are well aware of the problems that it is addressing and are prepared to consider moving forward in due course.
As my noble friend Lord Redesdale mentioned, the House will be aware of the consultation issued by the previous Government towards the end of their 13 years in office—I think it was issued in about March 2010, just before the general election—and that concluded in June 2010. There were some 4,250 responses to that consultation, which Ministers are still considering. We published a summary of those responses in November 2010, and, as I said, we are still considering the right way forward. It is a matter that we want to discuss across government, because these matters are not just for Defra but for the Home Office and others. In due course, I hope that we will be able to have something to say, but we will not offer support to this Bill. It might be that, when the noble Lord seeks a Third Reading and moves that the Bill do now pass, that might be a moment when I might be able to say a little more. However, as I have made clear and as we made clear on earlier occasions, we cannot offer support to this Bill.
Lord Richard
Before the Minister sits down, can I ask him to clarify that, with regards to this Bill, “in due course” means that we will hear something on Third Reading?
Lord Henley
Depending on when Third Reading happens, that in the course of the debate on whether the Bill do now pass, I might be in a position to say something. That depends very much on when my noble friend seeks the Third Reading of the Bill. I make no guarantees, and the noble Lord will well know that “in due course” can be a rather flexible form of time, and he will just have to wait and see.
Lord Redesdale
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for coming in and eliciting a response from the Government. I also thank the Minister for the fulsome proposal that the Government will bring forward such useful information at the point of Third Reading. On that basis, I will wait probably until after the summer for Third Reading, although I realise that “after summer” means September rather than, in the Government’s parlance, somewhere nearer March. However, on that basis, I hope that this amendment will be acceptable.
Wind Turbines (Minimum Distance from Residential Premises) Bill [HL]
Lord Reay
My Lords, in introducing the Bill I should like to declare an interest: I live within one and a half kilometres of a wind farm that is in the pre-planning application stage and which would be disallowed under the provisions in this Bill because of its proximity to my house and, I am told, to about 600 other houses, which would all be within two kilometres of the 110 metre-high turbines.
There are many reasons to be opposed to the Government’s policy towards wind farms and I agree with most of them. But this Bill only concerns itself with one disadvantage of onshore wind turbines—their propensity for making life a misery for those unlucky enough to find themselves forced to live in their shadow.
There is now a well-established body of evidence, collected worldwide, that demonstrates the harmful effect of turbines for at least some of those who live close to them. Complaints are made continuously to the environmental health officers of local authorities. In February 2009 the Renewable Energy Foundation produced a roll, obtained under freedom of information requests, of 27 out of 133 wind farms in the United Kingdom which had given rise to noise complaints. This number subsequently rose to 46 out of 217 wind farms by April 210, with 285 complaints having been recorded in total.
In her book Wind Turbine Syndrome, Dr Nina Pierpont recorded and analysed the symptoms of a number of families in different parts of the world who had been driven out of their homes by their sufferings from wind farms. Dr Pierpont concludes that a minimum setback distance of two kilometres should be required, also that developers should be obliged to buy out affected families at the pre-turbine value of their homes.
Jane Davis is another famous authority on the subject, and a victim herself. Driven from her Lincolnshire home by a wind farm that appeared within 1,000 metres upwind of her, she has fought for the last five years for recognition and compensation. She goes to the High Court in July in a case expected to last for 12 days. In the very recent BBC2 series “Windfarm Wars”, which chronicled with admirable fair-mindedness the story of a Devon wind farm application, at Den Brook Valley, viewers will have seen Jane Davis’s evidence, together with plenty of other examples of the intolerable consequences for some people of having to live close to such developments.
Only the day before yesterday an account appeared in a local newspaper, the North Devon Gazette, under the heading “Our Sleepless Nights with Wind Turbines”, of a Torrington couple who were being forced to sell their home and business following a planning inspector’s decision to overrule Torridge District Council and allow a wind farm within 500 metres of their home.
“I can hear the turbines through my pillow at night”,
the wife was quoted as saying.
“It’s unbelievable the noise they make sometimes”,
said her husband.
Wind farm noise differs from other continuous forms of noise, for example the noise from a nuclear power station. It has a rhythmic, pulsing quality, with at times a vibrating effect which many have found too invasive and disturbing to live with. It can quite obviously seriously damage people’s health. There are many illustrations of this in Dr Pierpont’s book.
But there is another baleful effect, which is more than visual or aural. This derives from the scale of the turbines. So vast have they become—the largest currently in the planning process being over 600 feet high, twice the height of Big Ben—that the more humane inspectors, those few who have chosen not to be ruthless agents for enforcing the Government’s renewable energy policy, have described them as dominating, intimidating, blighting for a generation the lives of those who have to live under them, and have rejected applications on that score.
So except by hoping to be lucky in the choice of the inspector that is parachuted in on them from Bristol, how can local communities hope to defend themselves against the threat of this nuisance to their lives?
In England, in practice, developers decide on the limit they will adopt, many opting for 500 metres, some for 800 metres, some not setting limits at all. A 100 metre high turbine has recently been permitted by Lancaster County Council within 250 metres of a dwelling and kennel business. Paragraph 22 of PPS22 in fact permits local authorities to set limits to the distance between wind farms and other existing developments, which they could interpret to mean dwellings. But the reference is oblique, and virtually no local authorities have made use of it, Devon County Council being an exception, setting a limit of 600 metres in 2009 in the case of one proposed development at Holsworthy. Today, by coincidence, a Private Member’s Bill introduced by Christopher Heaton-Harris MP is being debated in another place, which would give statutory authority to local authorities to set distance limits.
The revised Draft National Policy Statement for Renewable Energy Infrastructure (EN-3), which is currently before Parliament, says,
“appropriate distances should be maintained between wind turbines and residential properties to protect residential amenity”.
To leave it to the developer to interpret what is appropriate is like leaving it to the motorist to decide an appropriate speed limit for him to observe.
In Scotland, Scottish planning guidance contains an advisory, rather than mandatory, limit of two kilometres. Adherence to this seems to be gaining ground. The Scottish Borders Council last month approved a presumption against any turbine within less than two kilometres of any residence. Of course Scotland has more open, undesignated countryside than the rest of the United Kingdom, although not so much so in the Borders.
In Wales, Technical Advice Note 8—TAN 8—adopted by the Welsh Assembly, specifies what it calls a “typical separation distance” of 500 metres, not to be applied rigidly. However in Wales a flurry of interest has recently been caused by Carmarthenshire County Council, which decided that its new development plan would not permit wind farms within 1,500 metres of dwellings. I believe that the Welsh Assembly may have the power to annul that decision. I also notice that an e-petition against TAN 8, which is incidentally still open for signature, has gathered the most signatures to date for any petition on the Assembly for Wales website. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, may perhaps be able to comment on these stirrings in Wales.
In sum, I believe that where limits are imposed at all, they are generally insufficient as well as haphazard and that it is time to do something about it. The need to do something is increasingly widely perceived as the number of those affected has risen. I suspect also that the effects today are more dire as the number and size of turbines have grown so massively. This in itself is a reason for the Government to bring up to date their absurdly out of date system of rules for prescribing tolerable noise levels—the so-called ETSU R 97 rules, which are now 14 years old.
In resisting any attempt to prescribe distance limits, Ministers have deployed the argument that it is illogical to require a distance limit for wind farms and not for nuclear or fossil-fuelled power stations. This makes a ludicrous comparison. In the first place nuclear and fossil-fuelled power stations, being for the most part sensibly sited unlike wind farms close to the places where the electricity is required, are generally to be found in semi-urban or brownfield sites where there is no comparable destruction of visual amenity and where also any noise they make is smothered by other noises.
In the second place there is nothing like the same number of them; fossil-fuelled power stations can be counted in dozens, while wind farms already number hundreds, and wind turbines thousands. I believe that the latest official figure for those operating and under construction on shore is 299 wind farms, comprising 3,649 turbines.
Ministers have also said that it would be unfortunate to remove the possibility for wind farms to be placed in semi-urban or brownfield sites, which this Bill as it now stands would do because there are always houses around such sites. There is not a very large demand to place wind farms in such places, but in so far as there is, I can see some force in the argument. I would therefore be happy to see my Bill amended to give discretion to the local authority to set its own distance limit where the application was for a development in a brownfield site.
It has also been argued that to restrict development in more inhabited areas will put greater pressure on the less inhabited areas, in particular national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. But my Bill does nothing to lessen the protection which is rightly given to those designated areas under present planning policy and which will remain in force.
Would my Bill if enacted therefore preclude any further onshore wind farms? Plainly not in Scotland, where a two-kilometre distance limit is already recommended and apparently largely observed. But in England? CPRE once did a study which I believe indicated that at these limits something like 70 per cent of existing wind farms in England would not have been allowed.
So my Bill might to some seem likely, if ever enacted, to deal a devastating blow to the Government’s present renewable energy policy. But why is it thought appropriate for England's green and pleasant land to be industrialised by ever more gigantic wind turbines for the sake of a pointless gesture towards an economically crippling green ideology?
The Government claim to believe that they will achieve support for their onshore wind farm policy by encouraging developers to pass on to local communities in one form or another more of the subsidies which they are about to receive. Apart from being unlikely to succeed, this policy is both corrupt and divisive. The people who will receive the advantage will not be the same as those who suffer the injury. How will a community playground, while it may sway a planning committee, compensate someone who has seen his environment immeasurably degraded and the value of his house fall by 35 per cent?
At the same time, some farmers and landowners are enriched obscenely. How can the Liberal Democrats, or my modern caring Conservative colleagues, let alone noble Lords opposite, tolerate this, achieved at the direct expense of those who are pushed into fuel poverty? This is the way to create the torn society, not the big society. So I hope that the Government will have a change of heart, show some humanity and remove this scourge from our countryside by adopting this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, for introducing this Bill and for the way he set out his stall—if I may put it like that—with clarity and persuasiveness. On the whole I agree with what he said, but there are two major problems with wind turbines. One is to do with noise, and the other is visibility. The noise point has been satisfactorily illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Reay. If any of your Lordships have actually been near a wind farm, you will understand what the noble Lord has been saying. There is brutal noise on two levels: noise that can be heard and noise that, curiously enough, cannot be heard but still affects the brain. That is one of the major problems that this Bill will have to deal with.
Noble Lords will know that this issue was raised in another place about a year and a half ago by Mr Peter Luff. There was a wind farm application in his constituency of Mid Worcestershire. Nothing much came of it in another place, but I gather there are again moves to produce something along the lines of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Reay. I welcome that.
We might be able to put up with these problems of noise and unsightliness if these machines were efficient and cost effective, but they are neither. The average wind turbine will probably produce something just over 20 per cent of its installed capacity in a given year. It is enormously costly. When we had the big freeze last winter, there was a high-pressure system over the whole of the United Kingdom. Wind farms in the UK produced at 3 per cent of their installed capacity, just when the electricity was needed. That really shows how dreadfully inefficient these things are.
They are also extremely expensive. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, referred to Wales. It is certainly true—we have a plague of these things in Wales. In Powys and Ceredigion, about 240 turbines are in operation, and another 1,000 are under application. The cost of these—together with the cost of lines, pylons, hubs and low-voltage lines—will be in the order of £1.3 billion. This works out at something like £5 million per achieved megawatt. That is the scale of the economic disaster that we seem determined to invest in. I do not believe that the Government have been entirely honest, because the vast bulk of this cost will not be paid by the developers. It will be paid by either the taxpayer or the consumers of electricity.
I understand that when local authorities come to assess planning applications, they have to pay attention to the policy guidance that comes from central government. The problem with that is that none of these planning policy statements—neither PPS 22 nor the additions to PPS 1—is properly debated in Parliament. They are just issued by government, and the chief planning officer, known as the chief planner, simply writes to local authorities saying they are obliged to have regard to these statements when they assess the applications for wind farms according to their development plan. The courts have ruled that these are material considerations for local planning authorities when they make that assessment.
None of that has been discussed in Parliament. I am sure the Minister will be able to assure us that—under the localism proposals—that will change, and we will have an opportunity to discuss, in both Houses, planning guidance that comes from central authorities. The problem is that, not only do we not have a discussion of what government policy is but other organisations—such as Natural England, which I will come to in a minute because it is important for Reeves Hill—seem to take these policy guidance notes as government policy that they themselves must respect. They believe these notes should override the instructions given to them by Parliament. Under the Act setting up Natural England—this is relevant to Reeves Hill—it is perfectly clear that Natural England has a general purpose of enhancing and protecting the landscape. There is an application for four turbines at Reeves Hill. Natural England originally opposed the application, but suddenly withdrew its objection in the light of something called the local landscape enhancement fund, which was to be created in order to compensate people who felt they were affected. This has nothing to do with the general purpose of Natural England, yet it went on to say that the person who should distribute our money is the developer, not the local authority. So the developer not only gets the money himself, but also the right to distribute it as he thinks fit. That simply cannot be right. I would like to ask the Minister if she would impress upon the Government the necessity to instruct Natural England to have regard to the general purposes—which were laid by Parliament—in the Act that set it up.
I do not want to go on too much about the unsightliness of these turbines. However, your Lordships will recognise that, in Wales, we have them on top of hills. If they were in valleys, they might be reasonably acceptable. If your Lordships go along the Cambrian mountains and see the wind farms there, they will understand what I am talking about. If you put them on top of hills, they can be seen for miles. The proposed turbines on Reeves Hill stand on one of the most beautiful parts of western Herefordshire. You can see the Brecon Beacons from there. You can almost see Plynlimon from there. You can see right across towards the Upper Wye Valley. That will be destroyed by these enormous turbines that are going to be erected if this application is successful, and Natural England really ought to be there to oppose it.
Fortunately, it may be that access to the site has to come through Powys. Powys County Council has started to move—very sensibly—in the direction of saying, “We have had enough of these turbines in mid-Wales”. If it does that, we are at last getting somewhere. As the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said, we should Carmarthen if we can and start to change what is a disastrous policy. If the Government wish to engage in renewables, there are plenty of reliable renewables—in tides, nuclear or even offshore wind, which is much more reliable than onshore wind—that they can use. If they wished they could do it, but it needs political will. There is no point wrecking the landscape to try to save the planet, and these turbines do wreck the landscape. I hope very much that the Government will give the noble Lord’s Bill a positive reception—possibly even a fair wind.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, for missing the first 30 seconds or one minute of his speech. I usually go back to Cornwall from this House by train. Today I have to go back by car, because I am picking up my daughter and all her paraphernalia from university to drive her back to that county. One of the pleasures—and I say this absolutely seriously—of driving across Cornwall is when I come along the A30 to an area called Fraddon/Indian Queens, which many noble Lords who have driven to Cornwall will know used to have massive traffic jams, but is now a dual carriageway. As one comes over the peak, there is an array of three wind farms. They add to the fantastic vista of central and west Cornwall.
A few years ago someone who was affected by a wind farm in north Cornwall asked me to look at a similar vista, though a very different one, where the wind farm was going to be established. The major despoiling factor—as is the case in Scotland, but maybe not so much in Wales—was the pylons, which were rather ugly, and criss-crossed the landscape. In terms of comparison, wind turbines are one of the most elegant structures of recent technology ever devised, though I readily accept that they are not to other people.
There was a wind farm application recently in north Cornwall, near Davidstow. One of the concerns on the community side is that the Cornish tourism industry might be affected. A colleague of mine on Cornwall Council but not, to give him his due, of the same party, surveyed tourists on whether they would like a wind farm in that area. He had no difficulty in filling his petition for the wind farm to go ahead. So I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Reay, says about people’s reactions. It is true of some people, but it is not necessarily the reaction of the majority. Indeed, another fellow councillor in west Cornwall—again, not a Liberal Democrat—commented on strategic planning and said that people tend to like wind farms and when they have them nearby, wonder what all the fuss is about.
With regard to issues with households, I am not going to discuss the broader matter of energy policy, which previous speakers have done. That is not what the Bill is supposed to be about. The main problems are to do with flicker and noise. Recently I was at Delabole, which has just been repowered. It has larger wind turbines, but far fewer of them. That is the way the movement is going: fewer individual turbines, but larger ones which are much more efficient. I walked round Delabole wind farm and I cannot remember even hearing the noise. I am sure that there are sometimes noise issues, but I suggest that noble Lords stand by wind turbines to hear what noise there is. It is extremely low; it is far less than a main road or a railway. On many occasions it is not particularly perceptible.
With regard to flicker, I was interested to read a recent study by Parsons Brinckerhoff—not an organisation I know particularly—for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which found that:
“There have not been extensive issues with shadow flicker in the UK. The frequency of the flickering caused by the wind turbine rotation is such that it should not cause a significant risk to health. In the few cases where problems have arisen”—
and clearly there are individual cases where wind turbines have been badly sited, and there will be noise and flicker; that is a planning issue—it says here that:
“they have been resolved effectively using mitigation measures”.
So the case about the alien nature of wind turbines and the effect they have on local communities has been strongly exaggerated in relation to the facts and the reactions of the communities living near them.
It is important to look at the Bill’s effects. The figure is that if there was an exclusion around dwellings of two kilometres, 0.5 per cent of the UK landmass would be able to take wind turbines. Effectively, we would end that industry completely. Although some noble Lords may welcome that fact, this Bill would effectively close down this most efficient and cost-effective form of renewable energy.
I was interested that the noble Lord, Lord Reay, mentioned the Liberal Democrats. I am pleased and proud that he did, but we should remember that it was the Labour Government who primarily promoted wind power and renewables, and the Conservative Party has also been strongly supportive. This is an all-party conspiracy, if you like, against the British landscape, but one in relation to which it is important to meet our renewable targets. However, this should not be the major argument with regard to this Bill.
I do not recognise the strong feelings expressed in this debate; wind power is an obvious, traditional and effective way of generating renewable energy.
Lord Williams of Elvel
Does the noble Lord recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said, that a massive number of people have signed a petition in Wales against TAN 8, more than have signed any other petition to the Assembly? Does he also recognise that the other evening 2,000 people went to a village hall in mid-Wales to protest against an application for a wind farm? That is local response.
Lord Teverson
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I do not know the situation in Wales; clearly the noble Lord, Lord Williams, knows that far better than I do. However, many issues generate long petitions. I have used them many times myself during my political career. Do they always accurately reflect public opinion? Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. They are not necessarily conclusive. But I would not want to comment specifically on the Welsh situation.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Will my noble friend take on board that the proposals in mid-Wales are for 170 wind towers that are closely stacked together? Not only that but, because there is no energy-generating plant close by, the towers have to be taken into Shropshire over a very considerable distance. It amounts to the destruction of a beautiful landscape in mid-Wales.
Lord Teverson
I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I was about to conclude by saying that there is an issue with the over-density of wind turbines—we see this in other European countries, particularly Spain. The irony of this Bill is that that is exactly what we would get. The effect would be an over-concentration of wind turbines in the most rural areas. I would probably be in favour of a Bill that stated that, through strategic planning, we had to ensure that the amount of clustering was not over-dense. I rest my case and look forward to hearing other noble Lords on this subject.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend’s Bill. Indeed, I empathise with the sort of buildings that he is seeking to protect, finding myself, as I do, sandwiched in the speakers’ list between two powerful wind turbines. I hope that everybody realises that the environmental impact of wind farms is an important point. It is not acceptable that they should do huge damage to the environment of people where they live; that matters as much as anything to those people. The purely environmental aspect of any wind farm application must have a high priority.
Of course there are places where wind farms are completely acceptable. I drove down this morning from Suffolk, and I always drive through Dagenham. In Dagenham, there are two enormous wind turbines which enhance the factory landscape. Just to give your Lordships an idea of the scale of some of these wind turbines, the Ford factories barely reach their knees. They are very welcome there, and I get from Dagenham the sort of delight that my noble friend Lord Teverson feels in Cornwall.
However, there are real problems with the number of applications coming forward, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has already said. They are tempting because of the economic subsidies that are offered. Many farmers are tempted by that monetary reward. A couple of years ago, the Marlesford Parish Council, which I chair, objected to a wind farm at Parham, the next-door village. Although it did not affect me or my property or anything, it would have damaged a number of houses in Parham because it would have been very close to them. This is an example of the sort of thing which my noble friend’s Bill seeks to counter.
Of course, the location of wind farms that are agreed depends primarily on the planning authorities, then on the planning inspectors when there is a public inquiry or objection, and finally on Ministers. Inspectors have often been particularly brave, especially in the rather notorious example of Whinash in Cumbria, next to the Lake District, where distinguished locals such as the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, Chris Bonnington and John Dunning all successfully opposed that wind farm with ultimate success.
However, my main worry is the way in which the Government have embraced wind farms as a means of increasing the proportion of renewables and reducing Britain’s carbon footprint. In fact, as has been said by others, they are in general very uneconomic without the huge subsidies they get. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has pointed out, the intermittent nature of their output makes their real contribution of rather doubtful value.
One of the most dramatic experiences of my life was visiting the pump storage station at Dinorwig in Snowdonia; how unlike that wind farms are. There is this enormous cavern with a huge wheel which slowly circulates. At night, they use electricity which is surplus to the grid to pump the water up to the top of the mountain and, in the morning, they release it as everybody puts on their electric kettles. It adds something like an 8 per cent surge to the country’s electricity supply. That is the sort of renewable which is thoroughly desirable. A wind farm which will not obey anybody except the weather—and we all know that the weather obeys no one, including the Government—is much more doubtful. I am afraid that wind farms are largely political tokenism, and very expensive political tokenism.
One of the disappointing aspects of this Government is how they have yielded to tokenism in their policies. To some extent—one does not know how much—I suppose that this reflects the costs of coalition politics. If one wants an example, one has only to look at Germany, where Chancellor Merkel has had to do a total U-turn on nuclear power and has made a commitment that is quite undeliverable. Frankly, it is probably about as undeliverable as the commitment made at the G20 in Seoul in November to underwrite all the sovereign debt of any European country up to 2013.
However, there are other examples of such tokenism in the UK. I will not mention one of them as we will spend two days debating it in the next couple of weeks. But another, which is all too real, is the determination with which the Government have set their face against GM foods—this is not directly relevant except as an illustration of the mischief in some of the thinking—at a time when the production of food is of paramount importance in a world with masses of starving people. It is a paradox that the Government oppose GM foods—this is where I wish they would get their thinking sorted out—while making the aid budget a top priority. It makes them very guilty of the charge of tokenism.
Lord Marlesford
It is another illustration of tokenism in government policy. I believe that wind farms are an illustration of this.
I conclude by saying that I hope my environmental credentials are sufficient. Although I do not think that I would qualify as a “bunny hugger”, I am nevertheless passionately keen on preserving the landscape. Therefore, I ask the Government to focus their efforts on what will really help this country. I hope very much that my noble friend’s Bill will prosper and that the priorities reflected in it will be reflected in the new policy planning framework which Secretary of State Pickles is planning to bring before us. It is extremely important that we have the opportunity to debate that policy fully in this House. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give us that reassurance.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, ought not to worry too much about being sandwiched between my noble friend Lord Teverson and myself. This issue is not aligned on rigid party lines. If one takes a spectrum of opinion on terrestrial onshore wind farms, my noble friend Lord Teverson and I would find ourselves nearly at the opposite ends. I am one of those people who believe that wind farms constitute a blind alley, are not the answer and, to cite the words of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, are a scourge on our countryside. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, that there is no point in wrecking our landscape in order to save the planet. I am not against all wind turbines—
Lord Marlesford
I apologise to my noble friend for describing him inaccurately.
Lord Greaves
I thank the noble Lord for that. We have a unique landscape in these small islands. Geologically, the rocks on which the landscape is formed cover the entire length of geological time, from some of the oldest rocks known on this planet in the Isle of Lewis through to the most modern. The landscapes which we have as a result are of extraordinary variety yet are concentrated in such a small area. No other part of the world has landscapes as diverse and interesting as those in the islands in which we live. To cover them in industrial power stations seems to me the height of folly.
I accept entirely that people have different views on whether wind turbines are wonderful, beautiful modernist structures and will attract lots of tourists, as my noble friend suggests, or are a blight on the landscape, as I believe. Many of Cornwall’s landscapes were devastated by tin mining and, in particular, china clay mining. Why, when we are cleaning all that up and dealing with it, are we devastating the landscapes with more industrialisation in this way?
I welcome the Bill. It is not perfect by any means, but it is at the very least a means of debating these important issues. There are three main issues, as noble Lords have said. There is noise and flicker. However, unlike my noble friend, I do not believe that they are the only main issues. Amenity and landscape are crucial. Of course, people will always go to look at unusual things. I do not know if they still do so in our part of the world, but people went to look at the first wind farms when they were erected on the Pennine moors because they were new and therefore interesting. That is not to say that if we cover all the Pennine moors with wind farms—it is an ideal place for them if they are to be placed on the land—suddenly people will come from all around the world to look at our wonderful landscape of continuous wind farms, instead of the wonderful, wild and open wilderness that we have in many areas. For a one-off, lots of people go to Sellafield, because it is a very special place. There used to be a tourist facility at the nuclear power station in mid-Wales at Trawsfynydd. However, if there were a whole series of nuclear power stations next to each other, they would not all be tourist attractions. It is the unusual things that people look at in that sense.
The noble Lord, Lord Reay, suggested that an unforeseen consequence of the Bill might be the pressure put on other areas, but said that it would not be important. This issue must be looked at in context. He suggested that that concern would not be too important because there are national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty with special designation. Indeed, there are other areas such as large SSSIs and so on in the uplands. However, a large part of our uplands and interesting coastal areas do not have that kind of designation. I am interested in the mid-Pennines. There are national parks in the Pennines, but there is a whole area of the Pennines between the national park in the north and the Yorkshire Dales and Derbyshire that does not have that sort of protection. The areas of mid-Wales that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, was talking about have been precisely targeted for large wind-farm development because they are situated between the national parks. There are the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons, and Snowdonia in the north, but there is a huge area of mid-Wales that does not have such landscape protection. Yet who can deny that that is a wonderful wilderness area that should be protected from this kind of large-scale development?
I return to the issues in the Bill. The issue of noise is crucial and there is no point in pretending that it is not difficult. The traditional approach to noise is to measure the decibels. That is a technical matter but fairly straightforward. If there is a noise problem in a particular area, the appropriate environmental health officers are called out, they come with their noise meters, and they measure the level of noise. However, in many cases, some of the most annoying noise does not register loud enough to count as an environmental nuisance. I am not talking just about wind farms. There can be all kinds of industrial and commercial premises cheek by jowl with housing. You might have heating plants, for example. You might have generators. You might have other plants which cause low-level low drones, low whines and sometimes even the kind of throbbing, drumming noise that you get with wind farms. That kind of noise, which is relatively quiet, nevertheless can be extremely irritating and annoying. It can prevent people from sleeping. Whether it has an effect on people's brains is a matter of technical research, which I do not understand at all.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Is my noble friend aware that noise can come from the most unexpected places? I once had a case involving a house next to a primary school. We measured the decibel level at 120 decibels at playtime, which was the equivalent of Concorde taking off.
Lord Greaves
I am sure that that is the case, but if the decibels are there, you can do something about it. If there are not sufficient decibels, it is very difficult to do something about it, but that noise may be ruining people's lives. My noble friend said that there is no evidence that that affects their health, but if people cannot sleep and are having their mental health affected by it, because they simply cannot cope with it, there is a serious problem. Those of us who live in areas where industry and housing exist side by side know about those problems. From my experience, noise from wind turbines can be heard for considerable distances across valleys in some circumstances. There is a real problem there.
There is the question of the relationship between height, distance and size, which needs discussing. There is also the question, fundamental to the Bill: at what level should those decisions be made? I have great sympathy with the aims of the Bill, but am not sure that it is appropriate for national primary legislation. It seems to me that it ought to be incorporated within the planning system. Nevertheless, the basic principles are right.
I wanted to make some technical, detailed points about the Bill. Clause 3, which covers exceptions, states:
“The condition is that the owners of all residential premises which fall within the minimum distance requirement”,
can give their consent. I would hope that the noble Lord would consider that it is residents, including tenants, who should have to give their consent, not just owners, because it is the people who live there who have to suffer. Clause 3(3) comes very close to putting in legislation that people should not break the law, which seems a little unnecessary. Having made those cavilling points, the Bill has my general support and I hope that it will get thorough and careful consideration in Committee.
Lord Willoughby de Broke
My Lords, I strongly support the Bill produced and so eloquently proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, and supported generally by Members of this House. The Bill would not be needed were it not for our foolish commitment to sign up to the EU requirements. Our renewables obligation requires us to produce 20 per cent of our electricity from renewables by 2020. I hope that the whole House, including the Minister in her reply, will bear that in mind. That requirement means that one particular energy generator, wind, is guaranteed a market share and a price—which is underwritten by the taxpayer, regardless of how competitive that energy source is.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said that he believes that wind power is competitive on cost and efficiency. I do not know how he can say that with a straight face. A moment's study of the facts will show that to be completely nonsensical. Let us take costs first. Here I take the facts from the report of a House of Lords committee on The Economics of Renewable Energy, 2008-09, which said that onshore wind is twice as expensive as coal, gas or nuclear; that is before taking into account the cost of transmitting the power produced by this uneconomic source to the National Grid, which is a substantial added-on cost. The result is that—thanks to the requirement to produce our 20 per cent by 2020, as we are told by the EU—our consumers will be forced to pay twice as much for a proportion of their electricity requirement.
Turning to efficiency, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and other noble Lords, there is the well known problem of intermittency and fluctuation. Who has not driven down any road recently, particularly during the past two winters, and seen wind turbines totally stationary and not generating a single watt of electricity for weeks on end? The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said that he had driven down this morning and seen two attractive turbines in Dagenham. Perhaps he could tell us whether they were revolving and producing electricity. This morning I drove to the station from my house and passed a wind turbine which was running a road-warning sign; that was stationary. Coming in on the train from Moreton-in-Marsh to Slough, I saw a large factory outside Slough with four large wind turbines and not one of them was moving a single inch; they were not generating a single watt of electricity. They are grossly inefficient.
The problem is that in order to maintain a stable electricity supply, wind turbines have to have a permanent back-up, whether they need it or not; it has to run all the time. That may not be a problem at the moment because such a tiny proportion of our power is produced from wind, but it will become a problem if we ever hope to achieve this absurd 20 per cent target of our energy from renewables and particularly wind.
Perhaps in answering the debate the noble Baroness could tell us how many extra fossil-fuel or nuclear power stations would have to be built simply to support the extra percentage of power which is due to be produced by wind, according to the aspirations. She may not have the answer at her fingertips, but perhaps she could write to me about that and put the answer in the Library. It may be a little technical.
Lord Teverson
I would like to put something that the noble Lord said into context; it is an important point. Clearly wind is an intermittent technology. Generally, the utilisation of the UK generating capacity is about 50 to 60 per cent anyway; it is quite staggering how inefficient it is as a whole, and wind is probably a lot worse than that. To put the issue in context, the other half of the equation on renewables and intermittent renewables is that, in terms of the distribution grid, you have to move towards smart grids. How you use those is part of the total package. You have to do both and one helps to solve the other. That is how the overall energy strategy works. The argument itself is not conclusive.
Lord Willoughby de Broke
I think it is conclusive. The noble Lord has made my point for me. There are huge added costs in creating a wind grid which will feed into the national grid. That problem is not even close to being addressed, let alone solved yet.
I turn briefly to the environmental impact of wind farms. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, said, they are scarring some of our most beautiful landscapes. He mentioned Wales. I have been to Wales on many occasions and seen the increase in these dreadful wind farms over beautiful parts of mid-Wales. One noble Lord mentioned a figure of 160, but there are proposals for 800 new wind turbines in mid-Wales that will scar the Cambrian mountains beyond redemption. Each turbine will be 425 feet high—higher than St Paul's Cathedral. Not surprisingly, local communities have come together to oppose this despoliation and vandalism of the countryside in pursuit of a chimera—a dream—that is unachievable. The Department of Energy and Climate Change must know that there is no chance of achieving these dream targets.
I go back to the report of the Select Committee. With masterly understatement, in paragraph 227, it summed up the opinion of its witnesses on the Government’s target on renewables. It stated:
“Witnesses’ views of the target ranged from challenging to unachievable”.
We know from Sir Humphrey Appleby that “challenging” is the equivalent of “unachievable”. We should say that the targets are fully and wholly unachievable.
I will present my own evidence. My electricity is supplied by Haven Power, which thoughtfully provides its customers with a statement detailing the fuel mix for the electricity that it supplies. In 2010, 33.7 per cent of its electricity was generated by coal, 54.1 per cent by natural gas, 7.2 per cent by nuclear and 1.3 per cent by renewables. I would guess that that pattern is representative for England as a whole. We must now crank up the frankly derisory percentage of 1.5 to 2 per cent of electricity generated from renewables, mainly wind, to 20 per cent, according to our masters in Brussels.
What are we doing about that? First, we are wrecking some of our most cherished landscapes. Secondly, we are forcing electricity users to pay far more than they need simply to subsidise these grotesque, inefficient and costly wind farms. As a result of government intervention, the wind industry is turning into a money-grabbing scam masquerading as an environmental benefit. There is no environmental benefit from wind farms—but it is a money-grabbing scam.
Yesterday, BP produced figures showing that global emissions in 2010 from energy consumption increased by 5.8 per cent. China accounted for the biggest rise, overtaking America as the prime emitter. Whether the UK increases or decreases its CO2 emissions will have absolutely zero effect on global emissions as a whole, yet in the vain pursuit of this chimera—this dream—the financially and morally bankrupt policy continues. It enriches landowners—as the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said—and wind farm operators at the expense of pensioners on fixed incomes who are least able to afford the luxury of subsidising renewables and wind power. This is Robin Hood in reverse: robbing the poor to pay the rich. It is completely crazy.
Opponents of wind farms—we have heard from some of them this morning—are branded routinely as Luddites by the proponents of wind energy. In truth, the wind energy fans are the Luddites. They are blocking the one energy that will give us a secure supply without damaging our landscape for ever, which is of course nuclear. The dream of relying on the wind to keep the lights on will go down as one of the most costly and damaging fantasies of our time.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Reay, in the excellent Bill he is putting before this House, to support its committal and to thank him most warmly for the effort he has put into creating the Bill. This is a very important topic indeed, and I believe it has been underresearched, underdiscussed and, perhaps, underdebated.
I shall explain my interest. My colleagues behind me will be surprised to hear me speaking on wind farms and on energy when some of them have spent most of their political lives thinking about these important topics and I have apparently not done so. That is not precisely the case. My initial constituency, Blyth in Northumberland, drew my attention very seriously to fossil fuels. It is one of the great coalmining constituencies, but unfortunately I did not win it. I was then selected by Torridge and West Devon. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has already mentioned a very important case that arose in my constituency when I was a Member of another place: the Holsworthy wind farm case. In the European Parliament, in which I subsequently served, I sat on an important European Union/US climate change scientific committee for several years and, as a result of that experience, I gladly accepted the invitation from the noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and I declare that interest today.
I shall turn first to the important point on which this Bill rests, which is the separation of wind farms and human habitation by a precise measurement. I also serve as vice-president of the pre-eminent school for deaf children and young people in the United Kingdom, the Mary Hare School just outside Newbury, where I was brought up. I have a lot of knowledge and experience about human hearing. First, I wish to focus on why the premise on which this Bill is based is so profoundly right. I recently asked the House of Commons Library to extrapolate for me the statistics available on problems of human hearing in the British public. According to the House of Commons Library, something like 27 per cent of the British population has hearing problems. There may not immediately seem to your Lordships' House to be an absolute correlation with the potential difficulties caused to human hearing, which have already been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, but that is not so. Every year 400 babies are born profoundly deaf in the United Kingdom and a vast number of young people now have induced hearing loss but that does not, alas, give them a fundamental protection from pain, distress and psychiatric problems caused by noise. In fact, it is a curious fact that quite often the loss of human hearing or its failure to develop in the womb creates a much higher sensitivity in the brain. I do not know enough about it to understand the connection. All I can say is that when a noise drills through the brain, that is perhaps where the hearing should have been, and it causes immense pain. The fact that one-third of noble Lords should by rights perhaps be seeking some hearing enhancement from technical devices would not mean that the noble Lords in question could not feel pain despite the fact that they could not hear the noise in a normal sense.
My attention was drawn to this problem by another case, in North Tawton in my then constituency. A retired man with very acute hearing had pain from the noise that emerged. It came from a long way away from his retirement home, but it hurt his head. It was absolutely clear. The hospital tests showed that it was the case. I merely make the point that the fact that people cannot hear does not protect them from pain and acute psychological distress. If you penetrate the brain with harmful noise, you upset people very much indeed. That gentleman and others like him—he was certainly not unusual—experience great physical difficulties through accessing parts of the brain that should be left alone unless it is through our normal hearing mechanisms.
On top of that, I saw from the case in Holsworthy that the general population was extremely distressed. I accept that over the border in Cornwall things may be different, but I hae ma doots, dear colleagues and friends—very large doots—because my experience is that people mind very much indeed about the persistent noise. It is painful, it is harmful and, as I said a few moments ago, it has a bearing on noise-induced hearing loss. It is the easiest thing of all to bring about in babies and young children, in whom the delicate mechanisms of the ear are still developing. These can be readily damaged. In most young people it happens because of discotheques, jazz concerts and so on where the noise is at too high a level, but it is all too easy to damage babies and young people by noise.
I shall touch on a point briefly, although there is much more to say. Why has this not been raised by the National Health Service? Noble Lords may not be aware that the NHS does very little indeed on hearing. Of the total professional medical training provision for doctors in the United Kingdom, only five days out of the seven years of training are spent on the human ear. The National Health Service is very unlikely to have an understanding of this, other than in bits and pieces.
One or two noble Lords have said that the population is comfortable with wind turbines, but we are discussing the spending of taxpayers’ money. I believe that when taxpayers know the truth about the subsidies that wind turbines have attracted, they will not be at all comfortable that their hard-earned income is being spent in this way. It is an unhappy fact that wind farms are almost entirely subsidised by a complex yet hidden regime of feed-in tariffs, tax cuts and preferential tax credits. A typical turbine generates power that is worth around £150,000 a year, but attracts subsidies of more than £250,000 a year. These subsidies are of course added directly to consumer bills on the premise that the consumer pays. The cost to consumers of the renewables obligation scheme has risen from £278 million in 2002 to more than £1 billion in 2009, which is a total growth of £4.4 billion over seven years. Ofgem predicts that the total cost to consumers of the renewables obligation between 2002 and 2027, when the scheme is set to end, will amount to a staggering total of £32 billion. I cannot believe that consumers would be happy if they fully understood this.
An analysis of wind patterns in the United Kingdom suggests that at high penetration levels here, wind generation offers a capacity of between 10 and 20 per cent, which in itself is an indicator of how much of the capacity can be statistically relied on to be available to meet peak demand. It compares with around 86 per cent for conventional generation. This means that fossil fuels and other thermal or hydro power still have to be available as a back-up in times of high demand and low wind output if security of supply is to be maintained. I therefore make the point that new conventional capacity will still be needed to replace the conventional and nuclear plant which is expected to close over the next decade or so, even if large amounts of renewable capacity are deployed. To put it plainly, this means that every 10 new units’ worth of wind power installation has to be backed up with some eight new units’ worth of fossil fuel generation. This is because fossil fuel sources will have to power up suddenly to meet the deficiencies of wind. Wind generation does not provide an escape route from fossil fuel use, but embeds the need for it. Nuclear fuel runs at base load and therefore cannot power up to cover the absence of wind.
Lord Teverson
I thank my noble friend for giving way. That energy prices go up as a result of renewables is clearly a concern of us all, but does she not agree that the cost of renewables is almost insignificant in comparison with the increase in the cost of gas and oil, which has put up the real bills of consumers hugely? It is that supply pinch on fossil fuels that has caused the explosion in cost to consumers.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
My noble friend’s argument might hold water if wind power or the other alternative renewables were able to provide the 86 per cent of our energy that conventional fuels provide. Since conventional fuels have to back up renewables, I cannot give credence to his argument. Conventional fuels have to be around to back up the intermittent wind power that is all we get in the United Kingdom. I happen just to have spent the Recess in Oklahoma, just down the road from cyclone country. It is very different there. I was blown so hard in the street one day on my way to the conference I was attending that I almost fell over. How very different that is even from the Isle of Lewis, with its unique rock, and the Isle of Man, with its trembling granite—another unique feature of the United Kingdom.
I cannot accept that wind power offers a decent alternative to fossil fuels. Of course, fossil fuels, as my noble friend has immediately pointed out, are themselves expensive, which is why I have always backed nuclear fuel as the only really sensible, long-term solution for the United Kingdom.
I say again that I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, for bringing about this important debate. I am immensely unhappy that our intermittent wind power has attracted such monstrous subsidies. Largely, of course, I am unhappy because it has been kept away from the consumer, for it is ultimately consumers who will have to tell us how they wish to go. There is enormous unhappiness about the wind farm programme. The chair of energy policy in the Parliament of one of our closest allies in the European Union, Denmark, calls the Danish wind programme a terribly expensive disaster. I support the Bill.
Baroness O'Cathain
I shall speak in the gap in this immensely fascinating debate. I was stimulated to make a very short contribution by a statement made by my noble friend Lord Greaves. He said that wind farms were not the answer. Then I began to mull over the question. Do we really know what the question is? Surely the time has now come for us to reconsider whether we need to increase relentlessly and in an unthinking way the despoliation of our countryside, establishing wind farms and wind turbines in order to produce inefficient energy on a cost-benefit analysis, when we should be asking and undertaking a total reassessment of the impact of so-called climate change. I suggest that the documents which have just been adduced by our noble colleague Lord Turnbull be read by everybody. Only on that basis will we be able to see that these things are changing inexorably—the balance between the costs of fossil fuels and the amount of electricity that is required. We are going back to old statistics without taking the new assessment into account.
Lord Greaves
As the noble Baroness has called me in evidence, I ought to make it absolutely clear that I do not agree with a word she is now saying.
Lord Donoughue
My Lords, I support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, and I do so as a Labour person. Not everyone on this side takes that view, but I do because it is the poorer parts of our community that are paying the main price for this bizarre programme. As has been pointed out, they are paying often without knowing, because the extra taxes that come through the subsidies are often not revealed. I also resent the fact that it involves a huge transfer of wealth from the less well-off to my good friends who own great estates in Scotland and make millions of pounds out of it. I am very happy for them but unhappy for the poorer parts of our community who have to pay for it. I hope that my party will look more closely at this situation in the future than it has in the past.
I also support the noble Lord, Lord Reay, as an environmentalist. It is bizarre that the environmental warriors support this programme when what it does to the visual environment, as has been pointed out, is quite appalling. I object to the fact that they are described as “wind farms”. Farms and the farming community contribute enormously to our visual environment but these objects do quite the opposite—they scar it. We need a new collective name and I think “wind blight” is one that could be used in the future because environmentally they are a menace.
As a one-time economist, I particularly object to the economics of the programme, which are absolutely appalling. I shall not go over it all but the wind, especially, is the most uneconomic part; the cost of it is outrageous relative to its contribution. Its contribution is minute. During the winter, the official figures produced showed that wind contributed 0.5 per cent to our energy, partly because of the feature that during very cold spells—certainly in this country—the wind blows less.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in passing, mentioned a figure of 60 per cent in relation to the efficiency of wind farms.
Lord Donoughue
The noble Lord said 60 per cent for the others and that wind was not far from it. I can tell him that it is a very long way from it. Official figures on the efficiency of the wind blight show that it may be up to 30 per cent but on average it is around 20 per cent. That is a very poor contribution indeed.
I should tell the Minister that just before the Recess I put down two Written Questions on this issue and received helpful Answers. The Government stated that the cost of the whole programme, of which wind is a part, was up to about £30 billion but pointed out that a large number of costs were not included in that. It would be helpful if the Government could explain the full gross cost of this programme. I asked also about the number of jobs that were forecast to be lost and the Government said that they had not made any calculation of this. It would be helpful if the Government would make a calculation of jobs lost.
I considered tabling an amendment suggesting that 100 miles might be an appropriate distance between the wind blight and houses. I support the Bill.
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, this Bill has implications on a very important policy area in Britain’s energy policy. It aims to put the UK on a path to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and some 70 per cent by 2050. The size of this challenge is underlined by the fact that in the next decade over 30 per cent of existing traditional electricity power sources will be removed from the grid as current power stations are decommissioned. Abundant gas supplies are set to diminish. Shale gas exploration has been put into review following fears that it has triggered small earthquakes in Lancashire. Fossil fuel supplies are being pursued in ever more hazardous environments, with deep-sea oil drilling. The investment required for the UK’s energy policy is estimated at over £40 billion, well beyond the capacity of the public sector alone.
Increased development from all quarters is vital to facilitating the delivery of UK commitments on both climate change and renewable energy. This inevitably puts increased focus on land use, agriculture and food and bio-energy production, as well as supply chains and transport. In response to criticisms that agriculture is responsible for an overproportionate amount of CO2 emissions, the agricultural industry has voluntarily signed up to the greenhouse gas action plan to reduce emissions by 3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents by 2020 without compromising domestic production. This plan was launched by Jim Paice, Minister of Agriculture in another place.
This is the wider context and the place within which the provisions of this Bill are to be assessed. This Bill is focused not only on larger development but also on small farm-scale turbines in the larger end of the small wind sector, including some turbines that fall within the definition of microgeneration. That area has been unlocked by the feed-in tariffs regime brought forward by our previous Labour Administration. All planning decisions reflect a balance of competing interests and benefits, advantages and disbenefits, development and conservation. In this case, striking the right balance between regulations and incentives is vital.
We have heard today across the House of the challenges that wind farms face from your Lordships. All but one noble Lord today has expressed disapproval, but it is important to distinguish between, on one hand, long-term legislative and prescriptive “thou shalt not” regulations—which may be necessary to protect citizens and the environment where there is certainty of outcomes and overwhelming evidence—and assessment against guidance on the other, where parameters are set to measure each situation on a case-by-case analysis. On these Benches, we would be concerned that this Bill’s definitive prescription would be required for all cases. As has been argued even by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, this situation is covered by provisions in PPS22, which sets out government policies for renewable energy and parameters which planning authorities should have regard to when preparing local development documents and taking planning decisions. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made the point that nuisances such as noise could perhaps be encompassed within these provisions rather than primary legislation being brought forward.
The first thing that could perhaps be said about the Bill is that it uses an unusual way in which to measure wind. The Bill takes the tip of the blade as its highest point in measuring its impact. The more accepted method of measurement is to the top of the nacelle, where the rotor is fixed. Adding blade length to the standard scale of masts may impact on the development of technologies that reduce noise and have other impacts in future. I also wonder whether the exceptional condition that owners of residential premises that fall within the minimum distance requirements must agree in writing to the construction of a wind turbine could lead to a number of perverse outcomes affecting blade choice and effective siting. Planning policy statements set flexible parameters within which developments can take place that take account of changing circumstances and technical advances. Experience and knowledge could perhaps inform our decisions in future.
In a Written Answer on 14 September 2010, Charles Hendry, Minister of State for Energy in another place, replied to a Question concerning reports on and challenges to the Energy Technology Support Unit method of assessment and rating of noise from wind turbines, most notably ETSU R 97, by acousticians. He replied that he had,
“asked Hayes McKenzie to carry out new analysis of this”.
This method remains the applicable guidance for assessing and rating noise from turbines. Could the Minister provide the House today with any more information on the progress of this analysis and when it may be published? This is separate from and in addition to a University of Salford report which has already endorsed the ETSU system. As this is not primarily her department’s responsibility, could she ask her colleagues to write to me on the matter? In a further Written Answer that same day, the Minister stated:
“There are currently no plans to introduce a proximity rule. The assessment of an application to develop a wind farm already includes, among other things, an analysis of visual and landscape impacts to ascertain whether the location and height”,
of a wind turbine,
“is acceptable. The Government consider that these impacts are best assessed on a case by case basis so that local factors can be taken fully into account”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/9/10; cols. 960-61W.]
Will the Minister confirm today that as yet nothing new has been learnt to override this statement?
While acknowledging that the balance of benefits of any development can be controversial, it would be foolish not to take account of the considerable animosity and protest that has arisen in such areas as Devon, Dorset and west Wales. However, there are procedures and mechanisms that already apply in this situation. From these Benches, I urge caution before embarking on heavy regulation that defines prescriptive parameters for all cases and situations. The continued use of site-specific assessments may still provide the most appropriate and effective means to assess and determine any potential development impacts, while protecting the amenity and health of local residents.
The recently announced review of the renewable heat incentive and feed-in tariffs has been extremely destabilising and disruptive to investments in renewable energy. Let us take care today before endorsing further planning constraints on the enormity of the task we face on energy security.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Reay for providing the opportunity to discuss an issue that is clearly close to his heart. From the speeches made around the Chamber, it is obviously close to the hearts of all those who have spoken. We have had a thoroughly interesting debate and I thank the noble Lord for the opportunity. I appreciate that the noble Lord has long-standing concerns over wind turbines, and that this Bill proposes a way of tackling some of the matters that can arise when proposals for wind farms and wind turbines are considered. I have listened with interest to the points that have been made.
While I can appreciate the concerns that have led to this Bill being placed before us, we need to consider whether legislation, and particularly legislating in this manner, is the most appropriate way to address them. I have my doubts, not least because the approach set out in the Bill sits uncomfortably with the Government’s reforms to the planning system and energy policies. We also need to recognise that in a rapidly changing world some degree of flexibility is both desirable and necessary. Fixed separation distances may be attractive, but once in place there may be good and unforeseen reasons why the original justification for setting them no longer applies. By that I mean that technological advances could lead to sites that were once seen as unsuitable being suitable in the future.
It is helpful to put this Bill in context and remind ourselves of why we need more renewable energy developments. Harnessing our renewable resources is necessary for energy security and environmental reasons. The Government firmly believe that climate change is one of the gravest threats we face. It is not something that we can ignore and hope will go away, so there is no question that the United Kingdom must become a low-carbon economy and decarbonise, where possible, its electricity supply. Having said that, we are aware that this is a huge challenge, as was absolutely clear from the speeches.
Onshore wind is one of the most cost-effective and established renewable technologies. Where small-scale schemes are put forward by local communities or individuals or much larger-scale ones are put forward as part of a commercial generator’s portfolio, our energy security is enhanced by a resource—wind power—which is ours alone. Renewables also provide opportunities for investment in new industries and new technologies: the kind of opportunities we so badly need to help the economy recover.
None of this, though, gives an excuse to ride roughshod over local communities, or for building wind farms in the wrong places. The views of local communities are a vital contribution in making decisions about the suitability of a proposed wind farm’s location. Through the Localism Bill we are committed to ensuring that local communities should have a much greater say in shaping the places where they live, and that includes renewable energy developments. I do not think that my noble friend will agree, but wind farms can bring real benefits to communities as long as they are in the right place and of the right size.
The noble Lord referred to ETSU R 97, as did the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. That report potentially gives a different answer in every case, varying according to factors such as: the number, type and space of turbines in the proposed wind farm; ambient noise levels at the nearest residence, which can vary significantly around each site; and topography between the turbines and affected property. For local plans to set minimum separation distances from wind farms, all those factors would have to be assessed for all likely locations while looking at them case by case would vary the separation distances. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked me two questions that I cannot at this moment answer, because they are not actually for my department, but I will ensure that he has a Written Answer to them.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, raised the advice given by Natural England to support a development in Wales. He was kind enough to give me notice that he was going to ask that question. I am bound to tell him that, unfortunately, all of that is still an undecided planning issue and I therefore cannot comment on it today. However, he referred to the land enforcement fund, which would provide local landowners and communities with funding for environmental schemes such as the replacement of hedgerows to help mitigate the effect of the wind farm proposals. I do not know where that is being pursued but it is clearly a factor which will now be taken into consideration during the planning process. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, also asked a question to which, again, I am afraid that I do not know the answer. It may sound feeble of me to say this but again it is not for my department. However, I will make sure that the noble Lord gets an answer to it.
The Government have stated on many occasions that decisions on siting wind farms should be made on a case-by-case basis, so as to take account of the local context. This Bill would prescribe fixed-separation distances according to the height of the wind turbines. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, drew attention to the fact that it is the height where the measurements are taken from. The Bill would also automatically rule out locations that might otherwise be suitable for wind turbine developments because, for example, it makes no allowance for matters such as local topography or the presence of other buildings. Both are capable of providing mitigation against the impact of a turbine. That can make a development which might otherwise be considered unacceptable in isolation of its context quite acceptable when considered in its context.
There can be good reasons for rejecting proposed wind turbines. However, the reasons for some refusals could be addressed by future advances in technology. Improvements in technology could make acceptable sites which are currently deemed to be unacceptable.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
I hate to interrupt the Minister in what I think are her winding-up remarks, but she has not chosen to comment on my important points, which have not been put to the House before, on the impact wind farms’ proximity to communities can have on psychiatric, mental and hearing health. Does she not agree that this is an important and almost wholly under-researched topic? Might she be minded to recommend to her colleagues in the Department of Health that they should perhaps undertake a proper research study on this vitally important issue?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the noble Baroness has intervened a little before I got to the conclusion of my remarks. However, it would be sensible for me to address her concerns now and to say that of course the matters that she has raised in her speech today will be referred on; I will make sure that they are.
Returning to where I was, technological advances in radar, for example, could overcome current objections on radar grounds. Future turbine designs could be quieter than the turbines being erected now. Our approach to localism means that we want communities to be able to shape and influence new developments—[Interruption.] I do not think that my remark justified that thunder!
I am concerned that even small-scale or community-backed developments could be inadvertently ruled out through fixed separation distances. I accept that the Bill makes some allowance for flexibility where local agreement is reached, but there are flaws in this approach.
On the planning policies coming forward, the current approach is looking at each proposal on its individual merits within the context of the local council’s development plan; that is well established. It enables a flexible and customised approach to be taken to each proposal. Decisions on applications such as wind farms are therefore taken on a site-by-site basis. This enables impacts such as noise and shadow flicker to have tailor-made assessments using recognised methodologies rather than being judged against an arbitrary separation distance. It enables the impact on the surrounding landscape to be considered, and for topography to be taken into account. That case-by-case approach is evidence based. I am not aware of any evidence which supports the thresholds proposed in the Bill. I am afraid to say that they appear to be quite arbitrary.
Noise issues were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and several other noble Lords. It might be helpful if I told the House that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently undertaking research to analyse how noise impacts on, and is considered in, wind farm planning applications in England. The aim is to ensure that noise assessments are consistent and effective, and provide the intended level of protection from noise impact. The results of this research are expected to be published in the next few weeks. I hope that that will address some of the points that have been raised.
On planning, we are in the middle of major reforms to the planning system. We are taking forward major changes to the way planning decisions are approached and we are firmly committed to decentralising power to local authorities and communities. The creation of neighbourhood plans will help with this. My noble friend’s Bill unfortunately cuts right across our proposals for localism. By prescribing in legislation separation distances, it is setting out—actually imposing—the type of top-down approach from which we want to move away. I, of course, recognise that the Bill is intended to apply also to major infrastructure projects as well as to proposals decided by local councils, but in fact because of the way it is drafted it does not, unfortunately, fulfil this ambition.
Over the past few months we have been working hard to put together the new national planning policy framework. This will simplify the reams of existing planning policy. Part of it will cover renewable energy. It will be published for consultation and I am sure noble Lords will ensure that we have an opportunity to discuss it in this House. I believe that its approach to localism and the importance it places on protecting the environment will be reassuring.
We want to reward those communities that welcome development and help deal with the demands for supporting infrastructure that may arise. Specifically, our commitment to the local retention of business rates generated by renewable energy developments will reward communities who host these developments.
Focusing on the detail of the Bill, if it were to progress further, a number of technical drafting issues would need to be addressed for it to become a workable piece of legislation. For example, it would need to clarify what is meant by “relevant authority”. The reference to “government department” in the definition of “relevant authority” could imply that my noble friend intended that his Bill should apply to all wind turbine proposals, but I am not clear whether this is the case. Is it meant to include within its scope those wind farm proposals which are considered to be major infrastructure proposals as well as those decided by local authorities or by the Secretary of State if the local decision is appealed? However, under the Planning Act 2008, nationally significant infrastructure projects require development consent rather than planning permission. The Planning Act removes the need to obtain planning permission, so as drafted the Bill would not apply to wind farms with an installed capacity of more than 50 megawatts.
The exception provisions in the Bill may not empower all those who live in properties within the thresholds to be involved in the written agreement process. That point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Owners do not necessarily live in the properties they own; they can rent them out. The Bill would also need to be amended to clarify the position with regard to leaseholders. Would they be classed as an owner, or would “owner” include only the freeholder? I am also unclear as to how a “relevant authority” might be expected to ensure that written agreements are not elicited by unlawful or pressurised means. How do we stop this becoming a charter for bureaucrats laying down their view of the law?
I have other concerns, but my final point is that by setting such rigid separation distances and linking them to the height of the turbines, the Bill could actually lead to perverse outcomes—and I suspect not at all the sort that my noble friend has anticipated. I wonder whether, as a way of getting round the Bill’s provisions, we will simply see proposals being submitted for turbines which cluster just below the height limits. Instead of submitting a proposal for, say, four turbines of a particular height, a developer might bring forward a greater number of smaller ones just to get around the relevant separation distance limitation, so in the end the impact could be greater.
I conclude by restating that by imposing rigid separation distances, the Bill would cut across the Government’s reforms to deliver localism and the decentralisation of power. Ruling out what could be suitable sites on an arbitrary basis could hinder our ability to meet our ambitious but necessary renewable energy and climate change commitments. I understand that wind farm proposals, and even individual wind turbines, can cause a great deal of concern in communities about the impacts that they might have—we accept that—but I do not believe that this Bill is the way to address these matters.
It is normal practice for the Government not to support or oppose Private Members’ Bills and I do not propose to break that convention. However, I ask my noble friend to consider the extent to which the localism agenda will address his concerns, and how he might contribute to the national planning policy framework on this matter through the forthcoming consultation.
Lord Willoughby de Broke
My Lords, will the noble Baroness clarify one point? She said, rather encouragingly, that the Government wanted to move away from the top-down planning structures that we have seen in the past. Under their policies, including the Localism Bill, perhaps local people will have more of a say on wind farms. Does that mean that there are no proposals to reinstate the Infrastructure Planning Commission that was dismantled, but would have had the power to override local decisions, and thus render null and void the decisions of local people and local authorities? That was the specific role of the IPC. Is there a “son of the IPC” in the making, or has it been abandoned?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the son of the IPC will be the Secretary of State. These matters will be brought back under democratic accountability and the final decision will be made by a Minister or the Secretary of State. It will not and cannot be made by the IPC alone. I should add that neighbourhood planning will also be helpful and effective in this matter.
Lord Marlesford
Will my noble friend comment on the remarks that have been widely expressed about the level of subsidy and on the issue of the intermittent and low output of wind farms?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, one of the difficulties of a debate such as this is that it ranges across several departments’ responsibilities. The two matters that my noble friend has now raised do not come within the ambit of planning, and that is the aspect that I have been addressing today.
Lord Reay
My Lords, I am profoundly grateful to all who have taken part in an extraordinarily good debate with most powerful, passionate and well informed speeches from many parts of the House. Of course I am particularly grateful to those who supported me, but also to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He and I have taken part in debates when I have been in a minority of one. It is only fair that the tables should be turned on this occasion. It would have been unnatural if not one person, apart from those on the Front Benches, was willing to put forward his point of view.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said that he thought the effects of wind farms were being exaggerated and that people got used to being near them. Many who find themselves in that position get on with life, however much they dislike the situation. It is probably only a minority who are so severely affected that life becomes intolerable, but it is a substantial minority, and some inspectors have found that even a minority of a single family was sufficient reason for them to reject a planning application as being for a farm too close to where they lived.
The noble Lord referred to renewable energy and wind power in particular as being cost-effective, but, unlike many other noble Lords, he ignored the effect of the subsidies. The current subsidies paid through the ROCs system by the electricity consumer are running at a rate of £1.2 billion a year. Under policies that are already adopted, this figure will increase to £5 billion or £6 billion a year by 2020. If wind power needs that, how can you possibly describe it as being cost-effective?
The noble Lord suggested that the consumer was suffering more from increases in the price of oil and gas. It was interesting that he mentioned gas. Because of the recent extraordinary discoveries around the world of shale gas deposits, there is an opportunity for cheap gas to be available on a huge scale for long into the future. This is an alternative that the Government should welcome, not seek to close out by favouring renewable energy instead—which is what is happening.
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for fully addressing the subject in her wind-up speech. Of course, I dispute many of her assertions, but I should like to study carefully everything she said. There were positive features, including her invitation, which I eagerly accept, to take part in the debates leading up to the adoption of the national planning policy framework.
This issue will not go away. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, I think that the public are waking up to the costs that they are having to pay through their bills for the Government's current renewable energy policy, and I doubt that that will be welcomed by them.
Demonstrations in the Vicinity of Parliament (Removal of Authorisation Requirements) Bill [HL]
Lord Tyler
Perhaps I should reassure noble Lords who took part in the previous debate that I have no intention of promoting the location of a wind farm in Parliament Square.
I am especially delighted that, in addition to a number of Members of your Lordships' House who will speak in the debate, I can see one or two others who I know have a long-standing commitment to our democratic and architectural heritage. I am particularly delighted that my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire is to respond from the Front Bench, because, as will become apparent later, he, too, has a track record in these matters.
There is widespread agreement that the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 was not the most appropriate legal mechanism to regulate and manage democratic demonstrations in and around Parliament Square. Some thought that it was simply ineffective; others that it was excessively heavy-handed; but I think that all now agree that it has not really worked. Worst of all, it has put our police force in an unnecessarily compromised position, seeking to administer a very defective law. All of us, as lawmakers, have an important responsibility to take that into account.
My Bill would repeal the part of the Act which manages to be both inadequate and overbearing. The words in my Bill are directly lifted from the previous Administration’s draft Constitutional Renewal Bill. However, I should also say that my Bill takes account of the pioneering demolition job done by Mr Mark Thomas, whom I heard on BBC Radio 4—but I think there are other occasions on which he was able to demonstrate its inadequacy—and of the persistent campaigning of my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. As noble colleagues will know, since I introduced my Bill, a very useful Bill has been brought forward by my noble friend Lord Marlesford. I do not want in any way to suggest that my Bill is an alternative to his; indeed, it could lead on to his; but as his Bill has been more recently introduced, we cannot as yet give it the attention that it deserves.
However, I think that we all agree that the present messy hiatus is intolerable. It may take an initiative from Parliament, advised by our security experts. I noted the reaction of colleagues in your Lordships' House when there was a clap of thunder—at least, I hope it was a clap of thunder—a few minutes ago at midday. We are all very conscious of security concerns. It may take the advice of our security experts to both Houses of Parliament to break the bureaucratic logjam and knock together the heads of the London Mayor and Westminster City Council who, to my mind, have been trying to find interminable ways to pass the buck.
As I said, pre-legislative scrutiny on various Bills that have come before your Lordships' House has considered the issue. I was involved in the Joint Committee that considered the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill in 2008, where we had a lot of fact-based evidence before us. That put in their place some of the more fanciful prejudices that had been apparent. For example, we looked with some scepticism at the idea that Parliament should exercise remarkable special privileges for itself in relation to noise nuisance—another theme from the previous debate. Was the idea that we should pass a special law saying, “You are disturbing us in this building”, in a way that we would not allow anyone else to pass special laws? No other offices could do that.
However, we had some extremely good evidence from the Westminster City Council's environmental health officer who is responsible for us. I apologise to your Lordships' House for quoting at length, but I think this is important. He said:
“The first thing is that if you have to look at noise from the local government perspective, noise actually creates a nuisance. That is the way legislation frames it. That nuisance is really aimed around protecting residential areas but the courts have been tolerant with us in terms of applying it to work premises as well … If we were to look at demonstrations that we have experienced, what we have found is that when we have tried to measure the sound as each phase of traffic passes through Parliament Square the sound of the loudspeakers disappears; it is drowned out by the noise of the traffic”.
So it is important that all these issues should be considered in the light of factual evidence. In other words, the noise of protesters is seldom, if ever, a statutory nuisance that Parliament has to find a way of circumventing.
Then, from the Constitutional Renewal Bill in the latter part of the last Parliament, we had provisions that went into the so-called CRAG Bill—the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, as it became—and they were lost in the 2010 wash-up. Finally, as noble Lords will know, we have in Part 3 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, currently before the House in Committee, a very welcome restriction of the area to be the subject of a unique control regime. We have not reached that point in the Committee proceedings yet so it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it in detail. However, my Bill precedes these later developments. My job today is simply to suggest that the repeal of SOCPA is an opportunity for really constructive, positive, imaginative thinking about the relationship between Parliament and the public spaces around this building.
I have some experience in architecture and planning; I have never qualified but when I had a real job I worked for the RIBA in these matters so I can tell colleagues that some of the discussions about the future of Parliament Square go way back to the 1960s when I worked in that role. Personally, I think public spaces are the key to this issue. I welcome the fact that the public see democratic demonstrations and marches focused on this building, on Parliament, and not just on Downing Street. Parliament is the proper site for democratic dialogue, not the Executive's offices in Whitehall. Surely, that is entirely appropriate in a parliamentary democracy. We do not yet have an elective dictatorship run from the bunker in No. 10.
Equally, the current physical characteristics of the immediate environs of Parliament are hardly conducive to an effective dialogue between electors and the elected representatives, let alone with those of us who are appointed at this end of the Palace. Parliament Square is an extraordinarily important, iconic, architectural construct. It is surrounded by significant buildings such as the abbey, the Supreme Court, Parliament and the Treasury. You have the church, the judiciary, the legislature and the Executive. What could be of wider significance in our democracy?
It was in that context that, many years ago, there was the very important analysis of what should happen in Parliament Square, which was given the title of World Squares for All and it dealt with Parliament Square regeneration. We do not have to buy into all its recommendations but it included the principles that pedestrian access to the central area should be approached more sensitively, that traffic should be more carefully and sensibly addressed and that, of course, as I have already said, security should be looked at in the context of potential threats today.
As long ago as June 2008, the Chairman of Committees of your Lordships' House wrote to the Mayor of London calling for the closure of Abingdon Street and St Margaret Street. In his letter, he said that that closure should take place,
“to all traffic except vehicles requiring access on behalf of parliamentarians and the emergency services”.
His letter urged that this would create a “coherent open space”, allowing both Londoners and tourists,
“fully to enjoy the historic buildings contained within it”.
No doubt my noble friend the Chairman of Committees will be able to tell us whether he received a coherent reply from Mr Johnson. The ideas submitted by the Chairman of Committees on behalf of your Lordships were naturally very modest, but even they seem to have been brushed aside in the interminable discussions that have taken place since.
In the 2008 debate, my noble friend Lady Hamwee described her feelings every time she came here. She said that she was,
“ashamed, embarrassed and uncomfortable about what London presents to our visitors when they visit the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey”.—[Official Report, 14/7/08; col. 1053.]
As a non-Londoner but someone who has had an almost lifetime interest both in our built environment and also democratic politics, I could not have put it better myself.
Since then, there has been a deafening silence. We should revisit the options urgently and not let the passage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill impose an entirely negative context. We should look at positive opportunities as well. Most importantly, those practical proposals could ensure general public access to the central area and so secure what I would describe as popular self-policing, rather than simply permit the present exclusive, permanent encampment by a small minority to persist for ever.
It is a disaster that the Mayor of London and Westminster City Council seem completely to have blocked progress. I will make one suggestion; I do not pretend that it is the answer to everything. Why should we not relocate or replicate Speakers’ Corner in the centre of Parliament Square? I am very grateful for my noble friend Lady Trumpington's agreement. My erstwhile colleague in the other place, the former MP Mr Peter Bradley, founded the excellent Speakers’ Corner Trust, in which I have no pecuniary interest but which I and a number of distinguished parliamentarians of both Houses wholeheartedly support. He could find this an important opportunity. It is ironic that the trust has created a number of speakers’ corners in the United Kingdom and abroad—in Lichfield, in Leicester and in Prague—and yet we are discounting the idea of finding the right place for one in our own city of London, as near as possible to our Parliament.
I understand also that some very useful and comprehensive research is being undertaken at the moment by the Hansard Society—again, I declare a non-pecuniary interest as an officer of the society—on behalf of the parliamentary officers of both this House and the other place who sit in the Group on Information for the Public. I will not test noble Lords, but I wonder how many have any knowledge of what the GIP is or does, because it does not have any responsibility or accountability to Members of either House. Anyway, it is a useful exercise. The society is looking at the whole question of what should be said and done to tell Parliament's story, which will include the way in which Parliament Square is to be planned in future. I would be very interested to know what the GIP hopes the long-term aim, outcome and timescale of this research should be.
I come back to the issue of security. Naturally, we should all aim to ensure the safety of all who visit this building, as well as those who work here, and there is a strong argument for the removal of traffic from the east and south sides of the square for that reason alone. I am sure that the necessary access and parking issues could be successfully addressed. I also recognise, as has been mentioned before in your Lordships' House, that the sessional orders of both Houses may require some review. However, surely we cannot allow that review to hold up the wider improvements that have become so urgent. As the very successful depopulation of Trafalgar Square has demonstrated, it is perfectly possible to achieve greater priority for people over vehicles without major disruption. We are always told by the motoring lobby that this is impossible, but we have proved it possible in Trafalgar Square, and we need to look at it again in the immediate environs of this building.
Our overall objective must surely be that the heart of our parliamentary democracy should be seen as such, with clear guidelines on what should be permitted and even encouraged to enhance this role, without recourse to unwieldy, excessive and unworkable regulation. Your Lordships' House will no doubt remember the disgraceful case of Maya Evans and Milan Rai, who were arrested in 2005 under existing legislation simply for reading out the names of war dead at the Cenotaph. That was wholly disproportionate. It reflected a piece of legislation—the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act—that vastly overestimates the risks attached to legitimate, well managed demonstrations and protests. The Act is very obviously a blunt instrument that by its nature gags free speech in the very place where it should be allowed. Indeed, for every demonstration that grabs the attention of the media—perhaps one a year, on average—there are so many which are well managed by stewards and the police. I do not know whether there are any figures that my noble friend can give us, but I think there must be many demonstrations of that type every year. We will recall the Ghurkhas, the countryside march, which was on a much bigger scale, and, indeed, the biggest one of all, the demonstration and lobby of Parliament in favour of Make Poverty History. They were well managed, well organised and extremely important ways in which our fellow citizens were able to communicate their views to parliamentarians. Far from discouraging them, we should make better provision for them, instead of allowing permanent encampments of a small minority to persist while attempting to enforce the totally unworkable overregulation of everybody else.
I end with a quote from a 2008 letter published in the Guardian on 1 May—May Day. It is perhaps significant for those who share my view that May Day should not be allowed to be for just a minority. Those of us who are parliamentary democrats can take significant dates, such as May Day, as being ours too for all radicals. The letter runs as follows:
“The current proposal is to close off the south side, with traffic continuing to flow between parliament and Westminster Abbey. If, however, the east side were closed as well, a grand new open space would be created from the end of Whitehall through Old Palace Yard. That would provide a far more welcoming context for parliament itself, allowing the removal of most of the barriers, and creating a space where visitors can gather/demonstrate. The wealthy inhabitants of Smith Square object to this as they will have to drive round the other side of Westminster Abbey. Given the national importance of this democratic space, I hope that broader considerations will prevail”.
Amen to that, say I. The author of that letter was, of course, the Minister, my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I beg to move.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Tyler. He has performed a real service to the House in introducing his Bill and in what he said in his wide-ranging and excellent speech. I thought that his idea of a speakers’ corner should commend itself to serious consideration. There are, perhaps, problems, but nevertheless it should not be dismissed. I was fascinated to hear about the GIP. I did not know it existed, I do not know what the letters stand for even now—something to do with information and Parliament, I believe—but I am grateful to him for drawing it to our attention. When it comes to closing the sides of Parliament Square, I am not entirely sure that he took sufficiently into account the traffic problems within London, which are a serious issue.
What I want to concentrate on in supporting my noble friend in his admirable endeavour is the need to clear up the squalor in Parliament Square. We are dealing with one of the greatest and most historic squares in the world. We are dealing with a world heritage site, as my noble friend said, a site which has the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the new Supreme Court and the Treasury. It is symbolic, valuable and architecturally of enormous importance and worth. To have in the centre a beautiful green defaced by squalor is a disgrace to our nation, and I have lost count, as I am sure many other noble Lords have, of the number of taxi drivers who have said as they have gone around Parliament Square, “When can you do something about this? Every time I have a foreign tourist or visitor in the cab, they say, ‘This would never be allowed to happen in any other great capital city of the world’”.
There have been attempts to do something. My noble friend has referred to what happened in 2008 and made a passing reference to 2005. For some five years until 2005, I sat on the House of Commons Commission, and it was an issue then. I kept raising it at commission meetings and was told that it was incredibly difficult because of the divided responsibilities for Parliament Square, something to which my noble friend also alluded in his speech. I raised it on the Floor of another place. The then Government attempted in the 2005 Act which my noble friend is seeking to amend to tackle the problem, but they signally failed. They had produced a Bill that was draconian in its apparent dealing with the freedom to demonstrate but which was completely ineffective in removing the squalor.
It is vitally important that in this wonderful country of ours, people should have the freedom to demonstrate. I was proud to take part in the countryside march, and I addressed the countryside rally in Parliament Square, which was vast but on the whole very well organised, and certainly should have been allowed to take place, as indeed it was. I would deplore any legislation that prevented a similar peaceful demonstration taking place in the future. But it is one thing to demonstrate for a particular time on a specific day, and another thing to camp indefinitely—and in so doing, in fact to prevent others from demonstrating, which is something that we should bear in mind.
I hope very much that the measures now before us in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill will deal effectively with this matter, but I have my doubts. Earlier today I was talking informally to my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who I know has tabled amendments for discussion in your Lordships’ House in a couple of weeks’ time. They seek to ensure that the measures that the Government are introducing are indeed wide-ranging and foolproof. It is, for instance, tremendously important that in clearing up Parliament Square, we do not move the squalor to Abingdon Green or to the green around the statue of King George V. All the spaces around Parliament should be available for appropriate free and peaceful demonstrations, but none should be available for encampments. It is therefore necessary, in whatever legislation is finally adopted—be it that before us from my noble friend, be it from the Government, or be it an amalgamation with the admirable Bill drafted by my noble friend Lord Marlesford, who has left the Chamber—to have a foolproof solution. It must be a solution that imposes a sensible curfew so that people cannot demonstrate indefinitely.
Of course we have to be sensitive. When talking about this with colleagues earlier, I suggested that we should place a time limit on demonstrations, but I was asked what would happen with a silent candlelit vigil by nuns. Would we want to stop that? Of course we would not, so it is very important that whatever we do allows for the legitimate but does not give freedom to those who would exploit the very freedoms that we are here to safeguard and protect. I hope very much that, following the initiative of my noble friend and the welcome attempts by the Government in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, we will arrive at a solution which enables people properly to enjoy this glorious world heritage site and properly to wander between the buildings around it.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that the traffic issues cannot be lightly dismissed. Perhaps the answer is a couple of underpasses so that people can go into Parliament Square. One of the problems at the moment is that that massive traffic island is difficult to access. Those who have got there, camped there and stayed there fall into one category, but those who want to go and look at the statues of great statesmen, to wander around and see the buildings of Westminster Abbey and Parliament from the square, have to take their lives into their hands to cross. We need underpasses and a proper public access to this greatest of all public spaces.
I very much hope that when my noble friend comes to reply to this debate he will be able to give us both reassurance and encouragement. I hope that he will be able to tell us that the Government are utterly and absolutely determined to restore Parliament Square as a place in which every citizen of this country and the world can take pride, a place to which people can come and say, “Yes, this is the heart of the oldest, greatest democracy”. I hope that he will be able to give us an assurance that there will never again be an opportunity for that space, once cleaned up, to be defaced. I hope that he will be able to tell us that the Government’s measures will make it absolutely impossible for people to camp indefinitely and to create squalor where there is beauty and where that should always remain. It is a question of adequate public access and proper freedom for proper demonstrations, but an absolute recognition of the beauty and historical importance of this great world heritage site.
I am delighted to support the Bill that my noble friend has introduced and to welcome the Government’s indication that they recognise the importance of these issues. I very much hope that, in a few months’ time, taxi drivers taking me and other noble Lords round the square will not continue to say, “Why can’t you do something about it?”, because I hope by then that it will have been done.
Lord Desai
My Lords, I rise to speak on this Bill, but having heard the noble Lord who moved it and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I am not quite sure that I will go along with it all the way. I spoke at Second Reading of the Police and Social Responsibility Bill, but only on Part 3, which has to do with Parliament Square. I took the view that it is part of a free society that if people want to demonstrate they should be able to do so. If it is squalid, that is a price of freedom. The people who are camped there are not causing anybody any harm. They are registering protest about something with which you may or may not agree, but you cannot deny that there is something to protest about. I supported the war in Iraq and continue to do so—I make no bones about that—but the fact that Mr Brian Haws has been able to demonstrate for 10 years this month is a great tribute to British democracy. Parliament Square is a heritage site already because our society allows, across from Parliament, people to demonstrate and say, “We reject what this Parliament has done; we protest in the name of people who are not here, who are not citizens, who are never involved and we want to protest”. I do not think that it is a matter of the level of noise that those people make. As I said in my speech on another occasion, is certainly less than if Parliament were to be broadcast, when you would find that it drowned out even the traffic noise. I do not think that it is a matter of squalor, because the protesters have been very tidy lately. They are on a little area of pavement and hanging on by the skin of their teeth. They are silently demonstrating with placards. What is the problem? I have heard tourists walking by express admiration for the fact that this happen; it can happen only in British democracy. The noble Lord is quite right: foreign tourists will come and say that this could not happen in their country. Of course it could not happen in their country. This is the cradle of freedom and it is everyone’s right to be able to demonstrate provided they do not cause hindrance to anyone else.
I go along with Clause 1(1) which seeks to remove Sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. That would take us back to the Public Order Act 1986, which was perfectly adequate for a number of years until everyone panicked. We were not an unruly country—there was no anarchy—when the Public Order Act 1986 was in force. Why we needed the 2005 Act is beyond me. It was introduced because everyone was panicking about 9/11 and 7/7, or whatever it was. Terrorism is being used as an excuse for all kinds of restrictions on our freedoms.
I quite agree with the first proposal in the noble Lord’s Bill and that we should remove Sections 132 to 138; I also go along with him that we should celebrate Parliament Square and make it accessible to everyone. Let us make it a speakers’ corner—that would be quite right. Let us have a variety of demonstrations and different ideas being floated about our politics and other people’s politics—I do not see what the problem is.
We ought to examine ourselves and ask whether we as a Parliament really want to be part of suppressing people’s right to demonstrate even if that means occupation. I would argue that that occupation is very orderly, as anyone who was there during the recent Royal Wedding and saw encampments all over that area will know. People were camping and no one said, “This is squalor”. There was a lot of squalor, I can tell you—I walked through it—but, of course, it is remembered as a joyous occasion. So it is a joyous occasion when people agree with what the establishment wants—there is joy and everyone is fine—but if you do not agree, it is squalor. I reject that.
I say let the people who are there be there. Yes, let us open up Parliament Square—I do not have a car so I do not worry too much about traffic; whatever you want to do about traffic, do it—but do not remove the people who are there because the fact that they are there is one of the greatest tributes to our democracy. The excuses are always related to issues other than politics—noise, squalor, inconvenience—but they have a political subtext. It may seem harmless but there is a political subtext to it. You do not like looking at those posters; they are terrible. They remind you of things which you probably think are all lies. Refute them—but do not deny the right of people to demonstrate.
I urge the Government to accept what the noble Lord asks for in his Bill which is already in the political and social forums through the Act, but to desist from doing anything which would remove the right of people to demonstrate as and when they think necessary.
Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, a very long time ago I asked a question on this matter in this House. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on introducing the debate and the Bill; I hope that the three councils involved in this matter will read every word that is said in this Chamber today. The mistake that has been made is not telling the people who are in their little tents where they can legitimately go. I hope the Minister can tell us of sites or a site—speakers’ corner or where have you—where they can legitimately do what they want to do without making such a terrible mess of a place of great beauty and state importance.
Lord Wills
I was not going to say anything, but the words of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, reminded me of the many gruelling months that I spent in the last Government as the Minister responsible for these issues, so I felt that I should speak in support of his Bill. I am also in support of the careful way in which he has tried to strike a balance.
I very much associate myself with the words of my noble friend Lord Desai in stressing the importance of the right to protest. It is precious; we often may not like it, and many of us may be offended, as he rightly points out, but it is one of the most precious supports of our democracy. But at the same time, I think that my noble friend would accept that that right is not without constraints. The problem lies in where exactly those constraints should be drawn. Trying to strike that balance is what has made this issue so brain-achingly and heart-achingly difficult to reach any kind of achievable solution.
It is a great criticism of this place that we have failed consistently, over many years—and I take my own share of responsibility for this—to find a solution to this problem. But as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, so rightly says—and I agree with every word that he says and pay tribute to all his efforts to find a solution to this problem—Parliament Square is a very important symbol of the way in which our democracy works. I do not think that anyone looking at it at the moment thinks that it is a good advertisement for that, which is not to gainsay anything that my noble friend Lord Desai has said in support of that precious right of peaceful protest.
I welcome this Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on bringing it forward and his effort to give Parliament once again an opportunity to reach a solution. I hope that it is successful. He has all my support and this House, Parliament and the whole of our democracy owes him a debt of gratitude for giving us this opportunity.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has explained the purpose of his Bill, which addresses an issue that is addressed in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill going through Committee in your Lordships’ House.
With the conflicts of interest that need to be balanced, policing protests often generates controversy, not least in respect of protests around Parliament where, unsurprisingly, people wish to come to make known their views if they feel strongly about a policy that the Government of the day are or are not pursuing or a decision they have made. The European Convention on Human Rights gives people rights under both Article 10 on freedom of expression and Article 11 on peaceful assembly, but such rights are not absolute. The rights of protestors have to be considered, as well as those of the general public. In recent years, the issue has arisen as to whether Parliament requires different arrangements from elsewhere to control demonstrations in its vicinity.
Before the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 was introduced, a number of byelaws and the Public Order Act 1986 applied to Parliament. In addition, there were sessional orders for the House of Commons and stoppages orders for the House of Lords, which related to access and gave the Metropolitan Police Commissioner the power to direct police officers to keep Parliament free from obstruction. In 2003, the Commons Procedure Committee carried out an inquiry into those powers as a result of demonstrations that had taken place outside and near Parliament, and concluded that the law was inadequate. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 followed, which created a new offence of demonstrating without authorisation in a designated area, which was defined by order, but had to be within one kilometre of Parliament Square. The Act also banned the use of loudspeakers in the designated areas.
However, concerns soon emerged about whether that Act had, in its effects, struck the right balance. For example, two people were arrested and prosecuted for reading out the names of British soldiers and Iraqi citizens who had been killed in Iraq. Yet the concerns the Act was intended to address remained largely unaddressed as people sought to find loopholes in the law and ways to get around it. As a result it became generally accepted that the provisions of the 2005 Act should be repealed. Such a proposal was included, as has been said, in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. However, that measure fell in the wash-up before the general election last year.
The Government have now introduced their own proposals to deal with this issue in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which is currently going through your Lordships’ House. Their proposals are in many ways similar to the provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, but would apply to the much narrower and more restricted geographical area of Parliament Square. I assume that when the Minister responds, he will say something about the thinking behind the Government’s proposals in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill in pursuing what I am absolutely sure is the objective the Government want to achieve: maintaining the balance between the right to protest in the area around Parliament, the right of people to go about their everyday business and the right of people to enjoy Parliament Square.
This is certainly not an easy issue to resolve but there is a need for change and for further proposals. There will obviously be further discussion on this issue. While the best way forward now will be through consideration of the proposed clauses in the Government’s police reform Bill, rather than through the Bill before us today, we still await the Minister’s response with interest.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this debate has ranged a little more widely than the Bill under consideration and has raised some large questions about the future of Parliament Square. I start by declaring two personal interests. First, I live in a world heritage site in Saltaire and have therefore spent considerable time dealing with the legislation on world heritage sites. Secondly, I was, many years ago, a chorister across the road at the abbey and still have links to it. Indeed, I give occasional singing tours of the abbey for charity. I am conscious that the two halves of this world heritage site are, alone among world heritage sites in this country—and on the absolute outer edge of UNESCO regulations—divided by a main road.
I start by addressing the issues raised by this Bill and Part 3 of the Police and Social Responsibility Bill, which I hope will reach the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in one week’s time rather than two if we are able to make progress in Committee next Thursday. The Government have set out their commitment to restoring the rights to non-violent protest, and have therefore brought forward the repeal of Sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. We agree that Sections 132 to 138 impose unnecessary restrictions on the right to peaceful protest around Parliament, and that they have had a chilling effect on that right, which has contributed in some quarters to a breakdown in trust between the Government, the police and those who wish to protest. We recognise that we are talking about striking the right balance. However, I am very happy to hear the consensus across the Chamber—and, I am sure, in the other place—that it is important to maintain the right to peaceful protest.
I shall just throw in a small amount of history, since I was heavily criticised over answering a question about sessional orders and have done a little research. In the 17th century this Chamber assumed that noble Lords had the right, under all circumstances, to come to this Chamber and that spaces should be cleared for them. Having looked at the book just published on the Lords in the 17th and 18th centuries, the degree of arrogance with which the Lords then assumed that the right of access could be enforced is not one that would be appropriate to our modern Chamber. In the 1780s, after the Gordon riots, a battalion was encamped in St James’s Park for some months in order to maintain the right of access to Parliament. That is not the sort of thing, I suggest, that we now wish to repeat.
The Government are therefore making it clear that Sections 132 to 138 have not prevented the abuse of our public spaces by a determined few to the detriment of the enjoyment of those spaces by the wider public. I think we are talking about a maximum of 150 in the democracy encampment and fewer than double figures in the Brian Haw encampment. However, in striking a balance we are also bringing forward a package of measures in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill to ensure that everyone else is able to access the square equally and to enjoy its amenities. There are, after all, others who come to Parliament Square for a number of reasons: as tourists, to see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben; as a cultural experience in visiting this world heritage site; and as an educational experience for those interested in the democracy process, by seeing where Parliament is situated.
I am happy to say that discussions have been under way between the Dean and Chapter across the road and the authorities here about joint visits by school parties and others to the abbey and to the Palace of Westminster—and, incidentally, extending to the Supreme Court, while there will be discussions in the summer of whether that could also include Buckingham Palace—to bring people to this central area of English history. That also raises questions about how easy they find it to get from one part to another.
We all witnessed the occupation of Parliament Square Gardens by the democracy village encampment during the summer, which prevented members of public and visitors using and enjoying the garden. The courts have said that Parliament Square Gardens is not a suitable area to be used for any sort of encampment. The High Court has also said:
“Parliament Square Gardens is not a suitable location for prolonged camping; such camping is incompatible with the function, lawful use and character of”,
Parliament Square Gardens and,
“is also inconsistent with proper management of the area as a whole. Members of the public have been and would be precluded from using the area occupied; the area in question is the area nearest to an important entrance to the Houses of Parliament”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, asked whether we could tell campers of sites to which they might legitimately go. One has to say that they can legitimately go to authorised campsites. It is no more legitimate under general law to move to encamp in Green Park, St James’s Park, Westminster Abbey churchyard or elsewhere than it is to camp on Parliament Square itself.
Lord Desai
What were the permissions given during the royal wedding for people to camp across from Westminster Abbey and all around Parliament Square? Was there a special dispensation given by the police or was an announcement made about that?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
They were not only there but on The Mall, as I attempted to walk at speed from the Cabinet Office to Tothill Street the day before the royal wedding and it took me nearly 20 minutes. I am well aware that policing is by consent and discretion in this country. On special occasions, as in the run-up to a royal wedding, we accept obstruction of the footpath for a limited period. That is what happened then. On whether obstruction of the footpath for extended periods is also acceptable, we are absolutely talking about the balance between the very small number of people who have occupied Parliament Square Gardens and the footpath adjoining it and the very large number of people who come through.
We all welcome that very large number of people. I have had an office on the West Front for some years and I am used to hearing people singing hymns, or hundreds of schoolchildren producing a substantial number of decibels as they cheerily march past, and a whole range of other demonstrations. I do not mind that noise as it comes through; I much prefer it to the more regular noise of the heavy traffic. That is part of what Parliament should be about. We shall return to the exact question of the measures which are now proposed to replace SOCPA next Thursday. I say simply that those measures are to have a small controlled area in which certain activities—erecting tents and the unauthorised use of loudhailers—are prohibited.
Lord Berkeley
My interpretation of what the noble Lord has just said is that if the establishment approves of people camping, it is all right, but if it does not, it is not all right. Is that true?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
No, we are talking about timescale. This democracy encampment has gone on for a very extended period, and the Brian Haw situation for even longer. Of course one has to use discretion on certain occasions, but people who put up their picnic tables and chairs for one overnight, cheery encampment is not at all the same thing as people who erect permanent tents over months and years at a time, which then extend to the sort of huts which we now see opposite us that are almost permanent erections. That is of a different scale, and the timescale is fundamentally different.
We argue that what is proposed in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill is a proportionate and targeted response which is the minimum necessary to deal with the particular misuse of tents and structures on Parliament Square Gardens and the footways. For the rest, protest in this area will henceforth be governed by the same laws as govern protest elsewhere. We think that returning to that is the appropriate course. By removing the SOCPA rules against protest as such, we are saying that if people want to protest for days, weeks and months, including candlelit vigils by nuns or others, they can. What they cannot do is erect tents and/or other long-term structures to do so. So while the Government cannot and will not support this Bill in the other place as it stands, we welcome and urge continued debate.
I shall now deal with some of the wider issues which are of clear interest to Members of the House about the future of Parliament Square and the way in which it fits in to the central democratic space which is the Palace of Westminster and its environs. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, talked about the need to break the bureaucratic logjam of the division of responsibility between Westminster Council, the Greater London Authority and various other authorities, which has made it very difficult to deal with these issues. A number of noble Lords talked about noise as a nuisance, and I reinforce everything that has been said about traffic noise being one of the largest problems we have to face. I look out of my windows on to Old Palace Yard, and the heavy trucks that pass by extremely close are also a potential security risk. The reason those heavy steel Corus structures are in place is because there is a real security risk.
Parliament Square is, as some noble Lords have remarked, a traffic island, surrounded by a traffic roundabout. The questions raised in the project for World Squares for All of one or more sides of Parliament Square being closed to traffic would answer the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about pedestrian access to the centre, give us a much larger space and give us something which we all, as pedestrians, enjoy in Trafalgar Square. When, as a Liberal Democrat opposition spokesman I raised this question on one occasion, the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, objected that closing off two sides of Parliament Square would inhibit her ability to arrive for weddings at St Margaret’s in a car. I regret to remind her that that would indeed be the case, but there would be compensating advantages to a larger number of others. We cannot restore Parliament Square to the glory which the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others evoke without restricting traffic.
On the question of sessional orders, which other speakers have also raised, I point out that the Commons no longer has a sessional order. The order, in its very grand-sounding statements, does not actually enforce any action outside the Palace of Westminster. It might indeed be time, therefore, to consider whether it is desirable to continue the grand language of the sessional order, given that it gives rise, as I have discovered when answering questions on this, to a number of misunderstandings about its potential use.
We welcome the frequency of well managed demonstrations, and in all that we do here we want the maximum number of people to come into the Palace and to appreciate how the Palace, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey and the surrounding area are a central part of English history. We welcome the opportunity that visits—particularly of the younger generation—to this area give to educate a new generation about English history and the growth of democracy in it. Although I am not saying that the Government support this Bill in another place, I very much hope that those who have spoken in this debate and others will continue the debate about how this world heritage site—this place that we love so much—should best be redesigned and rearranged so that we can welcome the largest number of visitors and the largest number of people who want to express their views in a free society.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I certainly do not seek to delay and to detain the House for more than a few minutes. This has been a very positive debate, and I think there has been wide agreement on all sides.
I take up just one small point. My noble friend Lord Cormack is usually spot-on accurate, but I think I am right in saying that the statue to which he referred was not of George V but of George VI. However, that is significant in this respect: I recall one particular demonstration by the Gurkhas, and somehow the Gurkhas immediately around the monarch who led us during the Second World War, when they served this country so well, was symbolic of precisely the sort of important demonstrations that might not get the attention that they deserve. I therefore very much welcome the fact that no one on any side of the House is seeking to use the opportunity of the new legislation before the Government simply to impose yet more draconian—I think that was the word used by my noble friend—controls over demonstrations. We seek to enable demonstrations to be more effectively managed for the sake of all—indeed, for the safety of demonstrators, apart from anyone else.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Desai, who expressed some misgivings, summed it up very well when he said—I paraphrase, and I hope that I have got this about right—that he supported everyone’s right to demonstrate so long as they do not prevent others from doing so. That is the crucial issue at present. We want to enable people to use their democratic rights as our fellow citizens outside their Parliament, and not to be tucked away somewhere quite different.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, was very generous in his compliments, and I in turn compliment him. He worked very hard to get the balance right, but I have to admit that I think that we on all sides would now accept that the present regime failed, that it is therefore right to look at another one, and that we have to strike a new balance.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, rightly identified the fact that the area for limitation, control and management is more restricted under the Bill, but I think that is welcome. I think it is a kilometre, not a mile—oh, dangerous, European stuff—but the previous legislation was excessive, and this Bill is much improved. However, again, as other noble Lords have said, the strict definition, which goes back to some previous legislation on Parliament Square, might not be sufficient and we might need to look at Abingdon Green and the area immediately around the statue to which I have referred.
I end now with what my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said. His final words were extraordinarily encouraging, because he is saying to us that, in parallel with any new restrictions on demonstrations when the SOCPA provisions are removed, we must urgently have positive reassessment of the role of this iconic square. It is so important, not just to our architectural heritage but to the way in which we relate to our fellow citizens. If this is the centre of a parliamentary democracy we cannot continue, as we are, discouraging people from seeing it as such, and seeing its relationship to the other pillars of our state—which are still, curiously enough, the church, the Supreme Court and the Executive up Whitehall.
My noble friend’s final words were very encouraging, and I am sure that there will be others in your Lordships’ House who will hold him and the Government to account if we do not see some progress in the next few months on the positive as well as the negative concerns that we all have.
Wreck Removal Convention Bill
(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Berkeley
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 2 for the convenience of the Committee. Before I start on the substance of the amendment, I record my thanks to the Minister and his officials for a very useful meeting yesterday. I look forward to continuing discussions and this debate today.
I remind the Committee that I am a harbour commissioner of the port of Fowey in Cornwall. At Second Reading, we had a good debate. I said that I supported the Bill in principle; I think it is a very good Bill. I want to focus on one issue, that of wreck recovery: who does it and who pays for it. As the Bill says, as the wreck occurs, it is generally marked by a harbour authority or a GLA. However, under the Bill, dealing with the wreck is now the responsibility of the Government, who can instruct—and I mean instruct—the harbour authority, conservation authority or GLA. The idea is that the costs incurred in doing it can be recovered from the ship’s owners or insurance. That also seems fine and complies with the wreck conventions that the Bill is designed to incorporate into legislation.
We are told by the Minister that all ships will be insured because the insurance documents will be inspected at UK ports. The first question one has to ask is how robust the arrangements for this inspection are. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who sadly cannot be with us today, asked a Written Question to which the Answer from the Minister stated that in 2010 there were 12 instances where an inspection of the insurance documents revealed a deficiency in them.
Rather more serious is a recent statement by Vice-Admiral Massey, the chief executive of the Marine and Coastguard Agency, to an all-party parliamentary group, as reported in Lloyd’s List of 28 March. He said that the agency is,
“missing some ‘high priority’ ship inspections”,
particularly at night and at weekends. Therefore, one could argue that there is a certain lack of robustness about the inspections, which could mean that some ships which are not insured will not be caught by these inspections. There is also the question of the ships that go round our coasts but do not enter our ports, which will not have to show their certificates to anyone.
On Second Reading, the Minister said that all ships will be insured and therefore the costs can be recovered, but what happens if the harbour authority or GLAs cannot recover them? As the Bill stands, they cannot refuse an instruction from the Secretary of State. The trouble is that the instruction is not accompanied by a commitment to fund a problematic wreck removal. On Second Reading, noble Lords said that this would not happen very often, it was very unlikely to happen and the cost would not be very high. However, I do not know what would happen if the cost was high. If the cost was high, it could cause severe financial problems, or management problems, for small harbour authorities or GLAs. Of course, they will do their best in this regard but it could put them in financial difficulty. The British Ports Association supports these amendments and strongly opposes a requirement which would mean that the harbour authorities were financially liable for cleaning and removing uninsured, or even occasionally unowned, wrecks. Ports have a problem with small boats the world over, but the association is saying that ports authorities would possibly be less willing to accept boats which are in difficulty into their harbours if they thought that in so doing they would be liable for a big financial penalty. One should take that into account.
We have heard that Trinity House supports the Bill in its entirety, but I argue that it would do so as its job is to mark wrecks. That is part of its work, and it does it very well. However, if it were called on to manage and undertake a major salvage operation, the problem is that it would probably have to pass on the costs of doing so to ships in the form of light dues, because that is the way Trinity House is financed. Trinity House could even argue that—I hope that it would not—it needed to buy bigger and larger ships to undertake this new responsibility, but I trust that it would not do that. The Chamber of Shipping in particular is rightly concerned that the measure puts an extra cost on insured ships that comply with the regulations, and that some of that cost is to cover ships which do not comply, and have not complied, with the regulations. That body has asked whether the Crown will indemnify the General Lighthouse Fund against costs that cannot be recovered, given that the costs arise as a direct consequence of the Government’s decision to sign the convention. We could discuss that for a long time.
We should note that the Transport Select Committee in another place investigated this matter in 2008 and stated that,
“if the General Lighthouse Authorities were to be directed, under new powers in the Bill, to undertake activities other than those which they would have undertaken in the past, there is a possibility that the liability of the General Lighthouse Fund for unrecoverable costs could increase. This legislation should not be used by the Government to transfer further the financial risk resulting from uninsured ships to other shippers through the General Lighthouse Fund”.
Therefore, a lot of people do not think that this is a terribly good idea.
Finally, the Minister for Shipping, Mike Penning MP, said that the Bill enshrines the principle that the polluter pays. He is wrong, because while it certainly makes the polluter pay, in making the GLF pay, it achieves the opposite effect, because the owner of the uninsured wreck will not have contributed to the GLF, but is being saved.
These amendments would remove the requirements for the harbour authorities, conservation authorities and GLAs to comply with a Secretary of State’s instruction to deal with a wreck. If the amendments were accepted, these organisations could still be asked to do so, and in many cases they would accept. However, without the amendments, they could not refuse. Without some financial assurance, those organisations, or the legally operated ships paying light dues, could on a few occasions be put at severe financial risk. It would not happen often and it may not happen for 10 or 20 years—but it still could happen. It is not the polluter paying but the good ones paying for the bad ones.
There is a strong argument for the Government to accept these amendments on the basis that it is a more equitable arrangement for the very few occasions when somehow the costs of dealing with a wreck cannot be recovered from the insurers or the owners. If the Minister and the noble Baroness who has put her name to the Bill do not accept the amendments, it would be important for the Minister to provide some assurance that the Secretary of State will not direct GLAs, harbour authorities or conservation authorities to remove a wreck, unless that can be carried out using their normal vessels and personnel as part of their normal business. That would give comfort to the harbour authorities in particular that they will not be exposed to a small risk with a very high cost. I beg to move.
Lord Addington
My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, I have looked at the amendments and issues relating to the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, may be technically correct, but it occurs to me that if we get away from the fact that people will break the law and you make law only for people who will comply with it, what does the noble Lord think will be the political cost of a Government who went to an authority—whether the harbour authority or the general lighthouse authority—and said, “Do something you can’t do or we’ll bankrupt you for functions that are important”? You would be asking a Minister to pay an almost suicidal political price. The House and another place would rip that person apart. How real is that danger? That is the only thing that comes to mind. The noble Lord may be technically correct, but I wonder how real that danger is in the world in which we actually live. No one will leave in place a dangerous provision that restricts commercial activity and endangers people. I leave that sitting there, because it should be mentioned in these discussions.
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein
My Lords, in short, these amendments are about leaving the obligation for the removal of wrecks by default with the Secretary of State. That effectively means leaving the taxpayer with the liability. Clearly, ship operators have to be concerned about costs—and rightly so. However, the Bill—unless I have misread it and I do not think I have—is not, as was recently alleged in the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List, about shifting the financial burden for the removal of wrecks to shipping. As I understand the Bill, it is about maintaining the status quo as regards unrecovered costs. If the Bill becomes an Act, it will not make any difference so far as unrecovered costs are concerned. An uninsured ship could go down in a conservancy area or a harbour authority area and there would be exactly the same situation as that which pertains at the moment.
As the Bill provides that there will be a mandatory requirement, for the first time, that all vessels over 300 gross tonnes have wreck removal insurance and there is strict liability on the ship owner to remove that wreck, it is highly unlikely that there will be any increased costs to the General Lighthouse Fund or to harbour conservancy authorities. I know that my noble friend Lord Berkeley is understandably concerned about the cost to a small harbour authority if an uninsured vessel requires removal after an accident, but Section 255J states clearly that the UK ship or a foreign-owned ship may not enter or leave the UK port. In default of that, the master or operator of a vessel is guilty of an offence.
So it is more likely in future, that that requirement will be widely known by all ship owners and operators and much less likely that uninsured vessels will seek to enter our ports. I agree that it would be useful if the noble Earl could say something about small harbour authorities, which unlike, for example, Southampton, Felixstowe or Clyde Port, may not have the funds to effect removal in the unlikely event of an uninsured casualty which is a hazard to navigation. Overall, it is much more likely that the introduction of the convention will lead to reduced costs, to the benefit of the General Lighthouse Fund and, thus, to ship owners.
While some wrecks and strandings are beyond the control of any ship operator or ship master, far too many of them are a consequence of negligence. Casualties arise from one or more of causes such as poor navigation, poor watchkeeping practice, and underqualified officers. We know that it is possible to have people with fake qualifications on the bridges of ships. We have undermanned bridges. There are problems with alcohol and fatigue and, not least, inadequate maintenance. In that connection, in 2009-10, the Marine Coastguard Agency found that 1,265 vessels had safety issues and had to detain 59 of them until matters were put right. Sir Alan Massey has reported that there was insufficient rigour in some of those investigations. He is in a position to put that right. If the Bill is enacted, I hope that he will do so and that there will be proper examination of certificates. Of course, that would ensure that ships without those certificates do not come into our ports.
However, where maritime accidents occur in the circumstances that I described, it is quite wrong that the taxpayer should be expected to be the insurer of last resort, and therefore wrong to seek dilution of the clause, as proposed in my noble friend's amendment. It is for shipping operators and owners to be properly insured and for them to arrange prompt removal of any wreck that is a hazard to navigation. I have not the slightest doubt that most shipping companies—good ship operators—will be properly insured.
The requirement for mandatory ship insurance is long overdue. It is a valuable addition to maritime safety and should be supported. I recognise my noble friend's concerns but I hope that, having listened to the debate in Committee, he will feel able to withdraw the amendment so that we can give the Bill safe passage.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for not being here for Second Reading, but I have read Hansard carefully. Having just listened to the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, should be a great deal happier than he appears to be. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said nothing new in moving his amendment today to what he said at Second Reading. Anyone who reads Hansard will see that, at Second Reading, he said that he was very satisfactorily answered by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, and, in particular, by my noble friend Lord Attlee. If the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, cares to refresh his memory of the Second Reading debate, he will find the words of my noble friend Lord Attlee, who said that,
“the Bill maintains the status quo”.—[Official Report, 13/5/11; col. 1134.]
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, wants to do nothing more than transfer existing liability on to taxpayers, as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, has pointed out. He has wrapped it rather cleverly with harbour authorities this time, but we know that the real beef of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is the GLAs. He does not like them, and we are all used to that. I do not think I am alone in getting slightly concerned about this. It reminds me of the wolf story; he has been going on about GLAs for so long. He has been answered very properly and correctly, but I am no longer certain when he is being serious or when he is playing another agenda that I do not know about. That slightly perturbs me. If my noble friend Lord Attlee could comment on the MOU, which was mentioned at Second Reading, that might help to reassure the noble Lord. An update on that would be helpful.
Lord Greenway
I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, has just said. Having debated these matters with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for many years, we all know where his concerns lie, particularly in regard to expenses put on the ship owner through the payment of light dues.
The convention is quite clear, as has been said, in that it will require ships over 300 gross tonnes to carry wreck removal insurance and the onus of wreck removal is firmly placed on the registered owners of those ships. The instances where a ship might fall through the net, so to speak, will be very much reduced in future. As has been said, I think the possible cost to the General Lighthouse Fund will certainly be lower.
As far as I can make out, the amendments limit the options open to the Secretary of State, compared with what he has today. The Secretary of State and his representative—SOSREP—are well known to the general lighthouse authorities. They have worked together over many years and those authorities have been marking and removing smaller wrecks for 150-odd years, so they have some experience in this matter. It would be wrong to try to bypass that experience by getting the Government to appoint independent salvers to do a job; for example, they would not necessarily have the experience of marking the wreck in the first place. There is an argument for maintaining continuity in dealing with the marking of wrecks and their possible removal by one source that is used to dealing with them.
The memorandum of understanding was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. That is certainly something where I think many of these concerns can be thrashed out. I echo what the noble Earl said in asking the Minister whether he can give us an update on how that is proceeding. As I said before, there is already close co-operation between the Government’s representative and the general lighthouse authorities. The harbour authorities are perhaps slightly different. Some of the smaller ones would not have the necessary vessels to cope with removing a wreck, but there is absolutely no question of the general lighthouse authorities using this Bill to extend their fleet with newer and larger ships. I think that that is a red herring.
I emphasise that the cost to the General Lighthouse Fund, over quite a number of years of removing wrecks, is very small. I have a figure of 0.004 per cent, and that went up to 3.2 per cent only as a result of the one-off exercise of the removal of the German First World War U-boat from the Dover Strait, when the Government required Trinity House to do that and it had to appoint separate salvage contractors.
I will mention one final point. The point of the Secretary of State being able under the Bill to direct harbour authorities or general lighthouse authorities to remove a default wreck is so that they can recover their costs. Without that direction, which in effect makes them agents of the state, they cannot recover them. That is an important point.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I will make only one or two comments about the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I do so in the context of repeating that we welcome the Bill.
My noble friend raised again the issue of the possible high level of costs that might have to be borne in the event that, contrary to requirements, a ship is not insured, the insurance does not cover the full costs or there is a lengthy delay in the insurance money being paid after the costs have been incurred. I sense from what my noble friend said that this could be an issue particularly for some harbour authorities because of their financial reserves. I am aware that in the Second Reading debate, the Minister said that the Government were of the opinion that the provisions of the Bill would ensure that the risks of a shortfall in expenditure would be significantly less for bodies such as harbour authorities than they are now. The Minister referred later in the debate to a memorandum of understanding between the respective parties that would be agreed prior to the entry into force of the International Maritime Organisation's International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks.
There have been discussions already between my noble friend Lord Berkeley, the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston. I am sure that those discussions have been both appreciated and useful. I simply ask the Minister and the noble Baroness whether there is scope for further discussions with my noble friend Lord Berkeley on the issue that he has raised, and in particular whether any wording could be incorporated in the memorandum of understanding that might at least mitigate or lessen the concerns that have been expressed on this issue by my noble friend.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for initiating this lively and interesting debate which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, promised me at Second Reading. I am sorry that he is not in his place, but I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to the Front Bench for this Committee stage.
Your Lordships will not be surprised that I support noble Lords who have spoken in opposition to these amendments. As I pointed out at Second Reading—and as every noble Lord contributing to today's debate understands—the costs associated with removing a wreck can be substantial and also difficult to recover, particularly as at the moment there is no straightforward obligation on ship owners to be responsible for the removal of their wreck.
The Bill builds on the well-developed arrangements that already exist for dealing with maritime casualties. Above all, it provides legal certainty by placing the primary responsibility for the removal of a wreck that poses a danger to navigation or the environment on the ship owner and ensuring that, if the authorities have to step in, the owner will pay their costs for removing it. Under the Bill, the liability of the ship owner is strict; the claimant does not have to prove that the owner was negligent or at fault.
The amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, puts some of this certainty at risk. It would delete not just the discretionary power to direct authorities to remove a wreck, but, in doing so, the statutory link to cost recovery under the convention. This was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. The Secretary of State's discretionary power to direct, included in the Bill, ensures that authorities will benefit from the convention's cost-recovery provisions when removing a wreck.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said that if this amendment were to be agreed, there might be occasions when the authorities would choose to carry out or participate in the removal of a wreck in any case. If that amendment were to be accepted, ship owners or insurers would undoubtedly argue that as there is no explicit linkage to the convention's cost-recovery provisions, they do not need to pay an authority's costs. As I have already said, the fact that that direction is in the Bill invokes the connection to the convention. That argument would be reinforced and could lead to all costs having to be recovered through harbour fees or the fund because the ship owner or insurer would be able to point to the inconsistency that the amendment would create because proposed new Section 255C, which provides a similar statutory link in respect of locating and marking, would remain in place, thus allowing authorities to recover those costs direct from the owner or insurer, just as the Bill intends for all costs. There would be direction for locating and marking but not for removal.
In addition to creating inconsistencies, these amendments would also delete the provisions in proposed new Section 255F(4) for the explicit extension of the general lighthouse authorities' areas of responsibility to the edge of the United Kingdom's convention area, which noble Lords will know is up to 200 nautical miles from shore. As such, a ship owner or insurer would doubtless claim that a general lighthouse authority had no statutory basis on which to remove a wreck outside territorial waters and that therefore no payment was required.
The Bill's direction regime removes the real risks of such disputes by linking the authorities clearly and simply to the convention's cost recovery scheme. With the Bill imposing strict liability on the ship owner to remove a wreck and requiring mandatory insurance, it is clear to me that the risks of a shortfall in expenditure for recovering wrecks will actually be significantly less for these authorities than those they now experience. Other noble Lords have already pointed that out. As I understand it, as a percentage of GLA budgets, the costs of dealing with wrecks are already very small. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, mentioned 0.04 per cent. However, to remove the provision allowing the general lighthouse authorities to obtain reimbursement for unrecoverable expenses from the General Lighthouse Fund on the rare occasion that it is not possible to recover all costs would be at odds with existing and established arrangements. Indeed, it would leave the GLAs with no obvious means by which to make up a shortfall, should they need to. I am concerned that the combined effect of these amendments would be to leave authorities wary of undertaking any wreck removal, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, even though they have existing powers and experience. If that were to happen, it would be in no one’s interest.
In summing up, I reiterate that the Secretary of State's powers of direction are discretionary, but they must exist and appear in the Bill for all the authorities to enjoy the benefits of the convention, as they have every right to do. I expect SOSREP to take control in the manner he now does under existing powers. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, described, SOSREP is aware of the authorities' capabilities, experience and capacity. If he needs to issue directions, I expect him to act reasonably and to issue them only to those he thinks capable of fulfilling them, not least for the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to. I will leave it to the Minister to expand further on this point if he wishes. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment at the appropriate time.
Earl Attlee
I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Stowell for her full response to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The noble Lord referred to discussions yesterday, and I am very happy to continue them, not least because they are so interesting, because the noble Lord genuinely seeks a solution to these problems. I understand his very real concerns, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to give a fuller response in Committee.
It may be helpful to noble Lords if I say a few words about the memorandum of understanding between the Department for Transport and the GLAs. This will provide guidance and understanding about how the convention would work in practice. The Committee will understand that the development of the MoU is in its early stages, as it will be a while before the convention comes into force. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, will want to keep abreast of developments, and I am sure that I will be able to facilitate that at the appropriate point.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this short debate. I shall not try to respond to all comments, but one or two things come to mind.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, both suggested that the biggest problem that I was concerned about was the GLAs. That is not the case any more. If it was thought that the GLAs were going to spend too much money on recovering a wreck and would have a serious financial problem as a result, there are enough Members of your Lordships' House who have some relationship with Trinity House who would sort it out by asking questions here. That may well be the case; it is the way the political world works. For a small harbour authority, it might be slightly different. If it were an enormous wreck, I am sure that the Government would see to it that there was some financial settlement. However, there is something in the middle that could just happen, although it is not very likely. I was grateful for the Minister’s response, because it went a long way towards satisfying many of my concerns.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, mentioned Trinity House marking wrecks. That is part of its job, and I said so in my opening remarks. I would not want to see that changed; it is terribly good at what it does.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, whose Bill this is, for her response. If the wording of the amendment is defective in some way, then it needs looking at, but perhaps that will not be necessary. I need to reflect on what she and the Minister said. I was particularly pleased that he mentioned the idea of MOUs with harbour and conservancy authorities, because they are just as important as MOUs with the GLAs. However, he was quite right: the thought of having 30, 40 or 50 different MOUs with every harbour authority around the country cannot be very attractive to him or his officials. I shall certainly try to encourage the representative bodies of the harbours, of which there are two, to try to come together and come up with something based on the principles which he so clearly outlined.
I again thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.