House of Commons
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Oral Answers to Questions
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
1. What assessment he has made of potential trends in the level of debt as a proportion of gross domestic product to 2014-15.
Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op)
6. What assessment he has made of potential trends in the level of debt as a proportion of gross domestic product to 2014-15.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
This Government inherited plans that had Government debt rising as a share of GDP in 2014-15. Thanks to the credible plan that we have put in place, debt is now forecast to be falling in that year.
Emily Thornberry
Would the Chancellor of the Exchequer like to take this opportunity to explain why the Office for Budget Responsibility now says that the Government will need to borrow £46 billion more than was estimated a few months ago? Would he also like to take this opportunity to accept that, by cutting too far and too fast, we will fall into a vicious circle that will make it more difficult to pay off the deficit in the long term?
Mr Osborne
The public finance figures are out today, and they show that the British economy and the British Government are on track to reduce the budget deficit, as we forecast in the Budget. On a day like this, in a week like this, for the Opposition to suggest that we should abandon our credible deficit reduction plan shows how out of touch they are with what is going on in the world today.
Mrs Riordan
Will the Chancellor confirm that national debt as a proportion of GDP was 36.5% in 2007-08, before the global crisis, which was significantly lower than the 42.5% that we inherited from the previous Government, and lower than in America, France, Germany and Japan?
Mr Osborne
There is this myth on the Opposition Benches that we inherited a golden economic legacy. It is not a myth believed in by the International Monetary Fund, the OECD or the CBI, nor is it a view shared by Tony Blair or the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), both of whom have identified—since the general election, of course—the fact that Labour was running into spending problems in 2007 and that the structural deficit was starting to build before the global economic crisis that the hon. Lady mentioned.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
How much greater would our public sector debt be if we adopted the completely unfunded and opportunistic proposal for a £13 billion VAT cut from the very people who racked up all the debt in the first place?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend draws attention to the completely ludicrous policy put forward by the shadow Chancellor last week—it was mentioned just on that Thursday, and has not been repeated by any Labour politician since—for a £13 billion unfunded tax change, or £51 billion over the Parliament. The policy is totally incredible, and was rejected by every serious economic commentator on the day. It just shows how far those on the shadow Front Bench have to go to make good for the mistakes that they made in office.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given the large amount of state bank debt still on the balance sheet, will my right hon. Friend consider a scheme to make an early transfer of shares in the state-owned banks to taxpayers for free, on condition that, as and when people sell, they send money back to the Treasury to represent the Treasury cost of those shares?
Mr Osborne
I am always happy to discuss the ideas of my right hon. Friend or other Members on how we dispose of those bank shares. The House will know that we announced last week that we are putting Northern Rock up for sale—the good bank in Northern Rock, of course; the state will hold on to the bad bank for many years to come. We want to exit from our shareholdings in RBS and Lloyds in due course, but we do not judge now to be the right time.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
I am very much looking forward to our debate on the economy tomorrow, on the anniversary of the Government’s first Budget. I do hope that the Chancellor is looking forward to the debate too, but today let me ask him about another matter of great importance to our economy, our national debt and our wider national interest. Three months ago the Chancellor told the House that the cost of the intervention in Libya, which the Opposition support, would be
“in the order of tens of millions of pounds, not hundreds of millions.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 850.]
That was followed the next day by headlines—which would have been read by the Gaddafi regime—saying that the Chancellor and the Government thought that the campaign would be over in a month. Does the Chancellor now accept that that was a mistake? Will he tell the House how much has been spent so far? Will he also give the House his latest estimate of what the full cost of the campaign is likely to be and what its impact on the national debt will be?
Mr Speaker
Order. All with specific reference to the level of debt as a proportion of GDP.
Mr Osborne
I see that the shadow Chancellor is following his former master’s habit of straying from the direct area of his brief, but there we go. Let me deal directly with Libya. What I told the House at the time was that the cost estimated at the time by the Ministry of Defence was in the tens of millions of pounds, and the Ministry of Defence is planning to provide an update to the House on the full costs, I think within the next week.
Ed Balls
This is a Treasury matter. It is about Treasury spending from the reserve, and it has a direct bearing on the national debt as well as on our national interests. It seems rather odd that, at the outset of the campaign, the Chancellor was happy to give a detailed answer, yet he now says that he cannot do so. Does he not know, or is he not prepared to do so? Just a few weeks ago, the White House provided the US Congress with a 34-page document giving details of the costs up to 3 June and the likely costs up to September. Will the Chancellor now agree to provide this House with similar information on the cost of Britain’s involvement in Libya, and to make a full Treasury statement to the House?
Mr Osborne
If the right hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me say that the Ministry of Defence was going to provide an update on the costs within the next week. I know that, when he was in the Treasury, everything was a Treasury matter, but in this Government we let the Ministry of Defence talk about defence operations, just as we let the Department for Education talk about schools and the Department of Health talk about the NHS. The Ministry of Defence will provide an update on the costs within the next week. The costs come from the special reserve, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, and I can tell him that they are very much lower than those of the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
2. What assessment he has made of the likelihood that the growth outturn will meet or exceed the forecast for 2011 made by the Office for Budget Responsibility in June 2010.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
13. What assessment he has made of the likelihood that the growth outturn will meet or exceed the forecast for 2011 made by the Office for Budget Responsibility in June 2010.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest economic forecasts were published in March. The whole purpose of creating the OBR was to have forecasts that were independent of the Chancellor, so for me to give a running forecast would completely undermine the institution. To strengthen its independence, I am today announcing the appointment of Lord Burns and Kate Barker as the new non-executive members of the OBR. They were posts that the Treasury Select Committee recommended that we create. I am also announcing today the new appointment of Michael Cohrs as a non-executive director of the Court of the Bank of England, along with the re-appointment of Sir Roger Carr, Lady Susan Rice and Harrison Young—
Mr Osborne
Well, the hon. Gentleman will like this bit, then. Recognising that we are all going to have to work a little longer, I am announcing the extension of Brendan Barber’s term by a further year.
Huw Irranca-Davies
A year ago at the Dispatch Box, the Chancellor said that, in his judgment, we would have sustained economic growth, even in the face of the cuts agenda that he is pursuing. Does he now believe that the 1.7% economic growth that the OBR has forecast will be met, or will we face a fourth period of downgrading its growth forecasts?
Mr Osborne
The OBR is a new institution that I think we all agreed should be established and put on a statutory footing. It is independent, and it makes independent forecasts. If the Chancellor of the day started giving a running commentary on those forecasts or making his own forecasts, that would completely undermine the OBR. The institution was introduced in order to give more credible independent information to Parliament. It is interesting that, in the acceptance speech that the former Foreign Secretary would have given if he had become the Labour leader, one of his central points was that Labour should embrace the OBR as an idea that it should have had while in office and that it should support in opposition.
Debbie Abrahams
Over the past six months, we have seen the economy flatlining, whereas in the previous six months we saw growth of 1.8%. Can the Chancellor explain to the House exactly what has changed?
Mr Osborne
I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the Government changed a year ago. I would say to the hon. Lady that the economy is now growing, and that in the past year more than 500,000 private sector jobs net have been created, which the Opposition should welcome. Exports are up 13%, investment is up 5.8% and manufacturing is up 4.2%—[Interruption.] Well, we remember when that lot were in a couple of years ago and the economy was tanking. Now it is growing and, as the public finance figures show today, we are getting the budget deficit down, dealing with our borrowing problem and restoring stability to the British economy. That is why the plans that we have put in place have been welcomed by so many independent organisations.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
The Office for Budget Responsibility is scoring the value of most asset sales other than banks at zero in the forecast, on the grounds that it cannot estimate their value. Will the Chancellor provide every assistance possible to the OBR, so that an estimate can be incorporated in its assessment of long-run sustainability, which it is due to publish in three weeks? Is that not an early issue for the newly appointed non-executives to take up?
Mr Osborne
I am certainly aware that the Treasury Committee and the Office for Budget Responsibility are in discussions over privatisation receipts and other asset sales, but I do not think that it would be right for me to intrude in that discussion. I can give my hon. Friend the commitment that we will certainly provide the OBR with any information it asks for.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Has the Chancellor considered what would happen to our growth rate if we followed the advice of the shadow Chancellor, which is opportunistically to oppose every spending cut and every tax increase proposed by the Government?
Mr Speaker
Order. There is no requirement or need for the Chancellor to comment on Opposition policy. I would have thought that we had grasped that point by now.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
In reaction to this year’s Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that, if the Chancellor is to meet his borrowing targets, he will be
“now even more dependent on a bounce back in the rate of economic growth from 2013”.
Borrowing has already been £1.5 billion higher in the first two months of this financial year than it was in the same period last year, as the Chancellor’s tax rises and spending cuts kick in. If growth outturns fail to meet the forecasts, will the Government change their plans on borrowing?
Mr Osborne
When the director of the IFS was asked this month:
“Have things changed so much in the past 12 months that you would expect the Government to change course now?”
he replied, “No”. In fact, the advice of the IMF is also that now would be the wrong time to adjust macro-economic policies, while the Governor of the Bank of England at Mansion house said that we should not adjust the macro-economic mix. The truth is that the Labour Opposition, who got us into this mess, have absolutely no answers for getting us out of it. Is it not striking that the shadow Chancellor gave a speech last week with his big new economic policy, and not a single Labour MP has mentioned it yet?
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
3. What recent representations he has received from the IMF on UK economic policy.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
The IMF completed its article IV assessment of the UK economy this month. Its recommendation could not have been clearer. When asked whether it was time to adjust macro-economic policies, its answer was no.
Mr Amess
I am delighted that the IMF has confirmed that the Chancellor is pursuing the right strategy to clear up the mess left by the last rotten Labour Government. Will he explain why the yield on UK Government bonds is only 0.25% higher than in Germany, whereas in Portugal it is 8.5% higher?
Mr Osborne
The simple reason is that we have a credible deficit reduction plan. Even though we inherited a deficit higher than Portugal’s, our interest rates are closer to those of Germany. Indeed, the spread over Bunds—the difference between German and UK interest rates—has come down substantially over the last year, even though that gap has gone up in France, Spain and other European countries. The real monetary stimulus being provided to the economy by those low interest rates is anchored in the credible deficit reduction plan.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
May I take up the point made by the Chancellor about the outstanding speech made by my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor? Why does the Chancellor have this touching, childlike faith in the views of the IMF when it got things dead wrong on the exchange rate mechanism, which it unfortunately imposed on this country the previous time it had the misfortune to have a Tory Government?
Mr Osborne
It is normal for Finance Ministers to pay some attention to what the IMF says, but there we go. The last time we had a Labour Government, we had to turn to the IMF for help; I am trying to avoid that.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the recent comments of the director general of the CBI? He said:
“Acting swiftly and decisively on the deficit has…laid a firm foundation for…growth.”
Who does my right hon. Friend think is more plausible: the director general of the CBI or the lone voice opposite?
Mr Osborne
I think the CBI’s view reflects those of almost the entire business community in Britain and almost all international commentators on the United Kingdom economy. When the CBI was asked explicitly what it thought of the Labour party’s plans, its chief economic adviser said:
“The economy would be weaker because of the impact of a loss of confidence in the markets.”
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Since the Government came to power, the growth forecast for this year has been downgraded by 1%. The IMF has also said that the speed of Government cuts poses a risk of higher inflation, lower growth and rising unemployment. Does the Chancellor agree with the IMF, which he is keen to support, that if
“a prolonged period of weak growth”
—which we have at present—
is in prospect, “temporary tax cuts” should be considered?
Mr Osborne
First, the right hon. Gentleman has misquoted the IMF. Perhaps he will give the House the full quotation. The IMF did not say “at present”, which the right hon. Gentleman slipped into the quotation. [Interruption.] Perhaps he will take the opportunity to correct the record later. Secondly, the IMF said:
“Strong fiscal consolidation is underway and remains essential”.
The managing director of the IMF could not have been stronger in his endorsement through article IV.
I note that three Opposition Front Benchers have asked questions, and that not one has mentioned the new policy of the shadow Chancellor.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
4. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the economy of trends in the rate of inflation.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
8. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the economy of trends in the rate of inflation.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Government consider a range of factors when making their assessment of the United Kingdom economy. The Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for producing independent economic and fiscal forecasts. The OBR published a full analysis of recent developments and the prospects for growth and inflation in its forecast at the time of the Budget.
Angela Smith
Do the Minister and the rest of the Front-Bench team now regret raising VAT at a time of rising commodity prices, which has helped to push inflation up to double the Government’s target rate and has added to the squeeze on pensioners and families?
Mr Gauke
First, the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), said that he would have done the same. Secondly, a cut in VAT would do nothing to reverse the rise in global commodity prices, but would do a lot to reverse the Government’s hard-won credibility for getting the deficit down.
Mr Lammy
In the light of what the Minister has said, may I invite him to Tesco’s in Tottenham high road, where he will meet some of my constituents who must deal with higher food prices, rising electricity and gas prices and, now, redundancy and the loss of most of the services on which they rely?
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
If the Government took longer to reduce the deficit and carried on spending, what would be the impact of that policy on inflation?
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
We are already spending £120 million a day on debt interest. What figure does the Minister think would be reached if we had not increased VAT?
Mr Speaker
Order. We should be focusing on inflation. I call the Minister to answer, very briefly.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
How many of the 34 countries in the OECD have comparable inflation rates higher than the present rate in the United Kingdom?
Mr Gauke
The fact that global commodity prices are rising and that the UK experienced a significant devaluation under the last Government mean that we face an issue with inflation, but it is the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England that has responsibility for that. It is one of the few policies of the last Government that still has any credibility. Is the Labour party distancing itself from that policy as well?
Ms Eagle
Obviously, the Minister did not know that the answer is only two: Estonia and Turkey. He can huff and puff and blame world commodity prices all he wants, but is it not obvious that the Chancellor’s decision to put up VAT in January because he chose to cut too far too fast is causing real hardship to families throughout the country as they struggle to cope with the most vicious squeeze on living standards in generations? When is he going to realise that his economic policy is hurting and it is not working, and that the whole Treasury Front-Bench team is out of its depth?
Mr Gauke
For a moment, the hon. Lady got quite close to supporting the policy the shadow Chancellor announced last week, but she did not quite do so. The fact is that the Bank of England says the main causes of inflation are to do with the devaluation and rising global commodity prices. That is the truth; that is the reality—[Interruption.] Well, that is what the Bank of England says, and I suspect it has a bit more expertise than the hon. Lady.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
5. What recent estimate he has made of the size of the structural deficit.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility published its latest forecast on the structural deficit in the March economic and fiscal outlook. The OBR forecast shows the structural deficit was 7.4% of GDP in 2010-11.
John Stevenson
I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree that one of the main reasons we are experiencing financial difficulties and the large budget deficit is the simply that for a number of years prior to the recession the Labour Government were borrowing money while other, prudent economies were repaying debt, and that has exacerbated our problems now?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, and he makes an important point. This country was running a structural deficit from 2002 onwards, so his analysis is exactly right. However, that was not the only problem with the previous Government’s policy, of course; another was their abject failure to regulate the banks and deal with the financial system. That is a further major cause of the problems we face.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Chief Secretary accept that his and his Government’s macho approach of massive cuts and confronting the unions is reducing consumer confidence, which in turn is reducing investment, and that that is hindering growth and has led to the March deficit forecast being increased by £46 billion, which is almost £1,000 per person in Britain?
Danny Alexander
No, I do not. The decisions we have taken on reducing the enormous budget deficit we inherited from Labour were absolutely necessary to restore confidence in this country’s ability to pay its way in the world, and that is helping to deliver the low interest rates that are delivering a significant benefit to our economy. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that, too.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Will the Chief Secretary reassure the House that he will never behave as irresponsibly as The Daily Telegraph has revealed the last Government did? When faced with a massive structural deficit before the recession, they increased spending by £90 billion between 2007 and 2010, even though the Treasury told them to increase spending only in line with inflation.
Danny Alexander
I can certainly confirm that we will not repeat that mistake. We have all seen the document entitled, “We’ve spent all this money, but what have we got for it?” It is very important that this country maintains the spending plans we set out in the spending review, in order to deliver the deficit reduction that this country needs to establish confidence in our economy.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What assessment he has made of trends in bank lending to small businesses in the first quarter of 2011.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
Under Project Merlin, the banks loaned a total of £47.3 billion to UK businesses in the first quarter of 2011, including £16.8 billion to small and medium-sized enterprises. The Government are encouraged that banks are broadly on target to meet their overall commitments. However, it is disappointing that banks are behind schedule on SME loans, and they clearly need to do much more work to deliver on their commitments.
Chris Evans
A number of small businesses in Islwyn tell me they have experienced an increase in the overall interest rate charged by banks, despite the base rate being at an all-time low. What are the Government doing to address that?
Mr Hoban
We must ensure that banks signal to businesses that they are open for business and that they have the capacity to lend to businesses. That is why we work with the banks to deliver Project Merlin, but, as I have said, there is more work for the banks to do to ensure they lend to small businesses, and we will continue to hold them to account on that.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
Did Project Merlin also cover transparency in respect of the covenants banks require small businesses to put forward, and has that increased over the last three or four years? I ask because this seems to be one of the big barriers to small businesses taking out loans.
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the relationship between banks and their customers and the transparency of that relationship. That is why the British Bankers Association business taskforce has introduced a range of measures to look at the relationship between banks and their customers and we will continue to monitor that work. It is important that banks are transparent with their customers about the terms on which loans are offered.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
My constituent Ashlea Hassan came to see me last week with her idea for setting up a small business. Despite having been told by every bank she has visited that she has an excellent business plan, a brilliant concept and enough equity in her house, not one of them is prepared to lend her the £40,000 she needs to set up her business. What advice does the Minister have for my constituent?
Mr Hoban
I would encourage the hon. Lady to suggest to her constituent that she pursue the appeal route that each bank has to enable businesses to appeal against lending decisions. That is a very transparent process that would, one hopes, reach the outcome that her constituent wants. The hon. Lady could also encourage her constituent to approach business angels for investment. We announced in the Budget a review of venture capital trusts and enterprise investment scheme reliefs to encourage more investors to commit more money to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
9. What fiscal measures he is taking to encourage bequests to charities.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
At the Budget this year we announced the most radical and generous series of charity tax reforms for more than 20 years. The measures were not just about improving support for gift aid and payroll giving—we also introduced new measures to improve the inheritance tax system so that we can encourage more bequests.
Tony Baldry
What estimate has my hon. Friend made of the number of charities that will benefit from the raising of the gift aid limits, the simplification of gift aid administration and the introduction of the gift aid small donation scheme?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right to point out that we have taken a number of steps to improve the ability of gift aid to help charities. There are about 100,000 charities and community and amateur sports clubs currently registered for gift aid, all of which should be able to benefit in part or in entirety from these changes.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The reality of the Government’s approach to charities is that they have imposed a tax burden on charities by increasing VAT. If the Minister really wants to do something positive for charities, why does she not extend to them the same tax relief relating to VAT that is extended to local government?
Justine Greening
I emphasise to the hon. Gentleman that the measures we came up with for the Budget were ones that we talked to charities about in order to pull together. Over this Parliament, the measures will encourage approximately £600 million more going to charities from donations, and I think that all hon. Members across the House should welcome that.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
10. What assessment he has made of the level of taxation of banks.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
Banks operating in the UK make a significant contribution to the economy and public finances. However, as the financial crisis demonstrated, the sector also posed a potential risk to the wider economy and it is only fair for the banks to make an additional contribution to reflect that. That is why we have implemented a permanent levy on the balance sheet of banks, which will raise more than £2.5 billion each year.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Minister for that reply, but will he recognise the enormous feeling throughout the country that the banks need to fulfil their responsibility for the challenges we face? Will he therefore explain the stubborn refusal of the Government to repeat last year’s bonus tax, on top of the bank levy, which would generate the revenue to build 25,000 affordable homes and create 100,000 new jobs?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Are the losses on banks that accumulated because of their bad judgment being allowed to be set against future profits? In other words, are they avoiding future tax on future profits?
Mr Hoban
The corporation tax arrangements for banks are similar to those for other businesses. That is one reason why we have imposed the additional bank levy, which will raise more each year over this Parliament than the previous Government’s bank payroll tax did. It is important that the banks make a contribution to reflect the risk that they pose to the wider economy.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
11. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the economy of trends in the rate of unemployment.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
15. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the economy of trends in the rate of unemployment.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The unemployment rate has fallen recently: in the latest data, it was 7.7%—down from 7.9% on the quarter. The Office for Budget Responsibility assumed at Budget 2011 that the structural rate of unemployment was unchanged from its previous trends at 5.25%. In the medium term, unemployment is expected to fall as the economy recovers, supported by the action taken by the Government, including measures published in the Budget and “The Plan for Growth.”
Bill Esterson
Youth unemployment peaked in 1985 four years after the recession of 1981, with disastrous consequences for a generation of young people. When the Chancellor scrapped the future jobs fund he showed that he had not learned from what happened in the 1980s. Is not the truth that the Chancellor is out of touch with the realities of life for young people and is on course to repeat the same mistakes as the Tories made in the 1980s, with the same disastrous consequences?
Danny Alexander
If the hon. Gentleman was being fair, he would recognise that youth unemployment was growing substantially under the previous Government as well. The country has faced the problem for many years, which is why in the Budget we announced a £200 million package of support, including work experience placements for young people, skills training, guaranteed interviews and progression to apprenticeships. Including the measures in the Budget and the spending review, we will deliver at least 250,000 more apprenticeships over the next four years, compared with the previous Government’s plans.
Steve Rotheram
Since this nightmare coalition came to power, the number of people out of work in my constituency has increased, and that is even before the cuts really start to bite. Is it not a fact that the Chancellor, like many Members on the Government Benches, still believes that unemployment is a price worth paying?
Danny Alexander
Certainly not. That is why in Merseyside, we have announced a new enterprise zone that will encompass the Liverpool Waters and Mersey Waters regeneration projects. The regional growth fund has announced several projects in Merseyside, and the Work programme in Merseyside will help to deliver support for people to get off benefits and into work; the second contractor got under way yesterday. I hope the hon. Gentleman agrees that is a serious programme to help people off benefit and into work in Merseyside.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that the recent announcement of the sharpest fall in unemployment in a decade and the creation of 500,000 jobs in the private sector over the past year shows hope that things are going in the right direction for unemployment?
Danny Alexander
We always said that the economic recovery would be choppy, but it is none the less welcome that we have seen significant job creation in the private sector over the past year. That offsets some of the job reductions in the public sector that are necessary as part of our deficit reduction programme.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
May I tell my right hon. Friend that since May last year unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 11%? That is due to fast-growing private companies, such as Pegasystems. Is not the key to reducing high unemployment sticking to the deficit reduction programme and removing barriers to growth?
Danny Alexander
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to stick to the deficit reduction programme, which is the essential underpinning for future economic growth in this country. We also need to take steps to ensure that that economic growth is balanced across the country, and the regional growth fund and the local enterprise partnership programme are an important part of ensuring that we have growth across the entire United Kingdom.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
12. What recent assessment he has made of the rate of job creation in the private sector.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
Last week, the Office for National Statistics published private sector employment numbers for the first quarter of 2011. They showed that private sector employment has risen for five consecutive quarters by 560,000 in total. That is the largest increase recorded over five consecutive quarters since the ONS started to publish the quarterly series of private sector employment in 1999.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I welcome those figures, but—like other Members—I constantly meet in Lancaster and Fleetwood small and medium-sized enterprises that have orders and could take on new staff and deal with the unemployment situation, but are being frustrated by the banks. What further support can the Minister offer to those much-needed engines of private sector growth?
Mr Hoban
That is why we introduced Project Merlin. We have also taken other measures to encourage funding for small businesses. The banks have set up the business growth fund, which can invest capital in medium-sized businesses to help them grow. We have approved arrangements for business angels to invest more in small and medium-sized businesses. These are the measures we need to take to introduce a range of available finance so that small businesses and private sector employment can continue to grow.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
When a constituent comes to my constituency surgery or writes to me, and I write to the Treasury because that is where their question should be answered, why, after a long process, is the Treasury now saying that I will not get a letter in reply because a circular was sent some months ago? The Minister now answering is the one who is responsible. Why is that practice happening in the Treasury?
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman refers to letters but the question is about the rate of job creation in the private sector; I think the hon. Gentleman meant to say that.
Mr Donohoe
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply I have just received, I will seek a debate on the Adjournment.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful. Under the procedures of the House, as colleagues are aware, we must proceed to the next question.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
14. What assessment he has made of the progressive effects of the measures in the June 2010 Budget which have been implemented to date.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
As the House knows, the Government published huge amounts of analysis of the impact of the measures announced in the Budget of June 2010. The majority of the measures have now been implemented. The charts in the Budget book show that the most well-off households make the largest contribution to the fiscal consolidation, both in cash terms and as a proportion of their net income.
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but has she seen the analysis produced by the House of Commons Library and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) showing that the measures in the last Budget hit women three times as hard as they hit men? Why is that?
Justine Greening
I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question at all. As ever, what we have heard from the Opposition is a cheap political point-scoring jibe. They might be better advised to come up with an alternative plan for tackling the fiscal deficit. The hon. Gentleman had nothing to say to my response to him, which implied that it is the most well-off households in the country that are bearing the brunt of the fiscal consolidation.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
A year ago, when the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis found that the Budget was a regressive one, the Treasury objected to that analysis on the basis that the IFS had not properly considered the incentives to economic growth that the Budget contained, but given that growth is now flatlining and seems to be frequently downgraded, is the Treasury willing to accept that the IFS analysis last year was entirely correct?
Justine Greening
The IFS analysis was very clear-cut that it was indeed the most well-off people in our country who were bearing the brunt of the fiscal consolidation measures. I draw the House’s attention to the need to look at the overall impact of not just the Budget 2010, but the spending review and the Budget this year. They show that the most well-off people in our country are bearing the brunt of the fiscal consolidation, whether that is measured in terms of their income or of their expenditure.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The incentives for job creation in the June 2010 and subsequent Budgets are to be welcomed, but given that for every 10 new jobs eight go to foreign-born workers, what more can be done to encourage the employment of the indigenous work force?
Justine Greening
As my hon. Friend knows, one of the key aspects of the Budget this year was to launch “The Plan for Growth”. A key part of that was to provide for more apprenticeships and more work experience so that we can make sure that people have the right skills that companies in this country need.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
18. What assessment he has made of the most recent growth forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
Growth forecasts are for the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. In March it forecast the economy to grow by 1.7% in 2011, 2.5% in 2012 and 2.9% in 2013.
Alison McGovern
If the OBR embarrasses the Treasury again by downgrading growth forecasts yet again, how will the Government respond?
Danny Alexander
As I say, growth forecasts are a matter for the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. I am clear that the deficit reduction programme is essential to ensure that we have confidence in the UK economy. Given that the Opposition caused the mess we are trying to clear up, I hoped the hon. Lady would support that.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Does the Chief Secretary agree that one of the assessments that we can make on growth is that encouraging job creation in the private sector will see a reversal of the decline in the productivity experienced when the Labour party was in power, and is likely to see growth forecasts continue to rise?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to see the private sector lead the economic recovery. Many of the measures that we announced in “The Plan for Growth”, such as reforms to the planning system, the measures on regulation and some of the tax measures that we announced to support investment, will all help to encourage and support private sector businesses to lead the recovery that we all want to see.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
19. What steps he is taking to reform the regulation of banks and financial institutions.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
Last Thursday we published “A new approach to financial regulation: the blueprint for reform”, which sets out the Government’s proposals to reform financial regulation in the UK.
Glyn Davies
With a permanent annual levy worth £2.5 billion, tough rules on bonuses, a new deal on lending and regulatory responsibility returned to the Bank of England and handed to a new Financial Conduct Authority, is not the coalition making good progress in creating a sustainable banking system?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have made significant progress over the past year in getting the financial regulatory system back in good shape. Of course, the Opposition should remember that it was the shadow Chancellor who spent his time in office trumpeting the value of light-touch regulation across the world.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Will the Minister assure us that, in the context of his current work on regulation, the anomalous position of credit unions in Northern Ireland, which have much bigger memberships and funds than those in the rest of the UK but cannot offer the same range of services, will be addressed, along with industrial and provident societies in Northern Ireland, which are also in something of a regulatory black hole?
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
As set out before, the core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability of the economy, promote growth and jobs, reform banking and clear up the mess in the public finances that we inherited.
Mr Osborne
I blame the Labour Government. During the election campaign, the Labour Home Secretary said publicly on television that police numbers would have to be cut if Labour was re-elected.
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
T3. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the cost to the public finances of an emergency cut in VAT and the disastrous impact that would have on debt interest?
Mr Osborne
The estimate is £51 billion over this Parliament, which I guess is just another nail in the coffin of the shadow Chancellor’s economic credibility.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
T2. Has the Chancellor by chance seen the interesting analysis by the House of Commons Library showing that the measures in his Budget will affect women three times as adversely as they will affect men? Is he a misogynist?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)
rose—[Interruption.]
Justine Greening
The right hon. Gentleman’s hearing must be suffering, because he obviously did not hear my earlier answer to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne).
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
T4. Dr Adrian Steele, the managing director of Mercian Labels in Cannock, has just been named as one of the midlands’ most promising entrepreneurs. His company supplies labels and barcodes to the medical industry and employs 32 people. Does the Chancellor agree that it is small business entrepreneurs such as Dr Steele who will grow our economy back to strength, and will he continue to support manufacturers, who were shamefully neglected by the Labour party?
Mr George Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. Manufacturing halved as a share of our economy under the Labour Government and financial services grew dramatically over that period. Since the last election, manufacturing output is up 4.2% and the private sector has created more than 500,000 new jobs net, which is all good news. The example he brings to the Chamber is just one of many companies that are investing and employing people, and despite a choppy recovery we should celebrate that.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
T7. On 14 February the Governor of the Bank of England told the Chancellor that his VAT rise had caused inflation. On 16 May the Governor again told him that his VAT rise had caused inflation. Will he tell me how he is measuring the impact of his VAT rise on the rest of our economy and whether it was a rise too far, too fast?
Mr Osborne
The Governor of the Bank of England had his opportunity at the Mansion House to comment on the macro-economic policies pursued by the Government, and he said that
“to change the broad policy mix would make little sense.”
That is the judgment of the Governor of the Bank of England, and the hon. Lady may now find herself, like the shadow Chancellor, against the IMF, against the IFS, against the Governor of the Bank of England and against the CBI. It leaves the right hon. Gentleman completely alone, and it leaves the Labour party’s economic policy absolutely isolated in the world. Now, she is a new Member, and I know that she has been saddled with being the former Prime Minister’s private secretary, but she can break away from the nonsense being spouted by Opposition Members.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
T5. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the shortest suicide note in history consists of just five letters—plan B?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right, and, in the case of the Opposition, their plan is plan B for bankruptcy.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
T9. About 20,000 UK citizens, including some of my constituents, have lost their savings by investing in the fund management company, Arch Cru. Will the Chancellor step in and investigate the role of the Financial Services Authority in the failure of that company?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)
The hon. Gentleman may well be aware that today an announcement was made of a voluntary scheme that we have put together to make available £54 million of compensation to Arch Cru investors. That, together with a previous payment to consumers, means that they will have recovered about 70% of the value of their holdings in Arch Cru funds as of the date when the funds’ trading was suspended. That is a welcome move for Arch Cru investors, the FSA is continuing to look at the matter, and it would be inappropriate to make any further comment on it.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
T6. Has the Chancellor had cause to regret a decision, made by one of his predecessors, to sell the UK gold reserves a decade ago at the bottom of the market, a decision that has cost this country just under £10 billion?
Mr George Osborne
My hon. Friend is right: it is a decision of great regret. The gold was sold at £2.3 billion, and it would now be worth £12 billion, which as he says is a £10 billion loss. The Labour party, on the advice of the shadow Chancellor, managed to sell gold at its record low price. Indeed, gold traders now call it the Brown bottom. That is how they know the number, and it is yet another disastrous decision after which we are having to clean up.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The Chancellor will be aware of the recent Office for National Statistics finding that the regressive nature of VAT means that the UK tax system is doing almost nothing to prevent income inequality. In that context, will he pay particular attention to a Fawcett Society report, to be launched tomorrow, which shows that his fiscal policies, such as increasing VAT, cause particular harm to lone parents, 92% of whom are women?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
May I also point out that our tax policies include taking hundreds of thousands of people out of income tax altogether? On the particular subject that the hon. Lady raises, of those taken out of income tax following the announcement in the Budget earlier this year, 56% will be women.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
T8. Which does the Chancellor think is better for low-paid workers in Worcester: the Government taking 1 million of the lowest paid out of tax altogether; or the previous Government’s move to double their tax by scrapping the 10p tax rate?
Mr George Osborne
As my hon. Friend points out, we have taken more than 1 million low-paid people out of income tax. We are committed to further such moves through this Parliament, and that is in stark contrast to the 10p tax raid in the previous Parliament. Of course, we now discover that, before the decision was made, the shadow Chancellor knew all about its impact on the poorest fifth in our society.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Chancellor thought it proper in his Mansion House speech to give the bankers of the City first go on his views about the ring-fencing of banks. Apart from that being discourteous to the banking commission, which he set up, does he not think it discourteous to this House that he is prepared to give bankers that information but not to come and explain it to the House and take questions?
Mr Osborne
First, the announcement was made with the consent of the Independent Commission on Banking. Secondly, it is established that the Chancellor is able to give the Mansion House speech each year. I seem to remember that the last-but-one Chancellor announced the renewal of the nuclear deterrent at the Mansion House without coming to the House of Commons to do so. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to say something about banking reform at the Mansion House in the years to come, I will therefore be grateful.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
The spending review said that employee contributions to public sector pensions would need to increase in order to make the funds sustainable for the future. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that rate should not be applied uniformly in order to protect the lowest-paid public sector workers and encourage them to stay within public sector pension schemes?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I am grateful for the question. I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, a similar point has been made by several trade union representatives in the very constructive talks that we are having at the moment, which will be going on over the next few weeks. In applying the increase in pension contributions, it is very important to protect the low-paid so as to minimise the risk of opt-out.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
Repossessions are rising and are up by 17% on the last quarter. That is very reminiscent, sadly, of the conditions under the Conservative Government in the 1990s and the cost and misery caused to families. Will the Chancellor, and perhaps the housing Minister, tell us what direct action he is going to take to support those affected and to restore confidence to the housing market?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the increased number of repossessions. We want to see a strong and stable housing market. The Government have taken action to support those who wish to stay in their homes through an extension of the scheme for mortgage interest support. We are continuing to make sure that advice is available to people who are facing difficulties in meeting their mortgage payments. The important thing, however, is to keep interest rates as low as possible for as long as possible so that families are not faced with an increase in their mortgage payments.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given the lack of growth in money and credit, is there anything else that the Government can do to promote the growth in the economy that is so crucial to their plans?
Mr George Osborne
As my right hon. Friend will know, the supply-side reforms that were set out in the growth review, including the reduction in corporate tax rates, are key. At the same time, as banks’ balance sheets inevitably contract after the credit crunch and after the dramatic increase in the size of balance sheets over recent years, we need to ensure that we try to protect small and medium-sized businesses from the effects of that. That is why we concluded the Merlin deal with the banks.
Jon Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that the claimant count has continued to rise in the past three months and that unemployment in many inner-city constituencies such as mine remains stubbornly high. Why will he not consider taxing the banks sufficiently to fund an inner-city youth jobs programme to help the young people on the estates in my constituency?
Mr Osborne
We have introduced a permanent bank levy that applies each and every year. There was a bank bonus tax for one year of the 13 years of the Labour Government; other than that, there were no charges on the banks. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer—my immediate predecessor—said that we could not repeat that because the bankers would find a way round it. We therefore looked to the advice of international bodies such as the IMF, and we introduced a bank levy that will raise more each and every year, net, than the Labour Government raised from the banks in any one year. That shows that we are asking the banks to make a decent contribution to the economy.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Last week, a consortium of regional airports called for a congestion tax on London airports such as Gatwick in my constituency. Will the Treasury rule out such an absurd and, frankly, anti-free trade measure?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right to refer to the importance of the aviation sector. As he will know, the consultation on reform of air passenger duty closed last Friday, and we have received a number of different representations from stakeholders. He will be aware that this is partly about looking at what we can do to support regional airports, but we certainly do not want to do that at the expense of our other key airports in the south-east.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Several figures have been cited about the number of jobs created over the past 12 months. What percentage of those jobs were created before the spending review and are arguably attributable to the last Government, and what percentage have been created since?
Mr Osborne
I am happy to provide the hon. Gentleman with an exact breakdown based around the date of the spending review. What is clear, however, is that we said that we wanted the private sector to lead the recovery and that that was absolutely essential. That is the view of virtually every credible economist and business organisation in the country. He should be celebrating the fact that over 500,000 net new jobs have been created by the private sector in the past year.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Last week, I met development campaigners from Bradford-on-Avon at the “Tea time for change” rally. They welcome the Chancellor’s support for transparency in companies operating in developing countries. Will he press for effective legislation internationally, and for country-by-country, project-by-project financial reporting for companies in the resource extractive industries?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend raises a good point, which commands the support of MPs from all parts of the House. We want to see greater transparency in the extractive industries. I raised the matter at the G20 meeting in Paris earlier this year. We want measures to be introduced at a European level and shortly after that at a G20 level to ensure that they have the maximum possible impact around the world.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr, Mr Speaker. The Governments of Northern Ireland and Scotland will soon have greater financial autonomy. What requests has the Chancellor received from the new Welsh Assembly Government for similar job-creating levers?
Mr Osborne
The hon. Gentleman knows that we made a clear commitment that if the outcome of the referendum in Wales was a yes, we would set up a Calman-like process that would come to an agreed set of proposals—I hope they will be agreed across many parties, as was the case with Calman in Scotland—on greater financial responsibility for the Welsh Assembly. We are engaging in that process now. One reason why Calman has worked well—I know that we will come on to discuss the Scotland Bill later—is that at least three parties in the House of Commons, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, were able to agree on a set of proposals. I hope that we can achieve similar agreement in Wales.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware that if every small and medium-sized enterprise in the UK employed one additional person, we would have an employment surplus. What plans does he have directly to incentivise SMEs to take on additional staff?
Mr Osborne
First, we offer a national insurance tax break for new employees in new companies. We have cut the small companies tax rate, which was due to go up when I came to office. We are also cutting the headline rate of corporation tax by 2% this year and then by a further 3%, making it a 5% reduction over the course of the Parliament.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Is the Chancellor who now complains about a decade of over-investment by the previous Government related to the George Osborne who wrote an article in The Times in 2008 not just praising that Government’s spending plans, but promising to stick to them?
Mr Osborne
I think the hon. Gentleman has his years wrong, for a start. We fought the 2005 general election warning that Labour was spending too much and we fought the 2010 general election giving that warning. The British people listened to us, and realised that people like him had been supporting a Government who had brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy.
Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
With permission, Mr Speaker, and further to the written ministerial statement I laid in the House earlier today, I would like to make a statement.
Last autumn, the Government launched two consultations on far-reaching plans to reform punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders, and on legal aid in England and Wales. Today I have laid before Parliament the government’s responses to those consultations. I will also introduce the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to give effect to the measures we are taking forward that require primary legislation.
Protecting the public from crime and punishing lawbreakers are the most fundamental responsibilities of the state towards its citizens. The sad truth is that after 13 years of government, over 20 criminal justice Bills, more than 3,000 new criminal offences and an explosion in the prison population, Labour left the system in crisis. Most of our prisoners spend their time behind bars idling in their cells, with ready access to drugs. A bigger scandal still is our reoffending rates, which are straightforwardly dreadful. Within a year of leaving jail, half of offenders will have been reconvicted of further offences. The same people cycle round the system endlessly, committing more crimes against more victims. The best way to reduce crime is to reduce reoffending, and that remains the central feature of our programme of radical reforms.
Prisons must be places of both punishment and reform. Today I can confirm that we plan to deliver a full working week across the prison estate. We will legislate to extend powers to use money earned by prisoners to support victims. We have never proposed that community sentences should replace prison sentences, but we will introduce tougher, properly enforced community punishments whereby offenders work longer hours, unpaid, at least four days a week.
Drug abuse lies behind much, if not most, criminality in this country. It is not acceptable that drugs are too readily available in prison. We are taking forward plans to reduce addiction across the prison estate by improving security and introducing drug-free wings in jails. We must tackle other root causes of criminality, particularly alcohol addiction, mental illness and a lack of skills, but we will ensure that we put taxpayers’ money only into rehabilitation programmes that actually work.
Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low. That is why we want to take forward plans for a new offence, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months, for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. We will also consult on proposals to criminalise squatting, and we will bring forward legislation to clarify the law on self-defence. In addition, I can confirm our intention to improve the use of remand and reduce the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails.
Discounts for early guilty pleas have been part of the criminal justice system for decades, for good reason, and we consulted on changes to that system. Personally, I was particularly impressed by the representations of the senior judiciary and other criminal justice experts who said that increasing the maximum discount on offer for a guilty plea at the earliest possible stage might result in the sentence served being too short in some serious cases. I was hoping to address that problem, and I considered doing so by introducing a greater degree of judicial discretion, but we could not make that work. We have therefore decided to retain the present system.
The consultation also produced strong opposition to the indeterminate sentencing framework. It was introduced by the last Government and sold as a way of protecting the public from a small number of the most dangerous offenders, but it has never worked as Parliament intended. It has created a flawed system in which thousands of offenders have already served their normal sentence or tariff, but no one can predict when or if they might ever be released. That is why, as the Prime Minister confirmed this morning, we are reviewing so-called indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, with a view to replacing them with a more sensible, tough system of long, determinate sentences. That will see judges handing down life sentences in a greater number of very serious cases, including mandatory life sentences for the most serious repeat offenders. Serious sexual and violent offenders will spend at least two thirds of their sentence in prison, rather than being released halfway through. We intend to return to the best aspects of the system before IPPs were introduced in 2005 by new Labour.
I turn to legal aid reform. We have much the most expensive system in the world, except for Northern Ireland, costing £39 per head of population. That compares with, for example, £8 per head in New Zealand, a country with a broadly similar legal system. The last Government consulted on the subject more than 30 times since 2006, and still left us with the mess that we now have to tackle. In some cases the system encourages people to bring issues before the courts when other solutions might be better. In others it enables people to pursue litigation that they would not contemplate were they paying for it out of their own pocket.
Following careful consideration of more than 5,000 responses, I am bringing forward proposals that I believe will ensure access to public funding in the cases that most require it, encourage early resolution of disputes instead of unnecessary conflict and ensure much better value for money for the taxpayer.
I can announce that we will retain legal aid in cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home, or where their children may be taken into care. In response to consultation, that will include strengthened provision for victims of domestic violence and for children at risk of abuse or abduction, and the retention of legal aid for special educational needs cases.
Legal aid will no longer be routinely available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits. It will also no longer be available for squatters resisting eviction.
We have also decided not to abolish, as we originally proposed, the current capital disregards for pensioners and for equity in the main home in assessing an applicant’s eligibility for legal aid. We will not now introduce a £100 contribution from capital for those assessed as having £1,000 or more disposable capital.
All that amounts to a balanced and sensible package of reforms of the kind that the Government were determined to achieve when we published our proposals and started to consult on them. Our plans mean a return to common sense in the justice system. On legal aid, the overall effect will be to achieve significant savings while protecting fundamental rights of access to justice. On sentencing, we will deliver punishment, protection and a renewed focus on breaking the cycle of crime and reoffending. I look forward to debating the proposals on Second Reading and during the Bill’s subsequent stages.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement.
Our justice policy should be about protecting the public, punishing and reforming offenders, being on the side of the victim and bringing crime down. That underpinned our record in government, which led to a 43% fall in crime, reductions in reoffending and serious improvements in youth offending rates. However, the Government demonstrate that that is not what matters in their approach to crime and justice. Instead, it is about cutting cost, despite the impact it could have on communities across the country.
The Government have seen sense and taken heed of opposition to cost-driven proposals to reduce sentences by 50% on early guilty pleas. A coalition of victims, the judiciary, justice groups, the Sentencing Council and victims groups rightly questioned the motivation and effectiveness of that policy. Let us be clear: the policy had been agreed by the Cabinet. I asked the Justice Secretary during the Opposition day debate on sentencing whether the Prime Minister agreed with him. His response was:
“This was an entirely collectively agreed policy”.—[Official Report, 23 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 672.]
It is therefore no good No. 10’s distancing itself from it. In oral questions last month, the Justice Secretary said that the policy would survive the consultation. Of course, some Government Members voted against our motion—although some had the sense not to—which opposed the proposal on 23 May.
Will the Justice Secretary outline why the Prime Minister ditched the proposal when the Government were so wedded to it only a matter of weeks ago? When was the decision made to change the Bill’s title from the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill, as it was called up until late last week, to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and—I like this—Punishment of Offenders Bill? What did he hope to achieve by tinkering with the title?
We know from the impact assessment that was provided with the Green Paper that removing the option of remanding offenders in custody for certain cases could save £50 million and 1,300 prison places. I note that that proposal remains. Will the Justice Secretary outline the view of the Magistrates Association on the proposal and say whether he believes that the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Police Officers support the policy?
In the past 13 months, we have seen broken promises on minimum and maximum sentencing, prison building and knife crime. Today the Justice Secretary proposes a new offence of a mandatory custodial sentence for knife possession in aggravated circumstances, with a minimum sentence of six months. Even that proposal is less than that promised to the electorate in the Conservative manifesto, which stated that
“we will make it clear that anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence”.
That is still a broken promise, and tinkering with the Bill’s title will not change that.
On indeterminate sentences for public protection, I have consistently questioned the Justice Secretary on how he will ensure the safety of our communities when considering which offenders should be released and when. Again, the impact assessment helpfully tells us that financial savings will be “sizeable”. From that, it is obvious that the focus is saving money, not what is in the public’s best interests. Today we find that the Justice Secretary is to undertake an “urgent review” of IPPs with a view to replacing them. Will he explain to the House why he needs another review when he has had 13 months, a Green Paper and a consultation that he has consistently described as an opportunity to review IPPs?
How does the Justice Secretary reconcile losing thousands of front-line, experienced prison and probation staff with the desire to increase the numbers of offenders diverted into specialist drug, alcohol and mental health facilities, and how does he reconcile that with more prisoners working, because they will clearly need more supervision?
The legal aid proposals have been roundly criticised across the board as devastating social welfare law—[Interruption.] Has the Justice Secretary—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There was too much noise when the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor addressed the House, and once again there is too much noise. Let me just say this to those who are making a persistent noise: stop it, or leave the Chamber, but do not for one moment suppose that making that noise you have the foggiest chance of being called to ask a question.
Sadiq Khan
I am grateful, Mr Speaker.
As I was saying a moment ago, the proposals on legal aid have been roundly criticised across the board as devastating social welfare law. Has the Justice Secretary seriously considered the alternative funding options proposed by, for example, Justice for All? Does he accept that his changes will have a huge impact on the viability of many law centres, citizens advice bureaux and high street practices up and down the country that do an enormous amount to provide access to justice for some of our most deprived citizens? The Prime Minister claims that the whole point of a Green Paper is to listen and to be ready to change one’s mind, so why have the Government made no substantive changes to their proposals on social welfare legal aid?
This morning the Prime Minister said that savings that would have been made by the 50% sentence proposals will be found elsewhere in the Ministry of Justice budget. Can the Justice Secretary explain exactly where those savings will be made and when?
We are seeing cuts to the police and cuts to prison staff and probation trusts, but where is the strategy to cut crime? The Government’s policies on crime and justice are a shambles. We have always known that we cannot trust the Tories on the NHS, but now it seems that we cannot trust the Tories on law and order either.
Mr Clarke
Well, first of all I can confirm what the right hon. Gentleman says: the proposals that I presented for consultation and the Green Paper were the proposals of the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and I, and the proposals that I am putting forward today in response to the consultation and the comments that we invited are the responses of the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and I. Indeed, we had a discussion at Cabinet this morning. We run a collective Government.
I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we carried him with us on our Green Paper. His reaction to what the Prime Minister and I said at the time—it is all accessible in Hansard—was that this was a
“perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy, entirely in keeping with the emphasis on punishment and reform that Labour followed in government”.—[Official Report, 7 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 171.]
We carried him with us then, and I have hopes that if he looks at the consultation and listens to the arguments, we will carry him with us again. If he wants to turn and change his mind, he is free to do so.
Early guilty pleas were a genuine attempt to help victims and witnesses, who are mightily relieved if they hear that the accused decides to plead guilty. Had they worked, they would have saved a very great deal of money and time for the police service and Crown Prosecution Service, as well as for prisons. I do not know quite what the right hon. Gentleman’s view on this is, but I paid particular regard to the legal opinions that I was getting from serious members of the judiciary and others. The arithmetic just went too far in some serious cases. A week or two ago, I said that I thought the proposal would survive, because I thought that by introducing some judicial discretion, I could solve the problem, but I could not. For that reason, the Government are sticking with the present system. That is what consultation is all about.
We have consulted on our remand proposals, and we are pushing on with them. Carrying on with a system whereby people are refused bail when everybody knows they will not be sent for a custodial sentence if they are convicted at their final appearance is simply not the best use of a very expensive place in our prison system. It is cheaper to put our prisoners in the Ritz—and many of them would like to be there—but while the public prefer them to be in prison, we will keep them in prison. Nevertheless, the remand proposals are, I think, extremely sensible.
The proposal on knife possession has been made to send a message about its seriousness. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman expressed an opinion on it, but I would advise him to support this perfectly sensible measure. On IPPs, which I have said we are minded to repeal and replace with a better version of what preceded them, I refer him to the consultation and the attacks on IPPs from sensible people. David Thomas QC, who writes the bible on sentencing so far as criminal law practitioners are concerned—his book on sentencing is the book for those practicing in the courts—described IPPs as an “unmitigated disaster”. We are carrying out a review to decide what will replace them by way of a strong system of determinate sentences that protects the public.
On legal aid, I could rapidly find a quotation from the right hon. Gentleman saying that if the Labour party was in government, it would be cutting legal aid. He has nothing to say on legal aid that challenges the case I made a moment ago. On citizens advice bureaux and other forms of general advice, I hope to be able to say something on Second Reading—I am making advances, but we will see how much we can come forward with. We think there are better ways of resolving problems, and I agree that CABs and other voluntary bodies sometimes provide better advice than adversarial lawyers.
In commenting on the probation service and other matters, the right hon. Gentleman asked where the savings are coming from. I have held protracted negotiations with the Chief Secretary to sort out my Department’s finances, in the light of some of the problems left behind. We have now resolved all those problems. Over this period we will be making £2 billion of savings a year on the total expenditure of my department, and we are looking elsewhere for another £100 million. We are not cutting any particular area but achieving efficiency, and half of that will come from administrative savings. If we have further policies to find the money we are not saving, I will come forward with them. I prefer to proceed with proper policies in joined-up writing upon which I have consulted, and got the approval of, my colleagues, and after that to come to the House. I am now considering how to ensure that the final touches to the major savings we are making in my Department can be achieved in the light of this consultation.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Although the Justice Committee will continue to have concerns about the extent of the legal aid changes, may I press the Justice Secretary on sentencing? Do his Cabinet colleagues recognise that we will protect our citizens from crime not by tough talk or favourable headlines, but by appropriate sentences geared to making offenders face up to what they have done and changing their behaviour? Sometimes resources are required to do that and should not be commandeered by the prison system.
Mr Clarke
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Talking tough is easy and most politicians do it; delivering tough is rather difficult, as the Labour party discovered only too often. I will not use the quotes I have used before—the right hon. Gentleman knows them perfectly well. I agree that prison is of course the right punishment for serious and violent offenders, who will keep being sent there for long sentences whenever that punishment is justified, so that they can make reparation. However, we also tackle crime by trying to reform them, getting more of them to go straight, reducing reoffending and finding other ways of stopping the accumulation of more victims and more crimes committed by people coming through the system. I think that that is accepted by my colleagues. We are giving up the remorseless and hugely expensive increases in the prison population, and looking for a more intelligent way of protecting the public, which is our principal priority.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware—he certainly should be because I have told him a number of times—of the dire effect upon my constituents of the action he has taken already in attacking citizens advice bureaux, undermining legal aid and taking the wrecking ball to the South Manchester law centre? Is he further aware that what he has announced today will complete the process of making access to justice a prerogative of the rich?
Mr Clarke
I could answer each of those three things. Most of the cuts being made to citizens advice bureaux and so on are being made by local government; we are not the principal—[Interruption.] The Ministry of Justice is not the principal contributor to citizens advice bureaux. However, as I have already said, the Government as a whole will assist those who give quality, worthwhile advice of the kind required by the very many people who do not need legal aid and an adversarial lawyer, which is not the best way of proceeding.
We have debated court closures before. We inherited more than 100 underused buildings, which I am afraid we had to tackle and rationalise. Our package of legal aid reforms is tackling a system that has become bloated in recent years—a system that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government kept talking about reforming but never did, because an inability to take decisions about exactly what to do about an out-of-control Government was rather typical under the last Prime Minister. When we have finished what the right hon. Gentleman says are draconian reforms, we will still have by far the most expensive legal aid system in the world after I have made our so-called cuts.
Mr Speaker
Order. In the interests of maximising the number of contributors, I appeal to hon. and right hon. Members for short questions and short answers.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it was the last Labour Government who, having introduced IPPs, then changed the law for no other reason than to reduce the prison population? As for the thoroughly good idea that we now scrap IPPs, would we not thereby ensure that the public—the victims and, indeed, the offenders—were better protected and had greater justice?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the reason the last Government introduced IPPs was that they were reducing the time of a sentence automatically served from three quarters to a half. They introduced what sounded like a tough measure, with these new indeterminate sentences. However, it immediately went wrong, and they introduced more legislation after two years to try to reduce the numbers. I regret to say that my first effort was to go in the same direction and reduce them even more. I hope that I have my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the best thing is to get rid of them and return to a sensible system of long, determinate sentencing.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The right hon. and learned Gentleman should be aware that part of the problem with his original proposals was his failure to establish the case for community sentences as an alternative to prison. In his statement he refers to new, tough community sentences. Can he describe what the characteristics of a tough community sentence might be?
Mr Clarke
I never advocated—nor did the Government —the replacement, as it were, of short prison sentences with community sentences. I have some very curious opponents in sections of the media, and this was one of the bees they got in their bonnet almost as soon as we started, but we never proposed that. Community sentences need to carry public confidence so that magistrates can consider them properly as an alternative to prison in suitable cases—they do now, but more would. What I have in mind with tougher sentences is better organised sentences, so that, for example, unpaid work—which is one of the best community-based punishments that one can impose—doing genuinely worthwhile things for the community should be better organised and better disciplined. It should not have to be fitted in on the odd day over several years; it should be better organised on the day and based round a pretty normal working pattern of so many hours each week when it is under way. There are plenty of things that we can do—that and making more use of curfews and tagging—to build up public confidence in community sentences, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman and I both agree would be a good thing to do, but which we would also agree is lacking at the moment.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
What on earth did my right hon. and learned Friend mean when he said that he would introduce drug-free wings in jails? Does he not understand that, for the public, that is an extraordinary statement? They believe that all parts of all jails should be drug-free. To them, this sums up the irretrievably soft attitude of our entire prison system. In particular, will he protect our people—vulnerable old people—from burglars, and promise the House today that all burglars of private dwelling houses will be put in prison?
Mr Clarke
On the first point, I share my hon. Friend’s amazement, as I am sure anyone would on their first introduction to the criminal justice system. The fact is, however, that drugs are very widely available in our prisons, and 9% of people who have taken heroin say that they first did so in prison, where they were introduced to the drug. I am sorry that I have had to refer to “introducing drug-free wings”, but that is what we are proposing to do, and we are going to address the problems of security and rehabilitation in order to do it.
Of course burglary is always a serious offence. It is actually one of those that are rising at the moment, although that has nothing to do with the sentence level. It is going up rather alarmingly compared with a year ago. I regard all burglary, but particularly household burglary, as a very serious offence. In the end, however, the punishment has to fit the particular crime. I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said, but I think that there should be a limit to the number of automatic sentences according to what it says on the label. Proper sentencing should be directed towards what we both agree is the first priority—namely, the proper protection of the public.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
In view of the mistakes that the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s team have made in their policies relating to women, what risks does he see in making domestic violence a gateway to access to legal aid? Does he think that that will make people sceptical about victims’ claims of domestic violence?
Mr Clarke
We have defined domestic violence, and we are not sceptical at all. Indeed, I hope that the hon. Lady will be pleased that we have looked again at this matter and extended legal aid to cases of domestic violence more than we had originally proposed. I think that our policies towards women probably have her fairly wholehearted support. We have a particular policy towards women in prisons; indeed, we are following the policy of the previous Government and the recommendations of Lady Corston. At the moment, the number of women prisoners is going down; it is the number of adult males that is still rising slightly.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that, in spite of the proposed changes, support for children will remain, and that legal aid will be available in cases of domestic violence, child abuse, child abduction and enforced child adoption, to ensure that children do not suffer?
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Just so that we can judge the Lord Chancellor’s performance, will he tell us how many fewer foreign national prisoners there will be in our jails in June 2012? Perhaps he could also tell us which new countries he expects to sign agreements with over the next 12 months. From experience, I think that he will find that that is not as easy as he thinks.
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman will be surprised to learn that there are 1,000 fewer foreign national prisoners now than there were when the previous Government left office. I agree with him that this is very difficult to achieve, although we are pursuing transfer of prisoner agreements, and the new transfer arrangements with the EU are coming into effect. We are also working with the UK Border Agency to try to improve its effectiveness in moving people promptly. We are working at this, and so far, we are doing 1,000 better than he did.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Harlow Welfare Rights and Advice and the citizens advice bureau are deeply concerned about the proposed centralised telephone service for all but emergency cases. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that that will not add an unnecessary level of impersonal bureaucracy or prevent advice from reaching vulnerable people? Will he also look into the availability of legal aid in cases of criminal negligence, so that those who have been harmed can have access to justice?
Mr Clarke
I had better refer my hon. Friend to the consultation document. He has taken up this matter in the past, and we have readdressed the question after listening to his and other people’s recommendations. We have defined much more closely the use of the telephone advice system and concentrated on those areas in which we think that it is of value. When he looks at our response to the consultation in detail, I think he will find that we have gone in the direction that he would have wished.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I note that the Justice Secretary has said that legal aid will no longer be routinely available in clinical negligence cases. That will cause a huge problem: people will be denied justice and compensation after suffering injury or worse as a result of malpractice or clinical negligence. Will he explain his justification for that decision?
Mr Clarke
Well, 80% of clinical negligence cases are already undertaken on a no win, no fee basis. Only 20% by number are done using legal aid. That is why we think that no win, no fee is probably the better way forward, and also why we will implement Sir Rupert Jackson’s recommendations to ensure that the costs to all parties are kept down and in proportion. Far too often under the pre-Jackson rules, the health service has found itself paying out at least as much in legal costs as in compensation to victims. On the whole, negligence cases have moved steadily towards no win, no fee arrangements for those who cannot afford the fees. That gives wider access, because legal aid is restricted through a very tight means test.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Longer sentences on their own have clearly failed to cap reoffending. May I therefore urge the Lord Chancellor to press ahead with his radical and right-wing plan to get private companies into prisons to deliver serious rehabilitation that actually works?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with whom I agree. Of course one of the things that we should address is the cost of running prisons. We all want to address the efficiency with which prisons are run, just as much as we wish to address who is sent there and how many we can accommodate. I am glad to say that we have carried out a very successful tendering exercise and saved a lot of money, and I hope also potentially improved the regimes in those prisons. We intend to do the same thing again. Personally, I have no ideological hang-up about whether the successful bidder is a public sector or private sector bidder: we want the best bidder and the best quality regime at the lowest cost. That has to go hand in hand with sentencing reform. This is exciting, but it is also a much better way of running a prison system.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently and in a jocular fashion say to the Secretary of State that he should not be like a cruise ship in rotation? The House wishes to hear him. He swivels around, but it is helpful if he faces the House; I would be obliged to him if he did so.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has made much of his desire to have alternative dispute resolution, which he considers to be better—in family law, for example. Presumably, he is thinking of mediation. Has he made any realistic assessment of the costs and of on whom those costs would fall? Will they fall on individuals or will there be some cost to his Department, which might undermine the reductions he hopes to achieve in legal aid?
Mr Clarke
My apologies, Mr Speaker. Probably the problem with my political career is that I have not swivelled enough on occasions.
I believe mediation is a much better way of resolving all kinds of family and other disputes. The taxpayer will continue to pay for mediation; indeed, the mediators will be trained lawyers. Many people will take part in a much better process of resolving disputes. We are planning to increase the amount spent on mediation by £5 million, as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) tells me, in order to make savings by reducing the amount of unnecessary adversarial litigation that we fund.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that mediation is no panacea and that it can fail badly in family cases where there is an imbalance in power?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend has much greater expertise on the practice of family law than I do, so I rely on her and listen to her opinions with great attention. I have discussed these matters with her before. We have to get the balance right. At the moment, the generosity of the legal aid system compared with other systems is bringing more things into adversarial litigation than would otherwise be the case. Expansion of mediation is the better way of proceeding, and I hope that my hon. Friend will contribute her expertise to our development of the mediation system.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has spoken about the need for alternatives to the courts, so will he tell us what alternatives are available to victims of human rights abuses by multinationals, as in the Trafigura case, if the success fee on which many of those cases depend is no longer recoverable?
Mr Clarke
If, as I gather from her question, that case was conducted on a no win, no fee basis—I am not sure about that—as I announced a few weeks ago, such cases will become much cheaper for all parties as a result of the changes that we propose to make in the light of Sir Rupert Jackson’s recommendations. Legal aid will still be available in suitable cases concerning human rights. We are not resiling from those areas where the taxpayer needs to finance the small man against the state or the giant administration.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I welcome many aspects of the Justice Secretary’s announcement, including greater clarity on sentencing, measures to tackle drugs, and improvements in the original legal aid proposals. Will he confirm that the Government remain committed to restorative justice, which victims give a high satisfaction rating, to probation, which is key to the tackling of reoffending, and to the not-for-profit sector? Will he confirm that no further cuts will be made in the legal aid budget or the probation service, and that he will work hard to ensure that the not-for-profit sector receives additional funds to support its work?
Mr Clarke
We have recommended the extension of restorative justice from the start. The more I come across it, the clearer it is to me that it is very welcome to victims and can be made very successful. We are continuing unswervingly in that regard, and intend to make more use of the system.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of the probation service in tackling reoffending. We should perhaps try to make the probation service better where it needs improving, but we will not be able to improve reoffending rates if no one is supervising the offenders or their behaviour on licence. I have seen reports suggesting that we are going to fill the so-called gaps in our funding—which are pretty small in comparison with what we are saving overall—by cutting the probation service, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that it has not been singled out more than any other area. We are looking for efficiencies everywhere, but we are not bouncing away from one possibility in order to cut the probation service simply to save money.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Will the Lord Chancellor reconsider provision for citizens advice bureaux, given that last year my local CAB dealt with 14,000 of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in my constituency?
Mr Clarke
Only 15% of CAB funding comes from my Department, and about 50% of CABs receive no legal aid funding at all. However, I agree with the hon. Lady about the value of good CABs. Their quality varies, but the best are very good. I am anxious for us to do what we can to strengthen CABs, as are my colleagues in other Departments: we are considering what we can do to help them across Government. I am doing my best, and we will settle on some support eventually. It will not be as much as the CABs want, but I think that we will be able to help.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on listening to the consultation and rowing back on some of the more damaging proposals. There is clearly much in the statement—although by no means all—that we can support. I understand, however, that the Government are proposing to make breaching suspended prison sentences punishable by a fine. Will my right hon. and learned Friend take this opportunity to make clear that only one punishment should be available to anyone who breaches a suspended prison sentence, namely being sent to prison?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful for the kind remarks with which my hon. Friend began his question. It seems that he agrees with a fair number of the judiciary on the proposal for a discount for early guilty pleas, and I hope that he is equally in line with the judiciary on such matters as the abolition of indeterminate sentences. We shall all begin to make some worthwhile progress on the whole field if we collaborate.
Those who breach suspended sentences are normally punished by having to serve the suspended sentence on top of any other sentence that has been imposed. However, all such cases require a little more flexibility. All that we are adding is the possibility of flexibility in some cases. Adding a fine might be preferable to making the total sentence far too long: it might be best to find some other way of dealing with an offender.
Parliament is, of course, entitled to specify sentences, but if we do that in too much detail we will fail to deliver justice, because we will not leave enough leeway and enough options for the judges and magistrates who sit and hear about all the facts of a particular case and all the circumstances of the offender.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Is the Justice Secretary now on probation, and does he anticipate time added on or early release?
Mr Clarke
I think that I have been on probation for the past few decades. Sooner or later I will get the hang of it, but I am working at it. I am not going to launch into a description of reports in the newspapers. I am sure that most of my colleagues envy my ability to get into the headlines, but the truth is rather far away from all that.
The Prime Minister and I, and the Cabinet, have developed these policies together. We have moved along together—[Laughter.] Yes, we have. We were saying the same things about policy 12 months ago, and we are saying the same things about policy today. What matters is whether the policy actually works. These proposals will be judged on whether in three or four years’ time people can see that we have sorted out the appalling mess in the criminal justice system that we inherited from Labour.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Reducing reoffending will require not only painstaking work in prisons, but working with reoffenders when they leave prison—actually at the prison gate and afterwards. Will my right hon. and learned Friend say a little more about the funding for that, and about how voluntary and community groups will be able to access it to support offenders when they leave prison and in the critical few weeks and months afterwards?
Mr Clarke
That is why we have proposals to improve rehabilitation and reduce reoffending by introducing a payment-by-results system. That will normally involve consortia of people coming together to rehabilitate prisoners, and payment will be based on the results they achieve. The first pilots are already in place: we have contracts in Peterborough and Doncaster, and others are about to start in Manchester and several other local authority areas. Ideally, they will involve, for example, a private sector body raising the capital with a voluntary body and a not-for-profit organisation; they can come together in a suitable consortium, first to start doing something about the offender when he is in prison and then following up on that and trying to make it far less likely that he will reoffend after he leaves prison. The payment-by-results approach to rehabilitation is one of the Government’s most significant innovations in this field, and it is making very good progress.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the availability of face-to-face welfare advice from advice agencies such as citizens advice bureaux and law centres in 2013 when the Welfare Reform Bill will come into effect at precisely the same time as welfare benefits are removed from scope?
Mr Clarke
I have already stated that I am not in a position today to say what we can do to support citizens advice bureaux and similar organisations providing advice in the legal field and other areas such as welfare. The Government are actively considering that, and I hope we will be in a position to make an announcement soon. Part of the problem is relevant to my field, but it extends into other areas such as welfare reform. The Government are conscious of the fact that we must do something to fill some of the unavoidable gaps that have been left at present, mainly by local authorities being forced to cut the grants they can give.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
This Government inherited the most expensive criminal justice system per capita in the world. As £100 million is being spent on administering legal aid through the Legal Services Commission, and as there are three different departments of the National Offender Management Service all doing separate kinds of commissioning—not to mention the extremely high cost per prison place—may I suggest that there are many areas where savings can be found without cutting front-line services?
Mr Clarke
We are abolishing the Legal Services Commission. One of the most frequent complaints that I get about the system is the sheer bureaucracy, and it has had serious problems in the past. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), tells me that we will save £8 million a year simply by bringing this in-house, as we are doing, but we intend to save quite a lot more on the administration of the system than that. It is hopeless, given our prime duty of protecting the public, if we waste money in that area and make it one of the most expensive and fast-growing areas of Government expenditure. We hope to make the system effective and targeted, and for it to do what we should be doing, which is protecting the public from crime and giving access to justice to the vulnerable.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Legal aid is a lifeline to those in need, often at a time of crisis in their lives. This Bill, and Government cuts to local government expenditure, will cut that lifeline to tens of thousands of citizens in Birmingham and threaten the future of our citizens advice bureaux and advice centres. Does the Secretary of State not accept that justice for the better-off alone is no justice at all?
Mr Clarke
That is just a very broad-brush defence of what the hon. Gentleman believes is the need to carry on paying £38 a head per taxpayer for the current legal aid system. Of course some legal aid is absolutely essential—crucial—to the liberties of our subjects and it is one of the standards of our society that we provide legal aid for people in extremis who would otherwise have no means of urging their cause. We have this grand, across-the-board system that finances what we can sometimes see is an inferior way of resolving disputes if we look for better methods of doing so. That will apply in Birmingham as elsewhere. The previous Government knew that the system had to be reformed; they simply could not make up their mind about what they were going to do to reform it. We are making some very well-considered proposals, which have been consulted on and thus modified to a certain extent, for getting the system back to a sensible size.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor said that he had been personally impressed by the representations of the senior judiciary. Given that they said it would not be right as a matter either of principle or of practice to go beyond the maximum discount of one third, who are the wishy-washy liberals who have induced this row and all the fuss and problems that we have witnessed in the press over the past few weeks?
Mr Clarke
We did have quite a lot of support and it was not all from wishy-washy liberals. We also had some opponents who opposed the policy for reasons that I completely disagreed with. I was impressed by the input I got from serious people in the criminal justice system who are all used to discounts for early guilty pleas. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with criminal justice knows that there has always been a discount for pleading guilty early. The public do not know that and they do not like it when they are first told it, but there are good reasons for it. However, a reduction by half proved to be too much and I could not find any other way of resolving the issue and getting over the undoubted difficulties, so if there are any bleeding-heart liberals left who still think we are going to have a reduction by half, I am sorry to disappoint them, but at least my hon. Friend and I are now agreed on where we are.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that many prisoners have very poor levels of skills and limited work experience. Will he tell us how his plans for prisoner working will improve their employability prospects when they leave prison and what plans he has to link education with prisoner working?
Mr Clarke
I agree with all that the hon. Lady has said and we will try to produce programmes that deliver what she obviously hopes we will do. First, we have all the work experience in prison that we are going to provide. We will try to organise serious work as much as possible with the collaboration of outside businesses which, for social responsibility reasons, are often very attracted to getting involved in this area. The work inside prison should be more meaningful and more like the ordinary disciplines of working life outside. It should, with luck, add to the training and employability of those inside. Then we have to tie in with the Department for Work and Pensions’ Work programme and what it is doing to try to get people skills and employment outside. Having a job to go to greatly increases the chances that an offender might not offend again and have more victims—that they might start to go straight—so this is a very important area and we are proposing to make very significant changes in tackling that side of the problem.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Last year’s Conservative party manifesto stated:
“Many people feel that sentencing in Britain is dishonest and misleading.”
In order to start to restore the public’s trust and confidence in our justice system, if it is a good idea to introduce minimum prison sentences for certain knife crimes, why cannot we have such minimum sentences for other classes of crime?
Mr Clarke
The honesty in sentencing issue concerns the fact that it is not currently explained to people that sentences are likely to involve so much time in prison and a further amount outside on licence but subject to recall. We will see whether we can address that and make people understand more clearly what sentences actually imply. It was the previous Government, not us, who moved the amount of sentences being served from two thirds to half—a move that we intend to reverse in the cases of the most serious sexual offenders and violent criminals when we move away from imprisonment for public protection sentences to a more sensible system of determinate sentences.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I welcome this latest and expertly executed U-turn from the Government. Cannot the Justice Secretary see that this whole row, as well as the cuts to probation, the cuts to youth offending teams, the banned people being allowed to volunteer in classrooms and the failure to close all the loopholes on the monitoring of sex offenders together create a very ugly picture of the Government’s attitude to victims of crime?
Mr Speaker
Order. I think Opposition Front Benchers have taken some sort of tickling powder. I have been listening with bated breath to the Secretary of State for the best part of 20 years and I want to continue listening to him.
Mr Clarke
We are aiming at a package of radical reform of sentencing to make it more effective in protecting the public, and at the same time making a substantial contribution to reducing the country’s deficit, which is vital to our economic recovery. We consulted on what is a leviathan of a Bill, with a huge range of proposals. We have changed some of it and have come up with what we intended, which is actually a better balanced package of good reform of the sentencing system. It achieves the savings we wanted. When I want to exercise a U-turn in future I shall give the hon. Lady notice, but this is not such a manoeuvre.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The opportunistic shroud-waving of the Opposition obscures the fact that Labour never enacted the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996, which would have allowed victims to be compensated by the work of prisoners. Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm the welcome news for my constituents that vexatious, long drawn-out and costly taxpayer-funded immigration appeals are coming to an end?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for welcoming our moves on prisoners’ earnings and their use to support victims. I agree that we have too litigious a society, and we should not have a legal aid system that just contributes to it. Our legal aid reforms are much overdue and will get us back to looking at more sensible ways of upholding the rights of citizens and enabling them to settle their disputes.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Will not this U-turn on sentencing mean that some of the long-term savings planned by the Ministry of Justice will no longer be achievable? If that is the case, which other parts of the justice budget will be cut to compensate?
Mr Clarke
Roughly, the spending reductions we are making are from £9 billion a year to £7 billion a year. The discount for early guilty pleas was meant to contribute about £100 million of that. The move away from indeterminate sentences to a more sensible determinate sentence-based system will in the long run save quite a lot of money, because at the moment thousands of people are in prison and no one has the first idea when or if they will ever get out. Of course we have to readdress the issue, now that we have consulted; we have now settled the financial position with the Chief Secretary and will look for more efficiencies and savings. I am quite confident that we will find them, because so far we are making very good progress in making considerable reductions in the bloated expenditure that we inherited.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree with me and my previous experience, not only as a wishy-washy liberal but as a serving police officer, that one of the major barriers to rehabilitating offenders is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974? Thirty-seven years is quite long enough to wait for a reform. When shall we see it?
Mr Clarke
I hope soon. I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s views, with which I have considerable sympathy. We take very seriously the workings of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and its impact on reoffending and rehabilitation, and policy is being finalised at the moment.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Will there be specific provision in the Bill on children and legal aid? In particular, will children in local authority care be able to access legal aid to challenge the local authority’s decisions?
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I particularly welcome the plans to introduce a full working week across the prison estate, and the fact that the money earned by prisoners will go towards supporting victims. As a former RAF officer who was involved in convening courts martial, I wonder what opportunity my right hon. and learned Friend has had to look at the work ethic in the military corrective training centre in Colchester.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s welcome for our policy. Let no one underestimate: it is going to be difficult to extend the work ethic and a work programme throughout prisons. It will steadily be achieved and we are embarking on it. There are good examples in the Prison Service now—one or two, where a working week is in place for the prisoners. That needs to be rolled out throughout the estate. I will certainly take advantage of looking at the approach in the military prisons and their work-based ethic, which I understand to be the case, though I have not visited one for many years.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I am beginning to wonder whether it was a mistake to separate the Ministry of Justice from the Home Office, because we now seem to have one Ministry for arresting people and another for letting them go. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to get rid of his reputation as a wishy-washy liberal, will he go the whole hog and rename his Bill the “Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (Hang ’em, Flog ’em and Birch ’em) Bill”. That might satisfy Members on the Conservative Benches.
Mr Clarke
I have to admit that I thought that was a rather extraordinary way of reorganising the Departments when it was first done, and so did the judges. They greatly resisted going into the Ministry of Justice because they could see that the vast explosion of expenditure on prisons would crowd out the budget for the courts. The Ministry of Justice is a bit like a nest with a cuckoo in it—[Interruption.] It is not me. The previous Government kept feeding the Prison Service—exploding the Prison Service—and then cutting expenditure on every other aspect of the Department’s activities as it was thrown out of the nest. We need to stabilise the prison population, get the costs under control, use it more effectively and have a more intelligent way of working with the rest of the Department to deliver things.
The long-term future of the Department will be looked at. In my experience, the reorganisation of Departments hardly ever achieves any worthwhile objectives, whatever the Prime Minister of the day thought he was achieving. Too much confusion is caused by moving them all around and it is best to stick with the structure that we have, but I would not have gone for the present structure in the first place, if I had had anything to do with it.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
Even after these changes, we will be spending between four and 10 times as much on legal aid as other countries, some with similar jurisdictions to ours. Does this not imply that there is a structural issue in parts of our legal system, and is there not more that we could do to address this structural issue in the years ahead, in which case we would make real savings?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend talks common sense about where we are with the legal aid system. I still think it is important to have a legal aid system to enable vulnerable people and people at serious risk to protect their rights, even when they cannot afford a lawyer, but there are plenty of other things wrong with the justice system. We are bringing forward proposals to try to improve the efficiency of the courts. At present the courts provide a daunting experience to any member of the public who finds himself unlucky enough to have to go through any form of litigation. The delays, waste of time and cost are almost endemic in the system.
We are tackling the efficiency of the criminal justice system—that applies to the civil justice system just as much—to try to ensure that the whole legal process becomes part of the public service and is there to be used by people who have to use it, or have to do justice, with rather more efficiency and rather less daunting waste and inconvenience than is often the case at present. The costs must be brought down through large parts of the service.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor is a respected parliamentarian. It has become increasingly clear during the statement that he does not agree with the sentencing policy that the Prime Minister has foisted on him in relation to the reduction of sentences. Why does he not be honest, be true to himself, retain respect and tell the Prime Minister where to go?
Mr Clarke
The Prime Minister, other colleagues in the Government and I have all had perfectly reasonable discussions about the criminal justice system. We all presented a package of proposals for consultation and we are presenting the same package today in response to that consultation. This is a sensible way of running a Government. I realise that politics has become a branch of the celebrity culture, but the idea that what is really interesting is whether the Prime Minister and I are arguing or whether the Prime Minister and I are agreeing is largely obscuring what I think is an extremely positive package of proposals which, after consultation, is better fitted to meet the aspirations that we all had when we embarked on the policy in the first place.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
It is a sad fact that half of adults leaving prison are reconvicted within a year of release, a legacy of the previous Government. I therefore welcome the proposal for a work programme for offenders in prisons. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that this should surely provide prisoners with a brighter future and prevent them from becoming a menace to society again, not least to the law-abiding citizens of Erewash?
Mr Clarke
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The figure she repeats—one in two ex-offenders will be caught and convicted within a year of leaving prison—is truly extraordinary. I agree that proper change is needed. We need to protect the public from the worst of that, and where prisoners have the gumption to respond and try to get themselves out of their way of life and become honest citizens again, we should make more of them do so. I am sure that that would be appreciated in Erewash, as it would across the rest of the country.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State invited us to look at what the situation will be four years down the line. Does he not expect there to be a larger and more expensive prison population, with prisoners serving very long sentences for some of the offences for which he is increasing the tariff, and that there will be a large number of people denied access to legal aid, fewer advice services, fewer CABs and a lot of people very disgruntled that justice is not available to them because they are too poor?
Mr Clarke
I always believe that policy is best judged by results and that half the fuss that surrounds policy making completely fails to predict what will go right and wrong thereafter. I firmly believe—I am quite confident—this package of policies will not have the results that the hon. Gentleman fears, but we will both know in four years’ time. The whole purpose of the policies is to achieve the precise opposite of what he holds up as a possible outcome. We had to have radical reform, and it has to be carried forward in a business-like and sensible way to deliver a criminal justice system and access to civil justice of the kind we require.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today that serious sexual offenders, such as those recently convicted for rape and assault in Barton street and Eastgate street in Gloucester, will now serve two thirds of their sentence in jail, rather than half. They will also welcome the fact that illegal immigrants will no longer have access to taxpayer-funded legal aid. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes run by organisations such as the Nelson Trust near my constituency in Stroud have an important role to play in these new policies?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is far more sensible to have an appropriate determinate sentence, and serious sexual and violent offenders—those serving longer sentences—should go back to having to serve two thirds before being eligible for release. Indeed, if the Parole Board thinks that they should not be released, they should probably serve their whole term. That is far superior to the lottery of the IPP that we have at the moment. I strongly agree that we must do something to encourage the many people in the voluntary sector who want to work with ex-offenders and can successfully help those who can be rehabilitated to get themselves out of a life of crime.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Parliamentarians on both sides of the House will welcome not only the Secretary of State’s statement, but the whole process. To be helpful to him, I wonder whether he could solve the economic problem overnight by sending the 11,000 foreign nationals incarcerated in prisons in England and Wales back home on a plane tomorrow and forget their human rights.
Mr Clarke
There are some measures in the consultation on the release of foreign national prisoners after they have served their tariff and conditional cautions for people who go away on the basis that we will not let them come back. Those are intended to reduce the rather ridiculous proportion of foreigners in the prison population. We are working with the UK Border Agency on the difficult problem of how to get people out of the country when they have no papers and the receiving country will not take them. My instincts are entirely those of my hon. Friend’s. It is quite absurd that 13% of the prison population are foreign nationals and we must work to get that figure down.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am keen to accommodate remaining Back Benchers, but I reiterate my ritual appeal for brevity.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
On legal aid for medical negligence cases, can the Secretary of State reassure the House that he has made an assessment and we are not going to end up transferring additional costs to the NHS Litigation Authority?
Mr Clarke
Obviously, the NHS Litigation Authority has been involved in our consultation, but at the moment I see no reason why that should be the consequence at all. Indeed, I think—I hope—that the NHS will be spared some of the more speculative litigation that has taken place, whereby people really hope that somebody will pay a kind of settlement to avoid incurring the further costs of resisting the claim. In genuine cases, we have to ensure access to justice, of course, because clinical negligence claims are very important, and we think that the no win, no fee system, as modified, is the best way of doing so.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor said in his statement, “Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low,” and sadly that is the case. Does he agree that only when sentencing policy more truly reflects public opinion will that confidence return?
Mr Clarke
Of course, and that is why I have stressed some of the measures that we are introducing today to try to send the right messages about serious violent and sexual crime and about knife crime. No sensible or civilised person in this country suggests anything other than serious punishment for crimes of that kind.
It is very difficult to win public confidence, because in the course of an ordinary life most people’s contact with the criminal justice system is very sporadic indeed, so most people do not know anything about indeterminate sentences, discounts for early guilty pleas or any of the things that we talk about here. I have a rather sad feeling that for as long as I can remember opinion polls have always said that people think sentences are too short and the criminal justice system is too lax, but, on sensible public opinion, we are their servants and we are trying to reassure them that the criminal justice system will, indeed, protect them, as it should do.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that time in prison should be time well spent and, therefore, that education and training, rather than just leaving prisoners to languish in their cells, is absolutely essential?
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who has expertise in that subject, and I am working very closely with my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Work and Pensions. What they are doing to improve the training and work opportunities of people in this country has to include ex-offenders, and we have to ensure that in parallel we do more to get our ex-offenders settled in work wherever the ex-offender is prepared to make the effort to get into honest employment.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and, in particular, the abolition of legal aid for squatters resisting eviction. Can he clarify how much was spent on that in the past 10 years?
Mr Clarke
No. I shall have to write to my hon. Friend with that information, but I am grateful for his welcome. I do not know whether anyone would oppose this, but it is plainly wrong to make legal aid ordinarily available to people who, by definition, are squatting in properties for which they do not have a legal claim.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Although I acknowledge the need for cuts to legal aid, may I share with the Secretary of State my concerns about local advice agencies, which sometimes provide essential local advice to the most vulnerable? Will he work closely with his ministerial colleagues to ensure that some provision is made for such agencies to continue?
Mr Clarke
I will take back to my ministerial colleagues the fact that several respected Members have made that point quite strongly in the course of these exchanges. We are discussing it, and we know that we have to respond to it. On the question of which Department will eventually announce the outcome, I am not quite sure, because several Departments are involved, but we are all seeking to find a solution to it.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
The Howard League for Penal Reform’s recent report on short sentences makes it clear that one reason for the devastatingly high level of reoffending after sentences of under six months is a lack of adequate resettlement support for those leaving prison. In retaining shorter sentences, will the Secretary of State reassure me that more will be done to ensure that such prisoners are helped to have a useful and purposeful life after leaving prison?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis. The reoffending rates are very bad for short-term offenders because they are often let out again without the follow-up that is given to more serious criminals. Of course, the problem is that one cannot simply extend the sentence. Short-term sentences remain suitable for some people. Indeed, some people do not really need help but would benefit from being put in prison—for example, uninsured drivers, about whom I was talking earlier today. People who are otherwise respectable and take no notice of the law by driving while uninsured will soon take notice if they are given a short prison sentence. They do not require rehabilitation when they are released; most will almost certainly not drive without insurance again. As for the others, we are where we are. Some people leave the magistrates no alternative because everything else has been tried and they keep offending. If we could get stronger community sentences and make them more magistrate-friendly, some of the people about whom my hon. Friend is concerned might be put on to a more constructive path that will help them to stop offending.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
As a London MP, I warmly welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s proposal to introduce mandatory sentences for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. He will know that many knife crimes are committed by younger offenders. May I implore him to send a similarly unambiguous message to those offenders?
Mr Clarke
I think the message from the whole House is that we disapprove of the carrying and using of knives. We keep striving to reverse what recently became, particularly in parts of London, almost a fashion for knife crime. I am sure that the offence that we are going to introduce will reinforce the message we are giving. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has also announced a whole package of measures on knife crime. The Government will take my hon. Friend’s advice in giving very high priority to this subject.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
The Justice Secretary touched on the issue of clinical negligence, particularly in cases where litigation costs can often far exceed the actual sum insured. To echo the sentiment expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), can he give the House any guidance on measures that can be introduced to ensure an early resolution? The NHS Litigation Authority, trusts, GPs and consultants are often loth to admit liability, and that leads to undue costs and delayed and protracted negotiations.
Mr Clarke
A lot of that lies within the province of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. Many people in the health service realise that the key way to proceed is to settle claims and pay up promptly when someone has obviously made a mistake, while fighting resolutely cases brought by people who are acting speculatively. Many cases could be resolved by better complaints procedures or by attempts to discuss the matter. One of the things we are exploring is the early exchange of reports so that both sides know exactly what expert evidence is available to them and do not hold their own evidence back, because that paves the way to a resolution of the claim. I am sure that everyone in the NHS is as anxious as my hon. Friend and I are to see some progress on this. Perhaps making legal aid less available in this area will stop some people being quite so litigious and make them a little more constructive about how to sort out a proper remedy.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend’s statements about knife crime will be welcomed by my constituent, Yvonne Upton, who has been campaigning since she lost her son, Connor, to somebody who chose to carry a knife on a night out.
As regards drugs in prison, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that under the previous Government too many prisoners were on long-term methadone prescriptions and parked in state-induced dependency, and that getting those prisoners drug free with an abstinence programme is key to proper reform?
Mr Clarke
There are people with better clinical expertise on drug rehabilitation than I, but I share my hon. Friend’s instincts. We are seeking to make proper drug rehabilitation programmes work. There is obviously a danger that it sometimes becomes easier to maintain people on methadone, and that is going nowhere in some cases. I am sure that methadone has a place in all this, because people with more knowledge than I have insist that it does, but we are looking for proper rehabilitation wherever possible, with the aim of abstinence and making the person drug free.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to making our prisons more drug free. A constituent of mine has become addicted while in prison and is desperate to get off his addiction lest he be drawn into circles of crime on his release. Can my right hon. and learned Friend make a commitment to do more for such people who want to get clean and go straight?
Mr Clarke
I hope that we can do more. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health is looking at drug rehabilitation services generally for people who do not offend, as well as for people who get themselves into trouble with the law. This is a very important area. The majority of crime in this country is linked directly or indirectly to drug abuse of some kind. The majority of prisoners have indulged in the abuse of drugs shortly before their admission to prison. It is essential that we respond to my hon. Friend’s plea that such programmes are supported and made more effective.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that more life sentences will be available to judges when dealing with serious, repeat and violent offenders. What offences that will cover and, specifically, which repeat offences will eventually carry the life tariff?
Mr Clarke
I think there will be an automatic increase in the number of life sentences when we get rid of IPPs. When indeterminate sentences were introduced, some of the people who were given IPPs were in really dangerous categories and had been convicted of offences for which life imprisonment was already the maximum offence. When we change it, judges will put such people back on life sentences. The whole IPP experiment was a mistake. We have indeterminate sentences in this country—they are called life sentences. They are better managed and are the proper way to deal with the most serious offenders. I think that some of the most serious offenders who get IPPs now will in the future get life sentences, just as judges always gave them before.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
Many of my constituents want reassurance that the victims of crime will be properly catered for in the new Bill. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the victims commissioner, and will he tell us a little about them?
Mr Clarke
I have very welcome conversations with the victims commissioner from time to time, and very much hope to involve her more closely than has been the case in the development of policy. Obviously, the concerns of victims should be at the heart of all that we do. I was told as I came in that the victims commissioner, Louise Casey, has just issued a statement about our announcements today. It is quite long and I will not read it all. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] Well, I will read just the first sentence. She says that she sincerely welcomes
“the government’s response to the Green Paper consultation”
announced today. I will try to keep her support because it is extremely important that victims have confidence in what we are doing.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The transfer of foreign national prisoners is obviously not a simple issue. However, last year, Humberside police and East Riding of Yorkshire council brought to my attention the case of an EU national who had committed 33 crimes against the good people of Goole. We were told that deportation, if it did take place, could take up to two years. Surely it is completely and utterly unacceptable for any EU national to be in a British jail; they should be in their own countries in their own jails. Any EU nationals who are released from our jails should be deported immediately.
Mr Clarke
I am glad to say that there is an agreement on the transfer of prisoners within the European Union—[Interruption.] Yes, it was negotiated by the previous Government and it will come into force in November this year. Off the top of my head, only two countries, Ireland and Poland, have derogated from it and are delaying implementation. I look forward to the proper transfer of prisoners to all the other countries. It means that British criminals will be brought to our prisons to complete their sentences and that foreign prisoners will be returned elsewhere. We will see who benefits. It is obviously very sensible from every point of view.
We constantly consider with the UK Border Agency the quicker removal of prisoners who are due for deportation. I concede to the UKBA that deportation is not always as simple in individual cases as it is made to sound. It is difficult to get some countries to accept former prisoners, and it is, of course, difficult to get some people to go to other countries. Sometimes, their very identity or nationality is the subject of constant dispute.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Should not judges and magistrates be made aware of the success or otherwise of their individual sentencing decisions, by being kept informed of the reoffending rates of the offenders whom they send down?
Mr Clarke
There is a lot of work going on about the transparency of justice and the publication of local figures. We all need to know more detail about what is being done at local level and what the consequences are of the administration of justice in our localities. I am sure that all the best magistrates would welcome some feedback and more information about what is happening as a result of their sentencing policy.
Points of Order
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have today, for the second week in a row, had a written statement, followed by a prime ministerial press conference, followed by an oral statement. Last week it was on the Health and Social Care Bill, today it was on sentencing and legal aid. It is pretty unusual to have two statements on the same subject on the same day, but do you share my concern that it is discourteous to the House, because it means that the media have a chance to question Ministers on policy—the Prime Minister in the last two cases—before Members of this House get the chance to ask questions? As such, it is not in keeping with the spirit of our rules.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for notice of it. I have made clear my view that important announcements of policy should be made first to this House, with the opportunity of questioning Ministers. Although I understand the pressures of the 24/7 news agenda, that remains my firm view. I am therefore uneasy at sequences of events in which a written ministerial statement is followed, or even preceded, by briefing outside the House, with the opportunity to question Ministers in the House by means of an urgent question or following an oral statement coming only some time later.
The House will recall that, on 20 July last year, it asked the Procedure Committee to consider whether the rules of the House should be changed. The Committee reported in February, and the Government’s reply was published a month ago. There are thus matters awaiting resolution by the House itself. In the meantime, the right hon. Gentleman may be assured that I will remain vigilant in the House’s interests, and will be ready to use my powers to permit questioning or debate if I see fit to do so, and indeed for such period as I see fit. I hope that is helpful.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to show that there are concerns on both sides of the House, and to tell the shadow Leader of the House that I did not think he went far enough. Last night on Sky News, Jon Craig reported not only the detail of the statement but the media schedule. The policy was also reported in this morning’s newspaper. That clearly cannot be in order under current practices.
Mr Speaker
I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I think that the House will have noted it as well. I do not think I need to add to what he has said, but I am nevertheless grateful to him.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We shall shortly be considering a very important motion on the recommittal of the Health and Social Care Bill, and I understand that the Secretary of State for Health is not going to be here to move it and be questioned on it. Have you had any communication from the Secretary of State about his presence or otherwise, or has he simply resigned or gone out looking for another job before he is pushed?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. I would simply say that no, I have had no indication on that matter. Of course, she and I came into the House together in 1997, and she will be as aware as I am that precisely who moves motions on the part of the Government is a matter for the Government. I think I know the Minister who is going to move the motion, and if he wants to respond he is perfectly welcome to do so. He is under no obligation, but he may.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It might help you and the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) if I point out that the precedents for recommittals are not that common, but that if one looks at the previous recommittal, it was done in 2003, by the then Minister of State, one Mr Tony McNulty.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Minister of State. I think that we will leave that as a no-score draw or a score draw, as the case may be. I am happy to take any further points of order, but if the House’s appetite has been satisfied, we will move on.
Bill Presented
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Secretary Kenneth Clarke, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mrs Secretary May, Mr Secretary Lansley, the Attorney-General and Mr Jonathan Djanogly, presented a Bill to make provision about legal aid; to make further provision about funding legal services; to make provision about costs and other amounts awarded in civil and criminal proceedings; to make provision about sentencing offenders, including provision about release on licence or otherwise; to make provision about bail and about remand otherwise than on bail; to make provision about the employment, payment and transfer of persons detained in prisons and other institutions; to make provision about penalty notices for disorderly behaviour and cautions; and to create new offences of threatening with a weapon in public or on school premises.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 205) with explanatory notes (Bill 205—EN).
Jobcentre Plus (Wales)
17:17 - The House divided: - Ayes: 21 / Noes: 127 - Question accordingly negatived.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to make provision for the transfer to the Welsh Government of certain functions relating to the work of Jobcentre Plus offices in Wales; and for connected purposes.
The Bill’s aim is to devolve responsibility for elements of Jobcentre Plus’s work in Wales to the Welsh Government. I am grateful for the support I have received from Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party, the Alliance party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and the Labour party.
The argument for the measure is straightforward. The Welsh Government have responsibility for education and training under the Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills portfolio, and for the economy under the Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science portfolio. They operate a large-scale programme of social inclusion in particularly deprived areas, one aim of which is to improve employability. Jobcentre Plus will work through the Work programme with large numbers of Welsh people who are looking for work, but the responsibility for that activity in Wales lies with the Government here. I think that getting unemployed people back to work would be more effective, better organised and co-ordinated, and that accountability would be much stronger, if that was the Welsh Government’s responsibility, working closely of course with the Government in London.
It would be up to the Welsh Government to determine how to organise matters, but elements of a possible model might be derived from Northern Ireland, where the Department for Employment and Learning works to promote learning and skills, to prepare people for work and to support the economy. Its objectives are to promote economic, social and personal development through high quality learning, research and skills training, and to help people into employment. It works with individuals to improve their skills and qualifications, with those who need support and guidance to progress their employment, including self-employment, and with businesses in the public and private sectors.
Some of the Department’s key activities include: enhancing the provision of learning and skills, including entrepreneurship, enterprise, management and leadership; increasing research and development, creativity and innovation; developing and maintaining a framework of employment rights and responsibilities, and, crucially, helping individuals acquire jobs, including through self-employment, and improving the links between employment programmes and skills development.
All that offers many elements that we could adopt in Wales to tailor a comprehensive employment service, better suited to the needs of our country. That need, I am sorry to say, is great.
I am glad that unemployment in Wales was lower in the last quarter, but it still stands at 115,000 people or 7.9%, with the United Kingdom level being 7.7%. The number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants increased in the last quarter by 1,700 to 72,000, and total employment was up at 1,349,000.
However, the number of economically inactive Welsh people stands at 480,000, including many older people, who find it particularly difficult to find a job. They represent 25.3% of the working-age Welsh population, compared with 23.3% for the UK as a whole. Most tellingly, 77,000 Welsh people have been without a job for 10 or more years. The need is indeed great.
My aim in the Bill is therefore to integrate better learning, skills and development and job finding, education and social action, enterprise and self-employment in Wales, all under the Welsh Government, to fashion them into a better organised and more coherent form. That change would help unemployed people build on their individual skills and find relevant and worthwhile employment that meets their needs and those of society. It would also help to promote Welsh business and enterprise, by working with the grain of the system of Welsh government in a simplified, one-stop model. Essentially, this is a common-sense matter of improving co-ordination and delivery, and of locating the task at the most local level where it can be best carried out.
I have concerns about the current system, and particularly about the Work programme. Currently, job seeking is all too often associated negatively in the public mind with claiming benefits. That creates a negative and often stigmatising view of the process, when it should be part of our wider contract between people and communities. We should assist in the provision of work, which allows people to pay taxes and contribute to the wider society. There is no reason why that negativity should be so, particularly if job seeking is linked with positive activities such as providing education and training, and enterprise and development. Job seeking could and should be viewed as positively as entrepreneurship is viewed.
Jobcentre staff do a difficult job in hard circumstances. It was difficult enough running the new deal in good times, but now times are very much harder. It is not simple or easy to find employment, especially for people who have been out of work for a long time and those who face a disability of some sort. We have many such people in Wales. People fear that, under the Work programme, some severely disadvantaged people will not be helped because there are insufficient funds to meet their more complex needs. The task in deprived areas will also be difficult, because there will be few job outcomes. People fear that such areas will be sidelined.
Ministers have said that the Work programme will tackle the endemic worklessness that has blighted so many communities for decades, but I fear that insufficient account has been taken of the differences between labour markets, the different conditions that businesses, especially small businesses, face, and the nature of education and training in Wales. In Wales, much of the expertise in such matters lies with the Welsh Government.
Furthermore, in Wales, the voluntary sector and the capacity of organisations to become subcontractors in the Work programme varies enormously. I have very competent and successful third sector employment organisations in my constituency, such as Agoriad and Antur Waunfawr, but in rural Wales in general we have a preponderance of voluntary bodies that do not employ professional staff. There must be doubts about the ability of some such organisations to participate.
Interestingly, Neil Lee, a senior economist at the Work Foundation, has pointed out that the
“Work programme is based on a national payment structure and does not take into account local and regional variations in labour demand…There is the danger that private contractors will focus on investing in places where they are more likely to get people into work to secure a return on investment.”
There are many such places in Wales, most notably the Rhondda, where I believe there is one job for every 120-odd people seeking it.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Will you mention me and my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) as well?
Hywel Williams
Be quiet.
The financial risk could be passed down to small, local voluntary sector organisations, which could be knocked out of the market as a result. There is a real danger of market failure.
Job search provisions should be devolved the Welsh Assembly, so that we can develop a Welsh solution to employment as part of a comprehensive solution to getting people into work and keeping them there. I commend the Bill to the House.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
It gives me no pleasure to oppose the Bill, because the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) is not only my constituency neighbour but my MP. I thought long and hard before deciding to oppose the Bill, but ultimately I believe strongly that it is a diversion from the issues facing us in the reform of the welfare state. The Government are currently introducing real and significant changes to the way in which we approach the welfare state and, more importantly, the way in which we deal with economic inactivity in Wales, and my concern is that the Bill would divert us from the need to ensure that people in Wales have the opportunity to work and contribute to society.
Despite the hon. Gentleman’s best intentions, the Bill would create confusion and a problem in establishing an equal and level playing field between England and Wales. The truth of the matter is that the Government have already embarked on a significant review of how Jobcentre Plus works, not just in Wales but throughout the United Kingdom, and I see no reason to complicate the situation in Wales. Nowhere in the United Kingdom is the need for the Work programme and changes to the welfare state greater than in Wales. Some of the figures are truly appalling. For example, the level of economic inactivity in the UK is about 23%, but in Wales that approaches 28%. In his constituency, the level is 27%, and in mine it is 25%. We need changes to the system that will create results, not bureaucratic changes moving powers from one place to another. We need results.
Economic inactivity rates are a symptom of the fact that the Welsh economy is far too dependent on the public sector. That is in no way an attack on the public sector. Many public sector workers do an immense amount of work ensuring that we have good services in our schools and hospitals, but we cannot continue with an economy in which about 70% of gross domestic product is produced by the public sector. We need the private sector to be able to play its full part in the economy, creating employment—full employment, I hope.
Some of the figures on job creation in Wales over the past year have been encouraging. That job creation is coming not from the public sector, but from the private sector, which we need to applaud. That is also a development that will be fully supported by the Work programme. The question we have to ask ourselves today is: would the changes proposed by the hon. Gentleman result in a single additional person going back to work, or would they simply lead to more confusion and further bureaucratic problems? With all due respect, I challenge him. He has in his constituency wards such Peblig where 34% of the population are in receipt of key state benefits, and the same is true in other wards in his constituency such as Marchog and Nantlle. Does he really believe that moving responsibility for Jobcentre Plus from London to Cardiff would result in a single individual moving from benefits to work? I doubt it very much.
In effect, the Bill shows the difference between the Conservative party in Wales, which believes in results, and the other parties there, such as Plaid, which believe in process. The reality is that results are what count, and in my view the Government’s Welfare Reform Bill proposals will create real change. However, we also need to think carefully about the proposal to link these major changes to the welfare state and the Work programme with the Welsh Assembly department for economic development. Economic development in Wales has, to be perfectly frank, been a basket-case since the Welsh Development Agency was abolished under the previous Labour Administration in Wales.
When the WDA was abolished we probably lost one of the most effective vehicles for private sector investment in Wales. Just last week, the Welsh Affairs Committee took evidence from Sir Roger Jones, whose description of the decision to take the WDA into the Welsh Assembly is worth quoting. He said that it was like
“being micro-managed by people who don’t know much”,
which “is a dangerous practice.”
My concern is that bringing Jobcentre Plus into the Welsh Assembly would do the same again. I wonder what benefit is to be gained by losing the expertise from Jobcentre Plus and allowing decisions to be made by Welsh Assembly officials with no previous experience of dealing with jobcentres or the Work programme. It would be a huge mistake.
The other thing we need to debate is how, in order to change attitudes in Wales, Jobcentre Plus officers and the Work programme must provide hope for people. We must provide the opportunity for aspiration to become a reality in our communities in Wales. We also need to provide support for communities and individuals wishing to get back into the work force in Wales, as well as encouraging the concept of self-reliance. I am concerned that if we move the responsibility for such major changes to the Welsh Assembly, we will create confusion at a time when we have an opportunity to create far-reaching change that will allow communities and individuals to become self-reliant, to stand on their own two feet and to contribute to society.
I am concerned by the comments that Glenn Massey made in his evidence to the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs last week. He stated that as a result of constant changes imposed by both Labour Administrations and the previous Plaid Cymru-Labour Administration, Welsh Assembly Government staff were “disillusioned”, suffering from low morale and finding it difficult to become motivated. I ask the House this question: if we want to encourage people back into the workplace, do we want that encouragement to come from staff who have been so demoralised by the Labour and Labour-Plaid Administrations, who have served Wales so badly over recent years? The situation is simple. We have here in Westminster a coalition Government who are willing to tackle the real problems faced by our communities. They are willing to tackle deprivation and to try to persuade people, for the first time in a generation, that work will pay—not just financially, but by giving people value and a feeling that they are contributing to society.
The proposed Bill would divert us from both the need for proper change and from moving things forward. I therefore urge the House to reject the proposition and support the Government’s attempt to create real change, rather than bureaucratic change.
Question put (Standing Order No. 23).
Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:30 - The House divided: - Ayes: 297 / Noes: 224 - Question accordingly agreed to.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you find out from the parliamentary authorities whether the monitors are working throughout the parliamentary estate? Only one Liberal Democrat Back Bencher is present, and, given that the Liberal Democrats have laid claim to significant alterations to the Bill, it is very important that they are in the Chamber.
Mr Burns
I beg to move,
That the following provisions shall apply to the Health and Social Care Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 31 January 2011 (Health and Social Care Bill (Programme)):
Re-committal
1. The Bill shall be re-committed to the Public Bill Committee to which it previously stood committed in respect of the following Clauses and Schedules—
(a) in Part 1, Clauses 1 to 6, 9 to 11, 19 to 24, 28 and 29 and Schedules 1 to 3;
(b) in Part 3, Clauses 55, 56, 58, 59, 63 to 75, 100, 101, 112 to 117 and 147 and Schedules 8 and 9;
(c) in Part 4, Clauses 149, 156, 165, 166 and 176;
(d) in Part 5, Clauses 178 to 180 and 189 to 193 and Schedule 15;
(e) in Part 8, Clause 242;
(f) in Part 9, Clause 265;
(g) in Part 11, Clauses 285 and 286;
(h) in Part 12, Clauses 295, 297 and 298.
2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee on re-committal shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 14 July 2011.
3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day it meets.
Let me say at the outset that, because of the number of Members who wish to speak in the debate, I will take only a small number of interventions and will respond to them briefly.
The vital importance of our national health service cannot be overstated, nor can the Government’s determination to do all in our power to make it as good as it can be for the patients who depend on it by putting patients at the centre of care and putting outcomes first—outcomes such as survival rates, speed of recovery, and the ability to lead a full and independent life. The Health and Social Care Bill represents a bold evolutionary programme of essential modernisation: a programme—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I know that passions are running high, but it is important that we hear the Minister.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought we were debating a programme motion, but the speech we are hearing seems to be a rehearsal of the Bill.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Hold on. Keep calm. I am absolutely certain that the Minister is about to move on to the programme motion.
Mr Burns
If Opposition Members were more interested in listening than in trying to be disruptive, they would discover that after setting the scene I will deal precisely with the recommittal and our reasons for proposing it.
We will replace that culture with a bottom-up culture of clinical leadership and patient choice and an unfaltering focus on improving health outcomes.
While there has always been widespread agreement on the principles of modernisation—a fact that even the shadow Secretary of State now accepts—there have been concerns in some quarters that the Bill could support those principles better.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Some of us wish to talk about the programme motion that we are supposed to be debating, and indeed to intervene on the Minister if he will give way, as he said that he would at the outset. Can the Minister be persuaded to discuss the motion that is before the House?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Several Members wish to participate in this very short debate. It will last for only an hour, and we are already well into that hour. Will the Minister now refer directly to the programme motion?
Mr Burns
Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Given our commitment to, and the paramount importance of, the NHS, we decided to take the unprecedented step of pausing at an appropriate point in the legislative process. The independent Future Forum produced its report. We shall be able to make some changes to our plans that will not require legislation, but a number of changes will need to be scrutinised again by a Committee. All our proposed changes will be subject to further detailed parliamentary scrutiny through a further Committee stage and on Report. We propose—
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way.
It is not unprecedented for Bills to come back to the House having been changed by the Government, but previously the whole Bill has gone back to Committee. Why are the Government not doing that?
Mr Burns
The hon. Lady might not be too familiar with the past. Two previous Bills have been recommitted, both in 2003, and if she will wait I will put them in the context of what we are doing.
We propose to recommit 63 of the Bill’s clauses and to add a further five to the Bill. About 35 of those 63 clauses will need to be amended. The remainder will provide context and allow the Committee to have a sensible debate about the revisions. These clauses will cover the key areas of the Bill, including the role of the Secretary of State, clinical commissioning groups, the NHS commissioning board, the role of Monitor, foundation trusts, health and wellbeing boards and HealthWatch. We are demonstrably committed to subjecting the Bill to the full and proper scrutiny of Parliament. The Health and Social Care Bill spent a very long time in Committee, with 28 sittings over seven weeks, which, in fact, is the longest series of sittings of a Committee since we considered the modernisation of this Chamber and the House of Commons. Indeed, the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who led for the Opposition in Committee, acknowledged at the time that the Committee had
“scrutinised every inch of the Bill.”––[Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 31 March 2011; c. 1310.]
However—[Interruption.] However, as the changes we are making are—
Mr Burns
Earlier, Opposition Members complained that I was not discussing why the Bill was being recommitted, yet as I now go through, point by point, why we are doing that they do not seem interested in listening. As I have said, I will not accept interventions frequently, because the House wants to know what we are doing and why are doing it, and that is the right way to proceed.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way.
So far today, the Minister has used the precedent of 1983. Will he confirm that when a similar Bill came back in 1983, the whole Bill was recommitted to the House?
Mr Burns
The hon. Gentleman seems a little confused. He is talking about 1983, but if he had been listening he would know that I have already said that two Bills were recommitted in 2003. I also said that if Opposition Members wait, I will explain the context of those Bills vis-à-vis the current situation. I therefore urge them to show patience, as they will then learn something.
Kevin Brennan
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In fact, the last Bill to be partially recommitted to a Committee was the Mineral Workings Bill in 1951, some 60 years ago, but the Minister is not referring to that.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
That is just an extension of the debate. I reiterate that we have only one hour to debate this programme motion, so may we make progress? May I also ask Members to calm down, because I am finding it difficult to listen to the Minister?
Mr Burns
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you can rest assured that I am doing my bit. If only Opposition Members would listen, they would get the plot.
As the changes we are making are substantial and significant, we have decided to recommit relevant parts of the Bill to Committee. I can tell the House that we expect to make around 160 amendments to the Bill, which we will table in good time. We will also go further and publish briefing notes to help explain the amendments to parliamentarians and those who follow our proceedings outside.
Mr Burns
The hon. Lady, from a sedentary position, rather like a Greek chorus that ill-befits her, asks when. The answer is that we expect to table the amendments by 23 June, which, if it helps her, is in two days’ time. That is despite the fact that many previous Bills—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) should listen to this because it has some direct relevance that she will not like. We are doing this despite the fact that many previous Bills were not recommitted under the previous Government despite their having undergone significant change. For example, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill in 2007 had 54 new clauses and three new schedules added by Government amendment, but rather than returning it to Committee the previous Government added them on Report. The Planning Bill of 2007-08 had 29 new clauses and three new schedules added by Government amendment; again, rather than return that Bill to Committee, the previous Government added the clauses on Report. Indeed, a Bill has not been recommitted for eight years since the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill in 2003.
No fair-minded person can claim that we are not subjecting the Bill to the closest possible scrutiny. Our recommitting the Bill will give hon. Members additional time to examine parts of the Bill that the Government propose to change. Of course, hon. Members will have further opportunity to scrutinise the entire Bill on Report in the Commons and the Bill will receive full scrutiny in another place. We do not believe that it is necessary for the entire Bill to be recommitted—[Hon. Members: “Why not?”] If hon. Members will listen they will find out why not. We do not believe that it is necessary for the entire Bill to be recommitted in order for proper scrutiny to take place. Indeed, we feel very strongly that that would unnecessarily delay the progress of the Bill to the ultimate detriment of patients. It is now time to give greater clarity and direction to staff and patients. As Professor Steve Field said in the Future Forum report:
“It is time for the pause to end.”
Professor Field is not alone in the opinion that now is the time to move forward and to enable proper and thorough scrutiny of those parts of the Bill that will change but without delaying the Bill’s passage beyond what is absolutely necessary. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said in its response to the Future Forum report:
“We hope the Government will now accept the Future Forum’s recommendations in full and move swiftly to make the changes to the Bill and the proposals that are required”.
The King’s Fund has also emphasised the need to avoid unnecessary delay. It said:
“The ‘pause’ has served the NHS, its staff and patients well”—
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I tabled a named day question to the Minister, of which he is aware, in which he made it very clear that the changes to the Bill that he says relate to the recommendations of the Future Forum were in fact—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Please resume your seat. That is not a matter for the Chair; it is an extension of the debate. Yet again I reiterate that we are now 13 minutes into a one-hour debate and we have yet to hear from the shadow Minister and a number of Back Benchers who wish to participate, so, please, could we restrain bogus points of order—that is No. 1 —and could we also have more quiet?
Mr Burns
As I was saying, although the pause may have ended, we will never stop listening. [Laughter.] That is why a team of top health experts will continue to provide independent advice to the Government. [Interruption.] It is extraordinary, Mr Deputy Speaker, that hon. Members giggle and scream hysterically when they do not like what they hear. What they will not accept is that we did listen through the independent forum—we listened, we strengthened the Bill and they do not like it that more people and more organisations outside the House now believe that the plans that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced have been strengthened and will meet the needs of a modernised health service. That is the problem. That is why they are behaving in that way.
Of course, we need to give right hon. and hon. Members ample opportunity to examine the amendments in detail, but unnecessary delays will only cause harm for patients and add to the pressure on hospitals and commissioners as they make their modernisation plans. They will prevent clinicians on the ground from making the changes they believe will help to improve and save people’s lives. That is why we can have proper scrutiny through the recommittal of the parts of the Bill we are changing, as outlined in the motion, and I urge my hon. Friends and the House to accept it.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Last week, we had a political fix on the Government’s health Bill. This week, we have a procedural fix. The way the Government are dealing with the national health service and with the House of Commons is a disgrace. Last week, the Prime Minister was forced to backtrack in some areas to buy off the many critics of his health plans. This week, to head off proper parliamentary scrutiny of his plans, he refuses to put the whole Bill back into Committee.
The changes announced last week to the Prime Minister’s NHS changes are not a proper plan for improving patient care, or for a better or more efficient NHS. Those aims could largely be met without legislation, and certainly without the huge risk and cost of the biggest reorganisation in NHS history. The big quality and efficiency challenges the NHS must meet for the future will be made harder, not easier, by the reorganisation and the announcements last week.
The NHS has seen a wasted year of chaos, confusion and incompetence from the Government. Today, it is clear from the motion that that will continue. The motion signals the onset of sclerosis in the health service. The Bill will mean that the NHS is deeply mired in more centralisation, more complex bureaucracy and more wasted cost in the years to come. There will be five new national quangos and five new local bodies doing the job that one—the primary care trust—does at present.
Today, the motion signals that the essential elements of the Tories’ long-term plan to see the NHS broken up as a national service and set up as a full-scale market are still intact.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Regardless of the merits of the Bill, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that what the NHS and the public want is to find out whether the House supports it? They do not want to prolong the agony.
John Healey
What the public and patients want is to get to the bottom of the changes the Government said they were bringing in. They want us to do our proper job of scrutinising the detail, and for that we need the time to do so, with the full Bill recommitted to the Public Bill Committee. Even some of the hon. Gentleman’s Lib Dem colleagues are beginning to see through this. Yesterday, the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) wrote that the Government
“leaves many of the previous concerns—about the risk of a marketised NHS, a missed opportunity to better streamline health and social care and a lack of accountability—still unresolved.”
John Healey
I do not normally quote the hon. Gentleman’s party leader, but a few weeks ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said:
“It is very important that MPs, who represent millions of patients up and down the country, have the opportunity to really look at the details that we are proposing…I have always said that it is best to take our time to get it right rather than move too fast and risk getting the details wrong.”
The Prime Minister has stopped listening to the Deputy Prime Minister, and that is exactly the mistake the Government are making with the motion.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that despite the Conservatives saying that they are against cherry-picking, that is exactly what they are doing? They are cherry-picking the elements to be referred to the Bill Committee. Clause 60, for example, which deals with Monitor and the regulation of the NHS, is not included. There are so many inconsistencies in the Bill.
John Healey
One of the deep flaws in the motion is that it is hard to see how the Committee can properly consider the changes that the Government say they want to make without being able to consider the consequences for other parts of the Bill and other parts of the NHS.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Moderation in these debates is always to be welcomed. Surely the right hon. Gentleman must see that he cannot have it both ways. He cannot complain about the money and the length of time spent on the listening exercise. When I was in the House last week to listen to the statement, he said it was time to get on and get it done, yet he argues that we should drag the process out for even longer. He cannot have it both ways.
John Healey
I can and I have. This is a reckless and needless reorganisation, which has led to confusion and chaos over the past year. If the House does not help to get the legislation right by doing its proper job, that chaos and confusion and the wasted cost—money that should be spent on patient care—will continue.
Kevin Brennan
Is it not an abuse to use this procedure, which is very rare? According to the Library, the most recent example of a partial recommittal of a Bill to the same Committee was the Mineral Workings Bill in 1951 because of an inadvertent error in the original Committee stage. It is totally wrong to use the procedure. The whole Bill should be recommitted.
John Healey
My hon. Friend has a point. What is wrong is a partial recommittal of the Bill, because the Bill requires full scrutiny of the full provisions with the changes that the Government propose to make, once we have had a chance to see them.
The Health Minister and Government Members urge us to go faster. Everything this Government have done with their NHS reorganisation has been rushed and reckless, and the motion signals that they are set to repeat the mistake by railroading the Bill through at breakneck speed and denying this elected House its proper role in scrutinising the legislation. Labour tabled a motion a month ago for the full Bill to be reconsidered in Committee, for more time to look at the detail of the amendments and for proper scrutiny and debate in Committee.
Ian Lucas
Is it not important to take into account the written answer that I received to the named day question—a very good question—that I put to the Minister? He gave me a very good answer: far from recommittal being a consequence of the NHS Future Forum, the Government were consulting on these very amendments to the Bill prior to the announcement that they made on the consequences of the Future Forum. Is not the entire process a sham?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right. We know that the Prime Minister is a PR man. We know that he was forced to call the pause and that, when he did, he was looking for a PR solution. The answer that my hon. Friend flushed out of the Government stands that up clearly.
To return to the motion before the House and the question whether the Bill requires, as we argue, recommittal in full, parliamentary precedent demands this, proper parliamentary scrutiny demands this and, above all, our responsibility to NHS patients to try to get the legislation right demands this. The parliamentary precedent is clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said. The House of Commons Library tells me that the last time a Bill was recommitted in part was 60 years ago. In response to a point of order, the Health Minister cited the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill of 2003 as a precedent. The Labour Government recommitted that Bill in full and gave Committee members the whole of the summer recess to examine the detailed amendments before the Committee sat again. Why are the Government not acting as they should and as Labour acted in government with that Bill?
The NHS, the legislation and the changes to the changes announced last week are all complex, and the House cannot do its proper job unless the Government’s changes to one clause can be considered alongside the consequences for other parts of the Bill and for the health service. How can the promised changes to Monitor’s role be considered without looking at all 29 clauses dealing with its licensing powers? The House cannot do its proper job unless all the areas that the Government say they will change are recommitted.
Why are the clauses on the failure and designation regime for hospitals, which the Government say they will change, not covered in the recommittal motion? The House cannot do its proper job, and organisations cannot give proper evidence to the Bill Committee, unless all the amendments are tabled in good time, so why will there be only two full working days between the tabling of amendments and the Committee sitting? The House cannot do its proper job unless the Bill Committee has sufficient time for scrutiny.
The 64 clauses in the recommittal motion took 45 hours of debate in Committee last time. The Government are now cutting that time in half. The Minister said that he expects 160 amendments in Committee. That allows less than 10 minutes for each amendment that the Government table, and that is before the Opposition table our own amendments and before taking into account the six schedules that are being recommitted.
Mr Simon Burns
As a former Minister, the right hon. Gentleman knows about taking legislation through Committee. Given that a number of the 160 amendments will be technical and drafting amendments, will he please tell the House how many minutes he needs for each technical and drafting amendment to be debated in Committee?
John Healey
The Minister, his colleagues and the Prime Minister have broken their word so often so far on the NHS that we cannot take at face value what the Minister says. We will wait to see and we will judge what he does when we see the detail of the amendments that he tables.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does not this go to the root cause of the way the Government are dealing with the NHS? They are dealing with it piecemeal. At present we have an integrated health service. Does not their approach show that they want to break that NHS up?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right. What the Government are doing is reckless and rushed. The NHS is still intact, but what they are doing will break it up as a national service, as we know it.
John Healey
I give way for the last time to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Committee had 28 meetings, 100 Divisions and hour upon hour of debate. That has been reflected in public opinion. The electorate who put us all in the House to represent their views are clear about what they want: a full debate in Committee, not a short-term Committee. They want it to sit until 18 October, not until 14 July.
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman served on the Public Bill Committee. I hope he will continue to serve when the Bill is recommitted. He is right. The public and NHS patients expect us to do our best to get the legislation right. To do that, we require the detail, we require the time, and we require the whole Bill to be recommitted.
The House cannot do its proper job without an impact assessment. The current assessment says that
“the full benefits of these changes will not be realised unless there is a change to regulation to promote competition”.
The Government now say that this policy will be altered. There will also be greater bureaucracy, longer time scales and more bodies with more complex accountabilities. Both the supposed benefits and the stated costs have changed, yet the Government tell us that the new impact assessment will not be published until the Bill reaches the Lords.
How much will this reorganisation now cost? How much can the Government now claim this will save? What are the risks? Why has the Health Secretary being blocking my freedom of information requests to release the official risk register since November? Why will the Government not welcome and allow full scrutiny of the Bill in view of the significant policy changes they say they are making? Why are they preventing this elected House from doing its proper job of fully scrutinising the legislation?
If the programme motion is passed, more will need to be done on Report in this House and during the Bill’s passage through the other place. We will continue to oppose this reckless and needless NHS reorganisation, lead the detailed scrutiny this legislation requires and speak up as patients start to see their NHS services suffer again under the Tories. We will oppose the motion.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Many Members wish to participate and there is only half an hour left, so long speeches would not be appropriate, to be fair to Back Benchers.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I will briefly specify three linked reasons, good and bad, why we support the Government’s programme motion. We oppose the Opposition’s amendment to the motion because it would simply lead to unnecessary delay. The Government have identified through the listening exercise, perhaps belatedly, the controversial, difficult and unworkable aspects of the legislation and want to change them. In deference to the people they have consulted, they want to change those aspects promptly and subject them to proper scrutiny, not only in Committee, but in an evidence session that we will also have.
Surprisingly, many areas of the Bill are relatively uncontentious and ought not to detain the House a great deal longer, such as the aspects relating to social work, the health and care professions or the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Those areas are relatively uncontentious and need not be massively reconsidered. In addition, there is the summer recess, as the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) said, which means that after the Committee has concluded its considerations there will be ample time for him and anyone in the NHS, including all the consultees, to make adequate representations. The Bill will then go to the Lords and return for our further consideration.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman will have been lobbied by constituents in the same way that I and other Members have been. Does he agree that the public’s real concern is the potential for cherry-picking by private companies, even with the amendments that are being made, and that this approach will be unable to stop such a process?
John Pugh
The public are perfectly entitled to an answer on whether the Bill contains cherry-picking or not, but it is better that they have that answer sooner rather than later. There is a second reason—[Interruption.] May I just set my stall out? The second reason why this must be done properly is that the Bill has so far led to uncertainty and the implosion of primary care trusts. Whoever’s fault it is—[Interruption.] People will know that I did not support the original Bill. It has led de facto to the implosion of PCTs and to some irregular adjustments and appointments being made on the hoof—Members can ask their constituents about that—and to some premature arrangements being made.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. How many times did he support my colleagues and I in the Bill Committee?
John Pugh
None is not the correct answer. The issue that Labour Members need to understand is that the NHS, as a result of the Budget that most of them voted for in 2010, needs to find £20 billion, and we cannot do that unless—[Interruption.] If it is a disgrace, it is a disgrace that the Labour party inflicted on us. We cannot do that against a background of complete and utter uncertainty, not knowing who will be running the NHS and having to find those savings. Members can check for themselves, but that is the view of the local people running their hospitals. Regardless of the merits of the legislation, they now want a decision.
Angela Smith
Given that the hon. Gentleman voted for the Bill on Second Reading and got that wrong, how can we be confident that he has got it right today?
John Pugh
If the hon. Lady checks Hansard, she will find that I did not vote for the Bill on Second Reading––okay?
A third and more consensual reason—I might now withdraw it—is that I can assure the House that, having served on the Bill Committee, it could not find a better or more informed set of individuals who are on the ball. The Opposition drilled down on every clause with laser-like precision. There are some very talented individuals sitting on the Opposition Benches, and there is still that galaxy of informed talent. They might feel, as I do, that it is a little like being sent back to the trenches, but the fact is that if that team cannot win the arguments for either accepting or rejecting these changes in the time allotted, frankly there is no hope for this House. They must approach the matter in the right spirit, although that seems somewhat in doubt. I urge Opposition Members to have confidence in their team, the timetable and the ability of the British public to judge if it all goes horribly wrong, but it will not go horribly wrong simply because of the programme motion.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The problem with what the Government are presenting this evening is that, having had a pause, they have decided to fast forward without the intervening period. The truth of the matter is that they will not inspire confidence in the running of the NHS by moving at a gallop and they will not improve morale by moving at such speed without proper scrutiny. I must say to Government Members that last night’s business motion, which stated that no amendments could even be moved today, was an absolute disgrace. What are they frightened of?
Chris Bryant
In a moment.
Are the Government frightened that some of their Back Benchers might vote for an amendment? I can assure them that there are very few courageous people on their side of the House, but the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is one of them.
Chris Bryant
Because there was no opportunity to have a debate last night. It would have been nice to be able to expose the problems with the way the Government are dealing with the Bill, but unfortunately such an opportunity was unavailable to us. It is a disgrace that there is no opportunity for amendment. It is also a disgrace that the whole Bill is not being recommitted. We have seen none of the amendments. The Government are basically saying, “We’ve decided where we want to change the Bill, and only those bits shall be available for discussion by the Committee.” That is a completely inappropriate abrogation of the powers of this House to the Crown. The person who should be most disgraced by that is the Deputy Leader of the House, because he has said so many times that he believes in better scrutiny and yet is now abandoning that.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. There is very little time as it is, and screaming at each other does not help.
Chris Bryant
If the Deputy Leader of the House had allowed more than an hour for debate today, I would give way to him, but I am not going to give way now. We have already heard from a Minister for 15 minutes.
It is a bizarre selection of clauses that the Committee will be allowed to discuss. For instance, it will not be allowed to discuss clause 239 on NICE’s charter, nor clause 240 on its functions, but it will be allowed to consider clause 242, on the failure of NICE to discharge its functions. There is absolutely no logic to what is being presented to us.
In addition, the programme motion does not allow enough time. The Prime Minister is profoundly confused about all this, because he said many times this morning that 10 days would be allowed. Indeed, he said:
“Ten days… I don’t want to sort of misquote the Monty Python sketch but when we were in opposition we used to dream of tens days to debate a government bill”.
Well, yes, we are dreaming of 10 days now. We would love to have 10 days, but there will not be 10 days; there will be 10 sittings.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Prime Minister is not very good on detail, because the Criminal Justice Bill to which he referred, and whose Committee he sat on, actually had 38 sittings over eight weeks.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but surely the key point is that we need to do this scrutiny properly. The Government may think that they are doing themselves a favour by trying to get the Bill out of this House by the summer recess, but all it means is that those in another place will have to do a proper job of scrutiny, and I bet that they will not get it out of the second Chamber before next year.
Finally, the motion states that we have to commit the Bill to the same set of people. Now, some splendid people sat on the Government Benches in that Committee, including the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). He is a splendid Member of Parliament whose integrity I do not want to be questioned, but he will now have to force all the people whom he forced previously to vote for one set of proposals in the Bill to vote for exactly the opposite. I therefore beg Government Members, if they value the hon. Gentleman’s career, to vote against the motion.
I say that because, theoretically, the Committee Chairman could rule that some amendments cannot be taken or selected because we have already presented them and the same Committee is re-sitting. We will find, however, that many Government Members have to stand on their heads and vote for the exact opposite of what they voted for earlier.
I understand that one of the great passions in life of the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, is weight-lifting. Well, he did no heavy lifting of any kind on the previous Committee, and if there are changes to the Bill they are the work of Opposition Members, not the hon. Gentleman. He said that it was a wonderful Committee and could not have been better. Well, why was the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)—somebody who knows about general practice—not put on it? Of course, we know the reason: she did not agree with the Government.
I do not believe that the new Committee should include the same set of people, in particular because the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), on the final day in Committee, asked the Minister one of his great insightful questions: “What is the point of clause 249?” He is clearly a man of insight. In addition, he later said:
“I am still a member of the Committee, I think.”––[Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 31 March 2011; c. 1268.]
We should have a new set of Committee members. There is no point in every Member who sat on the previous Committee, including those with direct financial interests in the Bill, being on the Committee in future, so I say, “Vote against this ludicrous, shameful and disgraceful programme motion.”
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He is a parliamentarian before anything else, and he made some very important points, which we must consider.
The House must make up its mind whether to vote for a programme motion. I start from the position that I should always vote against a programme motion, because they are a Labour party invention and not good for scrutiny, so I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that, when I sat where he now sits, the Government whom he supported railroaded Bills through without proper scrutiny on many occasions. He was personally against that, but it happened, and whole rafts of Bills were not scrutinised.
On procedure, I congratulate the Secretary of State for Health and the whole Government on something that some Opposition Members do not understand but parliamentarians on both sides of the House will. We have a new Parliament and a new way of doing business. The Government no longer make their mind up and railroad through a Bill—[Interruption.] Some people laugh and scoff, but they are the people who do not get it. This Parliament is about scrutiny, and it has been proved that this Parliament can do it. People talk about U-turns, but this is not a U-turn; this is parliamentary scrutiny, and it is an amazing improvement on the previous Parliament.
Kevin Brennan
Does the hon. Gentleman think it right in principle that the Government should be able to choose the parts of the Bill in Committee to which Members from any party, Front Benchers or Back Benchers, might want to introduce amendments?
Mr Bone
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point, one that I am wrestling with before I decide how to vote. If we had a business of the House committee, that problem would not arise, because the decision would be made in public and not by the Executive, but we are where we are. To the Government’s credit they avoided Standing Orders by allowing us to have a debate—however short—today. Standing Orders called for this motion to be decided forthwith and without a debate, so the Government should get credit for that.
There are a number of issues, but an important one is whether the whole Bill should be recommitted. I can see many arguments for that, but I can see also an alternative view, which says, “You’re going to look in more detail and have more time if you look at provisions that have effectively been changed.”
The Government talk about moving 160 amendments, and the Opposition will move amendments, but I hope that in Committee Back Benchers will do so, too. The problem for the Committee’s Chairmen is that they will have to consider how to deal with those amendments that are approved and consequential to earlier parts of the Bill, but I think that they will do so sensibly.
I have some doubts about the same people being on the Committee. I volunteered to sit on it and wrote to the Chairman of the Committee of Selection. There is an argument for fresh faces on the Committee, but the really important point is how Members on both sides behave in Committee. If they go there to scrutinise the Bill, if they are willing to table sensible amendments and if they vote according to their conscience and not on party lines, we will have real scrutiny.
Angela Smith
I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says, but under the programme motion the Bill has to be completed by 14 July, meaning a maximum of 12 sittings. How can that possibly be adequate time to scrutinise the changes being brought forward?
Mr Bone
The hon. Lady asks another important question on which we as parliamentarians have to decide today. As I have said, I am against programme motions that include end dates; I am against programme motions anyway. We could recommit the Bill without including a timetable on when it must leave Committee, but unfortunately we live in this world and that tactic was invented not by my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench, but by the previous Government—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), the Opposition Whip, who of course did not actually say anything, makes the point that two wrongs do not make a right, and I agree.
I know other Members want to speak, but I wish to return to my previous point. If Committee members, at least those on the Government side, vote according to their conscience and are not whipped, we will have a much better Bill. Of course, that is what the Prime Minister said in his famous speech on 26 May 2009, but I encourage such behaviour, because, if the Government do not like any amendments that are carried, they can always reverse them when the Bill returns to the House on Report.
Mr Watts
Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that his own Whips are going to stand aside regarding this Bill? Frankly, he is living in a dream world if he thinks they are going to choose people who will not toe the party line and will vote for every amendment that they want.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
As a member of the Committee, I point out to the hon. Gentleman that throughout all 38 sittings I watched Conservative Members dragooned by the Whips and not once voting according to their conscience, if they have one, but with their Front Benchers.
Mr Bone
I am afraid that I did not serve on the Committee, and my bid to get on it still stands. I hope that this new-found way of doing business will eventually make progress. If this House is ready to take back control of business, that is the way it has to be.
I welcome what the Government have done throughout this whole process, and I welcome today’s debate. I have reservations about the programme motion, and I will make up my mind on how to vote at the end of the debate. When the Bill comes back to the House on Report, I hope that there will be enough time for Members to deal with all the amendments and new clauses, because at the moment only members of the Committee can do so. In general terms, I welcome the new process and congratulate the Secretary of State for Health.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I rise to oppose the programme motion. I remember sitting and listening to some eloquent speeches against programme motions by Conservative Members when we were in government. What we uniquely have tonight, as has been highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), is a double programme motion, because this debate is being limited to one hour, and then we will have a programme motion that rushes the Bill through by 14 July. Another unique aspect is that this is the first time since the coalition Government came into being that a Conservative Member has opened the debate following a major U-turn or embarrassment, when a Liberal Democrat is usually put up as a human shield. On this occasion, the Minister has obviously fallen for the trick.
It is important that this Bill gets proper scrutiny, but that will be difficult. The Minister has already said that the Government are going to table 160 amendments, and that is before any others have been proposed. He said that some would be technical, and I accept that, but we do not know what they will be about or how many there will be.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is disgraceful that we are not even seeing those amendments until two days before the Bill goes into Committee, giving outside organisations and members of the Committee no time to scrutinise them? Does that not show that the Government are running scared of proper scrutiny?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. One innovation is the introduction of pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills by a Committee. In 2001, I served on one of the very first such Committees, which considered the Civil Contingencies Bill. That was an extremely good process during which the then Government accepted well over 100 recommendations and amendments. With a timetable of 10 sittings—not 10 days, as the Prime Minister said today—there will be very little time for outside bodies to scrutinise and have professional input into the Government’s amendments.
The hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, says that we cannot prolong the agony or uncertainty faced by the health service. I remind him that we are in this position because his party is supporting the back-of-a-fag packet proposals dreamed up by the Secretary of State for Health. If he really wants to be able to say that he has made a difference, he should have voted with the Opposition when he had the opportunity. It is interesting that he is again the sole Liberal Democrat on the Government Benches, even though we are being told that it is the Liberal Democrats who have made major changes to the Bill.
If the Bill is to get proper scrutiny, if we in this place are to get the respect of electors in thinking that we are doing a proper job of scrutiny and, more importantly, if we are going to get the health service that this country deserves, this is not the way to do it. I predict that we will get to 14 July, when most of the amendments will not have been debated, and once again let the other place dismember the legislation. We can see the job it is doing up there at the moment, and that is because ill-thought-out and ill-prepared Bills are being brought forward by this coalition Government.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I did not intend to speak, but I have been provoked into making a few brief comments. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I have concerns about programme motions, despite having been here only a short time. I, too, have never been successfully placed on a Bill Committee, although his failure is perhaps greater than mine as he has been here a bit longer than I have.
Before I was elected to this place, I spent 10 years as a local government councillor in perpetual opposition, being one of only two Conservative councillors on an authority of 60 members. We spent all that time criticising the administration for not listening to us and not giving us the opportunity to scrutinise decisions correctly. Perhaps it is the role of an Opposition to make a great deal of noise about the issue of scrutiny, and I understand that that is partly the approach of Labour Members today.
Since being elected, I have been incredibly frustrated by how little time there is to debate anything. Everything seems to be time-limited, and one sometimes sits for hours and cannot get called. I hope that if anything comes out of these discussions, this issue will be looked at in future years and we will have a different way of doing things in this place so there is proper debate.
When I talk to members of the public and health professionals, they tell me that they want clarity in knowing where we are heading with the NHS. Having listened to the Secretary of State, I want to know what the provisions will be to prevent cherry-picking.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that recommitting only the parts of the Bill that the Government want to recommit, and not considering the knock-on impact on other parts of it, will create uncertainty about the aspects that are not going to be debated?
Andrew Percy
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. That has already been discussed. The key thing now is to debate the parts of the Bill that the Government have said they intend to amend, and perhaps that will mean that we can debate them in more depth. I want to know what the provisions are going to be to prevent cherry-picking. The shadow Secretary of State said that this is an attempt by the Government to break up the NHS and bring in market forces. I would not want to be a member of any political party that attempted to do that, so I want to know about the Government amendments.
Kevin Brennan
I respect the hon. Gentleman’s respect for Parliament and therefore put to him what I said earlier: on a point of principle, is it not wrong that the Government should be able to select the parts of the Bill that they want to have scrutinised and not allow Members from all parts of the House an opportunity to do so? Does that not set an extremely dangerous precedent?
Andrew Percy
We have discussed where these procedures come from and who is accountable for them, and that certainly cannot be laid at the door of this Government. Over the past few months, we have heard first that there has been too much delay, and now that there is not enough delay.
As we have heard, professionals in the health service and the public have been saying that they wanted to know where we were heading and that they needed some clarity. The Government wanted that brought to an end, and they have had their listening exercise. On that basis alone, although I do not like the idea of curtailing debate, I hope that we can get on with this so that we all know what the changes are going to be, and that we end up with an NHS that is on a stable footing for the long term and do not have any more reorganisation for a considerable time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Grahame Morris with about four seconds.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I am very grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. I call for the motion to be opposed.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I just reiterate the point that 1951 is the last time that this exact procedure was used. The Government are setting a dangerous precedent. This is an abuse of parliamentary procedure and it does not enable the House to consider all parts of the Bill. The recommittal of Bills is quite a rare procedure in this House.
Scotland Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
I beg to move,
That the Order of 27 January 2011 (Scotland Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows:
1. Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Order shall be omitted.
2. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
3. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after the moment of interruption on that day, or one hour after they are commenced, whichever is the earlier.
I wish to speak briefly to the programme motion, so as to allow Report to begin. As Members will see, the Government are amending the programme order to allow Report stage to run until 10 pm and Third Reading to conclude one hour after that. Members will be aware that the Health and Social Care Bill was recommitted today, and that one hour was agreed to for that debate. That has resulted in a shift in today’s business. The Government believe that it is important that the Scotland Bill receives an appropriate amount of time for debate on Report, which is why we are allowing for proceedings on Report to continue until 10 pm, and for Third Reading to conclude at 11 pm.
I am aware that the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) raised concerns in the Chamber yesterday about the amount of time available to debate the remaining stages of the Bill. The programme motion will extend time for debate on the Bill, and I hope that it will allay his concerns. I look forward to consideration of amendments on Report, and to the debate that the Bill will receive on Third Reading.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the opportunity to debate the Scotland Bill yet again. For many of us it has been a long process since the formation of the Calman commission in late 2007, and there has been detailed consideration of a number of the measures in the Bill.
However, as I am sure the Minister would acknowledge, the Government have tabled significant and important new clauses that were not part of the Calman process and were not available to us in Committee. As I recall, they were not ready by the time of our debates in Committee. A number of amendments have also been tabled by the Opposition Front Benchers and by other Members on both sides of the House, including nationalist Members, and we are keen to have them debated this evening.
I understand the Minister’s point about the additional hour that is being provided to compensate for the debate on the recommittal of the Health and Social Care Bill, but there was an hour’s debate on that motion plus the time for the vote. It followed the Government’s customary U-turn statement, which today was on sentencing. I note that that lasted almost exactly 90 minutes, and although I am sure the Justice Secretary enjoyed those 90 minutes of his time, it means that there is less time for us to debate important aspects of this constitutional Bill. The Minister and his colleague the Secretary of State have made great play of the significance of the Bill, for instance in the fiscal changes that it encompasses, the additional powers that it devolves to the Scottish Parliament and the reassignment of powers at UK level.
I understand, of course, that by speaking to the programme motion I am effectively reducing the time available for debate on the substance of the Bill, but I wish to register the point that we are aware that significant parts of the Bill have yet to be debated in any meaningful way. They include issues that we did not reach in Committee, which are back on the agenda today. As the Minister said, it is important that we have the appropriate amount of time to debate them this evening. Given the time that we have left, I am not sure that will be the case.
I am sure the Minister would like us to deal with the Bill properly, given the amount of further scrutiny that there will be in the Scottish Parliament, and that he wants us to have the appropriate time to debate the issues in question. I am not sure we will have enough time this evening, although we will endeavour to get through as much as possible. It is important that some of the amendments are dealt with in depth and detail, and I am not sure that the motion affords us that opportunity.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I do not know what planet the Minister is living on if he thinks that three hours is enough to discuss the remaining stages of a Bill that he has described as the most significant transfer of powers since the onset of the Scottish Parliament. It is totally unsatisfactory. We have something like 26 amendments and 11 new clauses to discuss, on issues as important as the tax powers of the Scottish Parliament, corporation tax, excise duty, the devolution of legal powers and authorities and the composition of the Scottish Parliament. Each of those deserves a full day’s debate, yet we must try to shoehorn all that into approximately three hours. We have heard a lot about the respect agenda, which is a much abused and misused term, but surely it is the height of disrespect to try to shoehorn all those important matters into such a short time.
If the House does not care about Scotland, it will be no surprise if Scotland does not care about the House. There is a lack of time for debate. I will not divide the House because I want to get on in the time available to try to discuss the important measures. I simply register our deep unhappiness and dissatisfaction about the lack of time that we have been left to debate an important Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Scotland Bill
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
22:01 - The House divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 382 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: new clause 8 —Funding formula for Scottish Government (No. 2)—
‘(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer shall lay before the House a report on the formula for allocating funds from the Consolidated Fund to the Scottish Government, and on alternative ways of calculating the sums to be paid.
(2) Within six weeks of laying the report referred to in subsection (1) above, the Chancellor of the Exchequer shall lay before the House proposals for a new funding formula which would ensure that the funds allocated to the Scottish Government are no more than 5 per cent. below or above the equivalent figure for each of the other nations of the UK.’.
New clause 9—Tax on profits of companies—
‘In Part 4A of the 1998 Act (as inserted by section 24), after Chapter 4 (inserted by section 30) insert—
Chapter 5
Tax on Profits of Companies
80L Tax on profits of companies
The Secretary of State shall, within one month of the coming into force of section 80B of this Act, lay in accordance with Type A procedure as set out in Schedule 7 to this Act a draft Order in Council which specifies as an additional devolved tax a tax charged on the profits of companies.”’.
New clause 19—Spirits, wine, beer and cider duties—
‘(1) The 1998 Act is amended as follows.
(2) In Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the Act, in section A1 (specific reservations: fiscal, economic and monetary policy), after the heading “Exceptions”, insert—
“Spirits duties, wine duties and beer and cider duties”.’.
Amendment 25, in clause 24, page 16, line 35, at end insert—
‘(c) Chapter 5 provides for an Order in Council to specify, as an additional devolved tax, a tax charged on the profits of companies.’.
Amendment 24, in clause 26, page 20, line 24, at end insert—
‘(3) T is deemed to be in Scotland at the end of a day when T commences a journey in Scotland before midnight and arrives at a destination in England after midnight, irrespective of the time at which the border between Scotland and England is crossed.’.
Government amendments 31 and 15.
Amendment 26, in clause 32, page 25, line 10, leave out
‘with the approval of the Treasury, borrow by way of loan’
and insert ‘borrow’.
Amendment 27, page 25, line 15, at end insert—
‘(1C) In borrowing any sums under subsection (1A), the Scottish Ministers must have regard to any code of practice agreed by them and the Treasury.
(1D) A code of practice agreed under subsection (1C) may include provision as to—
(a) how the Scottish Ministers are to determine and keep under review how much they can afford to borrow,
(b) the terms and conditions on which sums may be borrowed,
(c) limits on the aggregate at any time outstanding in respect of the principal of sums borrowed.’.
Government amendment 32.
Amendment 28, page 25, line 26, leave out from beginning to end of line 33.
Government amendment 33.
Amendment 29, page 25, line 43, leave out subsection (10).
Government amendments 34 and 35.
Amendment 23, in clause 39, page 28, line 35, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 29 and insert—
‘(2A) Subject also to the provision made in sections 26(1) to (6), 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31 as to how those sections are to have effect, Part 3 shall come into force at the end of the period of two months after the new funding formula referred to in subsection (2) of section [Funding formula for Scottish Government (No. 2)] has been approved by resolution of the House of Commons.’.
Amendment 37, page 28, line 35, at end insert—
‘(c) section [Spirits, wine and beer and cider duties]’.
Amendment 18, page 28, line 40, at end insert—
‘(3A) Notwithstanding any provisions in subsection 3(a), (b) or (c), sections 26(1) to (6) and 27, sections 28 and 29, and sections 30 and 31 can not be commenced without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.’.
Amendment 2, page 29, line 2, at end insert
‘except new subsections (1A) and (1B) of section 66 of the 1998 Act, inserted by section 32(3), and subsections (9) and (10), which shall come into force on 1 April 2012’.
Mr Gauke
It gives me great pleasure to return to the House to discuss the Scotland Bill after the Committee debate in March.
The first group of amendments on today’s selection list is fairly extensive and addresses several different aspects of the Bill’s finance package. I will set out why we have tabled Government amendments and why we will not accept the non-Government amendments.
In Committee, we debated the definition of a Scottish taxpayer for the Scottish rate of income tax. I said that the Government would table a new clause to apply the same definition to the Scottish variable rate, in response to one of the recommendations of the Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee. The reworked definition of a Scottish taxpayer for the new Scottish rate of income tax is a significant simplification. I appreciate that it is unlikely that the Scottish variable rate will ever be invoked. Nevertheless, without the amendment, there would be two separate definitions of a Scottish taxpayer in place at the same time. There is potential for practical difficulties for taxpayers, employers and their professional representatives, who might need to familiarise themselves with one definition for the years up to 2015-16, only to have to switch to a different definition for subsequent years. That is entirely unnecessary.
Applying the definition of a Scottish taxpayer that has been developed for the Scottish rate of income tax for the purposes of the Scottish variable rate will help smooth any transitional issues, and will also make it easier for people to understand whether they are classed as a Scottish taxpayer. The Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee rightly recommended the change, with which the UK Government very much agree, and I commend the new clause to hon. Members.
On a previous occasion, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) raised a particular query. He has tabled amendment 24, about which he intends to speak later. I will respond to the issues that he raises after he has had an opportunity to set out his thoughts on that.
Government amendment 31 would make a small, technical change, to which I hope the House can agree. Section 989 of the Income Tax Act 2007 contains several definitions, which apply for the purposes of income tax legislation. It includes definitions of the basic, higher and additional rate of income tax. They refer to the rate of income tax set by the UK Parliament in the year in question. Government amendment 31 would extend those definitions to include the rates applicable to a Scottish taxpayer. As I said, it is a minor drafting amendment, and I do not anticipate its proving too controversial.
The purpose of Government amendment 15 is to correct a technical fault with the Bill so that it is consistent with the Government’s policy intentions as set out in the Command Paper, which states that the Scottish Government will be able to borrow to manage the difference between forecast and outturn tax receipts. However, as I explained in our Committee debate on 14 March, the Bill as it currently stands enables the Scottish Government to borrow to manage this difference only for fully devolved taxes, and not the Scottish rate of income tax. That is a technical fault, which the amendment corrects. I hope that it will be accepted.
Let me deal with Government amendments 32 to 35. The purpose of Government amendment 32 is to introduce a power, which will enable the Government to amend in future the way in which Scottish Ministers can borrow, including by way of bond sales, without the need for further primary legislation. The Bill gives Scottish Ministers a new power to borrow, by way of loan, from 2015-16 up to £2.7 billion of total debt, £2.2. billion of which can be used to fund capital expenditure.
The UK Parliament has an interest in ensuring that Scottish Ministers can borrow efficiently and sustainably because, although interest paid on any loans will be funded from the Scottish budget, it will be included in the UK fiscal aggregates. The Bill therefore gives Scottish Ministers the power to borrow in the most efficient and sustainable way—from the national loans fund, as recommended by the Calman commission. In addition, should Scottish Ministers so choose, the Bill gives them the power to borrow by way of commercial loan where that represents value for money.
Reports on the Scotland Bill by the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Scottish Parliament have recommended that Scottish Ministers should be granted additional borrowing powers—specifically, the power to issue bonds. The First Minister made the same points in his discussion with my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Scotland. The reports and discussions have highlighted the discrepancy between the powers of Scottish Ministers and local authorities, which already have the power to issue bonds.
So far, the main evidence that has been provided to the Government in support of Scottish Ministers issuing bonds is “because other bodies can do it”. However, with the exception of Transport for London, the vast majority of local authorities have not exercised those powers in recent history, not least because local authorities judge that they have access to more efficient and sustainable forms of borrowing.
The Government continue to believe that the case against bond issuance is clear cut, particularly in the medium term, given the uncertain outlook and challenging fiscal mandate. All the evidence suggests that further bond issuance would have a negative impact on the UK’s fiscal position.
In the context of the highest deficit since world war two, the Government would consider allowing Scottish Ministers to issue bonds in future only when that does not undermine the overall fiscal position, or have a negative impact on total UK borrowing. If a case is made that Scottish Ministers’ borrowing powers could be extended without undermining the overall UK fiscal position or increasing UK borrowing, the amendment that I am tabling today would allow changes to the borrowing powers of Scottish Ministers to take effect swiftly, by way of an order.
The Government have committed to conducting a review of the costs and benefits of bond issuance over other forms of borrowing to help inform any decision. The amendment would have the effect of, first and foremost, protecting the UK’s fiscal position by continuing to allow Scottish Ministers to access the most efficient and sustainable source of borrowing.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
After the Bill has been passed, the Welsh Government will be the only political entity in the British state unable to borrow. Will the Exchequer Secretary address that matter quickly, rather than awaiting some prolonged Calman process, which the Government currently envisage?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I am not sure that that is relevant to the debate.
Mr Gauke
I want to make it clear that Government amendment 32 would not grant the power of issuing bonds to the Scottish Government. However, it would enable us to move more quickly should that decision be made in future The Welsh Assembly Government are not alone in their status, although the amendment would enable us to move more quickly should we decide to proceed in that direction.
Amendment 2, which was tabled by Her Majesty’s Opposition, would bring forward the introduction of the capital borrowing requirement set out in clause 32 from April 2015 to April 2012. Amendment 26 would remove the role of the Treasury in approving capital borrowing and the restriction that such borrowing must be by way of a loan. Amendment 27 would introduce a new statutory code of practice, to be agreed between the Treasury and Scottish Ministers, to govern capital borrowing permitted by section 66(1) of the Scotland Act 1998. Amendment 28 would remove the £2.2 billion aggregate limit on capital borrowing by Scottish Ministers. Amendment 29 is consequential on amendment 28. As hon. Members wish to remove the borrowing limits from the Bill and the ability to revise those with the approval of the House, clause 32(10) would no longer be necessary, because there would be no such secondary legislation.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
If that debt must be consolidated with the UK’s national debt, it should surely be considered as quasi-UK Government debt. Does the Minister therefore agree that if the Scottish National party goes ahead with its vote on independence, it will need to consider very carefully the increased cost of borrowing that would ensue?
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
For the sake of clarity, will the Minister confirm that that £2.2 billion is a cumulative sum, and that the annual amount is £230 million?
Mr Gauke
Yes, that is the case, but we must consider the consequences of that borrowing for the UK’s debt position. That is the level that we believe is right.
As I set out in Committee, the £2.2 billion represents a floor, not a ceiling. The Bill provides for the limit to be increased to more than £2.2 billion with the approval of the House, but not for it to be reduced to less than £2.2 billion.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
A few moments ago, the Minister mentioned the pre-payment amount for the Forth road bridge. Did the Treasury consider a toll on that bridge, in much the same way as a toll was considered for the Mersey Gateway bridge next to my constituency? If not, is that not asymmetric governance?
Mr Gauke
The decision on whether to put a toll on the Forth road bridge will be one for the Scottish Government. The Treasury has therefore not considered that proposal. Perhaps my hon. Friend should ask Scottish National party Members what consideration was given to such a toll. I suspect that the answer will be, “Not a lot.” The expression on the face of the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) is probably confirmation that no consideration was given to my hon. Friend’s suggestion. Asymmetry is inherent in such devolved matters.
The UK Parliament has an interest in ensuring that Scottish Ministers can borrow efficiently and sustainably, because although interest paid on any loans will be funded from within the Scottish budget, it will be included in the UK fiscal aggregates.
Andrea Leadsom
For the sake of clarity, the Minister tells my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) that the decision on whether there will be a toll on the Forth road bridge is a devolved matter, and yet also says that any Scottish Government borrowing would be included in the British national debt. How can that toll be a devolved matter? The UK is involved in keeping the cost of funds to the Scottish Government down so that they can afford to fund a bridge that people in England are unable to afford without charging a toll.
Mr Gauke
We must remember that any debt service will be financed by the Scottish taxpayer—that is the context.
We should move on. As I said, any loans will be funded from within the Scottish Budget and included in the UK fiscal aggregates. The Bill therefore continues to give Scottish Ministers the power to borrow in the most efficient and sustainable way—from the national loans funds, as recommended by the Calman commission. In addition, should Scottish Ministers choose to do so, the Bill gives them the power to borrow by way of a commercial loan when that represents value for money.
The Government continue to believe that Scottish Ministers should be able to borrow only by way of a loan, but because overall macro-economic policy will continue to be a reserved matter, and because Scottish borrowing will impact on the UK fiscal position, it is right that this House agrees the limits and conditions of borrowing. I therefore ask Opposition Members not to press amendment 2 and amendments 26 to 29 to a Division.
Stewart Hosie
The Minister suggests that various Opposition Members from various parties do not press their amendments. Is it not normally in order to hear the arguments for them before jumping to such a strange and presumptuous conclusion?
Mr Gauke
I do not think it an unprecedented statement. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and I have served on many a Committee where that has been suggested. I wait to hear how persuasive the case is, but I suspect that I will not be persuaded, and that, to some extent, the amendments may be probing. We await the arguments, and I look forward to them.
New clause 8, tabled by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), has two purposes. First, it seeks to legislate for the Chancellor, within six months of the day on which the Bill is passed, to
“lay before the House a report on the formula for allocating funds from the Consolidated Fund to the Scottish Government, and the alternative ways of calculating the sums to be paid.”
Secondly, it would require that within
“six weeks of laying that report…the Chancellor…lay before the House proposals for a new…formula which would ensure that the funds allocated to the Scottish Government are no more than 5 per cent. below or above the equivalent figure for each of the other nations of the UK.”
As hon. Members know, the formula for allocating funds from the Consolidated Fund to the Scottish Government is known as the Barnett formula, and as hon. Members will recall, the Bill seeks to increase the accountability of the Scottish Parliament to its people by devolving fiscal powers from Whitehall to Holyrood, and deducting a corresponding amount from Scotland’s block grant.
The Bill does not change the level of funding for Scotland. Future decisions taken by Scottish Ministers will affect the overall funding for Scotland’s public services, because Scottish Ministers will decide whether to increase or decrease devolved taxes relative to the UK. Reforming the Barnett formula is an entirely separate issue from those we are considering in the Bill, and one that the Calman commission did not make any recommendations on. The current formula is an administrative procedure and does not appear in legislation. It is not specific to Scotland, but is a mechanism for allocating funding across all four countries of the UK, so it would not be appropriate to legislate to alter it for Scotland in isolation. The Bill would not be an appropriate place for that
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I understand why the Minister does not think that discussion of the Barnett formula is appropriate for this evening’s debate, but my constituents feel strongly about the fact that Scotland gets so much more than they do generally. What mechanism could we use to have the Barnett formula looked at?
Mr Gauke
Partly following the strictures of the hon. Member for Dundee East, I would say that I am loth, at this stage of the debate, to make strong recommendations to the House about which new clauses should be accepted and which should be withdrawn and so on. I simply want to provide the context and argue why the Barnett formula should not be addressed in the Bill. I appreciate that there is a wide range of views on this issue, and that there are strong feelings throughout the UK. I dare say that a number of those views will be expressed this evening—indeed, this debate provides an opportunity for it. At this stage, however, I just want to draw the House’s attention to some of the difficulties with trying to address the matter in the Bill. I shall turn to the substance of the debate in a moment, but that is what I am seeking to do at the moment.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to confirm that if my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) got the reorganisation of the formula that she seems to want, the parts of the UK that would lose the most—the ones that are most overfunded by her definition—would be London, where she is an MP, and Northern Ireland, which I know she has a close interest in. If we are going to debate the matter, let us debate the facts rather than the myths.
Mr Gauke
Of course, and there are regional variations within all the four nations. The point is that there are strong views on this issue. I am making the case for why it is difficult to address it in the Bill. Reforming the Barnett formula is an entirely separate issue from those we are considering in the Bill, and from the matters that the Calman commission looked at. As I said, the formula does not appear in any legislation as such, and there would be disadvantages in trying to come up with a legislative answer. However, I appreciate that this is an opportunity to debate the matter.
Mr Gauke
The Government understand the concerns expressed about the devolved funding arrangements, but we have also made it clear that the priority now must be to reduce the deficit, and any change to the current system and Barnett formula must await the stabilisation of the public finances. The Bill does not rule out or rule in reform of the formula in the future, but we do not believe that now is the right time. A change in the Barnett formula is not the purpose of the Bill, and it would not be appropriate to legislate for it here. As I said, I look forward to this debate, as right hon. and hon. Members will clearly take the opportunity presented by the Bill to express their views on this particular point.
David Mowat
I understand that the Exchequer Secretary does not want to spend too long now talking about the Barnett formula, so I will be quick. He said that we are too busy sorting out the deficit to address the Barnett formula, which I think is a fair and reasonable point. That is why many of us think that we should put in place a process to ensure that by 2015, when, as I understand it, the structural deficit will be eliminated, we can put in place a fair and transparent policy.
Mr Gauke
I understand the views expressed by my hon. Friend. There are a number of changes and developments in this area, not least the powers in the Bill. I agree with him that this will continue to be a live issue, but at this stage I am not in a position to make any promises to him. However, I am sure that this issue will continue to be debated, and strong views will be expressed. I can understand the points he makes, but this is not the time for a legislative solution.
Amendment 23, tabled by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, is consequential on new clause 8 and would delay the financial provisions in part 3 of the Bill coming into force until two months after the House passes a resolution approving the Chancellor’s proposals for a new funding formula. It would then automatically bring part 3 into force two months after such a resolution. I set out why I did not consider it appropriate to debate at this time a new funding formula for Scotland when I discussed new clause 8. The Government are clear that this is a UK-wide administrative procedure and therefore has no place in the Bill. The Government’s priority is to stabilise the public finances and reduce the deficit before making any changes to the Barnett formula, as I have said.
Even were we able to accept new clause 8, the manner of commencement set out would be problematic because it would create technical problems by potentially bringing in consequential amendments relating to the Scottish variable rate before that itself had been repealed. I am sure that that is not what the right hon. Gentleman intends. The new clause would have other consequences, however. It would mean that clause 32, on borrowing provisions, could not be brought into force until an agreement had been reached on a new funding formula for Scotland. As I have set out, the changes introduced by the Bill are not contingent on a new funding formula being agreed to replace the Barnett formula, so I do not see the need to wait to introduce the borrowing clauses until such a new formula has been agreed.
Amendments 25 and 37, and new clauses 9 and 19, relate to corporation tax and alcohol duties. These amendments propose to increase the power in the Bill to provide for an Order in Council specifying corporation tax and alcohol duties as devolved duties. The Scottish Government have publicly requested that six additional powers be included in the Bill, including powers over corporation tax and alcohol duties. I understand that the First Minister has met colleagues in the Government to highlight those requests. In those meetings, the First Minister agreed to provide detailed written analysis of the benefits to both Scotland and the UK of devolving those powers. No such papers have yet been provided. We await them with interest, because we have yet to hear the case made in detail.
As hon. Members will recall, the Government are committed to implementing the recommendations of the Calman commission, which considered the merits of devolution for a wide range of taxes and decided that neither corporation tax nor alcohol duties were suitable candidates for devolution. Calman concluded that the potential administrative impact of devolving either tax would be significant. The creation of compliance costs for businesses operating on either side of the border, as well as the increased collection costs for the Government, would be undesirable, especially in the present economic climate. The risks of tax avoidance and arbitrage could also be increased, with additional costs to the Government and the UK Exchequer. These arguments apply to both corporation tax and alcohol duties.
Calman also noted that if comparable levels of public services were to be maintained, the scope for substantive reductions in the rate of corporation tax in Scotland would be limited, unless the Scottish Government were willing significantly to increase revenues from other sources, such as income tax. The figures involved could be significant. For instance, if we take the Scottish Government’s estimate of the corporation tax base, published in their “Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland” report, and apply the methodologies developed for the Government’s paper on rebalancing the Northern Ireland economy, the cost of reducing Scottish corporation tax to 12.5%—the current rate in the Republic of Ireland—would be just over £2 billion. However, the Scottish economy is very different, not least in the presence of many large multinationals, particularly from the financial sector, whose current activity is unlikely to be adequately covered in the gross value added estimate, but whose profits are additionally likely to be attributable to Scotland with regard to corporation tax.
Provisional HMRC analysis has indicated that losing payments from large Scottish-domiciled groups could add £600 million to the direct costs. Such tax cuts would have to be funded, either by significantly reduced levels of public spending in Scotland or by tax rises in other areas. It is worth noting that these are initial estimates, and are likely significantly to underestimate the scope for profit shifting to Scotland. The model uses similar assumptions to those applied to the costing for Northern Ireland. However, given the geographic proximity of England and Scotland, the integrated infrastructure, the large number of big GB-owned groups with a substantive presence on both sides of the border, and the relatively large and complex nature of the Scottish economy, there are likely to be greater opportunities for groups to shift profits there than may be the case for Northern Ireland.
In addition, corporation tax is a very volatile tax, and would create much more revenue risk for the Scottish budget. For instance, corporate tax receipts fell by 16% from 2008-09 to 2009-10, while income tax receipts fell by 5%. Such a large volatile income stream would place great risk on the Scottish budget. Income tax, which is more predictable and less volatile, is a much more suitable candidate for devolution. The commission based its decision on the strong evidence that it received from the independent expert group and the alcohol retailing and production sector. The evidence identified increased compliance costs and significant scope for tax avoidance, given the mobility of goods such as beer, wine, cider and spirits.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
My recollection is that the Calman commission refused to rule out devolving corporation tax, should that happen in other parts of the UK. Perhaps my recollection is wrong, but it would be a mistake to misrepresent in this debate what the Calman commission actually said.
Mr Gauke
The Calman commission did not recommend devolving corporation tax as substantial practical profit shifting issues would arise, and we cannot ignore the fact that it would need to be paid for. This is not something that we could all sit round in a room negotiating, before coming up with a number. To comply with the Azores judgment, made under European law, it would be necessary to identify the precise number. I should also make it clear that the cost of any reduction in corporation tax would have to be met by increased alternative taxes or a reduction in the block grant.
Dr Whiteford
It is important to differentiate the substantive point of whether this Government support devolving corporation tax from what the Calman commission report actually said. Having found it—I think—I can tell the Minister that the Calman commission recognised that
“changes to Corporation Tax can be a tool for economic development,”
and did not
“rule out a scheme for devolving Corporation Tax in the future as part of wider reform across the devolved nations.”
Does the Minister accept that that is actually what was in the Calman commission report?
Mr Gauke
But the Calman commission did not say that that was the right way forward at this point. As I have said, some very substantial issues would need to be addressed, not least the opportunity for profit shifting and the impact on the UK Exchequer were Scotland to have a lower rate of corporation tax, as businesses operating in Scotland and England would shift their profits to Scotland, which would disadvantage the UK as a whole.
Stewart Hosie
A number of businesses moved to Ireland in the last Parliament to take advantage of lower corporation tax. A number of others moved to continental Europe, to the Netherlands. One of the drivers for this Government reducing corporation tax was to send out that signal. That change will not necessarily be paid for by changes to allowances or spending cuts; it will be paid for in the medium and long term by increased economic growth, which is a consequence of a lower business tax regime. Why has the Minister excluded the potential of growth in Scotland from it having lower corporation tax, and merely highlighted the payment in other ways?
Mr Gauke
Let me be clear: I am not making the case against lower corporation tax per se; I am saying that if Scotland had a lower rate of corporation tax, that would have an impact on the Exchequer, and Scotland and the Scottish Government would have to pick up that cost. I do not believe that that is a matter of dispute or that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with that. Indeed, we are not even talking about something that we could pursue under European law—I am sure that he will be aware of the details of the Azores judgment. [Interruption.] That point is clear, so I am surprised that there are so many mystified faces on the Opposition Benches.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
This relates to the Minister’s point about the Azores judgment—people in my constituency speak of little else. I want to clarify the important question of transparency. Have the Government provided the Scottish Government with the figures that the Minister has quoted, in order that they can challenge them or produce any additional information? It is important that this debate is conducted not just at the level of rhetoric, but that firm proposals are made with numbers attached. Will the Minister therefore clarify whether there has been an inter-governmental dialogue on these matters?
Mr Gauke
We are talking about preliminary numbers, which I have put forward on the basis of early estimates produced by the Treasury this week. We are keen to engage with the Scottish Government, just as we have with the Northern Ireland Executive. I am sure that there will be exchanges of correspondence, meetings, discussions and a full examination of both the numbers and the methodology used in producing them. We are more than willing to engage in that process, but we are also waiting for the Scottish Government to offer their analysis of the impact of devolving corporation tax, of what the costs would be, and of the economic advantages and disadvantages. We know that the Scottish Government take a great interest in this—they make this point on a regular basis—but we await their analysis.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
I think I am correct in saying that the Minister for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government wrote to Members before the Easter recess suggesting clauses to be added to the Bill, including one on corporation tax. On that basis, is the Minister saying that the Scottish Government provided no information on their analysis of the impact of this tax? Since first requesting the information, how long has he waited for it?
Mr Gauke
I look to others for inspiration on the precise details, but we are certainly talking about months. The hon. Lady is right to say that the detailed analysis has not been provided. I am sure that the Scottish Government are working very hard to produce it, but we have not received it. It could have been helpful for this evening’s debate, but so be it.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
It might have been difficult for the Scottish Government to provide that information during the purdah period, and they were re-elected only a matter of weeks ago. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that those weighty documents have not yet arrived on the Minister’s desk.
Mr Gauke
I have to make a confession to the House: I have come only relatively recently to these issues. My understanding, however, is that the Scottish National party has been interested in this policy for some years. I am sure that if it is a priority, and I understand that it is, we will receive the paper very soon. I look forward to receiving it.
Mr Russell Brown
Perhaps I should be directing this question not to the Minister but to the Secretary of State for Scotland, because he has been engaged in this process. Has there been any indication of how long we can expect to wait for these figures?
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Perhaps the reason the Scottish Government have not yet been able to produce the figures is that some of the international studies are not to their liking because they show that lower rates of corporation tax do not necessarily lead to higher growth rates.
Mr MacNeil
The Minister talks about the Scottish Government justifying why they should have this power, but have the UK Government given any justification for why they should hold on to the power over corporation tax in Scotland?
Mr Gauke
It was about five minutes ago when we last set out the reasons that corporation tax remains a reserved matter. The Bill provides for a substantial devolution of tax powers to the Scottish Government, but corporation tax has always been a matter for the United Kingdom. We are exploring this matter in the context of Northern Ireland, but if there is a case to be made for a radical change in this area, we would like to hear it and we look forward to doing so soon.
Mr Davidson
Did not the Minister say earlier that the Government had produced their latest estimates only about seven days ago? In the circumstances, this criticism seems a trifle unfair, even though the Scottish Government have had a long time to produce theirs. Surely they would benefit from this Government sharing their figures. If the Treasury undertook to pass on its figures to the Scottish Government, I am sure that a response would soon be forthcoming, enabling us to conduct this debate properly and not simply on the level of transitional demands.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman is clearly anxious to move the debate on, and he makes a perfectly reasonable point. The Treasury and the Government would be quite happy to share our analysis with the Scottish Government, and if that would assist them in their work, we would be pleased to be of assistance.
Stewart Hosie
Speaking of sharing information, the Minister has raised the spectre of the Azores ruling, but a comparable and permanent reduction to the block grant in place of the devolution of corporation tax would certainly meet all the state aid rules. The Azores judgment smokescreen that the Minister has thrown up is quite irrelevant.
Mr Gauke
The point I was making was that the cost would have to be borne by the Scottish Government, through either increased taxes or a reduction in the block grant. We would clearly have to enter into discussions with the Commission, but I think that he is right in principle, and that such a proposition would comply with the Azores judgment. I am merely making the point that, although the final cost would have to be determined, it would be substantially higher than £2 billion if it was the Scottish Government’s policy to bring the rate of corporation tax down to the level that pertains in the Republic of Ireland.
I shall move on to amendment 18, which seeks to make the date for commencement of all the taxation provisions in the Bill—those relating to the Scottish rate of income tax, the Scottish tax on land transactions and the Scottish tax on disposals to landfill—contingent on the consent of the Scottish Parliament. The process to be used to provide consent is not detailed in the amendment, but I assume that the hon. Member for Dundee East has in mind something akin to the legislative consent motion convention to which the Bill is subject. I consider this amendment to be unnecessary. Similar amendments were tabled by the hon. Gentleman in Committee. We have committed to working closely with the Scottish Government as we move towards full implementation of the measures in the Bill. This engagement will ensure that the Scottish Government can keep the Scottish Parliament apprised of implementation work in good time.
As hon. Members will be aware, the Scottish Parliament voted on the Bill in March, with 121 of the 129 Members voting in favour; this included the Scottish Government. Following the election in May, the Scottish Parliament established a new Scotland Bill Committee to consider amendments to the Bill. This will ensure a further opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to vote on changes to the Bill.
As I said on Report in relation to the taxes to be fully devolved, we made it clear in the Command Paper accompanying the Bill that if the Scottish Parliament was not ready to introduce the smaller taxes in April 2015, we would consider delaying the switch-off of the UK-wide versions of the taxes in Scotland. Should the Scottish Government and Parliament decide that they do not wish to put in place a Scottish version to cover the existing tax base, we will not leave the current landfill tax or stamp duty land tax in place. It will be for the Scottish Government to decide what, if any, arrangements they wish to put in place, once the matter is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I consider this additional requirement to be unnecessary and I am therefore minded to urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment, but of course I shall wait with interest to hear his arguments. This has been a somewhat lengthy speech, for which I apologise to the House, but I have attempted to deal with a large number of new clauses and amendments. I hope that that has been helpful, and I look forward to the forthcoming debate.
Stewart Hosie
As the Minister has pointed out, there is a large number of new clauses and amendments in this group. I intend to give them a decent airing, not least because I was chastised by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) in a recent newspaper article for speaking for barely 14 minutes in a previous debate. I would not want to disappoint her by not providing closely argued contributions on the new clauses and amendments tonight. It is also worth putting it on record that barely three hours for a Report stage is quite inadequate.
Our amendment 29 and new clause 9 deal with corporation tax, about which the Minister went on at some length. This is a tax levied on profits and the Scottish Government are seeking to devolve the competence to use it as key policy lever to promote economic activity in Scotland. It is important to focus not on the dry detail of the amendments, but on what we and any Scottish Government would do with the powers. We believe that corporation tax can be a key element in the country’s overall economic strategy and can promote economic growth and job creation by enhancing international competitiveness and encouraging innovation and investment.
We believe that the case for devolving corporation tax is clear. Over the past 30 years, Scotland’s economy has grown more slowly relative to both the UK and the average of small EU countries than it ought to have done. We believe that for Scotland to fulfil its economic potential, additional levers are required and corporation tax is, I believe, a key mechanism. It can be an important tool in helping to support increased business start-ups, increased business research and development and investment, and in encouraging more firms to locate their headquarters in Scotland—the very reasons, I suspect, why the UK Government announced a lower corporation tax rate and a strategy for reducing it further.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
Far be it for me to be a cynic, but could it be that both Governments—the UK and the Scottish Government—wish to reduce corporation tax to appease the big business people who make donations to their political parties?
Stewart Hosie
No. That would be extraordinarily cynical, and not something that even the hon. Gentleman in his daftest moments would actually believe to be true—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) says from a sedentary position that the hon. Gentleman does believe it. That worries me even more. I suspect that that kind of attitude from Labour sends a signal that Britain and Scotland are not open for business, which is a dreadful signal to send out.
We also believe that corporation tax can be used to support the development of new industries, which is vital. As it stands, the Bill contains no new effective levers for economic growth. The UK Government have made it clear that the Bill is primarily about improving financial accountability and political governance. There is no problem with either of those things, but we need economic development as well—and the tools to do the job. We are firmly of the view, as are the Scottish Government, that any transfer of powers to Scotland must include real economic levers to promote jobs and growth.
The argument from the UK Government that we cannot have corporation tax powers might appear rather contradictory. Clearly, there is increasing support for the principle of devolving the responsibility for corporation tax—not least to Northern Ireland, where it is currently under active review.
With those points in mind, I back the Scottish Government in seeking devolved competence for corporation tax to be used as a key policy lever to promote economic activity in Scotland. We are seeking the responsibility to vary both the corporation tax base and the tax rate, with the base defining the element that is subject or liable to be taxed—the bulk of profits, netting out allowances and so forth—and the tax rate being the amount of taxable profit required to be paid during each accounting period. At the moment, that is estimated to be about £2.8 billion for Scotland on 2008-09 figures— and for very good reason that excludes North sea corporation tax. It comes in at about 6.5% of the total tax revenue in Scotland. We believe that the full devolution of corporation tax with an appropriate reduction in the block grant, which covers the Azores issue, would provide the Scottish Government with a new lever to promote growth and jobs.
The position of the Scottish Parliament Scotland Bill Committee was established in a very clear conclusion:
“The Committee’s view is that if a scheme to vary corporation tax were to be available in some of the devolved countries of the UK as a tool of the UK Government’s regional economic policy, it should be available as an option for a Scottish Government to use also.”
That is incredibly important. Now that it is clear that such a tool is being considered for Northern Ireland in the UK Government’s consultation on “Rebalancing the Northern Ireland economy”, it follows that consideration must now be given to devolving corporation tax to Scotland.
Mark Lazarowicz
I want to be clear about what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He said that if there were to be a devolution of corporation tax and the ability to vary it, an appropriate change would be made to the level of the block grant. Does he mean that if corporation tax were reduced in Scotland by £1 billion, an equivalent £1 billion reduction would take place in the block grant? Is he talking about a like-for-like reduction?
Stewart Hosie
It has to be initially to get this kicked in. At that point, the Scottish Government are rightly responsible for their revenue raising and their tax spending within it. That is normal, grown up and quite appropriate.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I ask a simple question: what does the hon. Gentleman mean by “initially”?
Stewart Hosie
A permanent reduction for corporation tax to be devolved and taking responsibility for the income we raise to pay for the services we have.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman let us and Scottish taxpayers know how that financial gap would be met in the period before any economic benefits might arise? Would there be cuts in services, for example, or would the Scottish Government have to consider a rise in income tax for people in Scotland?
Stewart Hosie
The hon. Lady predicates her argument on failure, as Labour Members tend to do. There is no reason to believe that there would be a net loss of revenue to Scotland. Let me put it to the hon. Lady in a different way. The UK went into the recession with £0.5 trillion of debt; it now sits somewhere close to £1 trillion and it is forecast to rise under this Administration to about £1.5 trillion by 2014-15. Scotland, however, has had a net surplus over many years and it is certainly a surplus relative to the UK even in very recent years. Instead of talking Scotland down, we need to be serious about how to gain the powers to grow the Scottish economy and take responsibility for our own actions, which is vital.
Sheila Gilmore
I understand the optimism and do not want to cut through it in any way. However, the hon. Gentleman said that he accepted that there would initially be a reduction in the block grant, which will initially create a financial issue. I was simply asking how it would be met in the short term.
Stewart Hosie
It will not be a reduction because we will have the corporation tax yield, which is comparable to the reduction in the block. It is the same amount of money initially and we take responsibility thereafter.
Stewart Hosie
I have already given way five or six times and I want to make progress. There will be plenty of opportunities for hon. Members to intervene later.
There is a very strong case for additional powers. Evidence shows that corporation tax can be a key element in a country’s overall economic strategy and it has the potential to promote economic growth by enhancing international competitiveness and encouraging innovation and investment. As the Minister said, we have long argued for devolution of corporation tax as a powerful means of addressing the economic challenges facing the Scottish economy. We believe that a centralised and uniform corporation tax structure disadvantages nations such as Scotland to the benefit of London and the south-east of England. To say that is not to be anti-London or anti-south-east; it is just to say that when businesses reach a certain size, they tend, other things being equal, to be attracted to the largest conurbations. In the UK, that of course means London.
The evidence base for devolving corporation tax powers to Scotland is pretty clear. Over the last 30 years, as I said at the beginning, Scotland’s economy has grown more slowly relative to both the UK and the average of other small EU countries. One reason for that relatively weaker economic performance has been the relatively smaller corporate sector in Scotland relative to other parts of the UK. Business birth rates are lower, the business base is smaller and Scottish companies typically engage in less research and development.
As I said, there is also evidence that Scottish headquarters drift south of the border once businesses have reached a certain size. Effective use of corporation tax could serve as a powerful tool to address those trends by improving competitiveness and encouraging investment and expansion. Evidence shows that, at the margin, corporation tax rates can be an important factor in international firms’ decisions about foreign direct investment, which is one of the key objectives of the Scottish Government and Scottish Development International.
At the same time, a number of key sectors in the Scottish economy face tough competition from abroad. Companies abroad receive attractive tax breaks as part of allowances in relation to corporate taxation. The computer games industry, for example, has received a very attractive proposition from Dublin, and receives tax breaks in Montreal that have been denied by our Government despite forceful representations to the Minister by members of all parties. Improvements in those areas will help to boost productivity and, ultimately, the competitiveness of the Scottish economy, which will benefit not just Scotland but the United Kingdom as a whole.
The devolution of corporation tax powers is not solely about making possible the creation of a more competitive environment within the Scottish economy; it also about increasing and promoting accountability. A greater devolution of economic policy levers and tax revenues means that the Scottish Government will have the levers that they need to increase sustainable economic growth, and an opportunity to reinvest the proceeds of that growth—higher long-run tax revenues—in Scotland’s public sector. Having control over corporation tax would also mean that the Scottish Government would bear the risk on the economic levers. We believe that positive reform must be about balancing the revenue and expenditure implications of policy choices, and about giving policy makers the levers to promote economic growth.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
According to the hon. Gentleman's logic, if the power were devolved, the Scottish Government would reduce corporation tax. How would the gap in the Scottish Government’s revenue be plugged? Would that be done by means of higher taxes or a lower standard of services?
Stewart Hosie
The hon. Gentleman must have been asleep for the last 14 minutes, because that is precisely the question that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) asked. I am surprised that he did not hear or understand my answer to her question, which was that the corporation tax yield would fill the gap caused by the reduction in block grant.
David Mowat
The hon. Gentleman made a powerful point a few moments ago, if I heard him aright. He said that, unlike the United Kingdom, which has a significant deficit, Scotland had experienced a surplus over the last few years. Can he tell us how, in reaching that conclusion, he accounted for the bail-out of Royal Bank of Scotland?
Stewart Hosie
I have two answers to that question. The first is that in the 40 years before the crisis, Scotland experienced a surplus on average. The second relates directly to the hon. Gentleman's question. I am fed up with the argument that runs “Scottish banks bad, English banks good.” There seems to be a failure of basic understanding. Northern Rock took £20 billion, as did the Lloyds banking group. No one seems to speak about Northern Rock. Bradford & Bingley required £37 billion. RBS required £45 billion, but a large chunk of that related to the asset protection scheme. It was not a question of Scottish banks’ being bad and needing to be bailed out while all other banks were fine.
I do not want to drift too far from the new clause, but the Office for Budget Responsibility made it clear in its assessment earlier this year that the net impact of the financial crisis measures would be a surplus of £3.5 billion for the taxpayer. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman does not seem to know what the out-turn figure is likely to be.
Amendment 25 provides for powers to charge a tax charged on the profits of companies—
Stewart Hosie
Not at this point.
New clause 9 would allow for the introduction of an additional devolved tax charged on the profits of companies, and would require such a proposal to be placed before both Houses of Parliament.
Mr Gauke
I know that the hon. Gentleman is keen to move on from the subject of corporation tax, but I seek clarification, I think with good reason. He said that he understood the Azores judgment and what was necessary for compliance with it. He said that if the yield from corporation tax went to the Scottish Government, the block grant would be reduced and everything would be fine. All that is correct. However, if the Scottish Government reduce corporation tax, there will be a cost. He has not made clear how the Scottish Government would deal with that. Would they do so by spending less or by increasing other taxes?
Stewart Hosie
Evidence that I have seen in a significant number of companies suggests that the reductions in block grant would be phased in. We see a trend increase in business tax yield as business tax rates are reduced. I am sure that the Minister has seen similar figures, which may have driven some of his own policy decisions. I suspect that Scotland would be unique if we did not follow a pattern that has been seen time after time in other countries.
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman is presenting the Laffer curve argument. He suggests that a corporation tax cut could pay for itself. As he knows, I support that idea and am looking at what the Government are doing in that connection. It is not altogether surprising that there are advantages in reducing corporation tax, but, initially at the very least, it comes at a cost. We had to put that in the Red Book. Does he believe that there would be no cost, or does he believe that the tax cuts would immediately pay for themselves?
Stewart Hosie
I am glad that the Minister agrees with my direction of travel. What I am saying is that the Scottish Government would have to take responsibility for the consequences of Scottish Government policy, as is right and proper.
Stewart Hosie
I will give way to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), but then I shall try to move on to excise duty.
Mr Reid
If the hon. Gentleman's argument is correct and reducing corporation tax results in an increased tax yield, that will apply in England and Northern Ireland as much as it will in Scotland. If there are different corporation tax rates in different parts of the United Kingdom and if the hon. Gentleman's argument is correct, surely every part of the United Kingdom will enter into a competition to reduce corporation tax, and we will end up with a race to the bottom to the detriment of all parts of the UK.
Stewart Hosie
I do not want a race to the bottom, but I do believe in tax competition. It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman and his new-found friends do not.
I must now move on from corporation tax to excise duty. Amendment 37 would ensure that provisions relating to alcohol excise came into force two months after the enactment of the Bill. New clause 19 would amend the Scotland Act 1998 so that alcohol duties became an exception to the general reservation in that regard.
All excise duties are currently levied by the UK Government. Alcohol duty is one of the most important excise duties levied in the UK. It is estimated to raise approximately £800 million a year in Scotland, less than 2% of the total tax yield in and on behalf of Scotland. In addition to raising revenues for the Exchequer, one of the key aims of the duty is to reduce excessive consumption of alcohol, which has been proved to lead to a variety of health and social problems. In the current devolution framework, the Scottish budget typically picks up the cost of addressing those problems through police, health and some social welfare costs expenditures. That is done entirely within the Scottish block. Devolving responsibility for excise duty to Scotland would help to ensure that the tax system for alcohol consumption was consistent with the alcohol policy of the Scottish Government and equipped to tackle one of the greatest health and social challenges facing Scotland.
Jim Sheridan
As chair of the all-party parliamentary Scotch whisky and spirits group, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Scottish whisky industry is deeply concerned about his proposals. What worries the industry are the administration costs. It would be necessary to designate the final destination of the product, and, even more worryingly, Members of Parliament would bear the additional burden of taking carry-outs from London to their constituencies in Glasgow.
Stewart Hosie
I suspect that any MP trying to take a carry-out through airport security would immediately be stopped.
The devolution of alcohol excise duties would also enable the Scottish Government to implement a revised alcohol duty structure to offer greater protection to the competitive position of Scotch whisky, something we have tried to do on several occasions in a number of past Finance Bills. On 12 May 2009, the vote on alcohol duty took place at half-past midnight. We were trying to implement a fair rate of duty—which we can achieve through the devolution of excise duties—so that alcoholic beverages were taxed on their alcohol content, and on no other spurious measures. Interestingly, five Conservatives managed to vote with us, yet 268 Labour Members voted against, thereby maintaining the unfair level of duty on Scotch whisky. I am sure the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) is sincere in his view, but it does not stand the scrutiny of the recent voting record.
The devolution of excise duties ought to be handled through the devolution of additional powers as described in the amendment, because alcohol duty is levied on all products consumed in the UK irrespective of their country of origin. As a result, the UK Exchequer collects duty on Scotch whisky only if it is consumed in the UK, as exported whisky is not liable for excise duty. Similarly, imported products such as spirits produced overseas are liable for duty when entering the country to be sold in the UK market. We seek to devolve this power, and the Scottish Government seek the responsibility to vary the rate of duty levied on products in Scotland and to implement a more streamlined and efficient system of alcohol taxation that better targets rates of duty to combat binge drinking and excessive consumption of cheap alcoholic products, and that supports a fairer and less discriminatory system for premium products such as Scotch whisky.
Mr Donohoe
Will the hon. Gentleman at least give credence to the fact that over a great number of years previous Governments held back from imposing higher taxes on Scotch whisky, along with all other spirits, and that as a consequence the level playing field he seeks is close to being achieved?
Stewart Hosie
I am prepared to recognise that duty did not rise for a number of years, but that is not the point I am making. My point is that alcohol taxation is unfair because it is based on different types of alcoholic drink, and not entirely on alcoholic strength.
Stewart Hosie
It is no such thing, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman’s contacts in the Scotch whisky industry will confirm.
There is a strong social case for the devolution of alcohol duty, not least because there is clear evidence that, for alcohol, price is a driver of consumption. There is strong evidence from numerous surveys in Europe, America, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere that levels of alcohol consumption in the population are closely linked to the retail price of alcohol. As it becomes more affordable, consumption increases, and as the relative price increases, consumption falls.
We, and the Scottish Government, are committed to introducing a minimum price for alcohol, and gaining control over the excise duties would provide an additional mechanism to address excessive alcohol consumption. That would help to reduce the annual cost of alcohol misuse in Scotland. Devolving excise duty would enable a future minimum price per unit to be established within the excise system. Under the current system, the introduction of a minimum price is estimated to generate additional revenue for retailers, not the UK or Scottish Government. That was the argument the Labour party made in the Scottish Parliament. Devolving excise duty for alcohol would therefore result in all the additional revenue from increasing the price of low-cost alcohol products accruing to the Scottish Government, and those revenues could then be reinvested in public services in Scotland. The case for devolving alcohol duties is very strong indeed.
Mr Reid
I agree with one of the hon. Gentleman’s points: alcoholic drinks should be taxed on alcohol content. There is a practical problem with his amendment, however. It is my understanding that he wants to increase taxes on alcohol in Scotland, but if alcohol is then priced cheaper just across the border in Berwick or Carlisle, surely a lot of revenue will be lost by people nipping across the border to buy their drink?
Stewart Hosie
There are always borders. The hon. Gentleman was presumably one of the 28 Lib Dems who backed us in 2009. I am pretty sure some of the Lib Dems in the Scottish Parliament now back minimum pricing. I ask for a wee bit of constituency in terms of the policy therefore, and given there are only five Lib Dem MSPs, it should not be too difficult to do a quick phone around.
I turn to the topic of capital borrowing and amendments 26 to 29. We all know that infrastructure investment is an essential contributor to productivity and economic growth. That is presumably why the Chancellor of the Exchequer made great play of spending £2 billion more on capital projects in the comprehensive spending review period than the previous Labour Administration had planned to spend. In the short term, such expenditure can boost economic growth, total output and employment. Over the long term, capital investment, both public and private, is a key driver of productivity, competitiveness and long-term economic growth.
Public sector investment that enhances a country’s physical, technological and digital infrastructure can increase the productive capacity of the economy and drive private sector growth and investment. Indeed, we know that direct capital investment would save or create twice as many jobs as the same amount of investment used for a VAT cut, such is the scale of the economic multipliers of direct capital investment.
Jim Sheridan
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this does create jobs. Can he therefore justify his Government’s cancellation of the Glasgow airport rail link project?
Stewart Hosie
Some projects were simply unaffordable, not least because a number of parties—the other three parties represented here now, in fact—voted for half a billion pounds for the Edinburgh tram system, and look at what an overwhelming success that is!
The Scottish Government are responsible for the vast majority of Scotland’s public investment, covering transport, water, health, education, local government, prisons, housing and so forth. There is, I hope, now widespread agreement across the political spectrum that the Scottish Parliament should have full responsibility to determine the pace and scale of Scotland’s infrastructure investment programme, within a prudent and sustainable long-term financial framework. The Scottish Parliament should have substantial capital borrowing powers to fund productive expenditure for the following purposes: for very large, discrete projects or programmes such as the Forth crossing, which the Minister mentioned; to provide medium-term economic stimulus similar to the accelerated capital programme undertaken in 2008-09 and 2009-10; to smooth the profile of investment in key public services; and to help to lever in additional investment, particularly from the private sector.
Sheila Gilmore
Given what I understood to be the hon. Gentleman’s party’s green environmental credentials, I am surprised that the capital projects he appears to favour are largely to do with roads, rather than public transport, such as the tram proposal that has been mentioned.
Stewart Hosie
The hon. Lady’s surprise is a matter for her, not me. An investment programme is in place that includes housing, environmental and insulation programmes and a large number of other programmes in Scotland, but we are discussing capital borrowing, not the specific projects for which it might be used. That will be a matter for the current and future Scottish Governments.
Sheila Gilmore
I must take the hon. Gentleman up on the point about housing, because I understand—from a recent report by Shelter, for example—that the number of new affordable homes being started in Scotland this year will have fallen from 6,000 to 1,500.
Stewart Hosie
That report is probably for the overall statistics. Sadly, because of the banking crisis, the banks’ withholding of cash and the difficulties with Bradford & Bingley, which funded housing associations, the slack has had to be taken up by the Scottish Government, who have been funding as many new housing starts as is humanly possible. I find it extraordinary that, given the thousands of houses that have been contributed to by the Scottish Government, the hon. Lady or anyone else on the Labour Benches can talk about Labour’s record, which, from memory, was not 6,000, 600 or 60, but six council houses being funded by that Scottish Government.
Stewart Hosie
I have given way twice—I am going to carry on.
As I was saying, the Scottish Parliament should have substantial capital borrowing powers for very large, discrete projects, the provision of medium-term economic stimulus, smoothing the profile of investment in key public services and helping to lever in additional private investment.
Stewart Hosie
Not just now.
However, as a result of the decisions taken by the UK Government in 2010 in the comprehensive spending review, capital budgets available to the Scottish Government are now likely to fall by some 36% in real terms. That represents a cumulative reduction in spending power of around £4.1 billion over the period of the comprehensive spending review. The speed and scale of the cuts by this Government significantly constrain the Scottish Government’s flexibility in managing their infrastructure programme. It is vital that while ensuring the overall sustainability of borrowing—I agree with the Minister on that—Scotland’s capital borrowing facility has sufficient scale and flexibility to enable the funding of productive investments over the long term.
The proposals in the Bill state that from 2015 the controls and limits applied to capital borrowing mean that Scottish Ministers should be allowed to borrow up to 10% of the Scottish capital budget in any year to fund capital expenditure—£230 million in 2014-15—and that the overall stock of capital borrowing could not rise beyond £2.2 billion. They also state that borrowing to finance capital funded by a loan from the national loan fund would be for a maximum of 10 years, but that a longer time frame—for example 25 years—may be negotiated if that better reflected the life span of associated assets such as with the new Forth crossing.
In the written statement of 13 June, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State proposed:
“bringing forward to 2011 pre-payments, a form of cash advance, to allow work on the Forth replacement crossing”
and
“introducing a power in the Scotland Bill that will enable the Government to amend, in future, the way in which Scottish Ministers can borrow”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 58WS.]
including through the provision of bonds. Notwithstanding any of that, the £2.2 billion cumulative limit is unchanged.
I am pleased that there is now established consensus among the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs and a number of independent experts that the Scotland Bill’s proposals for capital borrowing require substantial enhancement and improvement. That unanimity was reflected in the motion that was agreed unanimously on 9 June in the Scottish Parliament. I make this criticism of the proposals even with the changes regarding our attempt to have capital borrowing devolved so that limits, bond issuance and all these matters are agreed between the Governments on a statutory basis. At the moment, the Bill is predicated on a framework that appears to have been developed without any explicit discussion about sustainability or affordability and without offering any objective means of testing those essential criteria. The annual borrowing limit of 10% of capital departmental expenditure limit seems arbitrary and the proposed total limit on borrowing, set at £2.2 billion, is believed to be too low to make a meaningful difference. Indeed, I think that the Scottish Parliament Scotland Bill Committee in Holyrood suggested £5 billion. The UK Government have not proposed any objective criteria to determine the path of total capital borrowing capacity over time and that builds uncertainty and discretion into the framework. The arbitrary mechanism that the UK Government have proposed for revising this is inconsistent with the basic principles of devolution. The central assumption of a 10-year repayment period for capital borrowing is inappropriate, as public capital assets will typically have a useful life of perhaps more than 30 years. Although helpful, the early implementation measures will do very little to offset the cumulative £4.1 billion reduction in capital expenditure.
The changes are welcome, but we believe that the UK Government’s proposals still require improvement in four key areas. First, the specification of annual limits on borrowing should be agreed between the Governments and not set arbitrarily. Secondly, the methodology for determining the borrowing capacity that is sustainable in the long term needs to be agreed. Thirdly, the terms of repayment for capital borrowing need to be agreed and, fourthly, the impact of the early implementation measures that are proposed also need to be looked at and agreed properly. We believe that should be done within the framework of a statutory agreement between the two Governments, and that is the purpose of the various amendments and new clauses we have proposed. They include amendment 26, which would allow Scottish Ministers to borrow for the purpose of meeting capital expenditure without requiring the approval of the Treasury and without it being by way of loan, and amendment 27, which would mean that Scottish Ministers and the Treasury must both agree to a code of practice and framework within which these things would be agreed. Our amendment 28 would remove the measure that suggests the cumulative borrowing total should be set at £2.2 billion, so it would become redundant when an agreement was in place.
Amendment 29 would remove subsection (10) of clause 32, which introduces the type E procedure. That subsection would not be necessary because the agreement on how Ministers are to determine and keep under review how much they can afford to borrow, the terms and conditions and the sums that may be borrowed and the limit on aggregate at any time outstanding in respect of the principle would be agreed.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
I shall speak first to my amendment 24 before making some broader comments about some of the other amendments and new clauses.
I tabled the amendment as a probing amendment, as I felt there was still some ambiguity about one aspect of the definition of a Scottish taxpayer when it was considered in Committee. My point of concern is to define whether under clause 26 a taxpayer is resident in Scotland at the end of the day if that person is embarking on a cross-border overnight journey—one that departs Scotland before midnight and arrives in England after midnight. I think primarily of my old friend on the Caledonian sleeper, whom I cited in Committee. If the train leaves Glasgow and has crossed the border before midnight, is he deemed to be in Scotland or England at the end of the tax day? The point may seem trivial, but for someone who makes that journey regularly it could be material in defining whether they were a Scottish or an English taxpayer. Obviously, it would also apply to other modes of transport, such as private or heavy goods vehicles and overnight coaches.
It is a probing amendment and it may not offer the most specific or elegant definition, but I tabled it to find clarity. I shall be happy not to press it if alternative wording can be found, or the Minister can give clarity in case the definition is ever challenged in court. I shall return to that point briefly at the end of my comments.
I shall speak briefly to new clause 8 and the related amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and others. I suspect that one of our show-stopping debates tonight may be on the Barnett formula and related matters. When I looked at the amendment paper, I thought I would be following the right hon. Gentleman and responding to his points, but I shall have to anticipate his arguments from the interventions and from the new clause itself.
They are a beguiling set of amendments. I agree that at some point we shall have to tackle the whole issue of the Barnett formula and the fiscal relationship between all parts of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) invites me to give a solution. If he bides his time—
Iain Stewart
I know, but I believe I have a better one and I shall turn to it in a moment.
The arguments are beguiling. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said that she has correspondence from constituents asking why on the face of it Scottish residents have a much better deal from the UK public purse than people in England. I receive similar letters asking why prescriptions are free north of the border, but there is a charge in England. That issue has to be tackled.
Mr MacNeil
Among that raft of questions, has anyone ever asked the hon. Gentleman why the social security spend is higher per head in England than in Scotland?
Iain Stewart
I challenge the hon. Gentleman’s facts, because in preparing for the debate I read that often-thumbed document GERS—Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland—and the Treasury’s public expenditure statistical analysis, which show, if my interpretation is correct, that social security payments are higher per head in Scotland than in England.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Could the hon. Gentleman rise to the challenge of explaining to his constituents why there may be different charges for services between one local authority area and another? If that can be explained, surely the choices made by the Scottish Parliament and Government can also be explained to his constituents.
Iain Stewart
Indeed. If the hon. Lady will let me develop my argument, I shall address those points. There is a lot of misinformation swilling around and we need to arrive at hard evidence-based data so that we can make objective decisions about the future fiscal relationship between the different parts of the United Kingdom.
One of the misleading things is that we often talk about changing the Barnett formula as if that was the whole fiscal relationship between the different parts of the kingdom. In fact, it is a convergence formula; it was designed by Lord Barnett to diminish the difference between Scottish and English public spending over time. The reason why people complain about the formula is that so many elements of public spending are negotiated separately from the formula. Last week, there was an instructive debate about the formula in the other place and I remind Members of the comments of Lord Lang, a former Scotland Secretary. He said that between 2000 and 2002 the Barnett elements of the public expenditure rounds diminished the Scottish block by £17 million, but the total increased by £340 million because of separately negotiated arrangements.
Mr MacNeil
Was any mention made in that debate of the massive defence underspend in Scotland, which is a huge section of public spending where Scotland receives dramatically less than its per capita share compared with the rest of the UK? [Interruption.] I would say more if I was not being heckled by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson).
Iain Stewart
If the hon. Gentleman has a little patience, I shall come to what I believe is the solution.
I fear that new clause 8 and the related amendments are a little hasty in dealing with this matter.
Iain Stewart
The Barnett formula has not been in operation for the duration of the Union and only since 1978, so it is a comparatively new beast.
Yesterday, the right hon. Gentleman was speaking in the debate on the Pensions Bill where one of the arguments against the changes the Government are proposing is that the time scale to allow people to adjust their behaviour should not be less than 10 years. A similar approach should be taken to funding; there should be a process of evolution, not revolution. If we rush too hastily into the argument on the basis of misinformation, we risk splitting the Union asunder.
David Mowat
My hon. Friend is right. If a change is made to the block grant, as it must be at some point soon, there will be a long transition period, which may be as long as 10 years, but that is no reason not to do a review, put the matter on a needs basis and start that 10-year period. A transition of 10 years is reasonable.
Iain Stewart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have a suggestion to make about how we can move forward. In this country we have never had a territorially based system of taxation or spending. From taxation receipts we do not know in detail which part of the United Kingdom contributes what in taxes. There are many estimates and forecasts, but there is little hard evidence.
Iain Stewart
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. His party, in calculating Scotland’s share of the United Kingdom’s tax receipts, has used very different formulae and assumptions over the years. I do not have the exact figures to hand, but in the space of a few months it came up with a figure for Scotland’s surplus, if that is what it was, which varied by several billion pounds because it used different assumptions in calculating Scottish tax receipts. That is the problem that we have in calculating the true relationship.
Mr MacNeil
Over and above tax receipts, disaggregated spending might be a lot easier. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that Departments such as the Ministry of Defence should provide full figures on how much they are spending in which parts of the United Kingdom? The Government have the power and authority to do that. We have many concerns about the shipyards in Glasgow and about defence spending. As a member of the governing party, does the hon. Gentleman feel that he should be encouraging his side to provide openness and clarity on these vital issues?
Iain Stewart
I am happy to come to some agreement with the hon. Gentleman. My solution is to provide a detailed breakdown on a territorial basis of actual spending and receipts—what is spent and received by each part of the United Kingdom.
Mr Davidson
I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but with reference to the different parts of the United Kingdom, does he accept that there are enormous divergences among different parts of England, and that that is fuelling much of the sense of grievance felt by many of our English colleagues? Much of this is a within-England problem of unfair distribution, particularly to the north-east and the north-west of England, which ought to be addressed by his Government.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point exactly. It is too crude to look at the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom. In Scotland and in England we need to break that down further and look, as he says, at the different needs in the different parts of the kingdom. I will give a constituency example. My constituency, Milton Keynes South, is in the affluent south-east of England, yet I have very deprived wards in my constituency. Taking health spending as an example, what Milton Keynes is allocated as its formula share of health spending in England is capped because there is a transfer to other parts of England. I contend that that is not fair and it disregards some of the areas of need in my constituency, but it illustrates the problem that arises if the formula for analysing spending is too crude.
Mark Lazarowicz
As the hon. Gentleman knows, spending per head in London is almost 50% higher than in the south-east region of England. No one disputes that there are parts of London where there is great need, but other parts which do not fall into that category still benefit from Government spending which is 40% higher than in his constituency.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. In calculating these figures, however, we should be careful about looking only at per capita spending. Again, I believe that is too crude. It is about the equality of service provision. In a rural area, the cost per head of providing a school place will inevitably be higher because the fixed costs of a building, for example, are divided by a comparatively smaller number of people.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that allocating funds simply on geography, particularly defence spending, is a misdirection? Defence spending must be based on the strategic needs of the armed forces, not on a geographic spread. Does he agree that that line of argument is completely false in the context of defence spending?
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We also have to look at the equality of the benefits given by defence spending—the protection that accrues to the whole country. It does not matter so much where the defence equipment originates if we are looking at the overall protection that the armed forces provide.
Mr Weir
The hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) makes a valid point as regards defence. The attack on the Barnett formula is based on the fact that Scotland gets more per head, but if we take into account all spending, that is not necessarily the case because of the imbalance in the way that defence spending is allocated—so the figures are important. Where the assets are, for the purposes of this argument, may not be quite so important, but the amount of spending is very important. The economic impact of where the assets are is vital to many communities.
Iain Stewart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point. May I infer that he is happy to retain the Trident base in Faslane, given the economic benefits that accrue to Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire?
Mr Weir
There is little or no economic benefit from the Trident base, and there is an extremely disproportionate —[Interruption.] The point is that bases such as the RAF bases in Morayshire are important not only from a defence point of view but economically, and bases such as the Condor base in my constituency are important economically and also from a defence point of view.
Iain Stewart
I challenge the hon. Gentleman’s assumption about the lack, as he sees it, of economic benefits. I also contend that he is making a good case for Scotland's remaining part of the Union, so that the lion’s share of UK defence assets can be based north of the border.
Mr MacNeil
As part of the Union, Scotland currently has a manifest defence underspend. There is no defence advantage for Scotland of being in the Union at all; we are actually losing money by being part of the Union. Far more would be spent on defence in Scotland as an independent country than the Union is spending there, and the shipyards in Glasgow would be in a far better state with an independent Scotland than with a dependent Scotland represented by Labour.
Iain Stewart
I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman in many matters, but this is not one of them. The argument that defence spending in Scotland would somehow be enhanced through independence is not one I agree with. I am not sure whether the Scottish National party’s policy is still to withdraw from NATO, but it used to be many years ago. I see Scottish defence assets only being decimated in the event of independence, so I agree to disagree with him on that point.
I will return to what I propose as a solution. Before we start recalibrating the Barnett formula or developing some other formula or mechanism, we need hard facts on the fiscal relationship between each part of the kingdom. Once we have that, we can move forward on a sensible basis towards having a stable and fair system in the UK. However, I will end on a note of caution. In a previous exercise I looked at other countries that operate some form of fiscal transfers between different parts of the country, such as Australia, Canada and Germany. There are different models in each country, but in all of them the spending relationship between the constituent parts is still a big political issue. I fear that we will never get to a point where everyone is completely happy with the relationship, but I believe that we can arrive at a stable solution.
Mr Davidson
It is important to put on the record that even under devolution Glasgow clearly gets far less than its fair share from a Scottish Government based in Edinburgh. I have just been to the Shetlands with the Scottish Affairs Committee, and people there feel that they are equally badly treated by Edinburgh. We also need a needs-based assessment within Scotland to stop money disappearing and being sucked down into the black hole that is Edinburgh.
Iain Stewart
Having been born and brought up in Hamilton, which is between Glasgow and Edinburgh, I am in something of a no man’s land on that point and wary of intruding on private grief. The hon. Gentleman’s point is an important one. The analysis should be not only among Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but among the regions and cities in each nation. I do not intend to press my amendment to a vote, but I would be grateful if the Minister could suggest some alternative working or make some statement.
Mr Brown
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. My intervening on him is causing disruption behind me. Will he look again at his amendment and explain exactly what it means? I am a little perturbed, and I know that he has mentioned sleeper trains and everything, but will he explain again exactly what it means?
Iain Stewart
My amendment is very simple and would remove any ambiguity. If a passenger were on a cross-border overnight journey, irrespective of when the border was crossed, they would be deemed to be in Scotland at the end of the day when that service departed. It may not be the most elegant or precise of solutions, but I felt that in the debate in Committee there was some ambiguity about the position, so the amendment is my attempt to clarify it.
Iain Stewart
Forgive me, but I am going to finish now. Many other Members wish to speak, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Ann McKechin
I welcome the very wise remarks of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). He always provides us with great expertise on Barnett formula issues, and on the point about having hard evidence, because one key component of our debate about the Bill has been the evidence for the various fiscal arguments that have been proffered over the past few months.
Borrowing powers were not in the original Calman recommendations, but we certainly welcome the inclusion of that tool for the Scottish Government. The Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee, in its report, and the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs both recommended that the powers be brought forward from the proposed date of April 2013, and as the Minister will be aware, we have already called for their advancement to 2012. That proposal is in amendment 2.
The Government announced in last week’s written ministerial statement that they are to bring forward to 2011 pre-payments, in order to allow work on the Forth replacement crossing. That is not the same as bringing forward the capital borrowing powers in the Bill, and it would be helpful if the Minister in his winding-up speech were able to confirm that the full capital borrowing powers will be available from the next financial year, if the Bill is on the statute book by that point.
I also welcome the announcement in the statement that the Government are removing the requirement for Scottish Ministers to absorb the first £120 million of tax forecasting variation within their budget, giving them greater flexibility. A number of comments have been made about extending the borrowing limits, and that should be a matter of negotiation between the two Administrations. The Secretary of State says that he views the figure of £2.2 billion as a floor rather than as a maximum, and that is welcome.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field)—
Ann McKechin
My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who I understand has reached a memorable birthday, spoke to new clauses on the Barnett formula, and the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South and others pertinently said that there is no easy solution. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see that my right hon. Friend has returned to his seat. In the financial year 2009-10, however, the average per capita expenditure in Scotland was £9,940, while in London the figure was £10,182. Indeed, it has been stated that the move to a needs-based system in countries such as Australia has resulted in the same amount of debate about what is required.
Barnett should not be confused with devolution. Devolution allows the Scottish Government to make their own decisions on a range of issues, such as prescription charges, which do not apply in England, but it is separate from Barnett formula issues. The Barnett formula is relatively simple and objective, and as the Calman commission stated, any changes to it would be difficult to determine and “a highly political process”.
On the new clauses on corporation tax, for the record the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) spoke about fiscal autonomy for 42 minutes, not 14. However, we are not necessarily any clearer about what impact his proposals would have on the electorate in Scotland. The Calman report specifically rejected the devolution of corporation tax. Paragraph 3.113 of the final report says that
“we therefore reject the devolution of corporation tax. Nor, especially in view of its volatility…from one year to another, do we see it as a candidate for tax assignment.”
Mark Lazarowicz
No doubt there is a theoretical argument that cutting corporation tax for smaller or new businesses would encourage them to grow and expand, but can my hon. Friend explain how cutting the corporation tax paid by Royal Bank of Scotland by 50% would encourage it to bring more jobs into the Scottish economy? Would it not just add to its already large profits?
Ann McKechin
My hon. Friend raises a good point. The Scottish Government are advocating a cut in taxes for banks but not for small businesses that do not pay corporation tax. Many employers in the private sector who employ many people do not pay corporation tax, but income tax. Substantially reducing corporation tax would lead to a large cut in public expenditure or increase the burden on income tax payers.
The Scottish Government already have a considerable number of economic levers. They have decided to cut funding to many Scottish colleges—for example, James Watt college in Greenock faces a cut of £5 million. They have cut regeneration funds in many of the most deprived areas, including a 71% cut in the Inverclyde regeneration fund. The test that the Scots will apply is not how many powers anybody has vis-à-vis someone else but how they use them for Scotland’s benefit. [Interruption.] SNP Members chunter on, but they do not have any intervention to make because these are decisions that they have made and they do not wish to take responsibility for them.
Fiona O'Donnell
Does my hon. Friend regret the macho element that has crept into this debate? Does she, like me, regret the fact that when Alex Salmond came to Downing street with his two friends and sat down with Government Ministers, there was not a single woman around that table?
Ann McKechin
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about the issues that the Scottish Government have decided not to speak about. They did not come down here to speak to Ministers about the cuts in the welfare reform that will impact particularly heavily on women. They did not come down here to talk about the crisis in our care homes as a result of the imminent collapse of Southern Cross, which affects elderly people and their families right across the country. They did not come down to talk about the increase in the pension age, which will impact on women in particular. My hon. Friend is right that when it comes to issues that affect tens of thousands of people and women in particular, who make up the majority of the Scottish population, the SNP is sadly silent.
Dr Whiteford
The last time I looked, welfare reform and pensions were matters reserved to this House. I certainly contributed to the debates on those matters in this House, and the last time I looked I was a woman. It is sad that when we discussed the uprating proposals in the Pensions Bill, most Labour Members, with a few honourable exceptions, sat on their hands. It was left to just a few of us on the Opposition Benches to oppose the increases proposed by the Government.
Ann McKechin
I do not discredit the hon. Lady for making strong statements in this Chamber. However, I find it extraordinary that the First Minister, who feels that he can speak about any issue that impacts on Scotland and who has more powers, does not take the opportunity to speak about the issues that matter to ordinary people in Scotland every day of the week.
I will return to the Bill, as I am sure you would wish, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr MacNeil
Will the hon. Lady clarify whether she is saying that she would welcome the First Minister coming to Downing street to talk about welfare reform and pensions?
Ann McKechin
If the First Minister had anything sensible to say, I would, but as yet, I have not heard it. It is a bit like the corporation tax issue—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) needs to calm himself and not get over-excited. The Scottish Government have had many weeks to produce detailed analysis. They have complained that things have been rushed and that we have not had figures from the UK Government on a variety of issues throughout the passage of this Bill, yet they cannot produce the detailed evidence and analysis that would allow people in Scotland to judge whether their calls have validity.
The hon. Member for Dundee East was given five opportunities this evening to explain what the impact would be on Scottish public expenditure if there was a cut in corporation tax. He said in Committee:
“I would like it cut over a number of years”.—[Official Report, 14 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 70.]
Members may be interested to hear that that has not always been the Scottish National party’s policy on corporation tax. In 1988, a certain Alex Salmond was suspended as an MP from the House of Commons for attacking the Tory Government’s reduction in corporation tax.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the history lesson. Is this what we are going to get from the Labour party for the next few years? I want to encourage her, because the negativity and can’t-do attitude that has permeated the Labour party is partly responsible for the overwhelming defeat that it suffered at the Scottish elections. Please carry on.
Ann McKechin
If that is the level of intellectual debate that we can anticipate from the Scottish Government and their colleagues at Westminster over the next five years, I think Scotland will be in a pretty poor state. Of course, we now have a hierarchy in the Scottish Government depending on whether one is a good Scot or a bad Scot. That is a level of debate that extends even up to judges in the Supreme Court.
If corporation tax was cut in Scotland, public spending would have to be cut in line with it, as we have heard today. The hon. Member for Dundee East suggested that the Scottish Government would take the power, but apply the same rate. That suggests that the power would not provide any benefit or disbenefit, except that they would have to administer the tax at a cost. At some point in the future, they would then apply the tax.
There are questions to which people in Scotland want answers. By how much would the Scottish Government cut corporation tax? The hon. Gentleman spent 42 minutes talking this evening and did not confirm that figure once. What would be the time scale for the cut in corporation tax? Would it be done over two years, three years or four years? We do not know. That is despite the fact that the Treasury, in its evidence to the Scotland Bill Committee in Holyrood in March, stated:
“A 10% cut in corporation tax in Scotland might cost about £600 million per year for an indeterminate period.”
That is understandable given the maturity of the Scottish economy and, as the Exchequer Secretary mentioned tonight, the many large plcs that already have their registered offices in Scotland. Even Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson, believes that Northern Ireland is a special case and has warned Alex Salmond that Scotland could lose up to £1.5 billion if it follows through the bid to set its own corporation tax. Anyone would need answers to the questions I have asked if they are to decide that that is a good idea.
The SNP is reluctant to say whether it thinks Scotland should be a high-tax nation or a low-tax nation. Does it believe in high-quality, good value public services, or does it want a lower public expenditure base, which would mean fewer nurses, doctors and police? There are consequences to that. Does it want an increase in income tax? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar chunters about scaremongering, but he has failed to answer any of those questions. He should feel free to educate us about the detail of the SNP proposals.
Fiona O'Donnell
May I issue a word of caution to my hon. Friend about encouraging SNP Members to talk for any longer? The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said in his opening remarks that he could talk for days and days about the Bill. Is that not exactly the problem? Every hour the SNP spend talking about these ideas in the House is an hour when we are not talking about the issues that the Scottish people really need us to address.
Ann McKechin
I can understand my hon. Friend’s frustration. It is disappointing that the SNP has not taken the opportunity this evening to provide an explanation and analysis of why they think the change would be helpful.
Ann McKechin
I would like to continue this point.
Does the SNP believe that a further tax cut for banks, which pay the majority of corporation tax in Scotland, is a progressive policy? Does it believe that there should be a shift from corporation tax to personal income taxation, as has been the case in Switzerland, for example?
Ann McKechin
Actually, there has been very little increase in growth in Switzerland. There is no direct correlation, and the evidence is weak.
As I have said previously, and as a report that came out this week clearly indicated, many different levers of economic growth are already in the hands of the Scottish Government, but they have either chosen not to use them at all, or when they have chosen to use them it has had a detrimental effect as well as sometimes having advantages.
Ann McKechin
The Scottish Government have to make those choices, and like my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), I would like to get on with the businesses of discussing how they are going to use their powers, what they intend to do with them and how they will benefit people. Instead, the SNP has obsessed over process for an indeterminate period. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) has to resume her seat when it is clear that the person who holds the floor, in this case Ann McKechin, is not giving way.
This is not a game, it is a debate, and it would be good if all Members in the Chamber behaved in a respectful way. The heckling is getting a little out of hand, and I am sure some Members would not like me to point out who is doing it at the moment. Perhaps we can return to the debate.
Mr Frank Field
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Do you think it possible that by 10 o’clock, I might actually get the chance to speak to my amendment, which has already been dismissed by the Government and debated by other people?
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is not within my gift, Mr Field, but let me say that I sincerely hope so.
Ann McKechin
I certainly hope that my right hon. Friend will have the time to do so, and I hope to conclude my remarks fairly shortly, but I wish to move on to the amendments on excise duty.
The issues relating to excise duty constitute a relatively new demand since the completion of proceedings in Committee. They were not part of the discussions of the first legislative consent memorandum Committee, but will doubtless be discussed in detail by the second LCM Committee. I would welcome further analysis of the proposal’s methodology.
Stewart Hosie
Notwithstanding the hon. Lady’s questions, do I take it from her answers that she sees some potential to remove the obstacle that Labour in Scotland found to minimum pricing? The Labour party’s argument was that an increase in only the retail price went straight to the UK Exchequer and did not benefit the economy generally or the Government in tackling some of the consequences of drinking cheap alcohol.
Ann McKechin
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the serious problem of alcohol consumption in Scotland. As the Labour group in Holyrood pointed out, simply raising the price and allowing supermarkets to retain the surplus—I think that that was the Scottish Government’s first plan—was neither popular nor logical.
However, it is important to note that excise duty is now subject to an escalator above inflation. The Labour Government introduced it before the general election so that excise duty increases above inflation. Although, following the recession, as might have been anticipated, consumption in England dropped, that has not happened in Scotland to the same extent. There is a significant difference between consumption in Scotland and average consumption in England, despite the identical price and range of products.
Price sensitivity does not seem to apply in Scotland to the same extent as it does in England. That suggests that cultural and social issues are predominantly behind the problem. I do not derive any satisfaction from that. It would be much easier if we could say that a simple price escalation would lead to a reduction in consumption. However, the evidence to date has not shown that that would happen. Indeed, the medical evidence shows that the unit cost would have to be considerably higher than that in the Scottish Government’s proposals to make any impact. Obviously, that would have an effect on the drinks industry, particularly given that much of it is located in Scotland.
The subject is serious. The Scottish Government already have a range of levers at their disposal. The one for excise duty is exceptionally complex and I do not think that the argument for it has been made. Certainly, more needs to be done, but it needs to be based on hard evidence. We also need to realise that some of the things that we would like to do and that we think could work might not be sufficiently strong to make an impact. We might have to reconsider our proposals.
I appreciate that the Scottish Government have begun re-examining the issue because I think that they recognise that providing money to supermarkets was not the way forward. However, the issue is much wider and requires several different measures. The power to ban drink discounting, which the Labour group supported, is already on the statute book in Holyrood. That has still to go ahead. I therefore hope that the Scottish Government will enforce the legislation that they already have on the statute book.
Mr MacNeil
First, I observe that on the minimum price of alcohol, the SNP minority Government were supported by a range of professional opinion. However, is not the hon. Lady’s point on the differences between alcohol consumption north and south of the border an argument for pricing within cultures, as opposed to uniform, blanket, one-size-fits-all pricing?
Ann McKechin
The hon. Gentleman must recognise that the cost of alcohol has increased by slightly more than inflation over the past 20 or 30 years, when, of course, the increase in incomes has been much greater. The Government’s ability to control that gap is limited.
The other problem is that the total price of alcohol is, to a large extent, made up of different forms of tax. When we increase taxation to more than a certain level, we find that there is an increase in black market sales, as we found when we increased taxation on cigarettes. I do not discount the fact that price can have a bearing on consumption, but the evidence to date in Scotland presents us with a much more complex problem, much of which is about cultural and social values. They are the only things that can explain the difference in consumption north and south of the border. The regimes of alcohol selling are more or less the same, but there is increased drinking at home rather than in public houses. The problem is complex, and a range of measures must be put in place to deal with it. My Labour colleagues certainly want to make changes that will make an impact, and they are prepared to have a serious debate.
Stewart Hosie
Finally on that point, and for the sake of completeness, I am sure the shadow Secretary of State would want to confirm that all 17 of Scotland’s public health directors supported minimum pricing, as did the four UK chief medical officers, the British Medical Association, the royal colleges, the Association of Chief Police Officers and many others, including Tennent’s, Molson Coors and Tesco. They saw minimum pricing as an important part of the solution to the problems in Scotland.
Ann McKechin
The supermarkets might well have supported minimum pricing because they would receive a good degree of financial benefit from it. However, some medical experts said that on the evidence, the price per unit would have to be a great deal higher than that proposed by the Scottish Government to have an impact. As I said, although the increase in the excise duty escalator, which the UK Labour Government introduced, has had an impact south of the border in reducing consumption, it has not had the same impact in Scotland. Price sensitivity seems to be different north and south of the border, and there are different patterns of consumption. The focus must be on cultural and social values as much as on simple economic values.
On that basis, there are considerable complexities in any such proposals. The Government’s proposals would have an adverse impact on the drinks industry, which has a substantial bearing on the Scottish economy, but the argument for them has not been made.
Mr Frank Field
I rise to move new clause 8 and the consequential amendment 23, which stand in my name and the names of my hon. Friends.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, who has waited very patiently for his opportunity to speak, but what he is doing at the moment is “speaking to” his amendments. He is not formally moving them, which would cause a few problems.
Mr Field
Whatever that means, I shall try to move on, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for that.
I wish to speak to new clause 8 and amendment 23, but I sense that I am interfering in a family row between different factions. As clearly as possible, I want to put the English case, which seems to be lacking in the debate.
This is the first time I have wanted to join in a debate on Scottish matters in the House. That is my fault, though, and I assure my hon. Friends that I will not let it happen again—I now wish to pursue Scottish matters whenever they arise. I have been struck today, listening to a Scottish debate for the first time, by how many of us—myself included, perhaps—failed to think through what devolution meant, and now we have almost hit an invisible brick wall past which we cannot get our arguments.
It seemed to me from observing the recent Scottish elections—obviously my sympathies lay with the party I have the honour to represent in Parliament—even from the language used by English politicians contributing to the Scottish debate that we had not thought through what the limited measure of devolution would mean. We got a pretty good hiding for our trouble on that score. I plead with the Labour Front-Bench team—this is meant as an encouragement, because I know that, as part of our policy review, they are thinking through what should necessarily follow from a defeat on the scale of the one we suffered at the last general election—not to go into the next general election without seriously thinking about the consequences of devolution, not just for Scotland but for the other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly England, where my seat is situated.
I have also been struck by the fact that although people try to mystify us by using various formulas and by saying, “What was given with one hand is taken by another”, I cannot answer, in the light of this debate and the work I have done, the charge put to me by a constituent of mine during the half-term break, when I visited the Scottish Parliament, which is a magnificent building—the extraordinary scale of the domestic architecture was incredibly grand. A constituent of mine greeted me as I went in and asked, “Why is it, Frank, that if I lived in Scotland, I would have free medicines, free long-term care and my children would go to university without paying the fees they pay in England?” Despite all the talk about grants and how we might review them, there is no reply yet to our English constituents on those points. If the explanation is not an unfair distribution of Exchequer grants, I want to know what we have in England that Scotland does not have that might pay for those extraordinary benefits.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech and has raised a fascinating point put to him by a constituent of his whom he met in the Scottish Parliament. The only immediate answer I can find to the question he has put to the House about the difference between politics north and south of the border is the existence of the SNP and what it contributes to politics in Scotland.
Mr Russell Brown
I want to put the record straight for my right hon. Friend and his constituents. He talks about free prescriptions in Scotland, which we now have, but I hasten to remind him that there was a period of two to three years when people south of the border with cancer-related problems got their medication free, while people in Scotland were paying for their prescriptions. This is about priorities. The Labour Government rightly made that decision, and it was just a shame that the Scottish Government did not follow suit at the time.
Mr Field
Much as I admire my hon. Friend, I obviously should not have given way, because he is distracting me from the argument that I wish to make, which is a simple one. I am not convinced of the basis for those differences, and neither are many of my constituents. I have affection for the way our different nations have been grouped into the United Kingdom, but I am anxious, because unless we start to face these questions and answer them soon a general sourness will enter into English politics, and we will not be able to judge where that sourness will lead us.
Pete Wishart
The right hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech and a fine contribution, but I am sure that when he talks to his constituents he will want to ensure that they have the correct facts about this argument. Will he at least acknowledge that there is a debate about relative spending between the rest of the United Kingdom and Scotland? Oxford Economics, for example, found that when unidentified spending is factored in, London and Northern Ireland receive more money than Scotland. Will he at least accept that there is an argument?
Mr Field
I might accept that there is an argument; my plea is that the information should be set out clearly for us, so that we can understand if there are differences and, if there are, establish a basis on which they can be defended. If I manage to conclude fairly quickly, I know that there are Members on the Government Benches who have written and spoken about the need for us to move expeditiously to a needs-based formula, although we all understand that if we did that the period in which we phased in the new formula would be crucial. I am not in favour of doing things that rough people up unnecessarily; timing is important.
Mr Davidson
Like the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who spoke earlier, I think that these are important points. May I suggest to my right hon. Friend that there are two different aspects that he ought to be picking up? One concerns the allocation of money—to some extent I tried to address that when speaking to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), because there are divisions in England as well—but the second is the choices made by different jurisdictions. The devolved Parliament in Scotland has clearly made decisions that are different and better than some of the things done in England. However, when it comes to waiting lists, services and education, it is also true that some things in England are better than in Scotland. Does my right hon. Friend, like me, welcome the fact that the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs and the National Audit Office are undertaking an evaluation of
“the progress made in various policy areas, comparing devolved Scotland to other jurisdictions”?
Mr Field
The answer to that, briefly, is yes.
Reference has been made to the incredibly interesting debate held in the other place last week. I was struck not only by the unanimity on the view that the status quo cannot hold but by the fact that the Minister replying to the debate found it terribly difficult to marshal a case against all those contributions.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned a sourness creeping into politics, which everyone wants to avoid for a number of reasons. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) has just mentioned comparisons across the jurisdictions, and I hope that that would include jurisdictions outwith the UK. Might the right hon. Gentleman find a solution to his problem in full fiscal autonomy, with spending fully correlated to the ability to raise money? After all, I am sure that his constituents do not want to talk to him about the spending in the Isle of Man, Ireland, Norway or Denmark. They feel a grievance because they perceive an over-closeness in the relationship with Scotland, and that relationship would become healthier with a little more distance.
Mr Field
I shall answer that intervention and finish on that very point. We do not have the information that we require to argue these points, and the sourness could ensue when the Scottish Government hold their referendum on independence. I believe that a large force in this House will insist on other parts of the United Kingdom having a say in that referendum. Given the sourness that will result if we continue the debate in the way we have tonight and certainly before now, the irony would be that the SNP could well fail to carry the Scottish electorate with it on independence, while the English electorate would vote for it.
Mr Reid
The Bill and the Government’s new clauses will bring about a substantial increase in the taxation and borrowing powers available to the Scottish Parliament, taking the Scottish Parliament and the process of devolution substantial steps further forward. Since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, it has been held back by the fact that it has had very few tax-varying powers and that its role has been largely to spend money rather than to raise it. By giving it these extra powers, we will increase its democratic accountability.
Mr MacNeil
Surely there is more to it than that. I often hear politicians and certain sectors of the media talking about democratic accountability, but is not the bigger issue the need to ensure that we have Governments, in whatever country, who are capable of influencing the economy so that it can grow? More important than politicians being accountable are people having jobs and the economy growing, so that we can live in a more prosperous society.
Mr MacNeil
Is not that argument similar to a golfer being told, “Of course you can go and play a round of golf, but you’re only getting a putter to play with”?
Mr Reid
The Scottish Parliament already has more than a putter, and the Bill will give it a lot more clubs in its bag.
I support the Government’s new clauses. I listened to the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), who appears to have left us, and I conclude that he has not made a case for his amendments. I want to compare the SNP’s approach to that of the other parties in Scotland. The other parties all worked together within the Calman commission and, through deliberation and working towards consensus, came up with a package of measures to give more powers to the Scottish Parliament. The Government are implementing those measures through the Bill. The SNP, however, refused to take part in that process. It has come along tonight with amendments that have no back-up papers, and it cannot make a case to back them up.
When I questioned the hon. Member for Dundee East, I understood his case to be that if corporation tax is cut, more revenue will come in. As I pointed out in my intervention, however, assuming his case to be correct, if one part of the UK were to cut corporation tax, the other parts would be forced to follow suit and there would simply be a race to the bottom, in which businesses would not be paying their fair share of taxes. That would mean either personal taxes going up or services being cut.
Equally, the hon. Member for Dundee East did not convince me on alcohol duties. All the practical problems were put to him and he was not able to answer them. I understand that he thinks the Scottish Government should increase alcohol duties, but if such duties were lower in England, people who lived near the border would simply travel across it to buy alcohol. No doubt when they were in the supermarkets there, they would buy other things as well, which would be a loss to the Scottish economy.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
My hon. Friend makes a fine case, but it is not just the people living close to the border who would do that. A large black market would undoubtedly be created in exactly this type of goods and it would grow across Scotland and contribute to the difficulties that we have already mentioned about the country’s dependence on alcohol.
Mr Reid
My hon. Friend is correct. There would be an incentive for a white van man to drive south, fill up his white van, come up to Scotland and sell the alcohol at a profit. When I intervened on the hon. Member for Dundee East, we heard a sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) to the effect that Argyll was not close to the border. However, I would point out to him that for a whole variety of reasons people from Argyll regularly visit England and, if they could buy alcohol cheaper there, there would be an incentive for them to fill up their car with it. That would mean a further loss of income to the Scottish economy.
Mr Weir
The hon. Gentleman is making a case, but for many years people have been going on holiday to other jurisdictions and bringing back alcohol with them; there is nothing unusual in that. The suggestion that all of a sudden there is going to be a massive influx seems to me ridiculous, especially given the cost of fuel in Argyll.
Mr Reid
But they would also fill up their cars with fuel when they were outside Argyll. The hon. Gentleman makes a point. We have heard about booze cruises to Calais, but despite the high price of fuel, it is cheaper for someone in Scotland to drive to England than to go to France. Britain has a certain degree of flexibility over its excise duties because it is surrounded by water. The one land border we have is between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and we have all heard the allegations of fuel smuggling. That shows it is more difficult for a country to set its own excise duties where there is a land border than it is when there is only a sea border. With a land border, setting a separate rate of alcohol duties would be difficult.
The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) mentioned that people working regularly in England would be able to take alcohol back to Scotland on the train. That led me to think about what would happen on the train itself—I can imagine the announcement on the tannoy as the train leaves Carlisle: “Get your drink now because in five minutes the price goes up”!
To summarise, the SNP did not make the case for their amendments. Through their new clauses, the Government are giving substantial extra powers to the Scottish Parliament, so I will support the Government tonight.
Mr Davidson
I would like to speak to the amendments but also to refer to some sections of the Scottish Affairs Committee report. Like other hon. Members, I have attended many of these debates and I recognise that this is not the end of the process. We are just mid-way through it.
My first point follows on from my intervention on the Minister about making more information available. It is essential that we try to raise the tone in these debates rather than lower it. Our debates should be based on argument and figures rather than on the yah-boo politics that we see too often in the Chamber between Scottish Members on these issues.
Some Members may remember the “magic bullet” theory. Professors Hughes Hallett and Scott—all three of them—[Laughter]—suggested that simply devolving financial powers to Scotland would result in an automatic boost. That was seen as a panacea and a deal-breaker. Only after a substantial amount of debate did they reach a conclusion. The Select Committee report states:
“when questioned on the relationship between the devolution of fiscal powers and economic growth, Professor Hughes Hallett said that: ‘the empirical evidence is inconclusive on the question of whether it does or doesn’t lead to an increase in the growth rate systematically. Some studies say yes, and some studies say no’… Professor Scott stated clearly, however, that ‘the actual act of giving power does not in itself create a bonus’.”
The exchanges that resulted in that conclusion advanced the debate considerably, and I think that many other matters that we have discussed, such as corporation tax and excise tax, ought to be dealt with in the same degree of detail.
When our Committee produced its report, we said that we were conscious that the misuse of figures resulted in a sense of manufactured grievance which suited some participants in the debate. The way in which to defeat manufactured grievances is to produce accurate figures, and I think that the Government have been slow in producing the full details and slow in producing the facts.
One of the main issues identified by the Committee, which is relevant to some of the new clauses and amendments, is the key principle of transparency. Another is evolution. We need to recognise that the Scotland Bill, and the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, will constantly evolve. Most people in Scotland believe that an obsession with constitutional detail has diverted attention from real issues on which there is not nearly as much division as many suggest. On a number of issues there is substantial common ground between the nationalists, Labour and the Liberals—the Tories, of course, are beyond the pale—but that is often masked by the obsession with small difference.
At the last moment, points about such matters as excise duty have been produced like rabbits out of a hat. There may not be much division between us in terms of the objectives that we wish to achieve, but there may be much more when it comes to method, and more still when it comes to the interpretation of what are only partial statistics. The Committee stated:
“Progress should not be measured solely by the extent by which powers are sucked into Edinburgh and we will wish to look at how reserved responsibilities can be exercised closer to the people they serve.”
All bar one of its members agreed with the point that I made earlier about Edinburgh being a black hole into which powers are sucked. All who were not nationalists shared that perspective and that of the report. The issue of whether we are philosophically committed to devolution involves decentralisation beyond Edinburgh. Edinburgh is not an end in itself, except for people who happen to live there. The vast majority of people in Scotland want powers to be transferred closer to them, which does not necessarily involve Edinburgh. As people in many parts of Scotland will recognise—
Mr Davidson
Will my hon. Friend allow me to finish my point, for the avoidance of doubt? Edinburgh as a centre of government is as distant from many people in Scotland as is Westminster—or, indeed, Brussels—as a centre of government. Having said that, I shall happily give way to an Edinburgh Member.
Mark Lazarowicz
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I am glad that he made it clear that when he speaks of “Edinburgh” he actually means the Scottish Government and Parliament based in Edinburgh. Perhaps he should use that longer form in future, rather than give the impression that Edinburgh is benefiting from some largesse from the Scottish Government and Parliament, because we certainly are not.
Mr Davidson
If my hon. Friend is saying that the sucking of powers into Edinburgh has not benefited Edinburgh, things are even worse than I thought, and I will certainly take that into account in future.
The Committee dealt in detail with corporation tax, and we also welcomed the Scottish Parliament Committee’s points on the subject. Professor Muscatelli summarised the main reason why, on balance, we came down against the devolution of corporation tax, saying:
“tax competition was the main reason why our group recommended that corporation tax should not be devolved.”
He made the point that it was very likely that a reduction in corporation tax in one UK jurisdiction would result in the cannibalisation of tax from other parts of the UK.
Dr Whiteford
The hon. Gentleman and I sat through some very long evidence sessions with any number of erudite professors of economics, none of whom seemed to agree with each other, but who nevertheless managed to find agreement on some pretty simple principles in respect of corporation tax, one of which was that if we lower it too far we will harm revenue, and if we raise it too high we will harm growth. Those very learned people disagreed because there are so many contingencies and uncertainties at any given point in time, and because the interlinking of the economies of various parts of not just the UK, but the European Union and beyond nowadays, makes it very difficult to pin matters down with any certainty, and therefore they become highly theoretical. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that—
Mr Speaker
Order. That is a very long intervention, but I feel sure that the hon. Lady is nearing her final sentence.
Dr Whiteford
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the way to secure the Scottish economy is to create jobs?
Mr Davidson
Well, that is a hard one, isn’t it! Yes, clearly the way to improve the Scottish economy is to create jobs, and as far as I am aware not even the Conservatives are against that. The arguments to which the hon. Lady refers were so complex that it seemed at some points that even Hughes and Hallett were disagreeing. [Laughter.]
We did reach conclusions, however. I think everyone agreed that there were risks in devolving corporation tax, and, as we said,
“not least in that this could lead to competition which could result in the ‘cannibalisation’ of the UK’s tax base.”
There was a political difference there, because we went on to say:
“We recognise that this is not necessarily a concern for those who wish to consider the financial position of Scotland in isolation.”
I understand why a nationalist would not be concerned about the cannibalisation of UK taxes if there were a minor gain to Scotland, but for those of us who take a wider perspective across the whole of the UK, that is a valid point to take into account.
It is generally agreed that a reduction in corporation tax in Scotland would result in some drawing in of business from the rest of the UK; I have heard no serious opinion suggesting anything else. If we accept that, we can do no other than recognise that that is not likely to improve relations between the jurisdictions, and as we would hope that in the event of an independent, or further devolved, Scotland there would be an ongoing relationship, beggar-my-neighbour politics on corporation tax is not helpful. The risk of driving that divide between England and Scotland by achieving a marginal gain in corporation tax revenue in the short term is not worth the candle.
Mike Freer
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I pay tribute to his chairmanship of the Scottish Affairs Committee. Does he also recall the evidence we got from the editor and the business editor of The Scotsman? The issue was not the cannibalisation of corporation tax but the fact that the business community did not trust the SNP not to drive business out of Scotland with a high tax policy.
Mr Davidson
That is true, but that is a slightly different point. The business community was absolutely clear that it was worried not only about uncertainty but that the SNP might end up having an anti-business or a business-unfriendly regime. For the purposes of this debate, however, I was not going to go down that particular route at the moment. It is fair to say that nobody who was raising arguments in favour of the devolution of corporation tax was suggesting that it should be raised, but there was an assumption that devolution was in order to reduce it. It was noticeable that even with the points that were made in the Committee and subsequently we have not heard an argument about how the initial gap between the moneys that were previously received from the UK Treasury and the reduced amount would be made up. Even if in the longer term corporation tax was going to result in a growth in business taxation, which I doubt, there would undoubtedly be a short-term shortfall, and we have not heard any solution as to how that would be bridged.
I have great reservations about committing, in the current economic difficulties and a time of recession, to a set of policies that give more money to the private sector and rich people and that cut services for ordinary people who depend on those public services. That is the choice we are being asked to make. If we are all in this together, as has been suggested, how reasonable is it at a time when Scotland has economic difficulties and faces cuts in its budget, to suggest that the budget should be cut further to give a gratuitous tax break to business? That has to be further explored.
As I said earlier, I do not think this is the end of the matter—it will run and run. That is why the Government have to make available as quickly as possible as much information as they can. I suspect that the Scottish Government produced their figures some time ago and sent them down and that they have either been misfiled in the Scotland Office or lost in the post. I simply find it impossible to believe that after all the huffing and puffing that was done, those figures have not been calculated and sent down here, and I urge the Minister to search at the very bottom of his filing tray just in case poor staff work has misfiled those important documents. We have to make sure that this issue is resolved as quickly as possible.
The point on which the shadow Scottish Secretary was howled down was a very fair one. The interventions from the nationalists managed to distract her from making the important point that in 1988—it is true that was some time ago—Alex Salmond, who was then an SNP MP, was suspended from the House of Commons for attacking the Tory Government’s reduction in corporation tax, calling the proposals an “obscenity”. He might have been right then, but the policies he is adopting now seem slightly different, whereas, if anything, the economic situation is the same. I remember seeing that particular pantomime and, if I remember correctly, Mr Salmond decided to have his intervention because he believed that at a time of economic difficulty cutting taxes for business and for those who had most, for the wealthiest, was an inappropriate use of resources. Exactly the same economic situation pertains now and I think we need an explanation as to why what was an obscenity then is not an obscenity now. I recognise that times move on, cultures change and people develop, so if it was a youthful indiscretion, all well and good. If he tells us that, we may forgive and we may forget, but I very much doubt it. It would be helpful to the debate if that was clarified.
David Mowat
I want to make a few points about the excellent speech made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) on new clause 8, but before I do so I shall nail a couple of red herrings.
People have talked about priorities. It is absolutely right that the Scottish Government have the ability to set free prescriptions if that is their priority. It is absolutely right that there can be free tuition and almost free social care. Those priorities should be set in Scotland and it is the Scottish Government’s right to do that. The difficulty arises if they have a different baseline of spending. Nothing I have heard this evening convinces me or my constituents that there is no problem in that regard.
In the course of their remarks a number of Members said that we need more facts on these matters. Who can argue with that? Everyone is in favour of facts. In my previous career, however, when I heard people call for facts, it was often a delaying mechanism. There have been many reviews of the block grant formula over the past two or three years, most recently a superb piece of work by the House of Lords Select Committee in 2008, whose recommendation was unequivocal; similarly, Holtham. The Calman commission made the point that it was not a proxy for need. Most persuasively, Lord Barnett is clear that the formula was never intended to be used as it has been over the past 30 years. He, I believe, will table an amendment to that effect when the Bill goes forward.
I am not making the case for Scotland or Northern Ireland having less money or Wales having more. I am making case for the consideration to be based on need, and I will go wherever that takes us. “Based on need” means that we take into account relative population changes. One of the problems with Barnett is that over the past 30 years it has not properly reflected the fact that in both Wales and England population has increased more rapidly than in Scotland. Similarly, a needs-based formula would look at indices such as how many old people there are in a community, how many very young and how many disabled, as well as unemployment levels and indices of poverty. It is not rocket science. I do not mind what the answer is, but I will answer the question: what is likely to be the result of a needs-based formula?
The most coherent piece of work that has been done on this, notwithstanding the book by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), was by Professor David Bell of Stirling university. In evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee, his estimate was that the current allocation that Scotland receives is roughly 120% of that which is due in England and it should be closer to 105% or 107%. A difference of that order implies a yearly difference of £4.5 billion or, over the lifetime of this Parliament, a difference of £22 billion. I do not know if that is right, but Professor David Bell did a lot of work on that, as did the Holtham committee and others in respect of the House of Lords Select Committee.
The question might arise why we need to fix the problem now. There are a number of reasons—not just the fact that the Bill would be a convenient place to do it, although that is true, and not just because of the resentment that is felt in England and Wales. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead used an important word—“sourness”, which debases all of us and it is not the right answer to those of us who are Unionists. If we are not careful, we will be building up a bank of sympathy for devolution or separation in England.
The Bill for the first time equates Scottish levels of income tax to the level of the grant. I am concerned that unless we make the necessary reform to the block grant, it will become almost impossible to do in future. If the figure of £4.5 billion put forward by Professor Bell of Stirling university were correct, that would imply that Scottish basic rate of income tax would have to rise by about 11p in the pound to make up for that shortfall. But that is not the reason that we need to act; there is a moral reason.
I meet my constituents, have seminars and talk about the fact that we have lost Building Schools for the Future money in Warrington. We have lost the education maintenance allowance in Warrington and England. We could pay for an awful lot of things with some of the £4.5 billion. Of course, as many have said, there would have to be transitional arrangements, but that is not a reason for not starting. I think that it would be over 10 years or more.
I am genuinely mystified by the stance of Government Front Benchers on the matter. I have read carefully the replies that Ministers have given when asked about this, and they seem to come back to two basic points. The first, which is often made, is that the formula is expedient. It is true that it is easy to do—my understanding is that the whole thing is done by one guy in the Treasury—but that does not seem a great reason to continue with it. The second is that we are too busy fixing the deficit to make the change and that it must wait. As I said in an intervention, I am prepared to accept that reason, but my understanding is that we are on target to fix the structural deficit by 2015, which is before most of the Bill’s financial provisions will take effect, so I see no reason why we do not start to set up the commission that would have to look at a needs-based formula for Wales, England and Scotland. The formula must be fair, transparent and moral.
One final point I wish to make is that I do not support the amendment in so far as it puts a limit of plus or minus 5% on the amount, which I think is wrong. The point is that it should be needs-based. I would be quite happy if a consequence of the needs-based analysis was that Scotland ended up, as I think it would, with more than 105%. I do not support the amendment for the technical reason I have explained, but its basic thrust is right and it is very important that the House addresses this.
Mark Lazarowicz
I want to make a few points on the question of whether corporation tax should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, as the SNP proposes. Given the time, I will make my comments as briefly as possible.
There is a respectable intellectual argument that cutting business taxes has a beneficial effect on some businesses and encouraging growth, but we cannot assume that that will automatically be the case. What is important is the effect that a cut in corporation tax would inevitably have on tax revenues. SNP Members were asked time and again in the debate how they could cut corporation tax while protecting public spending, and time and again they did not answer. If their theories are right, businesses might grow in time, but they cannot claim that there will be immediate growth that will make up for a loss in corporation tax. That is not because there is a lack of entrepreneurial spirit among the Scottish people. We must accept that any taxation policy cannot just be a general theory that applies in any circumstance. We have to look at the actual situation in a particular location and at a particular time.
The fact is that the biggest beneficiaries of a reduction in corporation tax in Scotland would be the big banks and power companies, not small and medium-sized businesses. Why on earth would cutting bank taxation encourage the banks to invest more in the Scottish economy and promote jobs? There are many other ways to encourage business growth in Scotland, and at the moment the Scottish Government have those powers. The Bill will give them more such powers, which is what should be done, rather than cutting corporation tax for beneficiaries, which we cannot assume will benefit the Scottish economy and Scottish business.
Another point is that if the Scottish Government were to go ahead with a corporation tax reduction, as they suggest, how can we assume that there would be no response from the UK Government? If the Scottish Government’s policies were to lead to a substantial transfer of businesses from England to Scotland, there would of course be a response at UK level, and at the end of the day that would lead to an overall driving down of the UK Government’s tax base. That in turn would inevitably lead to cuts in public services and public spending, and the SNP has to recognise that if it is to address the issue seriously.
I am not opposed to looking again at taxation and to considering all options, but I do not want us to go ahead with proposals that could have consequences that we cannot reverse. If the SNP is to pursue that line, it has to give us more information about the consequences of its policies. If it does not do so, it will be rightly criticised for coming forward with ideas that are all talk and no reality.
‘“Section 66(5) | Type E”; and’. |
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Michael Moore)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am very grateful to Members who have taken part in all the different debates on the Bill, in particular those from the Opposition parties, members of the Scottish Affairs Committee and the many others who have examined the Bill closely during its passage through the House. Today, we have had important additional contributions by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), among others.
The Bill delivers the key coalition commitment, set out in our programme for government, to implement the proposals of what we know as the Calman commission. The commission, established in the last Scottish Parliament, had the support of a wide cross-section of society in Scotland. Its membership included representatives of the three main United Kingdom political parties, local government, experts in Scots law, business, education and the trade unions.
Under the chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Calman, the commission gathered evidence from a wide range of sources and engaged directly with people in Scotland through detailed consultations, public engagement events, oral evidence and survey evidence. The commission reported to both the Scottish Parliament and the previous UK Government. At the general election in 2010, all three main UK-wide parties had manifesto commitments to take forward the recommendations made by the commission. Those commitments are being delivered in the Bill.
As Members are aware, the Bill will introduce a new Scottish rate of income tax, and it will fully devolve responsibility for stamp duty land tax and landfill tax to the Scottish Parliament. It will provide for new tax-raising powers to be created at the request of the Scottish Parliament, and it will introduce a new capital borrowing power and extend the current borrowing powers of Scottish Ministers. When combined with the existing tax-raising powers of the Scottish Parliament, it will provide Scottish Ministers with a total of £12 billion- worth of financial powers. That is a hugely significant package, which represents the largest ever transfer of financial powers from Westminster to Scotland. It is a radical but responsible step.
The Bill is not about transferring power for power’s sake; it is about creating accountability. By taking on the responsibility for raising the taxes required to fund the spending decisions that they take, the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Ministers will be more accountable and better equipped to respond to Scotland’s needs within the UK.
The Bill has been the subject of detailed scrutiny on the Floor of the House and by the Scottish Affairs Committee. The debate has been animated, even lively at times, such is the strong feeling and the keen interest in it that is felt throughout the House. However, our proposals have not just been scrutinised at Westminster. After the introduction of the Bill, the Scottish Parliament established a Scotland Bill Committee to assess the measure and the supporting package set out in the Command Paper, “Strengthening Scotland’s Future”. The Scotland Bill Committee issued a detailed 240-page report on the measure. The Committee’s first and main conclusion was that the Scottish Parliament should support the Scotland Bill. In the subsequent plenary vote, the Scottish Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of a legislative consent motion, agreeing to the Bill by a margin of 121 to three, with support from the Scottish Government. I am grateful to all parties for their support.
Since then, there have been elections to the Scottish Parliament, and I congratulate the Scottish National party on its victory. A new Scotland Bill Committee—meeting for the first time today—will examine the measure in the Scottish Parliament. I welcome that further scrutiny. However, given the previous Scottish Government’s support for the Bill, I look forward to that support continuing. In fact, I expect that it will have been strengthened by the package of amendments that the Chancellor and I announced on 13 June.
The amendments were based on the valuable report of the Scottish Affairs Committee, and also on the report from the Scotland Bill Committee that the Scottish Parliament endorsed so strongly. The amendments that we tabled on Report were based on the evidence that we received from the two Committees. The amendments to the package will ensure that Scottish Ministers have greater flexibility to exercise their new powers effectively.
We continue to believe that the package set out in the Bill and the Command Paper, based on cross-party consensus, meets the objective of strengthening Scottish devolution within the United Kingdom.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
May we take it that, as a result of the earlier proceedings, Government new clause 13 is now part of the Bill? If so, is that a confirmation of the fact that in any matter involving human rights, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter, notwithstanding some of the childish and petulant outbursts that we have heard north of the border in recent weeks?
Michael Moore
First, I confirm what my right hon. and learned Friend suggests. New clause 13 is now part of the Bill that will go to the House of Lords for scrutiny. Like him, I regret the tone of some of the remarks made against judges in the Supreme Court in recent weeks. I welcome the broad support for the idea that people in all parts of the United Kingdom should enjoy the same rights under the courts.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
On the application of the Human Rights Act 1998 in this context, and conceding that the Supreme Court has a special role to play, does the Secretary of State accept that some Government Members, and an increasing number of people throughout the country, feel that the Human Rights Act should be repealed, and furthermore that the whole basis on which it operates and the European convention on human rights should be reviewed?
Michael Moore
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the proceedings on the Scotland Bill, albeit belatedly, and commend him for his ever sharp eye, looking for opportunities to raise matters European in the Chamber. Perhaps with some disappointment, we will have to agree to disagree on the fundamentals, but I point out that we are indeed considering human rights legislation in this country. I am sure that we will have a proper debate about that over many days and weeks.
Let me outline the key changes that we introduced on Report. First, we will bring forward to this financial year access to finance to allow work on projects, such as the Forth replacement crossing, to begin. We are removing the requirement for Scottish Ministers to absorb the first £125 million of tax forecasting variation within their budget. That will give Scottish Ministers more flexibility to decide how best to respond to any variations in tax receipts compared with forecasts. We will also allow Scottish Ministers to make discretionary payments into the Scottish cash reserve for the next five years, up to an overall total of £125 million. That will help manage any variation in Scottish income tax receipts, compared with forecasts in the initial phase of the new system.
As debated on Report, we have included a provision in the Bill to enable the Government to amend the way in which Scottish Ministers can borrow to include bond issuance. Without that power, further primary legislation would have been necessary to allow bonds to be issued by Scottish Ministers. Before that power is transferred, the Government will conduct a review of the costs and benefits of bond issuance over other forms of borrowing.
We have also strengthened the non-financial sections of the package to enable Scottish Ministers to approve the appointments of MG Alba board members, and to provide for reciprocal consultation between UK and Scottish Ministers when either make changes to electoral administration that impact on their respective responsibilities. We are devolving the power to make an order to disqualify persons from membership of the Scottish Parliament, and we intend to strengthen intergovernmental dialogue in areas of mutual interest in welfare.
Importantly, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) indicated, we are implementing the findings of the expert group appointed by the Advocate-General. There is a consensus that there is a problem with the role of the Lord Advocate under existing legislation. The Scotland Act 1998 did not properly recognise that the Lord Advocate fulfils two separate roles: one as chief prosecutor in Scotland, and the second as a Scottish Minister. Our amendment separates those two roles while retaining the consistent application of the protection of fundamental rights for those in Scotland, as exists for those in the rest of the United Kingdom. We believe that it strikes the correct balance.
We believe that the package of the Bill as amended and the supporting non-legislative measures provides the right balance of powers and responsibility for Scotland within the United Kingdom. Today’s debate marks the end of the first stage of debate on, and scrutiny of, the Bill in the House of Commons, but it is by no means the end of the process. There will be further opportunities to consider, debate and amend the Bill in their lordships’ House.
However, as hon. Members will be aware, the Scottish Government have asked for further amendments to the Bill. We have made it clear that we will listen and that we are willing to consider further amendments if they satisfy some key tests. First, any further amendments must be based on detailed proposals. We must be convinced, by evidence and detailed analysis, to support any amendments to a package that we believe provides Scotland with the right balance of responsibility and accountability. Secondly, any further amendments must demonstrate that they will deliver clear benefits to Scotland, without prejudice to the rest of the United Kingdom. Thirdly, any further amendments must generate cross-party consensus, which the measures set out in the Bill have achieved.
Mr Russell Brown
The Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives and the Labour party want this legislation, but the Secretary of State is talking about further amendments. Does he recognise that members of the public wonder why we are going ahead with the Bill, when what lies in front of us at some given point is a referendum on independence? The point has been made to me, by an admittedly small number of my constituents, that we should have parked the Bill, waited for a referendum, and resurrected it thereafter if necessary. Does he recognise that some outside this place will have concerns about further amendments?
Michael Moore
I have just set out the criteria against which we would assess any suggested further amendments. There is scope within the passage of the Bill to consider those points further.
On the hon. Gentleman’s fundamental point, my argument right from the start, which I believe has had a degree of cross-party consensus, is that it is important that we empower Scottish Ministers and the Scottish Parliament with these new arrangements to enable them to get on with their jobs. The measures enhance Ministers’ economic powers and the accountability of the Scottish Parliament. I do not believe that delaying those measures is in anybody’s interest. We do not know what the terms of any referendum will be or what type of independence will be offered.
Mark Lazarowicz
Mine is a narrower point. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that, if amendments come forward from the Scottish Government that the UK Government accept and which go through the Lords, we will have proper time to discuss them in this House? We do not want three or four amendments coming here for one hour’s discussion during ping-pong. Can we get a guarantee of time to discuss any amendments that come forward? [Interruption.]
Michael Moore
My distinguished colleagues the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of House were just indicating—I was going to say “muttering”, but it would be inappropriate to suggest such a thing—in their typically generous fashion that adequate time would be made available should such amendments come forward. I look forward to holding them to that should it be necessary.
The Bill has been subject to detailed scrutiny in this Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. That scrutiny will, of course, continue, but I am confident that the process in the House has reinforced the central purpose of the Bill: to strengthen the Scottish Parliament so that it serves the Scottish people better. I commend it to the House.
Ann McKechin
As we made clear on Second Reading and in Committee, Labour welcomes the Scotland Bill because we believe that it will enhance the devolution settlement. As the Secretary of State mentioned, the Bill was the consequence of a lengthy, evidence-based, serious consultative process that sought cross-party consensus from the very beginning. It reflects many of the recommendations made by the Calman commission, which was established by the then Labour Government following the direct call from the Scottish Parliament for such a group to be set up. Important issues of constitutional change should not be marked by megaphone diplomacy and a never-ending series of demands. Constitutional change must always be based on hard evidence, consensus and consultation, and it should be clearly shown how it will improve the devolution settlement. It is not, for us, a marker on the route to separation.
Labour’s position is that it is not in Scotland’s best interests for the Scottish Government to play constitutional games and demand powers. It is time to start using those they already have, and to knuckle down to the hard task of getting the Scottish economy back on track, lowering record unemployment and generally making Scotland better. Although it is all too easy in the political game to focus on process rather than on policy, the important parts of the Bill are, first, to improve legitimacy and accountability to the Scottish electorate, and, secondly, to use these powers, along with the extensive range of powers granted in the Scotland Act 1998, for Scotland’s benefit.
I would like to spend a little time discussing the Supreme Court new clauses, which unfortunately we did not have time to discuss this evening, and which were not available in Committee. We welcome the fact that the Government did, as we requested, table the new clauses before the Commons stages were completed, and obviously we will want to discuss them in more detail when they reach the House of Lords, but I would like to put on the record what principles should be followed in referring cases to the Supreme Court. Labour fully agrees that the UK Supreme Court should retain a role in determining human rights and European law issues. The UK Supreme Court enables Scots to access justice without the expense and delay of having to go to Strasbourg, and without having to wait for years to have their cases heard. We believe that no one living in Scotland should have less access to the enforcement of their human rights than any other citizen living elsewhere in the UK.
Why would the Scottish Government want to make it more difficult for individuals in Scotland to access justice? Let us recall that it was a famous Scottish case to the Strasbourg Court in the 1980s that brought about the abolition of the belt in schools across the UK when the Court found in favour of two Scottish mothers, Grace Campbell and Jane Cosans. In those days, before the Human Rights Act 1998, cases took years to be heard, and in the meantime tens of thousands of children in Scotland and across the UK were belted right around the place in schools. The Human Rights Act is not about protecting bad people or about an easy escape route from jail; it is about protecting everyone from prejudice and harm.
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her history lesson, but she will know, as the Secretary of State does, that the amendments concerning the Supreme Court are totally unacceptable to the Scottish Government, and will be unacceptable to the Scottish Parliament too. May I suggest to her and the Secretary of State that the expert group under Lord McCluskey should be allowed to do its work before anything further is done regarding the Supreme Court in this House?
Ann McKechin
What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are aware that the McCluskey review is ongoing, and we will wish to consider its conclusions carefully when it reports. We will return to further analysis of the report in the Lords, which I hope will be available by the time this Bill reaches the other place.
We cannot continue this evening without mentioning the extraordinary attack that the First Minister and his Secretary for Justice made on both the Supreme Court and individual Scottish judges who sit in it, when they stated that the UK courts should have no jurisdiction in Scottish criminal cases. Let us be clear: no one is attacking the right for Scotland to retain its unique criminal legal system—I declare an interest, as a non-practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. However, on the other hand, those attacks smack of a political establishment that is too ready to attack anyone who dares to contradict its mantra, rather than one that is prepared robustly to tackle institutional complacency. It is entirely demeaning to Scotland’s international reputation when Scotland’s leading politician uses the language of the playground bully when describing the key relationship between the Executive and the judiciary. Mr MacAskill has referred to the UK Supreme Court as an “ambulance-chasing court”, despite it hearing on average only one Scottish case a year since devolution, and he has ignored the fact—or perhaps he was totally ignorant of it—that his own Scottish Crown Office is making referrals to the very same court.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the furore about the Supreme Court over the past few weeks smacks of opportunism, when what she describes has been the situation since the Scotland Act 1998 was passed by this House more than 12 years ago?
Ann McKechin
My right hon. Friend is right to say that this row has emerged from absolutely nowhere, and has arisen simply for the sake of political expediency.
Mr MacAskill—that well-known expert on making sound judgements—also claimed that Supreme Court judges picked up their knowledge of Scots law during visits to the Edinburgh festival, and threatened to withdraw funding. He can now add to his list of achievements that he is the first Minister in any part of the UK who has threatened to close a court by stopping its cheques. Perhaps after such a long-maintained silence over the last two years, the pressure on him was too much to bear.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Of the two cases that have proved so controversial, the first dealt with the protection of a person once charged and taken into custody by the police. The second dealt with whether there is a continuing obligation on the prosecution to make available all evidence to the defence, including evidence that might have the effect of exculpating someone who has been accused. Are those two principles not right at the very heart of the Scottish legal system, to which the hon. Lady has just referred?
Ann McKechin
The right hon. and learned Gentleman speaks with considerable expertise on legal issues. I do not want to discuss the individual cases, but he is absolutely right that they involved important points of principle that everyone who is concerned about the integrity of Scottish law should take seriously into account.
Mr Salmond has attempted to climb down from the remarks that he made in a Holyrood Magazine interview, but has refused to apologise. “Better late than never” should be the new mantra, but the First Minister does not have a reverse gear. Instead, this whole sorry incident has typified a controlling approach that his spin doctors have tried hard to hide. In his view, there is a hierarchy in our national debate between those who are deemed “good Scots” and those classified as “bad Scots”, and anyone who speaks directly against his view will always be in the latter category, even if they are one of our country’s most eminent legal minds.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
I would never claim to be one of our country’s eminent legal minds, but, like the hon. Lady, I am a non-practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. I commend her for her defence of Scots law against the current actions of the Scottish Parliament.
Ann McKechin
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, a fellow lawyer. I do not want to turn this into a lawyers’ conference, however, lest anyone should suspect that we have vested interests. More seriously, this is about the tone of the debate and about the relationship between the Executive and the judiciary, which forms the foundation of our democracy.
I noted in this week’s Sunday Herald that some of the First Minister’s own Ministers and MSPs apparently refer to him in private as the “Dear Leader”. References to any similarity with North Korea might seem comical, but this display fits in better with a paranoid one-party state than with a modern, progressive, advanced 21st-century democracy. I certainly do not believe that everyone who supports the SNP or wishes for independence follows that creed—Jim Sillars is a good example of someone who believes in independence but also believes in listening to other people’s arguments—but it certainly has a home within the SNP “cybernat” sphere.
Mr Cash
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the real problem is that this dispute is not so much about the Supreme Court as about the application of the Human Rights Act 1998 to the Supreme Court? For practical purposes, the Scots are entitled to their criminal law, and that has been the case since the inception of the Union.
Ann McKechin
The hon. Gentleman has very particular views about European human rights legislation, but I support it 100%. I believe that the Human Rights Act enhances our legal system, and it is important that people in Scotland should receive the same level of protection as everyone else. The Act is a UK-wide piece of legislation, and it is important that judgments should be made consistently. Accordingly, it is right that there should be one ultimate Court of Appeal that makes important decisions on key points of principle. The Cadder decision, which the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) mentioned, was one such decision. It is important to have consistency of judgment, which is one of the parts of our judicial process.
Like most people in Scotland, my domicile arises from birth and not from choice, but I believe that I am exceptionally fortunate to have been born in Scotland at this time in history and I am proud to be a Scot. However, I totally renounce any attempt to mould the politics and culture of the country that I love into one that is marked by a constant placing of the “good Scot versus bad Scot” concept into the dialogue of our public life. That is both dangerous and destructive, and represents a threat to genuine debate. The tactics of the playground bully should form no part of a modern, open Scotland.
Scotland’s legal systems, like any other area of our public life, need to be open to ideas from the outside, and not just from its own legislature. In fact, many of our oldest precepts and concepts are borrowed from a wide combination of other European systems—French, Dutch and Roman as well as English. We have also learned from cases that have occurred in England. It was because we are part of the United Kingdom that one of the most famous cases of tort and delict in civil law, Donoghue v. Stevenson, which took place in my own home town of Paisley, spread across the world. When we genuinely look outwards, we perform at our best; when we revert to inward, defensive complacency, we let our nation down.
This has been an important debate on the future that we see for Scotland. As the Secretary of State has said, the debate will continue over the weeks and months to come, but I want to ensure that it takes place in the context of the hard, reasoned evidence that the Scots demand of us, and that it can be clearly shown to be for their benefit.
Mr Reid
The Bill brings about a substantial increase in the powers that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, especially those relating to taxation and borrowing. As such, it represents a substantial event in the process of devolution. I congratulate Professor Calman and his commission on bringing forward the proposals after detailed consultation, and on achieving consensus among three political parties. His proposals were subject to detailed scrutiny in the Scottish Parliament Bill Committee and by the Scottish Affairs Committee here. I also congratulate the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary on their hard work in putting the Bill together and taking it through the House.
It is an old saying that devolution is a process, not an event. This is an important process; there will no doubt be further processes to come, but it is important that the subsequent devolution processes follow the same process as the Calman Commission and the Bill. There must be widespread consultation, detailed evidence should be produced and examined and then the Bill should be taken through after detailed scrutiny. The amendments rejected earlier this evening did not have the detailed evidence behind them.
Mr Davidson
I want to pick up on the issue of process. Amendments have been defeated tonight, but they will probably reappear in the Scottish Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that before they are debated further in this House, the Scottish Affairs Committee and others must examine them forensically to make sure that the gaps in the evidence that were identified earlier this evening can be exposed so that we can have a proper discussion and debate about the choices to be made?
Mr Reid
I certainly agree with the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee and hope that his Select Committee will subject these proposals to detailed scrutiny.
Two of Scotland’s political parties took part in the original constitutional convention, which went up to three in the Calman commission. The party that has not taken part in any of these processes is the Scottish National party. I accept that it has a mandate for a referendum on independence and I look forward to that campaign. Where I think the SNP goes wrong is that it makes no attempt to bring about consensus within Scotland. Its referendum will fail and I suggest that in future it works with other parties so that detailed proposals can be subjected to scrutiny and we can take the process of devolution further forward. This Bill represents an important step. I hope that the House of Lords will pass it speedily so that all the important extra powers given to the Scottish Parliament can be put into effect.
Pete Wishart
We said on Second Reading that we would seek to strengthen and improve the Bill, offer real scrutiny and support any measures that brought significant and substantial new powers to Scotland. We are pleased that, in a number of areas, this is a better Bill today than the one presented on Second Reading.
I would also like to pay tribute to many Members who participated in the debates, particularly to those who participated in the Calman commission, and to thank people for all the hard work that was done in the Scottish Parliament Bill Committee. Although we did not necessarily agree with everything that was said, I appreciated the conscientious and diligent approach to the work.
Is this the Bill that Scotland urgently requires? I have to say that, unfortunately, the answer is no. Although we have managed to secure some more job-creating powers, this Bill falls way short of the ambitions of the Scottish people as directly expressed only a few short weeks ago, and it still lacks the measures that could have helped to develop our economy and make it grow.
Some of the new provisions are, of course, welcome. We welcome the acceptance of the amendments on borrowing as well as the devolution measures on airguns, speed limits and drink-driving, which will make Scotland a safer place. However, the Unionist parties seem almost incapable of preventing themselves from making re-reservations, which are a million miles away from where the Scottish people are in questions about their constitutional future.
Mr Russell Brown
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he obviously has some time left. I hope that in the next few minutes he will explain what Bill the people of Scotland are looking for.
Pete Wishart
I think that we had something a few weeks ago that was called an election, and manifestos were presented for it. One manifesto had plans for including job-creating powers in the Scotland Bill and the other manifesto was produced by the Calman commission parties. I think that the Scottish people made clear which direction of travel they support.
Pete Wishart
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.
We know what the Scottish people want when it comes to such matters. I was disappointed to hear what was almost a rant from the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin). Members’ personal attacks on the First Minister suggest that they have learnt absolutely nothing. Negativity does not win elections, but we hear continued, incessant negativity.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Pete Wishart
I do not have time to give way.
I can only ask Members to continue down that route so that we can continue to secure victories such as the one we secured only a few short weeks ago.
Pete Wishart
I have only 10 minutes left.
The Bill contains unpalatable measures that are totally unacceptable to the Scottish Government, and which were aired a moment ago, concerning the Supreme Court.
Sir Robert Smith
The hon. Gentleman spoke of a personal attack on his leader from the Opposition Front Bench. Does he not think that the head of a Government in a proper, modern, functioning democracy should show respect for the courts, which protect the individual citizen from abuse of power by the state?
Pete Wishart
I am almost grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he has referred to a measure I want to deal with. The measure relating to the Supreme Court that was passed today is totally unacceptable to the Scottish Government, and will be unacceptable to the Scottish Parliament as well. When the last Scottish Parliament Bill Committee considered the Government’s proposals, even that Unionist-led Committee did not see fit to pass them. I do not think that a new Scottish Parliament Bill Committee will be any better disposed towards them.
Had I been given an opportunity to debate the issue, I would have suggested a sunset clause, so that nothing could be done until the expert group in the Scottish Parliament finishes its work under Lord McCluskey. That is the time for us to discuss how to resolve what is a real issue.
Pete Wishart
I have said that I will not give way again, and I will not, even to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Others wish to speak.
There are real difficulties, but the solution offered by the Secretary of State will not be acceptable to the Scottish Parliament. The most critical aspect of the Bill, however, involves not the unpalatable measures that we have discussed today, but the measures that the Bill omits: measures for which the Scottish people voted when the Bill was last considered by the Scottish Parliament. What they want are job-creating powers and control over the Crown Estates so that we can further the renewables revolution in Scotland.
Given our mandate, the Scottish National party will revisit those issues in the future. On balance, however, we accept that the Bill contains substantial new powers, and we will not oppose its Third Reading.
I suppose that we can look at the Bill in two stages—pre and post its testing by the Scottish people. The Calman parties stood on their record and presented it as a major constitutional issue when they fought the election, while the Scottish National party stood on a programme involving the creation of new jobs and powers for the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish people gave the Scottish National party an overwhelming mandate to pursue that agenda, and we will continue to present the case for real job-creating powers. We will not be satisfied until we have those powers in the Scottish Parliament.
The Bill will now go to the House of Lords before it is returned to the Scottish Parliament for a further legislative consent motion. I say to the Secretary of State and the Government—
Pete Wishart
I am not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Must I say that a third time?
I say to the Secretary of State that he should not use the fact that there are no Scottish National party members in the House of Lords to introduce any further unpalatable measures, because that would be totally unacceptable. It is democratically elected Members who should decide the fate of our nation, not unelected appointees, donors and cronies.
Pete Wishart
I am not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman. As he is standing right next to me, I do not know why he cannot hear me.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) must resume his seat.
Pete Wishart
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It takes a long time for Members to understand that I am not going to give way.
Once the Bill has completed its passage in the House of Lords it will return to the Scottish Parliament, and a further legislative consent motion will be required because of the many amendments passed by the House of Commons. I know that colleagues in all parties in the Scottish Parliament will want to look closely at a number of those amendments, and I know that the Secretary of State and the House will respect the views of the Scottish Parliament. I know they will accept that the Scottish Government have a massive mandate.
Many Members have talked about this being part of the devolution story, and it is. This is the second major Bill on devolution to have come before the House. The devolution story will continue to unfold, and we will continue to go down that road, but a new story is now also starting to emerge. It is about a new journey that Scotland is about to embark upon, because at some point over the next few years we will have a proper referendum on the future of Scotland—a proper, constitutional referendum that will be about independence, and I am absolutely sure that the Scottish people will make the right choice and that Scotland will once again join the nations of the world.
Mr Speaker
Order. In calling Mr Iain Stewart, I ask him to consider the merits of allowing a couple of minutes for the Chairman of the Select Committee, but it is up to him.
Iain Stewart
Thank you, Mr Speaker, I shall make a very brief contribution. I just want to congratulate the Government on introducing this Bill, as its provisions are a sensible evolution of the devolution settlement.
From an English perspective, I think the Bill will go some way towards allaying the concerns felt by many of my constituents about a perception of unfairness in the spending arrangements. I agree that the Scottish Parliament should be responsible for raising a significant chunk of the revenue it wants to spend on services, and this presents a sensible way forward. It will not be the end of the matter, however. There will be further debates on the arrangements between Scotland, England and the rest of the United Kingdom.
I am an unashamed Unionist. I believe that the strength of the United Kingdom is greater than that of the sum of its parts, and I want it to continue always. Others on both sides of the border disagree with that, but I make this plea: whatever further changes are suggested, let them be based on evidence, be sensible, be practical and not be part of some silly constitutional game-playing. The economy of Scotland, and indeed of the whole United Kingdom, is still fragile, and the last thing we need is years and years of constitutional uncertainty. As we send this Bill to the Lords for further consideration, I congratulate the Government again and make that plea for a sensible, evidence-based, common-sense solution.
Mr Davidson
It is very difficult to summarise several months of work in three minutes. I commend the Scottish Affairs Committee report to the House, and I hope everyone will read it carefully.
A number of points are worth repeating at the conclusion of our debate. Although I recognise that this is not the end of the story and that discussion will continue, the question of transparency in the figures is vital; that cannot be over-emphasised. If amendments from the Scottish Parliament are to be debated, they must be scrutinised as the proposals from Professor Hughes Hallett and Professor Scott were scrutinised—and, of course, in the end those proposals fell by the wayside because they were found to be wanting.
We must also recognise that financial pressures on the Scottish Parliament are likely to result in pressures for decisions in areas that did not previously have to be addressed. Hard choices are going to have to be made, so it is therefore again essential that the necessary information and arguments are put forward.
We must also be clear about what the verdict of the Scottish people was. Some 50% of the people in Scotland did not vote in the election. [Interruption.] Of those who did vote, fewer than half voted for separation. [Interruption.] We must remember that more people voted for my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) to be Prime Minister than voted for Alex Salmond to be First Minister.
Not everything the Scottish National party proposes is accepted, therefore. We must remember that Alex Salmond called clearly for a yes vote in the alternative vote referendum and was roundly defeated. [Interruption.] I notice that efforts are being made to shout me down. That is what has traditionally happened in Scotland when people have challenged the nationalists, and those of us who want to challenge the narrow neo-fascism of the nationalists have got to be prepared to have discussions—
Stewart Hosie
The use of this neo-fascist description is absurd, offensive and wrong in every single regard. What powers, Sir, do you have to ensure that this nonsense is not said or repeated?
Mr Davidson
Is it not neo-fascist to attempt to shout down speakers with whom one disagrees? We have had robust debate in the House on several occasions, but it has frequently been the case in my constituency, after I won it from the nationalists, that they have attempted to shout me down.
Mr Speaker
We are about to come to the Adjournment and I appeal to right hon. and hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly to afford a fair hearing to Mr David Amess.
Volunteering
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
It is an absolute delight to have the opportunity tonight to celebrate in the House the work of the hundreds, thousands and millions of volunteers who work throughout the country and whose work we simply could not function without. Volunteers add a commitment and level of care that money could never buy. Everyone should be encouraged to volunteer and people should not be put off by form-filling. I therefore say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I hope the Government will continue to do whatever they can to reduce the red tape around volunteering.
Having spoken to many charities, I know that they say that Criminal Records Bureau checks help them to protect vulnerable people from individuals who might be at risk, so I no longer think that that is the problem it originally was. However, it is clear that the Government should be encouraged to incentivise volunteering and encourage businesses to recognise the full benefits of volunteering. If businesses helped to promote volunteering and allowed their staff the time to train and undertake volunteering, there would no doubt be a significant rise in the number of volunteers. I know that my hon. Friend and other Members present would be the first to say that when we visit volunteering organisations, they tend to say that they are getting older and to ask where the new volunteers will come from, and that is what I hope we can achieve from this debate.
I make no criticism whatever of the honours system. I would simply say that all Members of Parliament are continually written to by constituents suggesting that fellow constituents should get an honour, but that is very difficult to achieve. I think of my friend Bruce Forsyth and the fact that it has taken him many years to get a knighthood. I want to mention some of my constituents whom I think should receive honours, such as Ivan Heath, a 95-year-old widower, who is going to leave all his money to charities and is doing so already, and Donald Neil Fraser, a member of Leigh town council, who is over 80 and works as a volunteer morning, noon and night. Con Donovan, the owner of a successful business—a Choice Discount store—does an enormous amount of volunteering, along with his family, and Mark Foster, the famous Olympic swimmer, who comes from Southend, is currently doing an awful lot of volunteering. Joan Alfreda Matthews, a remarkable woman in her 90s, who is the founding member of the Saint Francis hospice, has worked tirelessly as a volunteer for the hospice since 1978 and helps families to come to terms with limiting illnesses. The list is endless.
Some of us who have been here for a while recognise the frustration of getting honours for individuals. We used to have the opportunity to nominate local heroes through the Experience Corps. I telephoned that organisation to ask why we did not have the opportunity to do so this year. Unfortunately, this is the first year in which we will not have that opportunity because the Experience Corps is not doing it any more, so tonight I am announcing that if no one else is prepared to take on this particular exercise, I am more than happy to do it. I simply appeal to some businesses to help us, so that in future, we can honour our local volunteers—the heroes and heroines in our constituencies. I hope we can organise something by the autumn.
The hon. Members for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) and for Colchester (Bob Russell) and I are officers of the all-party scout group. On 7 June, Mr Speaker hosted an event and the Deputy Speakers assisted with the presentations and the photographic opportunities afterwards, so I realise that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have already heard what I am about to say. Four hundred thousand young people are scouts and they rely on 100,000 volunteers.
The scouting organisation is absolutely wonderful. Scouts are less likely to drink or smoke. They are more likely to participate in physical activities and they normally make a great success of their lives. Fifty-six per cent. of youth members volunteer for another charity. The number of adult volunteers in scouting is more than the combined work forces of the British Broadcasting Corporation and McDonald’s. If we paid them for their work, it would cost us about £500 million. They do a splendid job.
At the reception on 7 June, there was a suggestion, which I pass to my hon. Friend the Minister, that the Government consider brokering some form of volunteer incentive card that would entitle its holders to offers donated by businesses. One scout, Stefan Prest, mentioned the success of Orange’s RockCorps as an example of good practice.
This evening, I attended a charity event at Spencer House, which was a fantastic occasion sponsored by the Chinese company Huawei, in conjunction with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to organise the relaunch of Childline. They appealed for the ambitious number of 5,000 volunteers. The appeal is backed by the Rothschilds and the Spencer family and I hope we will do whatever we can to assist in gathering the 5,000 volunteers.
How many events do we go to where the St John Ambulance is in attendance? Many people think the staff are paid. In Essex, Lord Petre is the president of St John Ambulance. Its members do a fantastic job. They administered first aid to 800,000 people last year and they can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved. There are 23,000 adult members and nearly 20,000 young members. The organisation trains 575,000 people a year and it has more than 1,000 ambulances and support vehicles.
A few years ago, through the Industry and Parliament Trust, I undertook a volunteer attachment with the WRVS. It coincided with the Queen Mother’s centenary. The WRVS does a wonderful job. It runs trolley services at Southend hospital and Southend meals on wheels. It has an emergency service and there are 45,000 volunteers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman has not yet mentioned Church youth organisations, where many people volunteer. Does he feel that they need recognition and should also be considered for honours?
Mr Amess
The hon. Gentleman is a wonderful attender and supporter on these occasions. He is right to remind me of that group. The only Church organisation I shall have time to mention is the Salvation Army, but I endorse everything he said.
With 16 other parliamentarians, I was recently made a national parliamentary patron of the YMCA, although we failed the audition for Village People. It does a fantastic job with housing and homelessness, promotes sport, health, exercise and fitness, works to combat crime, helps with safety, provides education and skills, offers advice on money, tries to get young people jobs and helps with citizenship, personal development, parenting and family difficulties. The YMCA reaches out to more than 1 million people each year, working with them at every stage of their lives and offering support when and where they need it most. The movement has grown to become one of the biggest Christian charities in the world, working in over 120 countries, with 30 million members worldwide.
The Salvation Army is a wonderful organisation. I happen to be a Catholic but I always say that the Salvation Army does a wonderful job. It certainly does in Leigh-on- Sea. It was founded in the east end of London, where I come from, in 1865. It has 50,000 members, 4,000 employees and 1,500 Salvation Army officers. It serves 3 million meals a year, carries out prison visits, helps 3,500 homeless people and runs 709 local church and community centres. It runs 636 centres for the elderly, 300 youth clubs and 120 drop-in centres. The list goes on and on. If ever we feel gloomy at Christmas, we go to the Salvation Army and it cheers us all up.
When Dame Cicely Saunders set up the hospice movement, did she ever realise what wonderful work hospices would do in the United Kingdom? All hon. Members have hospices in their constituencies. I have Fair Havens, which was founded in 1983. It employs an army of volunteers. Supporting families who have lost loved ones is very draining.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
May I mention VSO—Voluntary Service Overseas? I was told tonight that the average age of VSO volunteers is 44, although many are young people. Those who are past their careers and are grandparents have an awful lot to give. Volunteers go overseas and give in a targeted and intelligent way, capacity building in other societies, and they deserve special mention for the work that they do.
Mr Amess
I entirely agree. Believe it or not, VSO is on my list, but I will now shorten my comments on it.
When I was Member of Parliament for the area where St Luke’s hospice is situated, one of the miracles that happened there was that we built the hospice from nothing at all. Princess Diana came and opened it and it still does wonderful work.
This weekend in all our constituencies was armed forces weekend. I am president of our local branch of the Royal British Legion, as are other hon. Members in their areas. The Royal British Legion does a fantastic job. It was founded in 1921. We had the armed forces parade to Parliament today, and I know that the hon. Member for Colchester has a great deal to do with the Anglian Regiment. We salute the armed forces and thank them for their work.
On VSO, I declare an interest. Last year, VSO paid for me to do voluntary work in the Philippines. I was there as an advocate for Filipino nurses. One of my children, Sarah, has just come back from doing voluntary work in the Maldives as a teacher. It sounds glamorous, but when there are cockroaches coming into the rooms and all sorts of other things happening, it is quite a difficult job in a Muslim country. I agree that the work of VSO is first class. If any hon. Members have some free time this summer, I hope they will contact VSO and join it.
Mr MacNeil
I echo the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments about VSO wholeheartedly. I had the privilege and the enrichment of a VSO placement in Cambodia in 2008. I hope more Members take up his suggestion and give time to VSO.
Mr Amess
It was a wonderful experience for me. We went to Ifugao and we were stationed in Manila. For three days nurses were queuing up to get their qualifications—it is very tough to get jobs there. When one comes back to the UK, one realises how jolly lucky we are.
At the weekend we had a Southend community in harmony event.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Many of the voluntary groups that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and indeed many such groups in my constituency, make a major contribution to economic well-being as well as social well-being. For example, in North Antrim we have the North West 200, which is the Coleraine and district motorcycle voluntary group, which we share with the adjoining East Londonderry constituency. It generates £6 million a year for the local economy. If that was not there, our economy would not be as strong as it is. He is absolutely right that those groups need more than a pat on the back; they need to be commended, encouraged, supported and endorsed.
Mr Amess
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is not a case of take, take, take, but of give, give, give, and they really do help business and other activities. I could not agree more. The Southend in harmony event was attended by Jewish people, Muslims and a whole range of other people, and it included an older people’s assembly and an army of volunteers, each and every one of whom I salute.
I end with these thoughts for my hon. Friend the Minister. I ask the Government to do all they possibly can to help youth organisations such as the scouts to attract more volunteers. The national citizen service, which will begin in just a few weeks, offers an ideal opportunity. If those young people who complete the eight-week national citizen service schemes are then signposted to organisations like the scouts to continue their community involvement and enhance their skills as young leaders, everybody would benefit. That would ensure that the NCS is not simply an eight-week long experience, but an excellent start to a young person’s volunteering journey, which can be enhanced by the range of opportunities that scouting and other youth organisations offer.
Another way that the Government can support organisations such as the scouts is through their considerable influence with business and employers. More than 80% of employees, when questioned, said that they would like to get involved in a staff volunteer scheme if their employer allowed it. The Government should consider whether a person who devotes time to volunteering should be entitled to a small amount of time off to fulfil their obligations, similar to that which is afforded to councillors and magistrates.
This is the toughest time, certainly in my lifetime, for young people to get a job, despite their wonderful qualifications. Having worked in recruitment for many years before becoming an MP, I know that it is far better for young people to do some volunteering, rather than have a blank space on their CV, as that will go a long way in assisting them to get a permanent job.
I ask the Government to consider where they stand on the right to take time off to train. Many organisations offer first-class training schemes for volunteers and support them to improve their performance both as volunteers and in their professional careers. In a survey, the Scout Association found that 93% of volunteers believed that the skills, training and experienced gained through scouting had been relevant to their working and personal lives. Businesses should be encouraged to see the benefits they gain from their employees’ volunteering interests and to enable them to take a reasonable amount of time off to train, safe in the knowledge that the skills they will acquire will benefit the business in the longer term.
Let the House unite in thanking all our volunteers in our constituencies for the wonderful work they do, and let the Government support us in encouraging a new generation of volunteering.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
I start by offering my utterly genuine congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) not only on securing the debate but on the passionate way he used it to celebrate people who give time to help others in our communities, because their contribution is absolutely enormous. It is right that we celebrate them and take the opportunity to ask what more we can do to encourage, support and value them.
My hon. Friend knows that this question is central to our vision of a society in which people feel more power and responsibility not only for their own lives but for the communities they live in and the services they use. It is the big society vision. Of course, we are not inventing something. As his powerful speech and the contributions of other Members made clear, there is already a huge range of amazing voluntary work being undertaken by individuals and groups across the country.
My hon. Friend referred to several organisations very worthy of mention and celebration in this place, including the scout movement and its work to engage and develop young people in communities, to which my hon. Friend has contributed throughout his chairmanship of the all-party scout group. It is genuinely impressive to see how the movement goes from strength to strength with the essential support of its volunteers.
We cannot be complacent or take the movement for granted, however. Statistics demonstrate that giving has flatlined and shows some worrying signs of decline. In all our constituencies, we wonder how we will replace the people who have taken a lead in our communities, but the Government are ambitious and we do not accept that decline is inevitable. We want to work with the voluntary community sector and, critically, with business, as my hon. Friend mentioned, to connect more people with the opportunity to make a difference.
I will set out some of our initial plans, which I hope will give my hon. Friend some reassurance that the Government are ambitious and extremely committed to the agenda, and perhaps address some of his specific issues.
Last month we published a giving White Paper, which sets out our stall. We want to focus on three things: making it easier to give; making it more compelling to give; and giving better support to the charities and voluntary groups that channel our generosity. That involves public investment, so we have said that we will invest more than £40 million in volunteering and social action over the next two years.
That investment will include a new social action fund to support some of the most creative and effective schemes that are being developed to inspire more giving in priority areas and to inspire groups, including young people. My hon. Friend suggested new incentives to get more people involved, and he may be interested to know that that includes piloting such initiatives as Spice “time credits”, which introduce new incentives for people to give time, including discounts and preferential access to local services. We are piloting, because new incentives may be required just to tip new people over the edge and into giving time.
We are also announcing challenge prizes to reward the best solutions for breaking down the barriers that get in the way of more giving, and we have announced a local infrastructure fund to help the amazingly valuable and important infrastructure that is out there to support community organisations and volunteering, and to help it become more efficient and more effective. Further details of how organisations can apply to those funds will be announced over the coming months.
I am delighted to say that the White Paper has received significant support from key figures in the voluntary and community sector. Sir Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, says:
“This Paper draws together a wealth of intelligence on what can be done to stimulate greater levels of giving…in the UK.”
The chief executive of Volunteering England says:
“The White Paper deserves to be warmly welcomed by the…movement. It promises to make a positive advance in how people volunteer in our society and in how organisations support them.”
My hon. Friend mentioned the national citizen service, which is a hugely important initiative. It was launched this year, with more than 10,000 places available for 16-year-olds this summer, and is a fantastic opportunity to connect young people with their own power to make a contribution to their communities. Of course my hon. Friend is right: once we have lit the spark in those young people, as we hope to, we must ensure that it is the start of a journey into other opportunities to develop skills and experiences and to make a positive contribution. So, yes, we do want to work with our providers to signpost those opportunities, and I have personally delivered that message to the scouts and to Youth United, because they are entirely complementary to the national citizen service.
It is not just young people we want to inspire, however. We believe that throughout communities in Britain there are people who would get more involved in changing things in their neighbourhood if they were encouraged and supported to come together. That is especially true of relatively disadvantaged neighbourhoods where there is less obvious so-called social capital, and that is why we are investing in training 5,000 community organisers, who will bring people together in their areas and encourage and support them to make the differences they want to see in their communities. That is why we are also launching a new neighbourhood grants fund, Community First, which will incentivise local people to work together to create the change they want to see.
As my hon. Friend says, we should look to cut some of the red tape that gets in the way, while making sure that we continue to protect the vulnerable. That is why I asked Lord Hodgson to lead a joint Cabinet Office and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills red tape taskforce. Part of the role of that taskforce was to look at how to remove barriers to those wishing to become more actively involved. He recently published his report “Unshackling Good Neighbours”, and we are reviewing the recommendations that relate to addressing barriers to the giving of time. I heartily recommend the report to my hon. Friend, because I think he will appreciate that it oozes common sense from every page. It is a thoroughly good read. As I said, we are reviewing the recommendations and seeing what we can action as quickly as possible.
My hon. Friend mentioned CRB checks. He will be aware that we have completed reviews of the criminal records and vetting and barring regimes. As outlined in our programme for government, the aim of the reviews was to scale back these regimes to common-sense levels. It is clear from my conversations with the sector and across communities that there is still frustration about how the CRB process works in relation to the time it takes and the restrictions on portability around the system. The main recommendations of the reviews, which are being taken forward under the Protection of Freedoms Bill currently going through Parliament, are to reduce the coverage of the schemes to individuals who have close and regular contact with vulnerable groups; to place a greater onus on employers and voluntary organisations to decide when to carry out checks and to make it easier to carry them around the system; and to introduce continually updated CRB checks to reduce the need for employees and volunteers to have new checks when they move positions.
In addition, we announced in the Budget—this is all in the context of trying to make it easier to volunteer—that all drivers who use their vehicle for work or volunteering will now be able to claim 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, an increase of 5p per mile. I am sure that my hon. Friend will know that there was frustration across constituencies about the rising cost of giving time in this regard, and we think that this will help. The Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus have been working with the Cabinet Office and key representatives of the voluntary sector to tackle the real and perceived barriers to unemployed people volunteering.
We are very conscious of the need to lead by example. That is why we are encouraging civil servants to volunteer by turning the civil service into what we call a civic service. They will spend more time out of Departments and in communities working with organisations, and we believe that we will get better civil servants as a result. We are taking a lead in encouraging civil servants to do at least one day of volunteering each year using special leave. We hope that this sets a good example to other employers. One of the reasons I am so optimistic about this agenda is that increasingly businesses are recognising that it is in their commercial interests to encourage their human resources to give time and stretch themselves in different contexts. It is not just about PR value or community value but about developing their most important assets, which are human. We want to lead by example with the civil service, and we are very much encouraging business to follow.
I recommend to my hon. Friend an excellent speech made by the Prime Minister—of course, every speech that he makes is excellent, but this one is particularly good—called “Every Business Commits”, which speaks very strongly to businesses about what we expect as regards encouraging more social responsibility.
My final point concerns a matter on which my hon. Friend placed a lot of importance. In addition to implementing these programmes, it is essential that we recognise and reward inspirational examples of good practice in volunteering and social action. To achieve this, the Government have created the big society awards. I do not know if he is aware of that, but I can write to update him on how every single Member of Parliament can nominate individuals and organisations in their constituencies for these awards. We also continue to support and promote the Queen’s award for voluntary service. I was delighted to hear about his own personal initiative on celebrating local heroes, and I wish him every success with that.
I would again like to thank my hon. Friend for calling this debate this evening. As I highlighted, there is already a lot of excellent voluntary work taking place across the country. In the years to come, we hope to grow volunteering and social action and enable the existing good practice to become the norm. I hope that I have reassured him that the Government are extremely ambitious about and very committed to encouraging more people to get involved in their communities.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Employment and Support Allowance
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Timms
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the number of recipients of employment and support allowance there would be in the (a) work related activity group and (b) assessment phase (i) with and (ii) without time-limiting in place for each financial year from 2011-12 to 2015-16.
[Official Report, 16 May 2011, Vol. 528, c. 94-5W.]
Letter of correction from Mr Chris Grayling:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on 16 May 2011.
The full answer given was as follows:
Chris Grayling
The first table shows the estimated future recipients of contributory employment and support allowance (ESA) in the work related activity group (WRAG) with and without time-limiting in force.
With time-limiting in force | Without time-limiting in force | |
|---|---|---|
2011-12 | 200,000 | 200,000 |
2012-13 | 260,000 | 400,000 |
2013-14 | 200,000 | 590,000 |
2014-15 | 160,000 | 730,000 |
2015-16 | 40,000 | 720,000 |
The second table shows the estimated future recipients of contributory ESA in the assessment phase with and without time-limiting in force.
With time-limiting in force | Without time-limiting in force | |
|---|---|---|
2011-12 | 180,000 | 180,000 |
2012-13 | 110,000 | 190,000 |
2013-14 | 180,000 | 190,000 |
2014-15 | 170,000 | 180,000 |
2015-16 | 160,000 | 170,000 |
Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10,000 claimants and are based on Budget 2011 forecasts for the ESA time-limiting proposal. Caseloads for contributory ESA have been given as people on income-related ESA or credits only ESA will be unaffected by the time limiting proposal.
For those who leave the contributory ESA as a result of the time limit, it is estimated that around 60%, or approximately 400,000 people by 2015-16, are expected to be fully or partially compensated by income-related ESA, so will retain entitlement to ESA. And those who do not qualify for income-related ESA may remain on ESA on a credits-only basis.
The correct answer should have been as follows. The changes are identified in bold font.
Chris Grayling
The first table shows the estimated future recipients of contributory employment and support allowance (ESA) in the work related activity group (WRAG) with and without time-limiting in force.
With time-limiting in force | Without time-limiting in force | |
|---|---|---|
2011-12 | 200,000 | 200,000 |
2012-13 | 190,000 | 400,000 |
2013-14 | 200,000 | 590,000 |
2014-15 | 160,000 | 730,000 |
2015-16 | 40,000 | 720,000 |
The second table shows the estimated future recipients of contributory ESA in the assessment phase with and without time-limiting in force.
With time-limiting in force | Without time-limiting in force | |
|---|---|---|
2011-12 | 180,000 | 180,000 |
2012-13 | 180,000 | 190,000 |
2013-14 | 180,000 | 190,000 |
2014-15 | 170,000 | 180,000 |
2015-16 | 160,000 | 170,000 |
Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10,000 claimants and are based on Budget 2011 forecasts for the ESA time-limiting proposal. Caseloads for contributory ESA have been given as people on income-related ESA or credits only ESA will be unaffected by the time limiting proposal.
For those who leave the contributory ESA as a result of the time limit, it is estimated that around 60%, or approximately 400,000 people by 2015-16, are expected to be fully or partially compensated by income-related ESA, so will retain entitlement to ESA. And those who do not qualify for income-related ESA may remain on ESA on a credits-only basis.
Stephen Timms
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the cost to the Exchequer of excluding from the 365 day period of eligibility for contributory employment and support allowance any days that the claimant spends in the assessment phase in each of the next five financial years.
[Official Report, 7 June 2011, Vol. 529, c. 266-67W.]
Letter of correction from Mr Chris Grayling:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on 7 June 2011.
The full answer given was as follows:
Chris Grayling
As part of the Welfare Reform Bill we have set out our intention to introduce a time limit of one year for those claiming contributory employment and support allowance (ESA) and who are placed in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). The intention is that time spent in the assessment phase will count towards the 365 day period of the time limit. In total the policy is expected to generate annual benefit savings of £400 million in 2012-13 rising to £1.1 billion by 2014-15.
If the proposal were to change so that the time limit period is extended by the length of time it takes for each person to undergo a work capability assessment to determine entitlement to ESA, this would reduce the expected benefit savings.
The following table shows the expected change in the annual savings if the time spent in the assessment phase were excluded from the period of the time limit. It shows estimated overall costs to the Exchequer of around £200 million by 2014-15.
2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Estimated savings from current policy (£ million) | 420 | 780 | 1,090 | 1,330 | 1,380 |
Change to estimated savings (£ million) | -150 | -20 | -20 | -20 | -10 |
% change from current policy | -36 | -2 | -1 | -1 | -1 |
Change in the total numbers affected by time limiting | -80,000 | -10,000 | -10,000 | -10,000 | -10,000 |
Note: Figures are in cash terms, and are for Great Britain. They are rounded to the nearest £10 million or 10,000 claimants. |
The correct answer should have been as follows. Changes are identified in bold font.
Chris Grayling
As part of the Welfare Reform Bill we have set out our intention to introduce a time limit of one year for those claiming contributory employment and support allowance (ESA) and who are placed in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). The intention is that time spent in the assessment phase will count towards the 365 day period of the time limit. In total the policy is expected to generate annual benefit savings of £400 million in 2012-13 rising to £1.1 billion by 2014-15.
If the proposal were to change so that the time limit period is extended by the length of time it takes for each person to undergo a work capability assessment to determine entitlement to ESA, this would reduce the expected benefit savings.
The following table shows the expected change in the annual savings if the time spent in the assessment phase were excluded from the period of the time limit. It shows estimated overall costs to the Exchequer of around £60 million by 2014-15.
2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Estimated savings from current policy (£ million) | 420 | 780 | 1,090 | 1,330 | 1,380 |
Change to estimated savings (£ million) | -20 | -20 | -20 | -20 | -20 |
% change from current policy | -4 | -3 | -2 | -1 | -1 |
Change in the total numbers affected by time limiting | -10,000 | -10,000 | -10,000 | -10,000 | -10,000 |
Note: Figures are in cash terms, and are for Great Britain. They are rounded to the nearest £10 million or 10,000 claimants. |
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St George's Day (Public Holiday)
Westminster Hall
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Conflict Prevention
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Turner, for calling me to speak. Through you, I want to thank Mr Speaker for giving us this opportunity to debate the Government’s policy on conflict prevention. I also welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), to his place on the Front Bench today.
In the briefing that the House of Commons Library prepared for this debate, there is one particular article that summarises why I wanted us to have this debate, and my view is shared by the colleagues from other parties with whom I have the privilege of co-chairing the all-party group on conflict issues. I welcome the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) to the debate. Our third co-conspirator, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), cannot be with us this morning and sends his apologies. This debate is very much a cross-party initiative, rather than a personal one.
The particular article in the Library briefing that I want to start this debate by referring to is a BBC Online article from 11 April this year, headlined, “Aid spending should target conflict, World Bank urges”. It states:
“Poverty rates are 20% higher in countries hit by violence, so aid should target violence, the Bank says. The World Bank is recommending a major difference in the way aid is spent. A quarter of the world’s population live in states affected by conflict. In a report released on Monday, the World Bank says that there should be far more focus on building stable government, and on justice and police, than on health and education. The report says if there is not a major refocusing of aid in this direction, then other targets on poverty, health and education will not be reached. There is far more spent on alleviating the effects of conflict than preventing it from breaking out, and conflicts tend to be repeated. Ninety percent of recent civil wars occurred in countries that had already had a civil war in the last 30 years. The report found that cycles of violence were hard to stop, for example in South Africa and Central America. In Guatemala, twice as many people are dying now at the hands of criminals than died in the civil war in the 1980s. Poverty rates are 20 percentage points higher in countries affected by violence, but up to now, the World Bank found, there had been too little focus on ending corruption or reforming state institutions and justice systems. For instance, reform of justice was not one of the Millennium Development Goals...The report’s author Sarah Cliffe says this is the greatest development challenge facing the world. “It’s much easier for countries to get help with their militaries than it is with their police forces or justice systems, and much easier for them to get help with growth, health or education than it is with employment,” she says. “Our analysis would indicate that that should change.””
That is where I begin today and I am very grateful that, since the last election, the Government have made it clear that they give a great priority to conflict prevention. I am also very grateful to the Foreign Secretary who, when I have raised this specific issue with him on two occasions since the general election, has also made that clear, both generally—as a matter of strategy—and in relation to the initiative that he took recently to extend our diplomatic presence around the world. He said that those diplomatic missions would see conflict prevention as a key part of their work. So this is not a debate that has been called in order to rap the Government over the knuckles, but to encourage the trend in government, which began under the previous Government, to place a greater priority on conflict prevention for us as a country and for all the relevant partners in Government that work together on these issues. That means not only the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence.
A few years ago, at the prompting of people from outside this House to whom I now pay tribute, the all-party group on conflict issues was formed. I hope that it has already been effective, if only in a modest way, in bringing issues to the attention of the House and in opening up debates. Indeed, in Westminster Hall we have had debates on the legacy of Northern Ireland, and debates between representatives of Russia and Georgia. Recently, we have had two sessions involving young people from Israel and Palestine talking about their vision for the future.
The themes of those debates and sessions are recurrent. It is all too easy to respond militarily when something goes wrong and then to try to pick up the pieces. It is much more intelligent and much cheaper to intervene to prevent a country, community or part of the world from falling to pieces in the first place.
About a fortnight ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and I were part of a delegation that visited Israel and the west bank. If ever anyone wanted an example of a legacy of desperate failure to prevent conflict, they only have to go to those places. Whatever the good work that we, DFID and the FCO do to try to reconstruct community and civil society in the west bank or in Gaza, it is—bluntly—a much taller order than it would have been if there had not been the years of conflict in the first place.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for examining conflict prevention in the round. I support the aspiration to achieve the aid target of 0.7% of Britain’s GNP. However, does he share my view that, just as aid is very important in promoting conflict prevention, so is the role of our armed forces? They could play a much greater role in conflict prevention. In fact, their role is to prevent conflict and not to engage in it. However, if they are under-resourced they will be less able to play that role.
Simon Hughes
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about that point. I have a brother who is still working for the MOD and who has been in the Army in various parts of the world. However, it did not take him to remind me that it is more useful for the Army to stabilise a situation and to teach the skills of conflict avoidance and so on, than it is for it to engage in conflict. Sometimes conflict prevention is not perceived as being the dramatic work by the armed forces for which we pay our taxes, but it is both the most productive role of the armed forces and—frankly—the way that we can save not only the lives of people in faraway countries, such as Afghanistan, but in countries such as our own, including the lives of our service people who would otherwise pay a very high cost.
I also share my hon. Friend’s view that we not only need to have an ambition about the share of our national cake that we give to overseas development but that we need to have our armed forces fully committed to conflict prevention, as they want to be and as they increasingly have the skills to be.
I want to give one or two examples of how successful conflict prevention can be, if it is got right. They are examples of the work of the United Nations Development Programme which, since 2002, has assisted fragile countries to build resilience by strengthening what the UNDP calls “infrastructures for peace”. I commend the work of the UNDP’s Chetan Kumar, who has shown how extraordinarily efficient and effective very small financial contributions can be in transforming difficult situations. Let me give some examples of the UNDP’s success.
In Ghana in December 2008, there were rising tensions between different regions. Chieftaincy-related conflicts in parts of the country and the discovery of oil led to new tensions as the country approached national elections. When the elections were held, there was the narrowest margin of votes recorded in an African election—only 50,000 votes separated the winner and the loser. With tensions rising still further, the National Peace Council of Ghana, an autonomous and statutory national body that was established with assistance from the UNDP, helped to mediate a peaceful political transition. As part of Ghana’s peace infrastructure or peace architecture, regional and district peace councils are also being established.
Then there is the example of Togo in 2005, which shows that all this is not past history; it is very recent history. There were about 250 deaths in the 2005 national elections. However, in 2010 the establishment of a platform for political dialogue prior to the national elections and the ability of civic actors to conduct a sustained peace campaign led to a reduction in tensions and to peaceful elections, as well as to a stable post-electoral period. A code of conduct for political parties and a public peace campaign were developed and implemented with UNDP assistance. Further development included consolidation of a national peace architecture as a priority in 2011.
In Timor, between 2007 and 2009 the peace process that had followed the establishment of East Timor as an independent state nearly collapsed, after a massive return of refugees and internally displaced persons. With UN assistance, a network of community mediators was established; the mediators were trained and deployed; and other conflict resolution efforts enabled the return and resettlement of 13,000 families by 2010. The Government there are now working with the UNDP to establish a new department for peace building so that the country has its own standing internal mediation system.
In Kyrgyzstan, the UNDP facilitated dialogue between civil society, the electoral commission and security agencies.
In Kenya just last year, there was a constitutional referendum without a single violent incident, in contrast to elections just three years previously when 1,500 people were killed and 300,000 displaced. I am very conscious that the Foreign Office Minister here today, who has responsibility for Africa, takes an active interest in these matters. One reason for what happened last year was that, in advance of the referendum, the UNDP provided support for national efforts to reach a political agreement on the new draft constitution and helped to implement an early warning and response system that prevented violent incidents from cropping up, and local peace committees were strengthened in all districts of the country.
I could go on with examples, but we do not have the time so I shall give just two illustrations of the cost-benefit, which is also a consideration in times of straitened finances. Kenya’s leading business association assessed economic losses from post-election violence in 2008 as being $3.6 billion. In contrast, the 2010 constitutional referendum, which was plagued by similar tensions, did not see any violence, and the supported prevention effort cost only about $5 million. In Kyrgyzstan, the recovery costs from the inter-ethnic violence in mid-2010 were estimated to be $71 million, but the regional UN efforts to restore political and inter-ethnic confidence cost approximately only $6 million. I could go on, but I think that people understand my point.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in the examples he has given of UN funding and support the key is the local buy-in—local people arbitrating peace in their own countries? I am afraid that I cannot stay for the Minister’s response today, but perhaps the Government will consider doing as they do in the field of aid, and support local projects that are designed to resolve conflict as well as, of course, using military intervention where necessary in an immediate crisis.
Simon Hughes
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. All the best evidence is that grass-roots initiatives that are long term, engage the village—and the tribes in a tribal community—and are led by local people rather than external agencies, with the support of the international community, are far more likely to be successful.
I want to put the matter in another context. There are various authoritative indicators of conflict around the world, including the International Crisis Group and the “Global Peace Index”, and they tell us something which, if we paused for a second, we would realise for ourselves: after a very welcome decline in the number of conflicts in the past few years there has been a recent increase in violence in the world. The point that I made at the beginning of my speech when I quoted from the article on the World Bank is that inter-state conflict is now not nearly as frequent as it was. The bigger problem is internal conflict, which is likely to increase because many places are afflicted by not just political and economic crises but environmental ones such as water shortages, and other effects of climate change.
The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and I have taken an interest in many countries where there has been internal conflict and civil war, and as long as there is increased pressure on food, water and housing supplies—the normal needs of a community for economic prosperity—it is more likely that tribal and racial tensions will grow. We therefore urgently need to see those environmental problems as a priority if we are to prevent conflict in many of the poorest parts of the world, because they are often the most likely to be afflicted.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. There are two examples of environmental or food-based conflict, one of which is Darfur. Although the situation there is complicated, many people have arrived in the area as environmental refugees as a result of desertification. In Kenya, and to some extent in Tanzania, many people are being pushed off their land because very wealthy western countries and corporations buy land for their own food production, thus impoverishing the poorest people in those countries who then end up in slums around Nairobi and the other major cities. That is a huge source of misery, poverty and conflict.
Simon Hughes
It is, and two other things strike me. For example, west Africa is very rich in natural resources, but the benefit of those resources has historically not gone to the local communities for community development because the resources, particularly the oil, have been taken out by international corporations and there has been abuse, with flaring and so on. In other parts of the world, there is enforced privatisation of natural resources—water, for example—as part of a World Bank or International Monetary Fund programme that has actually reduced the capacity of the community to develop in its own way.
I want to make just two other general points and then end with some questions. I do not want to set out the Government’s stall because the Minister is quite capable of doing that, and there is a good story to tell, but I want to push them to go further. The UK has been working very hard to bring its operations together across Departments, and we have the capacity to be one of the world leaders in conflict prevention. I encourage the Government, through the Minister, to go that extra mile and pick up some of my ideas. It has been put to me that we have 21st-century conflicts but 20th-century institutions. The best example of a case that I have been closely involved with in recent years is that of the Sri Lankan civil war, as it came to its end. In theory, the United Nations had the power to intervene, under the responsibility to protect, but it was completely paralysed and did absolutely nothing. The conflict went all the way, with all the implications that we now know. I sense that internationally, through the UN, and nationally we sometimes intervene too late, because we do not have the international levers that we can pull early.
Since the beginning of the current situation in Libya the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington has been raising the point that it is comparatively easy to intervene militarily. It is not so difficult to scramble together a military intervention, and it should be as easy to scramble together a conflict prevention mechanism, but it is not. We need to think about how we get the balance of decision making and priorities right, in our Government and in others. The people on the ground, especially in countries where there is repeated, periodic or cyclical conflict, know that it is jobs, justice and domestic security that are likely to give them the most secure future. An illustration that helps us easily to picture these things is that it is often better to respond to an illness by dealing with the early signs of infection than to wait for the epidemic. In the past, we have often responded to the epidemic rather than taking preventive action.
Mr Slaughter
The right hon. Gentleman has hit on another key point in relation to the Arab world. Not just in Libya but in all the countries of the Arab spring, the degree of violence and the difficulty, even if things go well, of creating civil society, is due to the legacy of having supported tyrants rather than democratic organisations in those countries over many years. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is a lesson that we, and all western Governments, need to learn?
Simon Hughes
I absolutely agree. There is so much, both academic and practical, that we should have already learnt. The age of the empires of the world mercifully is coming to an end, but there is still a view that that sort of intervention by force is, in the end, what we need to display as our effective international activity, even though all the evidence is that different sorts of interventions are now much more needed.
I am grateful to all those who have briefed us for this debate. It should really be a seminar rather than a debate. I commend Saferworld, which has supplied some very good material and I shall summarise its five points about the areas on which Governments should concentrate. First, it picks up the point made by Labour Members, namely that we need to understand the context and put it first, and that each context is different. Secondly, we have to put people at the heart of conflict prevention. Thirdly, we have to work cross-departmentally in Government. Fourthly, we have to work with our international partners. Fifthly, a crucial issue is the arms trade and the need to curb it—many of the poorest countries spend large parts of their funds on arms rather than on other things.
I also commend the work of PATRIR—the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania—and Kai Brand-Jacobsen, the director of its department of peace operations. Ministers and others will have seen its work. It has identified 22 lessons for country-level prevention, as well as lessons for international support and prevention efforts, improving effectiveness and preparedness, and identifying key gaps and challenges, and the way in which we can apply those from here.
I have, with the help of the officers of the all-party group, prepared some questions. I have given the Department notice of them, so I hope that they do not come as a frightening surprise to the Minister. I will then end with some key requests. It would be good for the Government to set out what they mean by conflict prevention and which programmes they are funding in which countries to prevent which conflicts—we would then have more transparency about the details of the Government commitment—and how they evaluate the effectiveness of those programmes. It would be helpful if the Government could regularly gather information from the existing data sets on work around the world and learn the lessons from it. It would be good if the Government would consider establishing an organisation similar to that in Washington DC, to study, educate and train in the field of peace building, covering all elements of policy, from grass-roots policy to international diplomacy in the voluntary, public and private sectors and the like.
What in-house training are members of the civil service and diplomatic service receiving on conflict prevention? Are we able to get the Commonwealth to do more? It is for ever looking for an effective role. As a big supporter of the Commonwealth, I think there is an opportunity for it to play a much more direct role in conflict resolution and prevention. In the case of Sri Lanka, it was a lamentable failure for a Commonwealth country to be engaged in such a situation. The Commonwealth Secretariat could work with the Government on the issues.
Would it be possible—I hope that the Minister will respond positively to this, although it is not just his decision—for the Government to agree to an annual opportunity to stocktake conflict prevention? I would like us to have an annual debate on the issue. We have annual debates on the armed services—the Royal Navy, the Army and the Air Force—and it is just as important that we have an annual opportunity to review conflict prevention in the world. It would be a strong signal marker of our collective wish as a Parliament and a Government.
Will the Minister tell us how much the Government spent last year on conflict prevention and on overseas military intervention, so that we can compare the two? Is there a cost-benefit analysis of those two forms of spending? Is there a way of projecting how the cost benefit would be helpful as we think, in these straitened economic times, about how we are going to spend our resources abroad? That would produce obvious answers in relation to where we ought to prioritise.
There has been growing cause for concern in Sudan in recent days, and now the Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed concern about the situation. Are we, in our overseas development work, supporting the civil organisations on the ground in such countries to help prevent conflict, rather than just going in and using more traditional responses?
Do the Government monitor the infrastructures for peace developments so that we can promote good practice in other places around the world? Following on from a point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), are we learning the lessons from the past year of the Arab spring about engaging with local communities in the Arab world, as opposed to just dealing with the governance in some pretty unsavoury places, so that we are with the people preparing for the change? Are we making sure that it is local citizens who are leading such developments? This country’s education processes are also an issue. Will the Government consider adopting the same approach as that in the Department for International Development’s policy paper, “The engine of development”, to make sure that we always have stakeholder dialogue—I hate the word “stakeholder”—between key participants?
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has missions in potentially troublesome places in the Balkans and eastern Europe. Can we work with it to go to other places that look as though they are at risk of conflict in the future? Can we get better co-operation between the OSCE and the European Union in enhancing common foreign and security policy?
What about the places—this has been one of my perpetual frustrations since I have been in this place—where there have been stalled peace processes? Cyprus, for example, has been on the agenda every year that I have been here. There has just been another round of talks, which do not appear to have moved anything. We should seek to move things on. In the end, Northern Ireland resolved its problems as much through grass-roots movements from the community, particularly those involving women, as it did through political forces from the top. Cyprus desperately needs, and would benefit from, the same. Finally, is there any capacity within Government to expand the resources of the new stabilisation unit and the new strategies that the Government have put in place?
I hope that that is a helpful short tour of the horizon. I hope that the Government will say that they will seek to build a more formal and systematic approach, based on best practice, across Government Departments, and that they will accept that we need to beef up our capacity to lead on conflict prevention around the world. I hope that they will see the stabilisation unit as something that prioritises not just stabilisation but conflict prevention. I think that that has been the lesson of Afghanistan. I hope that they will be honest about the gaps and the challenges and give us an opportunity of annual stocktaking. Finally, I have one suggestion. I am always wary of tokenistic titles, but as there are three Departments that have to work together—the Ministry of Defence as much as the others—it may be that the Government need to think about who is the lead Minister across Departments for making sure that there is a driven policy for integrating the policies.
It would be a commendable and good thing if the way in which we organised Government was seen to give as much priority to prevention as it does to defence and military matters. A minister with responsibility for conflict prevention in the world would be a way forward. Other countries are setting up departments of peace, rather than departments of war, and are realising that we need to shift from ministries of defence to ministries of peace. We may not be culturally ready for that yet, although many would welcome it, but we need to move in that direction. I hope that this debate will show that a growing group of people in this Parliament and in all the Parliaments of the democratic world want this move. There is now a network around the world.
I shall end with a plug. For those who want any more information, there is a website entitled www. conflictissues.org.uk. I hope that this is the beginning of a debate that engages not just us but many others outside this place, and that the Government are ready to respond warmly.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I apologise to you, Mr Turner, and to the Minister, because I will have to leave at 10.30. The group of MPs who represent constituencies around Heathrow airport have secured a ministerial meeting about night flights. Heathrow is in my constituency and it has taken us a long time to set up the meeting, so I will have to attend it. I apologise for that. I mean no discourtesy to the Minister, and I will read his response in Hansard.
I want to follow on from the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). I call him my right hon. Friend because we have worked together on this issue for a number of years. That does not mean that we have done so on an almost fortnightly basis—I do not send him stroppy letters saying that I will never speak to him again if he votes for a Government proposal—but we have worked closely on this issue over the years. Part of the genesis of this debate was a ten-minute rule Bill on establishing a ministry of peace that we sponsored some time ago—[Interruption.] I do not know why my phone is going off. I apologise, Mr Turner. I cannot turn the thing off. Sorry about that. The song is Bruno Mars, “I’d Catch a Grenade for You,” which is bizarrely appropriate. My phone is now switched off.
As I was saying, the genesis of this debate was a ten-minute rule Bill that we sponsored that called for a ministry of peace. The objective was to secure a debate on how we can make conflict prevention and resolution more central to Government policy making. My hon. Friends and I had a range of debates in this Chamber about different examples of conflict prevention around the world in southern Africa, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. We basically picked the brains of people who had worked on the ground. Kai Brand-Jacobsen from the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania is a good example of that, but there were others as well. As I said, we heard from people from southern Africa and people from Northern Ireland from all sides. Following on from that, we formed the all-party group on conflict issues, which has worked successfully on an all-party basis and has brought in a range of expertise.
The stimulus for this debate is the Government’s expected publication of policy papers on the development of conflict prevention. We want to influence the longer-term decisions about investment in this field. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark said that the debate is more like a seminar. I suggest to the Minister that it would be extremely helpful if we had a ministerial seminar to which we invited all-party group members and other stakeholders from interested parties and organisations that have helped to brief us for the debate. If necessary, that debate could be held according to Chatham House rules. That does not matter, as long as we can have a free and flowing discussion about where we go from here on this important subject.
When we had the original debate, we set out a number of key factors that needed to be put in place if we were to make conflict prevention and resolution an integral part of Government policy making. The first factor is obviously political will. The atmosphere has changed dramatically as a result of our experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. There is much more of a political will desperately to seek conflict prevention solutions and resolution at the earliest opportunity. As my right hon. Friend said, during the original debate we argued that such an approach is a cost-effective mechanism of intervening. We have proved that point time and again. Therefore, there is political will on all sides to develop conflict prevention as an integral part of Government policy.
The second element is the need for structure within Government. Under the previous Government, we had a major breakthrough with the establishment of a conflict pool. Departments such as the Treasury, DFID, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence were brought together to work with each other on not just the disbursement of resources, but the development of expertise in Government and the investment of resources in concrete projects. There is a need to consider the structure of Government again. I am pleased that the Stabilisation Unit is in existence and will continue, but I note that Richard Teuten, formerly the head of the Stabilisation Unit, and Daniel Korski, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and former deputy head of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Unit, which evolved into the Stabilisation Unit, are recommending that we bring elements dealt within the FCO within the remit of the Stabilisation Unit. They also recommend that we review the structure within Government, so that it is strengthened and there is a more direct and authoritative lead within Government policy making.
I also welcome the suggestion that we have a named Minister dealing with the issue. I do not in any way wish to make the post grandiose but, of course, the Minister would be accountable to Parliament and would play a key role in co-ordinating other Departments. It is important symbolically to state that we are about conflict prevention and resolution, and that we give the matter such importance that a ministerial title is given to such work.
The other ingredients are obviously expertise and engagement, which have been mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark raised the issue of ensuring that we learn from experience elsewhere. We have argued for some time that there should be open and transparent access to such information within Government, and that we should establish a database of the experiences of conflict prevention and resolution across the world. That would feed into the ongoing debate about what works, what does not work and how we can learn those lessons.
We have been briefed in advance of this debate about the global peace-building strategies that are taking place, particularly in relation to 14P. That initiative ensures that civil society fully participates in the peace-building initiatives within countries and works with Government, across the world. We have given examples of the conferences that are planned in Ghana, Kenya and elsewhere. The Government may well want to consider the practices that are taking place as a result of that initiative and how the Government can add their weight and support to such programmes.
One of the other ingredients that we have suggested, which has come from the practices that have been demonstrably successful elsewhere, is the need to ensure that we have some structure for stakeholder engagement within this country. There should be some form of stakeholder panel through which we can draw in external expertise and advocates for peace within our society.
Simon Hughes
Just for the record, may I correct the hon. Gentleman? The organisation he is referring to is “I”4P—Interactions for Peace. I just want to ensure that, when people read the debate, they know what we are talking about.
John McDonnell
That is what comes from reading it and hearing it. I was trying to work out what 14P stands for. I have read all the briefing documents and could not understand it. I thank my right hon. Friend for that—I am very grateful.
John McDonnell
It is.
The key issue around the stakeholder panel is that it would give stakeholders the opportunity to advise the Government on what they need in terms of support for civil society, particularly in terms of investing in the studying of peace techniques. It is also important to train peace-builders—that has happened elsewhere, but less so in this country—who can work on the ground, engage in peace initiatives around the world and come back and teach us the lessons we can learn as a result of that.
A further element is obviously the ingredient that relates to resources. I am grateful to the Government for maintaining the existing level of resources and the various initiatives that the previous Government pursued, which is a result of our winning the argument on the cost-effectiveness of that investment. As part of the Government’s consultation on future policy, it would be helpful if we talked to others about the real level of resources required in the future, particularly on the issues that my right hon. Friend has identified: the threat of climate change and whether that will result in further conflicts, and the issues around the continuing struggle for limited natural resources. Those matters are not necessarily always related to climate change itself. That would give us the opportunity to build up a level of information and knowledge that we can discuss with the Treasury and in Government more widely on behalf of the Minister who will eventually be responsible for conflict prevention. We need to argue our corner and ensure that a stable supply of resources is put into this field over time.
A further element is accountability. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned parliamentary accountability. It is absolutely critical that we come back here regularly and have parliamentary debates on the matter. It would be more valuable if that were instituted by the Government in Government time, because that would demonstrate the seriousness of the Government’s commitment to this field of activity. The onus is on the Government and all of us to encourage a wider stakeholder debate and to take the debate on our role in conflict prevention and resolution to the country. In that way, we can engender more support within our communities for investment in this field. I do not want to get into the debate we have had with DFID about spending more of our resources in this country than abroad, but we must win the argument again: investment in conflict resolution and prevention is in the interests of us all and, in the long term, will save resources for our country as well.
More specifically, one element that we have always emphasised in debate is that we will further the cause of conflict prevention and resolution, and of peace overall, if we tackle the issue of the arms trade and the role of our country in it. The Government have a critical role to play in the negotiations for the next UN arms trade treaty in 2012. I would welcome the Government’s undertaking to have a full and thorough debate in Parliament and the wider community about how to construct that treaty so that we can engender support for it across the globe, but in this country in particular. That means, if we are to play our full role in combating conflicts resulting from the proliferation of weapons throughout the world, acknowledging that this country’s involvement in the arms trade must be reduced and eventually eliminated. That would throw up a whole range of issues—the impact on jobs and employment—which means we must have a serious discussion about conversion policies, allowing real arguments to stand up for those individuals and communities currently dependent on the arms trade.
An urgent matter at the moment is what is happening to the Nuba people in Sudan. In my constituency is a group called the Nuba Democratic Forum, consisting of refugees from that area of the world who have come to this country and have campaigned consistently over a number of years to ensure that the Nuba people can at least live in peace and at some level of decency if not prosperity. As the Minister is aware, the Sudanese Government have sent troops in, and there has been heavy artillery and aerial bombardment in the Nuba mountains, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people being displaced. The word coming back to families in my constituency is of appalling suffering, with a lack of water, food and shelter. I urge the Government to step up the application of pressure on the Sudanese Government, working with the US and through international bodies, to end the conflict and now, just as importantly, to secure humanitarian aid and access to it in that area. Although the world’s attention is not on the area at the moment, it will be soon because of the immense human suffering that will be played out if we do not act swiftly.
A wider debate could be had on conflict prevention and resolution, which is why I would welcome a ministerial seminar. Climate change has an impact and—as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said—globalisation and the continuing exploitation of the developing world are key. In addition, a new focus which we need to discuss is the use of sovereign funds in the developing world, to extract natural resources and to exploit individual communities. If we do not address that major agenda, it will be a new source of conflict and division in society, and globally.
Britain is known for its military and imperial history. We now have a real opportunity for Britain to be great again; it could be great as a world leader in securing peace. The development of Government policy—in cross-party partnership—on conflict prevention and resolution could make a major contribution to enhancing the status of this country in the eyes of the world as a peace-builder, rather than as a country that engages in wars and conflicts.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Thank you for calling me so early, Mr Turner.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) for proposing this debate, which is important, timely and supported by what I might call a broad coalition. The contribution of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) was welcome as well.
My right hon. Friend was right to refer to the BBC Online article, which pointed out the economics of conflict. In addition, the Secretary of State recently quoted Professor Paul Collier from Oxford university, who described conflict as “development in reverse”, and he cited some astonishing statistics:
“a civil war is estimated to cost a low income country an average of about 64 billion US dollars. In other words, the cost of a single conflict is more than half of the value of annual development aid worldwide.”
He also pointed out that
“the higher a country’s GDP per capita, the lower the risk of internal war. A typical post-conflict country with no economic growth has a 42% risk of returning to conflict within ten years. But with 10% growth, the risk declines to 29%.”
The issues of development and conflict are intertwined.
That was also my experience when working for Oxfam for some years. We saw conflict adding to poverty and destroying infrastructure in health, education and transport, often driving the most skilled people in a country into exile or displacement, or getting them killed, and disrupting the education, employment and training of everyone else. Conflict disrupts economies, normal politics and civil society, it wrecks agriculture and it destroys the ability of countries to support themselves. Clearly, we have common ground in that any money spent or effort made by the Government and other Governments internationally to prevent conflict must be well done.
Part of the question concerns how the money is spent. Most obvious is peacekeeping, but in one sense that is intervention at the point of failure. In effect, events have developed so far that we need soldiers on the ground and enormous effort to retrieve a situation. Other things help to fuel a conflict that is potential or just breaking out, and the arms trade is the single most important one. We must also look deeper, at the sources of tension and conflict, which are commonly social, religious, ethnic and political. Increasingly, especially with the impact of climate change, conflict will be over resources. I must echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who talked about our recent trip to Israel and Palestine, where we can see every single one of those different elements of conflict fuelling each other and adding to a toxic mix, making us most concerned for the future of that region.
I therefore very much welcome the Government’s mapping out an increasing amount of spending in what is called the conflict pool budget, which has risen from £229 million last year to £256 million this year, and will reach £309 million by 2014-15. Part of the conflict pool—about £76 million—is devoted to peacekeeping. On top of that, a separate peacekeeping budget now consists of £374 million, so something like two thirds of what is being spent annually by the Government goes on peacekeeping. Yet that, in a sense, is intervention at the point of failure, so perhaps we need to look at how much of the focus ought to be on anticipating and preventing conflict in the first place.
Even if we break down the remaining money in the conflict pool, which is spent on conflict resolution, discretionary peacekeeping—yet more peacekeeping—and stabilisation activities, including the excellent work, which I strongly commend, of the cross-departmental Stabilisation Unit, the countries on which that money is focused are a list of war zones and former war zones: Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and, slightly more distant, Lebanon and Cyprus. That is right because, as discussed, the risk of recurrence is high in regions that have already had conflict, but if we are to have a theme of anticipation and prevention, perhaps there is room for exploring where else the strategy needs to go.
My noble friend Lord Ashdown’s recent report on humanitarian aid and assistance emphasised the importance of building anticipation and resilience before emergencies strike. We need the same approach, if possible, in conflict prevention. We need the tools to build resilience to conflict. I would like my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark to commend Saferworld’s briefing on this debate to Ministers, including its points about emphasising the context of each country, as well as the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) about focusing conflict prevention efforts strongly on people’s experience.
Saferworld made those good points, and I would add that we should look for countries in which there is systematic denial of human rights and democracy, which is often the source of conflict. In his recent address to both Houses of Parliament, President Obama drew an interesting lesson from the experience of the Arab spring, which was exactly right. He pointed out that the west collectively had been supporting some tyrannical regimes that had given the impression of being stable. He said that
“repression offers only the false promise of stability”,
and that it puts a lid on conflict and often suppresses legitimate democratic, ethnic, political and even religious aspirations to the point where there is eventually an explosion. It would be good if the Government looked at a slightly more anticipatory approach with an eye on human rights and democracy.
It is excellent that the Government are developing the so-called BSOS, the building stability overseas strategy, and we must build into it and pay particular attention to institution-building, human rights, and particularly the rights of minorities and marginalised groups who are not part of the mainstream in each society. We need an anticipatory approach.
It is also excellent that in BSOS and many other policy areas that I mentioned we see three Departments—the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development —working closely together. Ministers should be commended on the extent to which there is a cross-departmental approach to many of the issues. Clearly, when there is an opportunity to join up, that is more effective and often more cost-effective. The one thing I would add is that the same lesson also applies at European level, and if we can join up and co-ordinate our stabilisation efforts with other European countries and, indeed, the European Union as a whole, we may have an even more effective and cost-effective approach. Nowhere is that more true than in the case of the arms trade, where an international approach is necessary.
It is right that the Government are pressing on towards an arms control treaty, which is vital, but it is also important to look at what environmentalists might call domestic effort. The steps that the Government have already taken are welcome in the wake of the Arab spring, or the Arab awakening as some people are now calling it. They have instituted a review of their arms export licences, and have already revoked 160. The list of licences that had been issued—sadly, that was under the previous Labour Government—is a cautionary tale. Although human rights and repression were supposed to be part of the criteria, we sold arms to almost every regime in the middle east, including the former regime in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. We were selling not just small arms, parts or communications technology, but tear gas, and something described as crowd control ammunition. I cannot conceive how that could be used peacefully and democratically.
I strongly welcome the revocations, and I urge the Foreign Office to consider making the current review of the arms control and the arms trade licence regime as robust as possible. It has been done in a hurry, and although it was right to do it quickly in response to events, I would welcome a more inclusive and wider review. Various right hon. and hon. Members have made the point that if we are to prevent conflict, we need an anticipatory approach. Many good suggestions have been made during the debate for enhancing the role and profile of conflict prevention, and there is a real opportunity for the coalition to show great leadership and to gain widespread support.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I will be brief to allow the Minister and the Opposition Front Bench spokesman sufficient time to respond to this debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) on securing it. It is crucial, and I am sorry that more Members are not here to take part in it. I recognise that we have an annual debate in this Chamber on human rights, when the Foreign Office usually responds to the report on human rights from the Foreign Affairs Committee. That is an important debate, and this one is equally important. Perhaps we should think in terms of an annual three-hour debate on this subject. I support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and others, and the suggestion of a seminar arranged through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on conflict prevention and how we go about it.
The debate coincides with refugee week. Many of us have been at events in our constituencies and communities commemorating or celebrating refugee week. Indeed, I was at an enormous event in Islington town hall yesterday with hundreds of people from all sorts of communities who have made their home in this country and made an enormous contribution to our society. We should also reflect on the tens of thousands—nay, millions—of refugees throughout the world whose lives have been wasted away in refugee camps and whose brilliance and opportunity are denied to them and to the rest of us by a lifetime in such camps. Conflicts may end with a deal or treaty, but the consequences continue for a long time. People have been in Palestinian refugee camps for 60 years, and in other camps for a very long time. It is a massive waste of human resources.
I want to make three essential points about the major causes of conflict. One is poverty. Poverty, inequality and injustice are fundamental to many of the present conflicts. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, many regimes in north Africa and the middle east were seen as stable, efficient and effective, but they were often presiding over a police state with massive youth poverty and unemployment. The resentment eventually boiled up to the Arab spring, which has not yet been played out. It could go in all sorts of directions, and some will not be nice or pretty. That is the effect of the pressure cooker of denying millions of young people the opportunity to develop themselves and their lives.
The second cause of conflict is natural resources. The United States made itself wealthy from exploitation of its natural resources, in exactly the same way as in the 18th and 19th centuries European powers, particularly Britain, France and Germany, made themselves powerful from exploitation of their natural resources. Those natural resources were quickly exploited, and worked out, and thus came empire to obtain resources from elsewhere. In many ways, that is what led to the first world war. There was competition between France and Britain with Germany and other powers.
The issue of resources has not gone away. The massive interest in Africa—it is not always a benign interest—by every industrial power at the moment is largely about its enormous untapped natural resources. Indeed, the interest in Afghanistan is far from benign, with China, Russia, the United States and Europe all eyeing up its massive mineral resources.
The third cause of conflict that has a massive effect on people’s lives is the lack of effective democratic government and institutions in so many societies, where there is no opportunity for poorer people to obtain justice and self-expression, and no independent and effective legal system that can redress high levels of human rights abuse. Support for the building of governmental, institutional and educational capacity is important.
As the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark pointed out, it is tempting to talk about every conflict in the world. I shall not do that; I will just mention a couple. The first conflict is that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo gained its independence in 1961, having been the most abused colonial territory ever in history, I think. I am talking about the way in which Leopold and later the Belgian Government administered the Congo, with slavery, decapitation, humiliation, torture—just about everything appalling possible. “King Leopold’s Ghost” is a book that everyone should read.
As I said, the Congo gained its independence in 1961. Its institutions were always weak. The skilled classes, the Belgians, left immediately. The power of the Government to administer the country was very limited. It quickly became a conflict between mineral companies and the military as to who would control the Congo. That still goes on. The institutions are still very weak. Militia, working on behalf of or in concert with mining interests, are killing people. Tens of thousands of raped and abused women survive in refugee camps in the east of the country. Kinshasa is beset by homeless victims of the war, mainly young boys and girls, who are trying to survive. It is a disastrous history. Although it is potentially very wealthy, we all have a responsibility for what has happened in the Congo and we all have an interest in ensuring that there is justice and peace in the future in the Congo; otherwise, the misery and waste of resources will go on and the lives of so many people will be blighted.
The second conflict—a long way away—is that involving central America and Guatemala. It came out of injustice, poverty and the civil wars of the 1980s, often inspired by outside interests, particularly oligarchs who wanted to hang on to power, and the United States, which wanted to hang on to the military interests in that country. The most abused people were the indigenous non Spanish-speaking people. That resulted in the civil wars. There was a peace resolution move in the 1990s. Welcome as it was, it did not result necessarily in peace. It resulted in an end to the conflict in a sense between actors on behalf of the state or of other forces. It has now morphed into systematic criminal violence and abuse of people’s rights, particularly abuse of indigenous people’s rights, which means that there are many people living in desperate poverty who are, in effect, refugees from their own homes in a conflict zone. Again, the lack of justice, democracy and sufficient capacity has left the country in that situation.
What do we do about this? We must recognise that our economic policies—the economic policies of grabbing resources and the economic policies of western countries buying up large amounts of land, particularly in east Africa, to grow food for themselves while denying food to the local people—will be a cause of future conflict.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One of the concerns that certainly I and perhaps many other hon. Members have relates to the insatiable demand of China for the world’s resources. Today’s press underlines again the fact that China’s demand is outstripping supply. Does the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) agree that China’s emergence as a world power causes great concern for Africa in particular, but also for other parts of the world?
Jeremy Corbyn
I absolutely agree. In a sense, the way in which Africa is suffering from Chinese attention at the moment is little different from what the European powers were doing in the 19th and 20th centuries—I am thinking of the grab of resources. China’s economy is unsustainable in the sense that it is growing far too fast and taking far too many resources from elsewhere in the world. That is fuelling an environmental disaster as well as a supply disaster in relation to so many other things. There has to be a coming together of world economic powers to control these things.
This debate is important. The proposals made by Saferworld on conflict resolution and capacity building and the work that it has done are very welcome. I hope that the Minister will tell us how the Government’s policy on this is developing and particularly whether he is prepared to organise a seminar so that we can start to build the idea that we remove ourselves from armed conflict and instead bring about capacity building.
I will finish on this point. This morning, the Ministry of Defence is saying that it can no longer afford the conflict in Libya. We cannot afford conflicts. We cannot afford the level of arms expenditure that we are spending. What we can afford in this world is justice and peace. That means sharing. It means a slightly different approach to the world’s issues from the one that we are adopting at present.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) on securing this very important debate and the other hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber who participated in it. I refer the House to my relevant entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I congratulate the all-party group on conflict issues on its work, which has been discussed during the debate. From the Labour Front Bench, I very much support the suggestion of an annual debate in the House on conflict issues and conflict prevention and I welcome the suggestion of a seminar organised by the Foreign Office, which was made by a number of hon. Members.
I want to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said about the current crisis in Sudan. After decades of conflict in that country, the comprehensive peace agreement—Britain played a central part in bringing that about—was designed to bring an end to the civil war and to prevent a return to conflict. As my hon. Friend graphically described, we have seen in recent weeks reports of up to 500,000 people being displaced as a result of fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and rebel groups in South Kordofan. That is a real and pressing example of the issues that we are dealing with in the debate. I will return to the issue of Sudan at the end of my speech.
The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark referred to the responsibility to protect. That is a very important principle, and we should remind ourselves where it came from. It came out of the horror of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The concept was developed by Roméo Dallaire, who was the UN commander in Rwanda in 1994. He is now a Liberal Senator in Canada, and Canada was at the forefront of the move for the UN to adopt that principle. A great deal of further work needs to be done to turn what is a fine principle in theory into something that can be made to work by the institutions of the world today.
As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, the Government will soon announce their building security overseas strategy. Today’s debate gives us an opportunity to consider some of the challenges and opportunities and to discuss the requirements of that pending strategy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) spoke about the causes of conflict. He rightly placed poverty and inequality at the heart of those causes. Therefore, development is clearly a central way in which we can prevent conflicts. I am very proud of the record of the previous, Labour Government in setting up the Department for International Development and starting us on the path towards finally achieving the 0.7% requirement. I welcome the present Government’s reaffirmation of that commitment. It is clearly vital that we all make the case for it in the face of the onslaught from sections of the media opposing that very important commitment, of which we as a country can be proud.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North spoke about the Congo. Last month, I had the opportunity to visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the first time and also to visit Rwanda with the all-party group on the great lakes region of Africa. The aim was to learn more about some of the challenges that my hon. Friend described. A feature of our growing aid programme is that the United Kingdom is an increasingly important contributor in that country. Some of the work that DFID is doing there is exactly the type of work that should prevent conflict in the future. It involves reconciliation and disarmament; addressing some of the horrific tales of rape and gender-based violence to which my hon. Friend referred; and dealing with the challenges in relation to natural resources. It also relates to how we can promote women’s participation. One of the most striking features of how we deal with conflict issues is that women need to be at the centre of the solutions, because women have so often been the victims of some of the worst extremes in the conflicts to which hon. Members have referred.
Others have described the importance of the conflict prevention pool, which the previous Labour Government created in 2009. I welcome the fact that the present Government have maintained it and, indeed, given a commitment despite cuts elsewhere to increase spending from £229 million—the figure for the previous financial year—to more than £300 million by the end of this Parliament.
The other place recently debated soft power, and the concept is clearly of central relevance if we are to prevent conflicts in the future. I am keen to hear from the Minister what role the Government see institutions such as the British Council and the BBC World Service playing in the promotion of conflict prevention tools. In February, I visited Jerusalem as part of a visit to Israel and the west bank, and I learned of the excellent work that the British Council is supporting with the Palestinian Authority to promote English language training throughout the west bank. I also met the brilliant organisation OneVoice and talked to young Palestinians in Nablus and young Israelis in Tel Aviv who were working together to build the two-state solution to which this country is committed, but which seems such a distant prospect.
Another important innovation in recent years has been the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, whose work I have seen in a number of countries. The foundation grew out of the end of the cold war and the need to support the development of democracy in central and eastern Europe. The Foreign Secretary has spoken about the foundation’s important role in supporting the development of democracy and human rights in the Arab world, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister what plans there are for the foundation in terms of preventing future conflicts.
One issue that has not been addressed is the importance of international justice in preventing conflict. The creation of the International Criminal Court has been an important achievement in recent years. Pursuing prosecutions at an international level of those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide can send a strong deterrent signal and prevent such acts from happening in the future. In Sudan, ICC indictments are currently directed at the current President, al-Bashir, as well as at Ahmad Harun and Ali Abd al-Rahman, who have so far evaded trial. What are the Government doing to support the indictment process so that a real emphasis can be placed on prosecution as a conflict prevention tool?
Is the Minister aware of the gap in the international legal system in terms of the prosecution of suspects accused of crimes against humanity? I would like to draw hon. Members’ attention to the work of the crimes against humanity initiative at the Whitney R Harris World Law Institute at Washington university, which seeks to address that gap. Currently, only 55 countries have domestic legislation covering prosecution for crimes against humanity, compared with more than 140 countries that have domestic laws against genocide and torture. Although the ICC is important, it has a narrow remit and it is limited by the number of countries that have not signed up to it. Will the Minister set out the Government’s thinking on the proposal to adopt an international convention on crimes against humanity?
Several hon. Members have emphasised the importance of arms control, and I support what they said. The hon. Member for Cheltenham rightly highlighted the serious shortcomings in the UK’s export licensing policy, which have been exposed by events in the middle east and north Africa. I welcome the Government’s decision to review arms export licensing policy, and I look forward to seeing the results shortly. What discussions have the Government had, however, on replicating that review at European level and, most importantly, globally? We can do a lot through domestic and European Union controls, but as my hon. Friends have said, we need global progress. The then Foreign Secretary under the previous Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband), lobbied vigorously for commitments to a binding and comprehensive arms trade treaty. Since taking office, the present Government have sent delegations to the UN’s preparatory committee on the treaty. Will the Minister update us on the progress that has been made towards securing the goal of a binding and effective treaty?
Finally, I return to the issue that I started with: the crisis in the Nuba region of Sudan. In the past 24 hours, we have heard that the leaders of the north and south struck an agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, yesterday, and I cautiously welcome that. The agreement allows for the demilitarisation of Abyei and proposes a contingent of Ethiopian peacekeepers. Will the Minister outline the Government’s response to this latest development and their strategy for addressing the deep-rooted crisis in South Kordofan? On the basis of our experience in Darfur, there are real questions about the commitment of the al-Bashir regime in Khartoum to a genuine peace and reconciliation process. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington said, there are immediate and pressing concerns about humanitarian access to the region. There is a fear that we find it hard to concentrate on a number of different crises at the same time. The Arab spring has rightly focused our attention, but the international community has perhaps taken its eye off the ball in Sudan. Let us hope that the agreement in Addis Ababa signals a positive move forward, but we need some serious reassurances if we are to accept that that is the case.
Again, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark on securing this important and wide-ranging debate. I echo what colleagues on both sides have said: clearly, it is better to prevent conflict than to end up spending large amounts dealing with its consequences. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the points raised in the debate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) for securing this important debate on the key issue of how we prevent conflict. I also congratulate him on the work that he has done with the all-party group on conflict issues, and I congratulate colleagues who have supported its work; it is one of the most important groups in Parliament.
Upstream engagement is essential to help us tackle the underlying causes of conflict before violent and costly flashpoints are reached. The Government have made their work on conflict prevention a key priority. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary’s announcement of the extension of our network of missions, particularly in Africa and central Asia, bears out our determination to increase our activity and widen our footprint in many areas.
Conflict does, of course, matter. More than 1.5 billion people live in fragile and conflict-affected states or in countries with high levels of criminal violence. Conflict and violence deprive millions of their basic rights to life and security. The economic consequences of conflict for poor countries are enormous: an average civil war—if there is ever such a thing—costs a developing country 30 years of GDP growth. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, nine of the 10 poorest countries in the world are fragile states. Not a single fragile or conflict-affected country has yet achieved a single millennium development goal.
Neighbouring countries and wider regions are often destabilised by the flow of small arms, light weapons, mercenary groups and displaced people that conflicts can produce. Five countries, all of which are in the midst of conflict, produced 60% of the world’s refugees in 2009. Crime and instability also provide fertile soil for radicalisation and a recruitment ground for terrorist groups.
Short-term lulls in violence can mask the root causes of conflict. Since 2000, nine out of 10 new conflicts have been relapses, as fragile countries have fallen back into war. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark made that point and referred to the recent World Bank report. Climate change and resource scarcity are also likely to increase the pressures on fragile countries, mainly in a band running from west Africa, through the Sahel and the horn of Africa and up to west and central Asia.
The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) referred to some of the drivers of conflict. He pointed out poverty as being one of the obvious ones. He mentioned natural resources and the clamour and demand for those resources, and the pressure that that creates. I refer him to the work that we are doing with the Kimberley process on conflict diamonds, because now about 90% of all rough diamonds are within that process. We must go further, particularly in respect of Marange in Zimbabwe.
The hon. Member for Islington North also mentioned the pertinent point of lack of proper governance, which in turn leads to the lack of basic freedoms and rights. He referred, as indeed did the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nor should we ignore the continuing risk of state-on-state conflict in some regions. The causes of such conflicts are often similar to those within states and similar support and interventions are often required by the international community. When seeking to prevent conflicts through early engagement upstream, we must make sure that we emphasise the need to protect innocent civilians from the effects of conflict, paying particular attention to the most vulnerable groups, such as women and children. We should remember that no lasting peace can be achieved after conflict unless the needs of women are met: not only justice for the victims of crimes of war, but their active involvement in creating a society in which their rights are respected and their voices heard.
We need to acknowledge that we will not always be able to prevent conflict. Episodes of political change are often sudden, turbulent, violent and contested, as we see today in north Africa and the middle east. They may generate risks for the UK, affecting our security and prosperity and our ability to promote British values. When such rapid change occurs, the UK needs to be able to take swift targeted action and build popular confidence in positive outcomes, as we are doing in Libya, and as we are working towards doing in other countries. The evidence shows that achieving lasting change takes time. We need to be prepared to stay engaged and help to build strong and legitimate institutions—the best defence against countries falling back into conflict—as we are doing in Afghanistan.
The national security strategy identified shaping a stable world as a core objective for the Government, to reduce the likelihood of threats affecting the UK or our direct interests overseas. The strategic defence and security review made a commitment that we would reduce such threats by tackling them at source. Our response to the Arab spring has demonstrated the Government’s commitment to engaging in places at risk of instability. However, we cannot achieve success on our own. We will work in partnership with others on prevention, with the same intensity as we do in response. That will require a greater investment of our diplomatic and influencing efforts, in particular with emerging global and regional powers such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and with influential Commonwealth partners—because the Commonwealth is incredibly important also.
Similarly, we will identify where and how we can work better through the EU, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and NATO on prevention and crisis management. Recent events, for example in Côte d'lvoire, have shown that the UN is willing, when appropriate, to take a more robust approach. We will actively engage with other regional groupings, such as the African Union. For example, we are exploring opportunities for investment in AU civilian capabilities to support South Sudan. We must also be realistic about the pace of change, providing predictable support over the long run, taking risks and accepting some failures in order to secure transformational results.
I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby: the British Council has an important role to play, as indeed do the BBC World Service and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I would like the British Council to be more flexible, and to be able to surge its activities. A good example is that it has large operations in countries such as Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria, but nothing at the moment in Côte d'lvoire. That is a country that has come out of appalling civil war, but is now moving promisingly towards peace-building and stability. There could well be an important role for the British Council.
Our response to the challenges is threefold. First, we need to increase our investment in upstream conflict prevention, to tackle the root causes of conflict to build longer-term and more sustainable peace. I support the idea put forward by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) of a ministerial seminar with all the parties; it makes sense. The prevention of conflict is helped significantly in countries with inclusive political settlements and strong legitimate institutions that provide civilians with security, justice, economic opportunity and jobs. Conversely, countries with weak government, inequality, social exclusion, uncertain rule of law, and poor control of corruption are significantly more likely to fall into civil war.
In line with the SDSR the Government will invest more in conflict prevention. We have announced an increase in the conflict pool’s programme resources over the course of the next spending review period from £229 million in the last financial year to £309 million by 2014-15. As part of that, we will refocus the Stabilisation Unit to do more work upstream. Also, by 2014-15 we will increase to 30% the proportion of UK overseas development assistance that supports conflict and fragile states.
As to early warning and early response, no one predicted the current crisis in the middle east, or that it would start in Tunisia. It is unlikely that anyone could have done, but we must become better at systematically spotting which states are at risk, for example as a result of unemployment or political exclusion, and where shocks, such as food and fuel price hikes or unrest elsewhere in the region, may generate instability. The middle east and north Africa conflict pool programme supports a number of key projects. Priority countries will include Iraq, the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Yemen.
I want to say something about Sudan and South Sudan, because as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby pointed out, we have put great emphasis on it in the past few months. Indeed, my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development will hopefully be going to Juba on 9 July to witness the birth of a new country. However, I share the dismay and great fear of the hon. Gentleman about what has been happening in Abyei, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile State, and the attacks on south Unity State. Time is obviously running out fast. With less than a month until the secession of South Sudan, we urge both north and south to resolve the outstanding issues under the comprehensive peace agreement—particularly the status of Abyei, but also border demarcation and the sharing of oil revenue. I welcome yesterday’s important announcement that the parties have signed up to the Abyei interim agreement. There is obviously a long way to go in rebuilding trust and good will, but it is essential that that good will and the determination to make the CPA work should be established in the next few days and weeks.
I want quickly to answer the questions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. Do we have a strategy? We do indeed. Are we going to learn lessons? Yes, we certainly will. Are we going to look at the idea of the United States Institute for Peace, in Washington? We currently do the same things with a different number of structures—using Government operational staff, policy writers, lesson learners, planners and different think-tanks. The right hon. Gentleman also asked how much we spent on conflict prevention last year. We spent more than £600 million on peacekeeping and conflict prevention through the tri-departmental conflict pool. Our approach to conflict accepts that defence capability and conflict prevention work hand in hand together.
My right hon. Friend asked about monitoring on the ground, and we will certainly make sure that that happens. As to the lessons of the Arab spring, we will of course learn them. The Arab partnership works with those in the region who want to put the building blocks of democracy in place, underpinned by vibrant economies. The right hon. Gentleman also asked whether the Ministry of Defence—which of course was once the War Office—could become the Peace Department. He ought to take that up with the MOD, but I note his ideas on that.
On the matter of the arms trade, several hon. Members, including, I think, the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Liverpool, West Derby, talked about the arms trade treaty. I assure right hon. and hon. Members that we are working with the EU in helping to develop and deliver member states’ objectives for a series of EU-sponsored ATT seminars. Indeed, we take review and revocation of arms export licences very seriously.
We have a long way to go, but across Government we are establishing co-ordination. We do not want to be just one of the world leaders: we want to be the world leader in making an impact in this vital area.
Young Runaways (Sexual Exploitation)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner.
This debate is timely, given the growing number of cases of sexual exploitation and grooming of children that have recently hit the headlines in Greater Manchester and elsewhere. Sadly, the latest case involves young girls in the Stockport area, many of whom are repeat runaways. Every five minutes, a child runs away from home or care, and I support the children’s charities’ view that if we can reduce the massive numbers of children and young people running away and going missing from home and care, we can reduce the number of children at risk from violence, drugs, alcohol, sexual exploitation and grooming. It is estimated that 100,000 children run away overnight every year before the age of 16. Missing children will be protected only when they are seen as a priority for every local authority, police force, school, community and youth worker in every part of the country.
I want to thank the Manchester Evening News and its reporter, Jen Williams, for doing a superb job in reporting the plight of Greater Manchester’s runaway and missing children in February this year, including the invaluable role of the Safe in the City project in working with runaways. People in our region were stunned to read that there were 11,819 police reports of children missing in Greater Manchester last year. Of these, 2,281 cases related to children aged 11 or younger. Another shocking figure is that Stockport has the highest number of reports to the police of children running from care across the whole of Greater Manchester at 41% against the regional average of 27%. That reflects not only the higher number of children’s homes in the borough, but the high risk to children living in the borough.
We know from Children’s Society research that children in care are three times more likely to run away and are more likely to appear in police statistics. However, for reasons that I will come to later, there is clear evidence that the number of children in care missing for more than 24 hours is greatly unreported to the Department for Education. I am also concerned, as the Children’s Society research shows, that two thirds of children who run away from their own homes are not reported missing by their parents, meaning that the number of episodes is greater than the available data suggest.
Running away is an important indicator that things are not right in a child’s life. Children’s charities estimate that one in five of those who run away are at risk from serious harm, and many will become involved in the things that worry parents and society the most—drugs, alcohol and falling prey to sexual predators. The recent Barnardo’s report, “Puppet on a string”, states that “going missing” and “disengagement from education” can be key indicators
“that a child is being groomed for sexual exploitation.”
It adds that 51% of the sexually exploited children it was working with when the survey was conducted
“went missing on a regular basis.”
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. There is enormous support across the House for what she is saying. The issue is of such magnitude that it is way beyond party politics, and we have a good opportunity today to discuss it.
Yesterday, I was in Torbay with Devon and Cornwall police to work with stakeholders on child sexual exploitation. Sadly, there have been two large paedophile rings in my constituency, so I have come to understand the devastating impact of such horrendous crimes on young people and their families. The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she agree—she alluded to this in her speech—that we need good local work where everybody in a community understands and accepts that there is a problem and works together? I heard of some very good examples yesterday—
Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)
I remind the hon. Lady that interventions must be brief.
Ann Coffey
I know that there is a particular problem in some seaside towns. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we have to have good local partnerships based on good data if we are all to help to overcome the problem. I agree with her.
It has been said that children living in care, particularly residential care, are more vulnerable to targeting by the perpetrators of sexual exploitation. I want to welcome the recent announcement by the Minister of an action plan to tackle child exploitation. It is important that it focuses on the link between running away and child sexual exploitation. Not all children who run away will be sexually exploited. However, all children who are sexually exploited will run away or go missing at some point. Either they will start running away as they become sexually exploited, or they will become sexually exploited as a result of running away.
I also welcome the fact that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, whose headquarters I visited recently, is to take responsibility for missing children. I await with interest its thematic assessment on the extent of child sexual exploitation. I hope that the fact that CEOP will have responsibility for missing children and sexual exploitation means that linking the two issues is now Government policy. I am pleased that there is an interdepartmental ministerial group on missing persons with a lead Minister involving the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Department of Health. That is crucial if there are to be more effective partnerships at a local level.
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on runaway and missing children and adults, I have met Ofsted, the Missing Persons Bureau, CEOP, Greater Manchester police, the Association of Chief Police Officers, West Mercia police, local safeguarding children’s boards, the Children’s Society, Missing People, Railway Children and others. A number of common concerns keep appearing: the ongoing problem with collecting and sharing accurate data; the fact that not all local authorities are adhering to the statutory guidance for children who run away or go missing; and the different priority given to missing children by local safeguarding boards, which are responsible for co-ordinating all actions by local agencies.
On data collection, police forces vary in how they collect and analyse data on missing episodes, making for inconsistencies across the country. Poor data mean that local safeguarding boards will be badly informed. Accurate data would enable an intelligence-led response in each area to find out why children are running away, where they are going and what help they need. This would uncover patterns to prevent future sexual exploitation and enable convictions. I know that the Minister is aware that the collection and evaluation of data is a problem. He has rightly said that gathering data and evidence is the first major step to tackling child sexual exploitation and grooming. He is also right to say that the sexual grooming of children in the UK is a much bigger problem than has previously been recognised.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has just highlighted an extremely important issue, and I will be interested to hear how the Government intend to resolve it. The Minister is from the Department for Education; the Department of Health is involved; and the police, which are the responsibility of the Home Office, are also involved. The devolved Scottish Government have police, health and social care responsibilities; in my area, Wales, we have the Welsh Assembly; and in Northern Ireland there is another devolved Administration. Yet, in the UK context, child exploitation will cross all those borders. I want to know who holds the reins of responsibility for gathering information across the whole of the UK, because those who wish to indulge in exploitation will not worry about the fact that the Department of Health and the Department for Education happen to apply to England only.
Ann Coffey
My right hon. Friend makes a good point in relation to the UK as a whole. I, too, will be interested in the Minister’s response.
Looking at the data held by the Department for Education on children missing from care for longer than 24 hours, there is a huge discrepancy between figures on missing children reported to the Department by local authorities and the information that I have gathered separately from police forces. I asked a parliamentary question in March about how many looked-after children in each local authority area were absent for more than 24 hours, but the answers that came back did not correlate with the figures provided to me by local police forces.
Figures provided to the Department for Education by 152 local authorities show that in England in 2010 a total of 920 children were missing from their agreed placement for more than 24 hours. However, figures that I obtained from Greater Manchester police, Kent police and West Mercia police reveal that, in those areas alone, more children in care went missing for longer than 24 hours in 2010 than the 920 recorded by the Department for the whole of England.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I have lost count of the number of times that debates about child exploitation and child and people trafficking have been held in this Chamber and on the Floor of the House. I am pleased to hear that the Government have announced an action plan, but in previous debates we heard that children in this great United Kingdom have been sold at £16,000 a time for men to have their way with them. Young children who have not reached the age of sexual maturity do not know what is happening to them; they feel only the pain. In this day and age in our United Kingdom, we can have all the action plans that we want, but we need to know that they are working and that children are not being put through a horrific experience, which marks them for life.
Ann Coffey
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He has brought home to us the sort of exploitation that we are talking about in his description of what happens to children. It is truly horrible, and he is right to say that we must take all available action to prevent it.
West Mercia police say that 266 children in care went missing for more than 24 hours in 2010, and Kent police figures for 2010 reveal that 826 children were recorded missing for more than 24 hours. However, an answer to a parliamentary question stated that in Stockport only 45 young people were missing from care for longer than 24 hours in the three years from 2008 to 2010. The Department for Education figures that I mentioned earlier are staggering, given that Stockport police has told me that there were 2,014 missing incidents between July 2009 and June 2010, of which 41% were from care homes.
The police have provided me with their most up-to-date figures for Stockport, which cover the first five months of this year up to Friday 17 June. They reveal that the police received 1,070 missing-from-home reports, generated by 284 children in Stockport under the age of 18; of those, 77 were reported missing from care, and they generated a massive 711 reports. Forty-six of the youngsters were missing for more than 24 hours, and of those 25 were from care.
That shows a clear pattern of repeated missing episodes and a consequent vulnerability to abuse, as well as further evidence of gross under-reporting by local authorities. In addition, two thirds of missing incidents from home are not reported by parents. As I have said, there is good evidence that repeated missing episodes are correlated to children being exposed to sexual grooming. If accurate data are not held by the Department for Education and the Home Office, it becomes more difficult to estimate the risk of sexual exploitation to which these children are exposed. It is important that we get it right.
On that point, ACPO pilots are looking at ways of achieving the collection of meaningful data on missing episodes, so as to determine when a child is missing. It is concerned that children’s homes are reporting children missing when a telephone call could establish where the child was.
All the evidence shows that sexual grooming starts by encouraging children to stay away from home, or persuading them to go home late, in order to create parental disputes and thus drive a wedge between child and home. Removing the protection of families and carers is the beginning of the grooming process, and the eventual outcome is the sexual exploitation of the child. The significance of that should not be lost in any redefinition of “missing”.
The “Puppet on a string” report states that the entrapment of children and young people in sexual exploitation does not occur overnight. If a child goes missing for a few hours, there is a danger that professionals will become complacent. However, that is when the child may be at risk from the gradual grooming process that I have described, and these early missing episodes may be the warning signs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Experience in my constituency, and I suspect in many others, is that the homes may not be able to control the children and keep them in all the time, and the children will always indicate that they have human rights that must be respected. However, is there not a better and more definite way, with the homes and the local police co-ordinating on those who habitually stay out late or who may not return until the early hours of the morning? Could more not be done by the police, the local homes and the local authorities?
Ann Coffey
Of course the hon. Gentleman is right. We must have proper arrangements between children’s homes and the local police. If they do not work together, we will be unable to prevent children from going missing; and we will not know where those children who are that do go missing. He has made an important point.
Barnardo’s says that those who exploit children are all too aware of how the system works:
“These heartless men and women understand the police procedure on runaway children and know if a child goes missing on a regular basis, for a short period of time and then returns home safely, the case is unlikely to attract much attention.”
Turning to statutory guidance, another concern is the mixed picture that not all local authorities are adhering to the statutory guidance on children who run away from home or care, which was published in 2009. The guidance states that local authorities should have procedures in place for recording and sharing information between police, children’s services and the voluntary sector, and that the local authority should have a named person responsible for children and young people who go missing or who run away and that there should be return interviews.
I cannot emphasise enough the importance of the independent return interview. As the Children’s Society has demonstrated, children are more willing to disclose what has happened to them to adults whom they do not perceive to be in authority. A 16-year-old at Manchester’s Safe in the City project said:
“It was horrible. I felt I could not talk to anyone—friends, family, police, teachers—no-one.”
Eventually, however, the child did talk to the Children’s Society.
I have asked a number of parliamentary questions about implementation of the guidance, but I have been repeatedly told that the information is not held centrally. Implementing statutory guidance should be a high priority for local authorities. Local safeguarding children’s boards have a responsibility to protect children in their areas. The young runaways action plan 2008 asked safeguarding boards to evaluate the risk of children running away and to put action plans in place. The Children’s Society’s “Stepping Up” report found that half of the local authorities surveyed had no protocol for managing cases of children and young people who are missing from home.
According to recent research by the international centre for the study of sexually exploited and trafficked young people at the university of Bedfordshire, there are protocols for responding to sexual exploitation in less than a quarter of local safeguarding children’s boards. Ten years on from the introduction of the dual strategy of protecting young people and proactively investigating their abusers, a third of the country has no plans for the delivery of such a strategy.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
An increasing proportion of the sexual grooming of children now takes place online. I imagine that policing that is complex and difficult and that it involves many officers. It is important that funding is kept in place, and if possible increased, to deal with what is a horrific crime.
Ann Coffey
My hon. Friend has made an important point. It is crucial that resources are available to support such initiatives and actions, because without those resources the actions will be meaningless.
Ofsted has a duty to inspect general safeguarding in an area, yet in a letter to the director of children’s services in Stockport in December 2010 following an annual children’s services assessment, it stated:
“In reaching this assessment, Ofsted has taken account of arrangements for making sure children are safe and stay safe.”
Astonishingly, in that letter and in the assessment itself, there was not one mention of the number of missing incidents reported to the Stockport police in that year. I am not clear how an assessment can be made of how well local safeguarding boards are discharging their responsibilities in relation to missing children, but one way might be for Ofsted, in its inspection of safeguarding in local areas, to assess whether local authorities are implementing statutory guidance in relation to the safeguarding of missing children. Another way might be for local safeguarding boards to publish information annually on numbers of missing children in their area together with the actions that they have taken and the outcomes of their interventions. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that. It is important that the statutory guidance is fully implemented in local areas, because such guidance is there for a purpose.
Furthermore, I want to see the development of early intervention programmes that target children who are at risk of running away. The Munro report stressed the value of early help in the area of child protection. I realise that funds are limited, but existing resources—education, health and police—could be used more effectively by developing innovative ways in which we can work with parents and voluntary agencies.
Sarah Newton
The hon. Lady has been generous to us all with the amount of times that she has given way. Does she agree that the UK Council for Child Internet Safety has an important role to play? Many new tools have been made available for young people, teachers, parents and carers to raise awareness of the issues of being groomed online.
Ann Coffey
I agree with the hon. Lady. I will emphasise that point later in my speech.
There is good practice. We have seen proactive police work in West Mercia, and projects such as Safe in the City Manchester and SAFE@LAST in South Yorkshire demonstrate the value of good local partnerships. It is vital that children’s charities and projects that help young runaways continue to receive resources. I am concerned to hear about the disproportionate cuts that are being made to such valuable projects at a local level.
All local authorities and police forces need to understand the link between missing episodes and the vulnerability to harm that it indicates, which needs to be a high priority for child protection and safeguarding in every area of the country.
David Simpson
An early-day motion on guardianship was tabled in the House in 2010. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a way in which to deal with children who have gone through this horrific situation? I understand that guardianship is a requirement of the Council of Europe, and it may be an avenue that we can explore.
Ann Coffey
I agree that we must consider all possibilities. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in this issue and a commitment to improve the situation for children.
In relation to Ofsted, I welcome the publication of the new minimum standards for children’s homes that came into force in April 2011. It set out how children’s homes should develop relationships and work with police forces to safeguard children and young people in their area.
I am also pleased that the recent Ofsted consultation on the new framework for inspection of schools includes an assessment of pupil behaviour and safety. Teachers and other school staff are in a prominent position to help children who run away from home or care and to identify behaviour, including absences, which may be indicative of serious issues in the child’s life. The all-party parliamentary group on runaway and missing children and adults emphasises the connection between missing episodes and vulnerability to serious harm, including sexual exploitation, in its response to the Ofsted consultation.
We should focus on prevention, which means involving parents and children themselves. I would like all schools to provide information about the risks relating to running away and how children can get help if they are thinking of running away. The subject should also be included in the school’s curriculum, where it is appropriate. There should also be information available for parents about what to do if their child runs away or goes missing.
I welcome the fact that CEOP is going to make the prevention of running away a new educational theme, when it takes over responsibility for missing children on 1 July. I would also like to see all professionals in children’s social care and education being trained in risks relating to children running away to ensure that they can identify such children and refer them to the appropriate services. Such training should also be in the forthcoming youth strategy.
The harm that is done to a child abused for sex is incalculable. Children live with it for the rest of their lives and are haunted by the memories of their experiences. Some never recover, which applies not only to children but to families. We should not forget that children who live in caring families can also be targeted and groomed.
I recently attended a meeting of the coalition for the removal of pimping at which parents whose children had been groomed talked about their experiences. Two of my constituents spoke up and said that their pain will last a lifetime. They said that they were not listened to when they expressed concern to local agencies. They said:
“Our experience was that, at that stage, social services seemed to be focusing much more on our inadequate qualities as parents, rather than on the significant risk of child sexual exploitation, which we had brought to their attention.”
Their daughter subsequently gave detailed accounts of having been kept in flats in various parts of Greater Manchester and both sexually abused and sold for sex. Her evidence led to the eventual conviction of 10 men. The parents said that
“the traumatic nature of her experiences has caused her lasting psychiatric problems, including severe self-harm and has also resulted in one of us being off work for a period of two years through the stress of coping with this extended family trauma.”
Parents must be listened to, helped and supported if we are to prevent sexual grooming of children. This is not an issue that divides the political parties, and we must all work together for the sake of our children.
I congratulate the Minister on his commitment and on his positive responses. Together with his colleagues in the Department for Health and the Home Office, he has announced a number of initiatives that deal with the concerns expressed by parents and children’s charities. Sexual exploitation is an abomination, and no excuse can be offered by the perpetrators. Together, we must ensure that everybody working in this area understands the link between missing children and harm from sexual abuse and exploitation; that that training is given a high priority at a local level; that statutory guidance on runaways is fully implemented; and that local agencies work together with parents, children and children’s charities. It is only then that we will be able to protect and safeguard our children in the future from some of the horrific experiences suffered by our children in the past. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing this timely debate and on leading the work on this issue. Helen Southworth, her predecessor as Chair of the all-party parliamentary group for runaways and missing children, also made an enormous contribution. The all-party group’s inquiry three years ago resulted in the action plan and then the statutory guidance on runaways. It is rather sad to hear today that that guidance is not being fully implemented, and it shows that, as politicians, our work is never finished. Even when we think that we have made progress and produced the paperwork, the action is not taking place. Perhaps worst of all, the action is patchy over the country.
The hon. Lady referred to the lack of data. It is incredible to think that most children who run away are not reported as missing to the police by their parents or guardians. The problem of the lack of data is obviously compounded by the fact that there are different police and local authority responses. Added to that we have the issue of trafficked children, of which we do not know the full extent. It is difficult to see how we can move forward without more data. What we have at the moment is raised awareness, sadly because of the stories and the prosecutions that are being reported currently. It makes us reflect on the society that we live in that these practices can happen and that we have been so unaware of them as a nation.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Why does the hon. Lady think that there is such a variation between the statistics that come from the police and those that come from central Government? Does she think that, as a society, we are trying to cover over a problem and that we are not facing the depth of the statistics? Also, does she agree that behind each of these statistics there is a vulnerable child, many of whom are hurting and who will carry that hurt to the end of their days? We had better get the statistics right, before we can know that the action plan will address the problems.
Annette Brooke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. In many ways, he is right. However, I am not convinced that there is a deliberate cover-up. It is actually a case of our being blinkered and not recognising what is happening out there. That is why today’s debate is so timely, because sadly we have so much evidence to refer to.
I want to compliment the many organisations that work day-in and day-out on this issue. Obviously there is Barnardo’s, and its report, “Puppet on a string”, is a really important contribution. There is also the Children’s Society, which has engaged in long-standing work in this sector, and there are so many others. All of that work is important, but we must grasp the hour. People accept that there is a problem, but we are still not very good at recognising it in our own communities. It still tends to be a case of people saying that it happens elsewhere. I could easily say in Dorset, “Oh, it’s up there in the north”, but it is very important that we recognise this is happening throughout our country.
Sarah Newton
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and she is making a very important point, because I think that people do not want to believe that this is happening in every village, every town and every city. I am very concerned by what I think are inadvertent comments about, say, seaside towns having a problem, or big cities having a problem. In fact, this is happening everywhere.
Annette Brooke
I think that is absolutely right and we really need to endorse that point.
The interlinking of issues is incredibly important. The issue of running away must be addressed in conjunction with the issue of sexual exploitation, because children who run away will be in greater danger of being sexually abused or exploited. Equally, children who are being sexually exploited are likely to run away. So we must look at the issues together.
We must also appreciate that there are specific groups of children who are more likely to run away. The hon. Member for Stockport made the point that the entrapment of children and young people in sexual exploitation does not happen overnight. Therefore, we must look at the aspect of vulnerability. It is well documented that children in care often run away, but the hon. Lady pointed out that there is a lot of missing data. Children who are facing difficulties in school may well be runaways. Children involved in drugs and alcohol, children in trouble with the police, and the disabled or those with learning difficulties are all vulnerable too. We must think about vulnerability for a moment. Although we might think that the vulnerable are most likely to be entrapped, somebody who has become entrapped will, in turn, become more vulnerable. That makes it so important for us to get everything in place.
I was struck as I read the various reports on this issue that evidence or clues can be picked up in schools. For example, in Emma’s story in “Puppet on a string” it says that she either missed school or behaved badly when she was at school. Missing school is clearly quite an important aspect. So, can the Minister specifically say how his Department will react if the Education Bill passes in its current form, removing the duty on schools, including academies and further education colleges, to co-operate with local authorities? I have expressed before how concerned I am about removing that duty, and the Bill’s explanatory notes state:
“These bodies will be able to decide for themselves how to engage in arrangements to improve well-being.”
I can see that there are arguments for not loading unnecessary bureaucracy on schools and colleges, but if the duty is removed, what on earth will fill the gap? I would really like the Minister to answer that question because there seems to be such an opportunity to identify potential problems at school. The hon. Member for Stockport referred to the obvious need to fully train teachers and social workers, but if we are not going to be blinkered and fail to pick up what is before our eyes we must ensure that everything is joined together.
I would also like to make a brief point about age. I think we became aware of the issue of age during the inquiry on missing children and people that is being led by the hon. Member for Stockport. I worry about classifying, in this context, a child as being someone under 18 because a vulnerable 19 or 20-year-old can be much more like a child than someone under that age. We have to be very careful about being so age-specific because we start to make assumptions. Some work carried out by the Children’s Society, the NSPCC and the university of York states that professionals tend to assume that older children are more capable of looking after themselves. The reality, of course, is that all children are different, and young adults might not have the maturity to cope.
We should either be flexible about 18 being a cut-off for children’s services or ensure that adult social services work really closely with children’s services, and I ask the Minister to consider that gap. We heard a story in evidence of a young man who went missing aged 19 and who, four years on, still has not been found. The police were just not listening to the mother. They said, “Well, he’s just a young man who’s gone off,” even though she said, “But he always phones me.” A teenager from a tight-knit family home will be different in terms of whether they are likely to go off without telling anyone, so it is so important to listen to everyone.
We need this issue to be a priority across all services. We first need to acknowledge the problem of runaways and missing people, and then see the connections between that and sexual exploitation. We need full prevention services, support for families and young people, and consistent responses from the police and local authorities, with everyone working together to truly make children and young people a priority in our society and to ensure that they are properly protected.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on raising this extremely important issue, which affects rural and urban constituencies across the country. It is important to have a co-ordinated Government response.
I want to focus on a couple of key areas, which have been touched on already. My hon. Friend’s points about prevention, assessing vulnerability, recording school absence and supporting parents of vulnerable children are extremely important, and I have no doubt that the Department for Education will fulfil those roles very strongly. I particularly want to focus on the operation of the new agency that from 1 July will take on the National Policing Improvement Agency’s responsibilities. In a former life I was Minister with responsibility for policing, and we had the National Policing Improvement Agency looking closely at these issues as part of its role with missing children under the Missing Persons Bureau. We and my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), along with the then hon. Member for Warrington South, Helen Southworth, began the process of looking at how to compile the action plan for an effective response to this issue.
I do not want to make a party political point—this is not a party political issue, as the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) said—but will the Minister clarify how the new responsibilities will operate from 1 July? He is not a Home Office Minister, but it was announced yesterday that he is preparing an action plan, along with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who is the Minister with responsibility for crime. How does he visualise the new agency operating from 1 July? I would welcome, in particular, a commitment that the previous budget for the NPIA will not in any way be diluted in relation to the operation of the new agency from 1 July.
It is important that we look at what that does in relation to the important issues mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport. What is the guidance given to police forces, and how will the new agency work with local authorities, not just in the Minister’s area of responsibility—England—but, as I mentioned when I intervened on my hon. Friend, in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? We have four devolved Administrations dealing with the issues of children’s homes, education and vulnerability. It is important that the central UK agency has a responsibility for examining and pulling together that information, because although Wales has 40 parliamentary seats and the Welsh Assembly deals with its responsibilities, it is important to note that my constituency is a border constituency—it is 2 miles from the English border—and people can operate in Chester and deal with schools and colleges in my constituency.
Mr Hanson
If I am honest, it could have been better. One of the things that we tried to do was to look at how to make it stronger. Devolved Administrations, by their nature, wish to maintain an element of control over their areas of responsibility. We had a ministerial steering group, which included Ministers from the Department of Health, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Home Office, but we have to improve the liaison with the devolved Administrations. It is an important issue. There are UK-wide paedophile rings. Children can go missing form north Wales and end up in Liverpool or Manchester, and children from Glasgow can run to London. Co-ordination is, therefore, important and I am not clear about how the new responsibilities will improve it or about what the Minister’s vision is for that co-ordination throughout the United Kingdom. I believe that the Minister will take this responsibility extremely seriously, but it would help if he outlined his vision of a UK response and whether or not the Home Office, which has still not devolved responsibility for policing to Northern Ireland or Scotland, has a central role in managing the issues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport has touched on the issue of guidance to police forces and has referred to an article in yesterday’s Times, the headline of which was, “Police ‘must be more aware of grooming’: Ministers call for action amid mounting concern”. As the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said, that was an issue when I was a Minister and it continues to be an ongoing issue. What will the Minister do differently to improve the co-ordination?
How will the Minister judge the difficult issue of success in three years’ time? We need an assessment of that so that we can judge the success of the plan as a whole. I genuinely do not know whether he has sufficient information about the number of cases involving runaway children—my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport mentioned that issue—or about how many prosecutions have occurred, what is happening in relation to support for changing the behaviour of offenders downstream, or how we are to look at the overall picture of long-term prevention.
I would welcome some clarification from the Minister about what he judges to be “success”. We want to see fewer runaway children; we want to see fewer children becoming victims of sexual abuse; and we want to see more prosecutions. As I say, however, I would welcome clarification about how he will judge “success” in due course.
In addition, I would welcome clarification on another issue that has been touched on in the debate, which is co-ordination. How will we improve co-ordination, not only on policing issues but on the issues of tracking and vulnerability within the European Community, and indeed elsewhere? There will be potentially more trafficking of children into and out of the UK by European gangs. I would welcome the Minister’s views on that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport made some very important points today. My contribution is simply to say that the Minister will have the support of the Opposition to do whatever he can to improve the situation for runaways. However, I think this is an opportunity for him to give both Members who are here in Westminster Hall today and the outside world some clarification about what the new agency will mean, in terms of budget, guidance, information gathering, impact on police and local authorities, and in pulling together a co-ordinated response on a UK-wide basis, so that people do not slip through the net because we only have a patchwork of individuals that are responsible for safeguarding, policing and providing advice and support across the country, and indeed across Europe. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on those points.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Thank you very much for calling me to speak, Mr Turner.
I join Members from all parties in congratulating the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to the work that she does as chair of the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults. Her commitment to vulnerable children in Stockport and right across the country is admired across the House. Those children, who may never have heard of her, have reason to be thankful that they have such a powerful advocate who battles for their rights in Parliament.
I also pay tribute to the work of the Children’s Society, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Barnardo’s for their work in highlighting the experiences of children in care. The recent report by Barnardo’s, “Puppet on a string”, was a particularly important contribution to raising awareness of this issue. One thing that has emerged throughout this debate is the importance of raising awareness of this issue and of ensuring that people have an opportunity to do so at an early stage.
My hon. Friend highlighted the tremendous work done by the Manchester Evening News in bringing to the public’s attention the plight of vulnerable children in the city of Manchester and the surrounding area, and I echo her comments in that regard.
This debate has been very important and very timely, and the message must go out from Parliament today that we are entirely united in fighting the evil of people, including pimps, who prey upon our most vulnerable children, and that no stone will be left unturned in that fight. We must show that this House is united in our determination to protect the most vulnerable.
Members expressed very powerfully the revulsion that we all feel about people who would inflict the horror of prostitution upon children and there is also very powerful evidence in the “Puppet on a string” report about child prostitution. When we, sitting in our relatively privileged position as Members of this House, think back to our own first sexual experience—I was lost in reverie for a moment—for most of us it will hopefully have been a happy one that we look back on with joy and, in some cases, pride. For others, the memories might not be so golden. However, the important point is that the development of our sexual identity is a vital part of who we become as people, how we see ourselves as adults and our path into adulthood.
When we, as parents, look forward to the lives that our children will lead, we hope that that important first sexual experience will be positive. We think about how it would feel for our children or, indeed, any children to look back on their first sexual experience not with fond memories, but with harrowing memories and to see sex and sexual experience as a time of fear. Such children might look back on that first trip into adulthood and recognise the fear that, at the end of the sexual experience, if they failed to comply, their lives would be in danger. That is a shocking and harrowing thought for us all, and gives us the determination to stamp out this evil and work together to ensure that these experiences are reduced for children in vulnerable circumstances.
Dr McCrea
In our speeches, it is certainly true that we have shown a united determination to stamp out this despicable trade—the sexual exploitation of children—throughout the United Kingdom. However, although we have had numerous debates, we do not have the appropriate and accurate data to get to the very heart of the problem. Surely, actions—our actions—will speak a lot louder than the words we utter in these debates.
Toby Perkins
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport focused heavily on the importance of strengthening the data we have. I will refer to that in more detail later. She exposed graphically our failure to identify the scale of the problem. The fact that the number of police reports of missing children is so dramatically different from the number that are being reported to local authorities exposes that failure graphically. The Minister has identified that the importance of evaluating stronger data is the starting point for trying to improve the situation. We absolutely agree with that. Just to finish the point I was making, we all recognise the damage that is caused. For many people, that scar will never be washed clean.
I would like to reflect on the contribution to the debate made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport. She particularly focused on three things. The first was the chasm between the figures reported by local authorities and the numbers reported to the police. I am interested to hear from the Minister how he anticipates us improving the situation. Do we need more stringent standards in reporting, or is it about the measure against which children’s homes are judged? Specifically, is the accuracy of those responsible for reporting something that should be judged?
As I said, the Minister has focused on the importance of data collection and evaluation. I would like to know more about how we can address that. Is there a role for Ofsted in measuring local authorities’ implementation of statutory guidance, because considerable evidence has been highlighted today that shows how much worse the figures are than anyone realised? In the case of some two thirds of incidences of children going missing from home, the fact is not reported to the police by parents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport also reflected on the importance of the link between running away and sexual exploitation and grooming. This debate is important in raising awareness, and we must do so across the board.
Much of our debate today is about vulnerable children and children in care, but sexual exploitation may occur in families where there is no apparent evidence of things having gone wrong, where the parents have done everything as perfectly as any of us as parents can do, and when there is no evidence to the outside world that there may be a problem. The Barnardo’s report includes a powerful and insightful description of a child who had had a happy upbringing, and discovered that he was gay when he became a young man. He started to go with friends to find like-minded people, but was caught up in a web of paedophilia. The evidence is harrowing. Parents may have no experience or expectation of their children becoming mixed up with such people, and they need a lot more support from us all to enable them to talk about it, and to ensure that their worries are treated seriously and that they have a powerful voice supporting them.
Awareness must be raised among the police, particularly when the focus is on front-line policing. Support must be given to police forces, and we must ensure that vice-ring and paedophile units are not reduced in difficult financial circumstances. Youth workers have an important role to play in identifying the prospects of children coming to harm. They must work closely with children’s homes to ensure that training is available—this was raised by several hon. Members—to the staff to identify children who are at risk, because patterns and regularity of children going missing is a sign that something serious is wrong. Awareness among schoolteachers must be raised, because there is considerable evidence that regular absence from school may be a sign that something sinister is wrong. Awareness is important, not just of the number of separate incidents, but of their regularity.
The question that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport asked the police identified that 77 children were reported as being missing for more than 24 hours, and there were 711 reports. That shows the scale of how often some children go missing. There is a danger that when the police or a children’s home sees the same child go missing and then return, it is taken less seriously, but the evidence suggests that that is when we should be most worried.
My hon. Friend highlighted the patterns and tactics used by pimps and others engaged in criminal vice activities. I spoke to a woman who had worked in a hostel with young adults who had often just left care and who were targeted in a similar way. She said that people would often wait outside the hostel to try to encourage those vulnerable young adults to go with them, when they would be given gifts and attention, and were made to feel good about themselves, but their circumstances soon became bleak. They were often targeted because people in that environment knew how vulnerable they were and recognised that they were a soft target. When they succumbed, and started to feel good about themselves because someone was paying attention to them, the situation quickly changed, and they were in a situation of the utmost danger.
[Mr Dai Havard in the Chair]
The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) spoke about the importance of raising awareness and the impact of alcohol and drug dependency on children. Alcohol and drugs are sometimes the reason children fall into the wrong hands, but they are also often a crutch once children have got into a situation that they feel unable to react against. The hon. Lady also cautioned strongly against removing the statutory duty and strongly emphasised the importance of us all working together.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) spoke about the importance of partnerships, and that came across in other contributions. It is important that our police, health services, youth workers, schools and other organisations work together. My right hon. Friend, who represents a north Wales constituency close to the English border, made an important point about how we ensure that there is co-ordination across the border with the devolved authorities, and it would be good to learn more about that. He also requested clarity about how CEOP will operate and wanted to confirm that the budgeting will remain in place for its important work.
Labour Members recognise the Minister’s commitment to do something, and I echo the offer from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport of our complete support for his work. We support his inter-departmental working group, which recognises the importance of partnership working. Many bodies have a responsibility for raising awareness, influence it and play a role. The Minister has direct control over partnerships such as those involved in youth services, local authority reporting and schools. There is also the responsibility of children’s homes to take their duty seriously, so that they do not phone the police when a simple phone call to someone else could identify where children are. If we can reduce the work that the police have to do to identify where children are, they can focus more directly on serious problems that are identified.
There are other partnerships that the Minister can influence. We spoke briefly about the importance of prosecution. A number of new offences were created by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, but it is worrying that there have been too few prosecutions, as has been identified. Often in the situations that we are discussing, the police will seek to prosecute people for other offences, but given the evidence of the number of sexual offences being committed, we need to ensure that there are more prosecutions for them. Sentencing is obviously also important.
As I said, it is important that the police have in place the resources in these difficult circumstances to ensure that they can pursue what is often complicated work. It is important that the partnership between children’s homes and their local police forces works well and that there is proper training, support, respect and partnership working. I also welcome the action plan looking into the link between children running away and sexual exploitation.
It is important to recognise that the previous Government took this issue very seriously and published guidance for local authorities and professionals in 2009. It is disappointing that that guidance appears not to have been followed in many cases. It is important to see how we can work better with local authorities to ensure that the well-meaning measures that have been put in place deliver what we want.
We have a responsibility and a duty to do more for our most vulnerable children and to support children and families on whom this nightmare is visited, apparently from nowhere. It sickens us and it is abhorrent that such things continue to happen in our society, but that reinforces our determination to work together. This problem unites us, and we say very powerfully that it is too important not to work together to ensure that we deliver that safer world that our children deserve.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
I welcome our Chair—he appears to have lost some hair since the beginning of the debate. We have had a very good debate with well-informed contributions, a great consensus about the importance of the matter and a determination to pick up the baton and ensure that we bring about effective action.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), not just on her excellent in-depth and well-informed speech—one would expect it to be so—but on the enormous amount of work she has been doing on the subject, raising its profile in this place and beyond, including in the national media, well beyond the confines of her constituency. I am sure that she, too would pay tribute to the work of Helen Southworth, her predecessor in the all-party group on child protection, who started that work. The hon. Lady is genuinely passionate about making a different to the lives of young runaways, as am I, and I am particularly concerned about the preponderance of children in the care system who fall into these dangers, and I have been working on the issue for some time. I hope that we can continue that work and step it up a gear in the future. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her constructive arguments, and for her communications on this and related subjects.
I will respond to the hon. Lady’s detailed points about data collection, and about the roles of local authorities and local safeguarding children boards in particular, in a few minutes, and I will also pick up as many as possible of the points made by other Members before I make what is a fairly lengthy speech but which I might have time to get through.
I want to say at the outset that I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s view that young runaways and missing children are a very vulnerable group of people who desperately need and deserve our protection. As she has said, the figures are alarming, with an estimated 100,000 children going missing every year—and that is just the ones we know about. That is one child under the age of 16 every 10 minutes, one in five of whom is likely to be at serious risk of being hurt or harmed by sleeping rough or staying with someone they have just met. The figures are stark. The experiences and alarming figures that the hon. Lady draws on from her own constituency are perhaps a result of her local children’s services department and the police being more savvy about the problem and therefore better at detecting it, thus artificially inflating the figures. I do not underestimate the importance of the problem in her constituency but, as she knows, I spent a week there on the front line with social workers last year, and I know that they are aware of the problem and are determined to do something about it.
We also know that young runaways are often affected by other problems, and surveys have suggested that about one third of them have reported problems with substance misuse or involvement in crime, and we have heard about other difficulties, including mental health issues and domestic violence. Although many missing children fortunately return safely, many suffer harm and exploitation while they are missing and some, of course, never return. Once they are on the streets, children can find themselves with few options and no one safe to turn to, leaving them very vulnerable to exploitation by those who would harm them or seek to gain from their misfortune. In some cases—too many cases—that includes sexual exploitation, the profile of which, I am very pleased to say, has been raised.
As the hon. Lady points out, there is a strong link between children going missing and children suffering from sexual exploitation, and I can confirm, as she requested that I do, that the Government’s action plan on sexual exploitation will take full account of that linkage. As she indicated, the connection works in both directions: children who go missing are at risk of sexual exploitation and children who are being exploited are more likely to run away from home or care. That is a Catch-22 situation, which the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) also mentioned, and I absolutely agree that that is the case. Ever since the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) and I really tried to take a grip of this subject earlier in the year, I have been very clear that the problem is much bigger than we appreciate. The more work we do, the more alarmed people will be by the scale of the problem and by how widespread it is.
My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) said that the problem was not exclusively urban, but existed in market towns and rural areas, as she knows from her own experience—I have met with her and her local police. The problem is also classless, affecting many middle-class, apparently stable families, with children running away from home for all sorts of reasons. We must open our eyes to the extent and range of the problem.
Understanding what young people in such situations go through is absolutely essential to learning lessons and improving our responses to the problem in future. The hon. Member for Stockport has arranged for the all-party group for runaway and missing children and adults to meet later today to hear the voices of former young runaways. I will attend that meeting, as will the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins). I was going to say that I am looking forward to hearing young people’s stories, but that is not quite the phrase to use, given how harrowing such stories are. It is important, however, to hear those real-life experiences.
I will now take up a few of the points made, before returning to my substantive speech. The hon. Member for Stockport made a telling point when she said that removing the protection of parents or carers is part of the grooming process—she is absolutely right. I pay tribute to the BBC and the “Eastenders” programme for the storyline run a few months ago—very harrowing, realistic and “in your face”, involving the character Whitney Dean and how she was enticed away from her family by someone who she thought cared for her but in fact was exploiting her, benefiting and profiting in a most nasty way from her misfortune. The wedge driven between her and what stability she might have had with family and friends was key to the exploitation taking place.
The hon. Lady also mentioned the importance of interviews with returning runaways. Absolutely—we need to know the reasons why they run away because, hopefully, we can then support that particular home, family or care establishment, as well as learn lessons for other children and young people in a similar situation.
The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) asked a substantial range of questions, all pertinent and many born of his considerable experience, not least as police Minister in the previous Government. His point about cross-border and cross-departmental considerations was fair. I am the lead Minister on the subject in the Westminster Government, liaising particularly closely with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, as well as with the Department of Health and beyond.
This crime, however, does not respect borders and I am aware of some unjoined-up gaps in our links with the devolved parts of the United Kingdom, which I aim to plug. Once we have a grip on the action plan that we are developing and will publish later this year, I will also have conversations with colleagues in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The problem also goes beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. I am only too well aware of problems we had in West Sussex, with young girls being brought in as unaccompanied asylum seekers from west Africa—Nigeria and Sierra Leone, in particular—only to be trafficked out of the country and ending up in the sex trade in north Italy.
Mr Hanson
May I ask that, as part of the development of the action plan, the Minister formally consults with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly before publication, to see if there are areas in which joined-up government can operate effectively to tackle the issue?
Tim Loughton
I think that is essential. In the same way, the inter-ministerial group on trafficking, which the Minister for Immigration chairs and on which I represent the Department for Education, has provided links. Our meetings have included counterparts from the other parts of the United Kingdom, physically and by video conference. Such discussions are essential, and officials are already having them, but I want to have them at a ministerial level as well, and that input is needed for the action plan. That is absolutely right. Of course, organisations such as the NSPCC and ChildLine, which we have funded, are UK-wide as well. It is important that we learn from that experience throughout the UK, too.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about funding and how the new arrangements from 1 July would work. I am not the relevant Home Office Minister, but some of the services that CEOP will provide in the future are currently provided by the National Policing Improvement Agency missing persons bureau, and associated funds will therefore be reallocated from the NPIA to CEOP to reflect those new responsibilities. The new set-up will add to the provision of educational resources and training for the police, supporting police operations through targeted research and analysis, providing operational support for forces dealing with missing children by extending the CEOP one-stop shop to include online missing children resources, and ensuring that co-ordination arrangements and capability are in place to manage complex or high-profile missing children cases.
A lot of preparation has gone into this work, and as the hon. Member for Stockport saw on her visit, CEOP is very well placed to deal with these issues. It has very competent people, including Peter Davies at its head, who really understand this problem and are very keen to take it on.
The hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) mentioned the action plan—the fact that it needs to be a plan that results in action. The right hon. Member for Delyn cast a slightly difficult googly about how I would assess whether it had worked or not. Good guidance was published as part of “Working Together to Safeguard Children” back in 2009. The problem was that there was not an associated action plan. It is a very good piece of guidance—on a shelf, in a manual. I am absolutely determined in this area, as in many other areas of child protection, that we should not just write something down but pick it up and run with it and ensure that everyone is doing their bit towards it. That is why, through the Munro review and associated activity, I want to ensure that all the players in this are being monitored and are contributing, to make sure that the action plan produces results. That is essential.
We do need to get the statistics right. I think that it was the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) who made the point that I am thinking of in this regard. All colleagues present from Northern Ireland contributed and all made very good points, so I apologise if I get confused about which hon. Member made which point. With regard to the problems in relation to data, several hon. Members—I will come on to this in more detail—have slightly confused apples and pears. The data count different things. We have referred to different aspects of the data. They are not comparable, as they are different. The nationally collected data are specific to children missing from care for over 24 hours and do not include, for example, repeat disappearances by the same child, whereas local data do and may include children who have only just gone missing. There is no attempt to cover up, but we do have different sets of data. That reinforces to me the need to ensure that we know which sort of data we are applying to which problem. That is a problem, and one of the things that must come out of the action plan is all of us knowing where we are coming from on that.
I think that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the problems with residential homes. Of course, only a small proportion of children in care are in residential homes, but we do need to do much better in terms of how they liaise with local police in particular. I know that from personal experience. I think that in Worthing, which is partly in my constituency, there are now no fewer than 10 independent children’s homes, and there have been a lot of problems with children running away and the police getting involved.
Many points were made about data collection, and CEOP was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who is no longer here. It is very good to see the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) here again, contributing in a debate on children’s issues, as she and I did for many years in opposition. She made a lot of well informed and sensible points. She was right to start by saying that the politician’s job is never finished. We have to keep at this. It is not just a question of producing the booklet, producing the glossy brochure, producing the action plan and ticking the boxes. We have to keep people’s feet to the fire—one of my hon. Friends would always use that phrase. Practice is patchy, and I want to ensure that every local authority and agency is working to the standard of the best and using the same rulebook and manual so that we all know what we are talking about and the precise problem that we are trying to tackle.
I mentioned the problem of recognition of data. Part of the difficulty is lack of recognition of the problem, so that it is not a priority in certain areas. That must stop.
The hon. Lady mentioned another point that she and others have made before, about the duty to co-operate. We could have a whole debate just on that subject—and indeed that debate is happening on the Education Bill currently going through Parliament. However, under other education legislation—I think, from memory, the Education Act 1996 and the Education Act 2002—schools of all types have a duty to safeguard, watch, maintain and promote the welfare of the children in them. Schools are an important part of local safeguarding children boards. I want the groups in question to come together not because they must, but because they want to in the best interests of the children they are responsible for, and because they can get the best results by sitting at the same table, and acting and talking together.
On the hon. Lady’s other point about children over the age of 18, the transition issue is a particular one for children in care, those with learning difficulties and those who are just not grown up enough, who are more likely to be exploited. With children in care, of course, “staying put” pilots are going on. They are a good thing, and will inform the process by which we can better look after children who happen to hit their 18th birthday; their problems and vulnerability do not suddenly disappear when they become adult. The hon. Lady makes a good point again, but it is a problem across the piece.
I shall return to my speech and try to whizz through it in the remaining nine minutes, Mr Havard. I want to say a little about how the Government’s approach to the problem of runaways and missing children will pan out. Most missing children cases are dealt with well at local level by police forces, who see such cases as a clear priority. However, the Government recognise that there is a case for national capability to add value by ensuring that police are trained and equipped with the right understanding to identify and respond when children go missing. That is why the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, announced last month that from 1 July the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre would assume national responsibility for missing children’s services. I was very pleased to hear the hon. Member for Stockport welcome that. As I mentioned, she visited CEOP recently, and I am sure that she will have been as impressed by its work as I was on my recent visit.
Making CEOP responsible for missing children’s services is an extremely important development. It means that for the first time in this country there will be a dedicated team of experts at national level focused solely on missing children issues. The fact that that capability will exist within CEOP means that they can bring their considerable child protection expertise to bear on this problem. However, of course, as the hon. Lady made clear, the problem of young runaways, and missing children more generally, is not something that the police or CEOP can solve alone. There must be a multi-agency, partnership approach, involving local authority children’s services, the police and the important charity and local voluntary sector—as well as, of course, families and parents. Local safeguarding children boards have a key role to play in co-ordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of the work of their members. That needs to cover raising awareness to try to prevent child sexual exploitation taking place—because, as the hon. Lady observed, prevention is better than cure—but also responding to it when it does.
Before going further, I should perhaps respond to the hon. Lady’s points about the collection and evaluation of data, building on the reference that I made just now. Knowing the extent of the problem is an important step in being able to address it. The hon. Lady referred to the differences between my Department’s statistics on children missing from care and local police data. The fact is that those statistics will be different because different things are being counted. In addition—the hon. Lady alluded to this—many children are reported missing from care as soon as their absence is noted, and, fortunately, are located within 24 hours. The Department’s figures record only children who are missing from their placements for more than 24 hours. Of course, that is not to say that any of them may not be a risk to themselves or others during the period that they are absent.
To complicate the matter still further, the local authority that is responsible for a particular child’s care is the one that reports their absence in the statistics of the Department for Education. The fact that an authority is shown as having only a small number of missing children is not the same as saying that only that number went missing from care in that authority, because some authorities have many looked-after children placed from other authorities within their boundaries. That is a particular problem in Kent. The result is that if a child from, say, Southwark, goes missing from a care placement in Kent and is reported to the Kent police, the child will appear under Southwark and not Kent in the Department’s data. There are thus some problems; but we need to sort that out to make sure we know exactly the extent of the problem.
I appreciate that those technical considerations do not make it easy to form a clear and consistent picture of the extent of the problem. However, it is not a question of either the police data or the Department’s statistics being wrong. They are just counting different things. The important thing is that local police forces and local authorities work together to form the clearest possible picture of the number of young runaways and missing children in their area, whether from care or from home. That data is not collected centrally.
The hon. Lady also expressed concern about some local authorities not adhering to the “Statutory guidance on children who run away or go missing from home or care”. I can tell her that my Department is currently reviewing a range of guidance with the aim of reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. We will look at the guidance she mentioned as part of that wider review. We want—as I know she wants—guidance to be easily accessible and, most importantly, helpful for schools, local authorities and children’s services.
On the specific issue of child sexual exploitation, we know that the great majority of missing children incidents are repeat cases, with the same children going missing— running away from, or towards, something. Such children are vulnerable. They face serious risks while they are missing, and we know that there are clear links with child sexual exploitation. As I have said before, the sexual exploitation of children is a truly appalling crime, which can of course affect children whether or not they have ever run away from home. It is an extremely serious form of child sexual abuse. The sorts of experiences to which some children and young people are subjected are unspeakably shocking, involving rape, severe sexual assault and, often, chilling intimidation. We have heard of many such cases from hon. Members who have spoken today. Anyone perpetrating such crimes must be brought to justice. I am glad to say there have been some high-profile cases recently—some still going on—where that sort of justice is being brought to bear. However, as I have said, it is the tip of the iceberg.
The victims of sexual exploitation—and their families—need understanding and support. Support may be needed over many years, involving a range of expertise from across the statutory and voluntary sectors. Let us be in no doubt: the victims of such sexual exploitation are vulnerable children. As with any other vulnerable children, all our instincts should be to protect and support them.
The hon. Lady referred to Barnardo’s “Puppet on a string” report, as did other hon. Members. I want to place on the record my praise for Barnardo’s hard-hitting report. It made it uncomfortably clear to us that child sexual exploitation is a much bigger problem than many people ever imagined. It is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion. It happens in all areas of the country. Stereotyping offenders or victims is quite simply a red herring and unhelpful. It is important, therefore, that every local authority and every local safeguarding children board in town and country, city and rural areas, assumes that sexual exploitation is a problem in their area and that they take action to address it.
The hon. Lady referred to research by the university of Bedfordshire, early findings from which suggest that many local authorities are not following the “Safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation” statutory guidance, which was issued in 2009. I know that many professionals are, like her, concerned that some local authority areas have yet to develop a satisfactory response to child sexual exploitation. I share that concern; it must improve.
As lead Minister, I have been urgently considering, within Government and working with national and local partners, what further action needs to be taken to safeguard children and young people from sexual exploitation. In April, I chaired a round-table meeting with senior representatives from a range of organisations. At that meeting, we identified a wide range of issues to be addressed, from awareness-raising and understanding to effective prevention and early detection, the challenges of securing prosecutions and the need to support victims and their families. We are committed to working with partners to develop over the summer an action plan to safeguard children and young people from sexual exploitation. The hon. Lady said that she welcomed this work and I am grateful for her support, which I am sure will be ongoing.
We are still in the early stages of developing the action plan so I cannot announce details today. However, I can say that it will build on existing guidance and our developing understanding of this dreadful abuse, including through local agencies’ work around the country. It will include work on effective prevention strategies, identifying those at risk of sexual exploitation, supporting victims and taking robust action against perpetrators. A key element of the action plan will be ensuring that the wide range of work currently taking place on child sexual exploitation is complementary and comprehensive. The action plan will take account of CEOP’s thematic assessment of on-street grooming, which will be published shortly. It will also reflect the recently announced two-year enquiry into child sexual exploitation to begin later this year, which will be conducted by the office of the Children’s Commissioner.
There is also the university of Bedfordshire two-year research project, which I just mentioned, funded by Comic Relief—a worthwhile use of its funds—and due to be published in October, on preventing the sexual exploitation of children and young people. I expect there to be a good deal of learning in each of those projects, and in others taking place around the country, such as the Safe and Sound project in Derby—I pay tribute to Sheila Taylor MBE who is now chairman of the National Working Group on sexual exploitation—Barnardo’s 22 sexual exploitation services, and the work being carried out by the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping.
Underpinning much of this is the Munro review of child protection on which we had a very good debate in the House only the other week, in which the hon. Lady took part. I was pleased that Professor Munro specifically mentioned in her report the issue of child sexual exploitation, and the important role of local safeguarding children boards. The report stresses the importance of re-focusing the child protection system on the needs and experiences of children and young people. Professor Munro’s fundamental analysis is that the system has become too focused on compliance with unnecessary rules and procedures, and professionals have spent less time actually helping—
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Order. That was breathless, Minister, if not breathtaking. I am sure that you will write with any important information that has not been covered. We will now move on to the next debate.
Leeds United
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Havard, to serve under your chairmanship today.
This debate is focused on the case of Leeds United, but it is relevant to the governance of football in general and in particular to the rules regarding the insolvency of football clubs. I believe that the case of Leeds United should compel the Government to press the football authorities to provide greater clarity on the administration of the rules on club ownership. I also believe that a formal review should be conducted into the unanswered questions concerning the insolvency and administration of the club, and its ultimate takeover by Ken Bates.
The business failure of Leeds United was a cause of great distress to the fans of the club, costing millions of pounds in unpaid tax and leaving local businesses out of pocket. And yet former players, such as Danny Mills, were able to claim in full for more than £200,000 in unpaid wages while west Yorkshire’s ambulance authority received only a few pence in the pound for its debt, which was worth nearly £9,000. That is because of the football creditors’ rule, which even the chairman of the Football League says he cannot “defend the morality of”. Nevertheless, the rule continues to exist, and those of us who are members of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport have pressed vigorously, as part of our report into the governance of football, for it to be reviewed and ultimately got rid of. It has no place in the modern game.
There is also the question whether it is right that a great football club, such as Leeds United, can be sold between two Nevis-registered offshore companies without anyone knowing how much money was paid, where the money came from and, in the case of one of the companies, who was actually selling the club. Despite the denials, however, there can be few people in football who privately do not believe that Ken Bates has effectively been in control of the club for most of the past six years. The answers given by the club to questions about its ownership during that period stretch credibility, to say the least.
Leeds United is a great football club, which only makes the story of the last eight years all the more distressing. A roll-call of its players contains many modern greats, from Johnny Giles and Billy Bremner to Eric Cantona and Rio Ferdinand. The club’s history includes great success under the incomparable Don Revie; the famously brief tenure of Brian Clough; and Howard Wilkinson’s champions of England in 1991-92, which was the last time the English title was won by an English manager. Now, in Simon Grayson, Leeds has one of the best-regarded young managers in England.
Like most fans of English football, I want to see Leeds back in the premier league, where the club belongs. The decline and fall of Leeds from being Champions League semi-finalists in 2001 to experiencing administration and relegation to the third tier of English football just seven years later contains many lessons for those in charge of the governance of English football. Leeds are not the only club to have had difficulties, but there remain many questions of legitimate public interest about its exit from administration and about the ownership of the club during the last four years. Although the identity of the club’s owner is now clear, no fans should ever be in the position that Leeds fans were in for some time, when they simply did not know who owned their club. That must never be allowed to happen again.
In fact, the Leeds United Supporters Trust issued a statement yesterday supporting this debate and my call for an inquiry into the ownership and administration of the club. The trust stated:
“We also hope that this inquiry is able to uncover the whole truth and provide the answers Leeds United supporters deserve for it is they who suffered the 15-point deduction hardest, they who have paid heavily to support the club through the turnstiles home and away during this time and it is they who will still be supporting the club with their hearts and their wallets in the years to come regardless of who owns the club.”
The statement continued:
“The Leeds United Supporters Trust welcomes knowing the whole truth for its members, for all Leeds United supporters and for the good of the future of our great club and we look forward to the findings of this inquiry providing that truth and allowing Leeds United to move forward on the pitch and in the hearts and minds of all those involved.”
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
It is very interesting to hear about the Leeds United Supporters Trust. Does my hon. Friend agree that such organisations, including Kidderminster Harriers Independent Supporters Trust, perform a very important function in holding the management and those in charge of the governance of clubs to account on behalf of the supporters?
Damian Collins
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Supporters’ trusts play an incredibly valuable role in giving a voice to fans, particularly in clubs that are going through difficult times financially. We saw that at Kidderminster, which my hon. Friend has mentioned, and we have also seen it recently at Plymouth Argyle, which has a link to Leeds, in that Peter Ridsdale, the former chairman of Leeds, has been involved in advising Plymouth Argyle, although I am not entirely sure what on.
I want to comment on the events that led to Leeds entering administration. Following the collapse of the Monte Carlo or bust strategy pursued by Ridsdale, which saw the club try to sustain a massive increase in expenditure on playing staff, the club was sold in 2004 to the Yorkshire consortium of Gerald Krasner, Melvyn Levi and other business men. The consortium sold and leased back the Elland Road football ground and the Thorp Arch training ground, and it settled more than £95 million of debts, but the club was relegated from the premier league in May 2004 and the consortium could not keep it financially solvent.
Investors represented by Ken Bates, as the chairman, took over Leeds in January 2005. The ownership vehicle was Forward Sports Fund, which was registered in Nevis and administered from Geneva. From the beginning, it was said that it had no connection to Ken Bates and that he owned no shares, but FSF had appointed him as a director and as the chairman of the club. It is a curiosity that the record of FSF’s incorporation in Nevis shows it was incorporated on 27 January 2005—six days after the Leeds takeover. If the company had not even been formed, where did the £5 million to buy Leeds come from in the first place? That question has never been answered.
Bates and FSF could neither salvage Leeds financially, nor prevent its being relegated from the championship in 2007 and entering administration in May 2007. In administration—I hope colleagues will forgive me if I go through some technical numbers—FSF had an outstanding indebtedness of £2.4 million. Astor, another offshore company, claimed to have an outstanding indebtedness of £12.8 million, while Krato claimed to have an outstanding indebtedness of £2.5 million. Those last two debts were consolidated, and the total owed to Astor when the club was sold back to FSF in July 2007 was stated to be £17.6 million.
When Bates and his co-directors put Leeds into administration in May 2007, the total debts were said to be £37.5 million. The debt to HMRC was said to be £7 million, and HMRC opposed the company voluntary agreement under which FSF would buy the club back, because it disputed the debt claims made by Yorkshire Radio, which was owned by Leeds, and those made by Astor. However, the administrator sold Leeds directly to FSF, with Bates as the chairman, for £1.8 million. Leeds then had 25 points deducted by the Football League—10 for going into administration and 15 for emerging with no company voluntary arrangement.
The mystery here is Astor’s offer to waive its debt if FSF, with Bates as the chairman, was given control of the club, even though it was not connected to FSF or Bates. Astor insisted that its debt had to be included with that of the other creditors to be repaid by any other bidder if FSF and Bates were not given the club. Even though there was no connection, Astor would not waive its debt, unless Bates was given control of the club and FSF was made the owner.
At the time of the sale in July 2007, the total owed to creditors stood at £30 million. All other bids would have had to pay a proportion of that, but Astor’s decision to waive its £17 million meant that FSF and Bates had to pay only £12.5 million. Other bidders offered more money, but they lost to FSF. One offered £3.5 million immediately; one offered £7 million; and another offered £5 million, once Leeds’s participation in the Football League was assured. FSF offered only £1.8 million, but with Astor’s £17.6 million not included, the FSF bid was accepted as the highest proportionate dividend to creditors, giving l1p in the pound. The taxman therefore received about £750,000 of the approximately £7 million he was owed—a loss of £6 million. The administrator stated that Astor and Krato were “unconnected” to FSF. The significance of that was that Astor’s votes counted in the administration vote, where it had more than 50% of the vote, when 75% was required for a decision to be taken.
Ken Bates swears on oath that he does not know who the new owners—the FSF investors in the club—were at the time and that he has never known. In his affidavit to the Jersey court, he said:
“Having made due inquiry, neither I, Mark Taylor or Shaun Harvey are aware of the ultimate beneficial owners of the participating shares, save to say that each of us can confirm that we have no interest in the participating shares.”
The judge, Sir Charles Gray, referred to Astor, waiving the £17.6 million that it was owed and that it was not connected to FSF. He said, “I am exceedingly puzzled” about why Astor would “kiss goodbye” to so much money if it had no connection with Bates and FSF.
Bates replied that he could only “presume” that Astor wrote off its £17.6 million because
“there would be the option for business in the future”
if he and FSF remained in control of the club. It should be noted for the record that no such future business has ever been transacted between Astor and Leeds.
Moving on to the Select Committee inquiry, we looked at the unanswered question of the ownership of the club and the challenge that that gave to the football authorities. How could the FA and the Football League enforce their own rules on club ownership of the fit and proper person test, if they did not know who the ultimate owners of the club were? Following our evidence hearing with the Premier League, it was clear that it would require disclosure of this information if Leeds were to be allowed to compete in its competition. At the time of the hearing earlier in the year, there was still a possibility that Leeds United would be promoted. Lo and behold, on Tuesday 3 May, Leeds announced that Ken Bates had bought the club. The club statement said:
“The scaremongering arising out of the football governance inquiry has not been helpful and, whilst the board were always confident that there were no issues, they recognise the concern the unknown outcome of any Premier League questions may have on our members. To address this issue and in the hope that this brings an end to the speculation, the chairman Ken Bates has completed the purchase of FSF Limited for an undisclosed sum.”
Why would the company feel that it had to sell a club that was on the brink of being promoted to the premier league?
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
As a Leeds United supporter myself, I agree with my hon. Friend’s opening statement that Leeds United is a great football club and that the fans deserve answers. That is crucial, and it is welcome that he has secured today’s debate. Given what has happened with Leeds United, is not the problem the fact that there is not enough openness in the process and that too much is decided behind closed doors? Football clubs are part of the community, and the community deserves the answers that we are not getting at the moment.
Damian Collins
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why the issue of the rules concerning the ownership of clubs is so crucial here. Fans have the right to know who owns their clubs. It was incredible that the FA and the Football League maintained a situation in which they did not know who the ultimate owners were. Such information is the least that the football fans should expect. I have no objection to overseas investors bringing in money to English football, but we have a right to know who they are and where that money comes from.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I will give my hon. Friend a breather from all those murky statistics that he has been firing at us. As a Huddersfield Town fan, I feel lucky that our chairman, Dean Hoyle, is a self-made millionaire. He has been a Town fan all his life and is doing a fantastic job. Some businesses in my Colne Valley constituency, such as a balloon company down the road from me, suffered and were owed money when Leeds United went into administration. I have been working closely with the Huddersfield Town Supporters Trust, and we have been talking about having supporters’ representation on the boards of football clubs. Does my hon. Friend agree that that would be a good step forward, because it would allow more transparency, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) has mentioned?
Damian Collins
Supporters’ representation on the boards of clubs can be a good thing. Clubs should create a model that works best for them. A template model may not be appropriate for all football clubs. At the heart of the problem that my hon. Friend raises is the football creditors’ rules on which I touched earlier in my remarks. Until those go, it does not matter how many supporters there are on the boards of clubs, because clubs are still free to run up debts. They have to pay back debts not to local businesses but to former players who may have left some years ago or to a football club at the other end of the country with which the community has no direct relationship. That is morally wrong, which is why the rule must go.
Moving on from the statistics of the Leeds transactions to the simple bread and butter issues around why FSF would seek to sell the club at a time when the club’s value was rising, why would there not be marketing around the world for such an asset and an opportunity for bidders to come in? Where indeed did the money come from for Ken Bates to buy the club from FSF? We do not know how much that sum was, but there must have been some sort of a transaction. If it was a nominal fee, it would bring into question the relation between Ken Bates and FSF. Those are questions that the club will not answer, so will the Minister ask his colleagues at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to contact the authorities in Nevis to try to resolve these issues about where the supply of money came from for the purchase of Leeds United?
In the words of the judge, it remains “exceedingly puzzling” that Astor and FSF were unconnected. No rational explanation has ever been given for why Astor would waive its £17.6 million on condition that Bates and FSF, which were responsible for its losing all that money in the first place, were given the club back. FSF was not even incorporated when Bates took over as chairman of the club, so who were the investors and where did their money come from? Who were the owners of Leeds United for the six years in between? The identity of FSF’s beneficiaries has never been disclosed to the football authorities or anyone, not least to the club’s fans.
Ken Bates said on oath and to the football authorities that he did not know who the investors were and stated that they were not connected to him. The Government should satisfy themselves that no regulations regarding the payment of tax or the purchase of companies were compromised in the case of Leeds United. The football authorities need to review the administration of their rules on club ownership and how they best apply the fit and proper persons test.
That situation must never be allowed to happen again in relation to the purchase and ownership of a major English football club. We are critical of how FIFA has recently tried to enforce its own code of ethics and its own inquiries into its own people, and of the farce we saw yesterday, where the FIFA ethics committee dropped its case against Jack Warner in return for his agreeing to leave FIFA. There will be no investigation or declaration of all the serious allegations of corruption that were made against him.
We cannot truly have a voice of authority on all those issues around the world, as we should do considering that we are one of the world’s great footballing countries with some of the greatest football fans in the world, until we resolve all the domestic issues. The unanswered questions around Leeds United—both financial ones and those that affect the governance of football—are crucial to our setting our own house in order.
The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)
Thank you, Mr Havard. May I say how nice it is to be responding to the debate under the chairmanship of someone who has, throughout his parliamentary career, been a great fan and supporter of sport in the House?
Hugh Robertson
Indeed.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing the debate and on his considerable research. Crucially, he and other members of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee have done invaluable work into football governance and the regulation of professional football clubs. Their work has proved invaluable in taking stock of a range of issues that affect the way that football is run and in ensuring that our national game is in the best possible place to make the most of its strengths and weaknesses and to address the challenges it faces.
With reference to this morning’s debate, it is worth reassuring my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe that a number of Culture, Media and Sport Committee members have approached me about a range of things that disturb them across football. I know about their experience at Leeds, where I understand that the Committee was unable to find out who the owner of the club was at that stage, which appalled people in a way that little else has.
I look forward to receiving the Committee’s report and recommendations next month, after which, within the statutory time period, I will set out the Government’s official response. Without prejudicing that too much, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to outline the Government’s current thoughts on the regulation and governance of football clubs and specifically on the issues that he has raised around Leeds.
It is worth repeating—this is really important—that the starting point is that the Government do not want to run football or micro-manage its future. All sport, including football, is best run by sport governing bodies. However, those bodies must prove that they are strong, effective, independent, transparent and, crucially, accountable organisations. The Government’s role, and my role as Minister, is to challenge the FA and the organisations that run the leagues—the Premier League and the Football League—and to ensure that the game and its governance arrangements are capable of responding to the challenges and opportunities. Of course, that is the background to the current Select Committee investigation. It worth saying in that regard that I do not particularly want to legislate, but football should be in no doubt whatsoever that if it does not react to what the Government lay out after the Select Committee report, we are prepared to do so, if necessary.
Leeds fans will of course be pleased finally to know who owns their club. However, the whole episode signals the complete disconnect between the supporters’ legitimate expectation of knowing who owns their club and the requirement to publish that information. The football authorities deserve some credit for the rules that they introduced in recent years on financial regulation and club ownership. They include a new means and abilities test, which requires proof of funds of prospective new owners as well as strengthening the rules on owners and directors. However, the situation that my hon. Friend has outlined shows how much more needs to be done.
Touching on a point made earlier, football clubs are not investment banks. They are part and parcel of the community. I often refer to them as businesses with a social conscience. It is not unrealistic, therefore, for supporters to have higher corporate expectations of the owners of their club than they do of some local businesses. Supporters at every club have a right to know, with certainty, which person or people own their football club, whether they own it outright or in shares of less than 10%.
The football authorities need to work with the clubs to make full disclosure a priority and to ensure that appropriate inquiries about the identity and circumstances of potential buyers are always carried out with due diligence, and that needs to be done before ownership is allowed to change hands. This is not me, as a Minister, hammering football clubs once again; it is a requirement for all good businesses. Furthermore, the necessary checks should continue to be made throughout a director’s or owner’s tenure at a club. Club owners have a responsibility of stewardship. Supporters need to have trust in them and to know that they will not jeopardise the long-term future of the club. Under no circumstances should the owners take the fans for granted or deliberately or inadvertently misrepresent the position in relation to their club.
It is for the football authorities to take a hard look at whether they should tighten their rules. The inquiry with which my hon. Friend is involved will clearly play a big part in that. My preference is that the two should be done together—that the findings of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee are discussed with the football authorities, so that we can agree a way forward collaboratively. That should happen under the leadership and direction of the sport’s national governing body, the FA. It remains to be seen whether that is achievable, but I am encouraged by the strong statements made to the Committee by the chairman of the FA, David Bernstein, about the importance of transparency.
I do not wish to prejudice the Committee’s findings, but as my hon. Friend has mentioned the matter, it is worth saying a little about the football creditors’ rule and HMRC. I would rather not give an absolute answer on the creditors’ rule until I have seen the results of the Select Committee’s investigation. Indeed, I have tried not to provide a running commentary on it, as it would not help the Committee or the Government. However, it is clear that the football creditors’ rule has probably had its day. The moment when people in football said that it was morally indefensible was the moment when everyone felt that a considerable corner had been turned. I await the Committee’s findings with interest.
If my hon. Friend sends me the details I will happily pass them on to HMRC. However, he will know that although it is a governmental body, it is independent of Government. It would be worth the Committee Chair writing to HMRC on behalf of the Committee, given the strength of feeling that was evident following its investigation into Leeds.
Damian Collins
With specific regard to the case of Leeds United and HMRC, based on the information that has been gathered and the unanswered questions that remain, particularly on the purchase of Leeds United from FSF by Ken Bates, is my hon. Friend prepared to write to ministerial colleagues suggesting that there may be grounds for HMRC considering the matter?
Hugh Robertson
The simple answer is that I am perfectly happy to write, which my hon. Friend can do equally easily. The bigger point is that I have a sense that after the Select Committee’s visit to Leeds, the Committee was unusually disturbed by what it found. Normally speaking, that would be a good moment for the Chair of the Select Committee to write directly to HMRC on behalf of the Committee. That would be powerful, but I am also happy to write, if he wishes to do that through me to a Minister.
In conclusion, I understand my hon. Friend’s desire for an inquiry into what has happened in Leeds’s case. His speech was powerful and convincing. However, with a Select Committee report due in the next month, I would rather wait until then to decide what needs to be done, simply in order to achieve the best use of time and resources. The exact detail of what has happened is not clear, but the overall lessons most certainly are, and those lessons should inform what happens next. My intention, as part of the wider process of the inquiry’s recommendations, is that the FA will be able to make any changes to the issues highlighted by today’s debate. If not, the FA should be in no doubt that the Government will legislate to ensure that such things do not happen again.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
That concludes the debate. We now move, slightly early, to the next debate.
Early Years Assessments
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to be under your chairmanship once again, Mr Havard. I also take particular pleasure in welcoming the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), to Westminster Hall today, because I have the chance to put on record my thanks to her and her officials for the tremendous help I have had with the two reviews on early intervention that I was asked to do by Her Majesty’s Government. I am very pleased with the personal and the official co-operation, which have made my job much easier. My first report was on what an effective early intervention strategy is and my second report, which is due out shortly, is on how we pay for it.
Early intervention is about giving every baby, child and young person the social and emotional capability—the bedrock—that we all need to lead effective lives, so reducing the massive costs of failure to the individual and to taxpayers. All of us in this Chamber, I imagine, are early interveners. We were either intervened upon early by our own parents or, almost naturally and unconsciously, intervened early with our children, but many families do not do that, and in our debate we want to assist those people.
Today’s debate is about assessing the social and emotional capabilities of the nought to five-year-olds. The issue is as close to the Minister’s heart as it is to mine. Such assessment is key to early intervention. If we do not have that knowledge, intervention is much more difficult, and we therefore intervene only when problems have become deep-rooted and much more intractable. Assessment is also the key to the concept of school-readiness, which has thankfully gained favour recently.
In that context, one of the most important things we will see in the next year or two will be the Government proposals on the early years foundation stage, which I understand might even be published before the recess. That statement will be of immense significance, and I wish the Minister well in getting those judgments right, because they will impact on every child and their life chances and for the rest of their adult lives. Getting it right for the nought to fives also means—a bonus for the Minister—that she will probably do more to reduce the structural deficit in this country than any host of Treasury Ministers, by attacking the massive, multi-billion-pound costs of failure, such as educational underachievement, low work aspiration, lifetimes on benefit, high crime levels, poor parenting, drink and drug abuse and teenage pregnancy. All of those are reduced by effective early intervention. The evidence now, not least in my report for Her Majesty’s Government, is absolutely incontrovertible: those consequences flow from effective early intervention. The Minister would not be the person I know her to be if she did not have a long list of useful items on which the gigantic pool of savings could be spent when we can monetise and realise those savings in due course.
It is possible to wait. We can wait until school begins, and we can have a booster programme, but I believe that a far better approach is to help children to achieve the milestones as they grow, giving a little extra help as it is needed, rather than just before going to school. Therefore, regular and effective assessment of nought to five-year-olds is crucial. It should not be necessary to say this, but I am not asking for babies to sit examinations or any of the other tripe that people misinterpret in some lower-grade newspapers. Assessment should be gentle, and not intrusive. It should gauge levels of attainment and school-readiness much earlier in the life of a baby, child or young person, and identify and then support those who are not school-ready.
Just as we can barely believe that tiny children were once sent up chimneys, I believe that in years to come future generations will be aghast that we let children enter school when they were not ready, and often subjected them to 11 years of humiliation and underachievement before spending billions of pounds picking up the pieces. Now, with what we know, we no longer have an excuse. We know that it is much cheaper and more effective to provide an alternative: evidence-based programmes that produce real results. They are available to all of us, and will help to overcome the barriers that have become commonplace in many constituencies, including yours, I suspect, Mr Havard, and mine. They put in the early filters that good parenting normally puts in so that our public services and voluntary sector are not swamped with a tsunami of dysfunction, but can focus on the really tough problems that people thought they had become teachers, local beat officers, doctors or health visitors to deal with. We must filter out the vast majority of people whose needs are not as serious and can be dealt with by early intervention.
The key to doing that is for the Department for Education and Department of Health, who separately do so much excellent work on this issue, to work together, and I know that the Minister is working extremely hard on making those connections and working with ministerial colleagues. If we can do that, and create a single strategy for nought to five-year-olds, instead of one that breaks off or changes criteria halfway through, we will have effective assessment, and be able to identify the individuals who need it.
In my first report, I recommended that all children’s development should be regularly assessed from birth up to and including the age of five, with a focus on social and emotional development so that they can be put on the path to school-readiness, which many, not least those from low-income households, would benefit from. Accountability is confused and divided, policy is incomplete, and there is an unnecessary separation between the healthy child programme reviews and the early years foundation stage assessments. It is timely that several external reviews have taken place, and that a more integrated programme of assessments for all children should explore the opportunities for national measures based on those suggested not only in my first review, but in the almost identical proposals in the reviews of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and Dame Clare Tickell, as well as Professor Eileen Munro.
There have been four serious and significant reviews in this area. This issue is one of the many—I would argue that it is the most important issue—on which all four independent reviewers agree. The culture of early rather than late intervention should be central to the policy not just of the present Government, but of all future Governments. This is an intergenerational problem. It is not the property of one party or one Government. We all have to sign up to this. I am very grateful to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for their kind words in support of my first report and the kind words that they have allowed me to attach to the second report, which will be in the public domain shortly.
The Government have the opportunity to act swiftly to ensure that the nought to fives are helped at the earliest and most cost-effective point in their lives, so that they can develop that social and emotional bedrock and thrive. I hope very much that that is the direction that we will see from the Government in the early years statement, which I believe is to be published in the not-too-distant future.
My next point is about evidence. I do not want to go into that in too much detail. There is lots of it around now. There is a great deal of it in my own review and the other reviews. However, there is one important connection that I want to raise with the Minister. It is of concern to many of us, not least, if I may say so, the Deputy Prime Minister. I am referring to social mobility. If we are to have the levels of social mobility that all parties would subscribe to, it is vital that the groundwork is put in place as early as possible. Schemes that are produced late on in the life cycle are very gallant but highly ineffective when compared with early intervention. The Department for Education’s internal analysis of the national pupil database underlined that when it said that children who perform badly at the start of school tend to perform badly throughout and that a good start in life is hugely important to later educational attainment.
There are those who say that this is a choice; we have only so much money and we have to figure out whether we spend it on this, that or the other, because there are discrete, hermetically sealed primary results, secondary results and further and higher education results. Nothing could be further from the truth, as underlined by the Department’s own findings.
If we can give the little ones a great start, we are giving them the most fantastic advantage. We all know from our constituencies what the response is when we say to a secondary head, “Why aren’t your numbers better? Why aren’t your people getting more GCSEs?” They say, “You ought to see the people who come to us at age 11. Some of them can’t read and write.” If we ask a primary school head why their children aren’t doing quite so well, they say, “You should see the children when they arrive. They are not potty-trained. They can barely speak. They think a pencil is an implement to inflict pain on their nearest neighbour; they don’t understand that it’s used for writing. They can’t speak in a sentence. They don’t recognise letters or numbers.”
All the things that I have just mentioned are from Ofsted reports about schools in my constituency. Let us get this right early on, and those kids will then be open to all the fantastic potential that Governments of all political colours have created throughout the education system. However, they need to have the social and emotional bedrock in place first, or nothing else can go forward. That, too, remains a key to social mobility.
Assessment is vital, but there are two key points about assessment. First, it must be regular and comprehensive. Secondly, the content of the assessment must measure the right stuff. That has to include social and emotional capability—not just how much baby weighs or whether baby looks as though he or she is thriving, but some of the measures of social and emotional capability that we have the science to do now. That way, we will ensure that individuals who need help can be found and helped. We can then track their progress and as soon as the young person, child or baby is back on track, we can leave them alone. They are self-starting and they will do well in life. Then we are out of their life.
People sometimes talk about the nanny state. There is no bigger nanny state than not giving people help when they need it, because later on there will be the mega-nanny state of policing, drug rehabilitation, drink abuse, magistrates courts, a lifetime on benefits, welfare advisers and remedial teaching. You want nanny state? That is what we have now, whereas early intervention can actually free people to make the best of themselves and free parents to make the best of their children. So I get a bit annoyed about people who say that early intervention is part of the nanny state. It is actually the opposite of the nanny state and the response to too much state intervention, too late, in someone’s life, when it is not effective.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this incredibly important debate.
I have spent a lot of years in education, some of them at the hard end of the scale with the young people that my hon. Friend is talking about—the young people who will cost the state millions of pounds throughout their lives. And yet, whenever I go into nurseries, and I still go into nurseries, nursery teachers will tell me exactly—well, not exactly, because things do intervene, but generally—which children, in years to come, will be the children who will be excluded from school, who will be part of the prison system and who will cost the state a fortune. It is incredibly important that we can move things forward so that we can identify those children early on. Whenever that has happened, it has happened successfully. It is just about shifting the resources down to those children and at the earliest point, even below the age of three.
Mr Allen
My hon. Friend speaks with great personal experience and she deserves to be listened to with great respect. I imagine that the Minister would not disagree with the sentiments that she has just expressed. In many ways, the arguments about early intervention have now been won. We all now “talk the talk.” What will be very important about the paper in the summer will be seeing what the Government will do. Having said that, they will need the support of the Opposition Front Bench too. I hope that there will not be sniping about this issue. I hope that this is an issue about which people will say, “This is so important that we all have to get behind this and we all have to go forward together”, because it is about inter-generational change rather than a quick snapshot and a quick media opportunity. That is why the Government statement will hopefully contain some things that my hon. Friend and I will relish.
At the moment, there is the early years foundation stage framework for assessment, which is very useful, and the healthy child programme, which is also very useful. However, they have to be combined and they must go further. I hope that the Minister will take that point on board.
Clare Tickell, in her report, strongly recommended that the Government work with experts and services to test the feasibility of having a single integrated review between the ages of two and two and a half. I think that my report goes a little further than that.
The second thing that I mentioned about assessment is content. There is a vast range of other possible means of assessment out there, which can make assessment more effective. Rather than taking time in this debate today, I will write to the Minister separately about those means of assessment. But they include assessments of infant attachment behaviour; the assessments of the incredible years programme; the assessments of the social and emotional aspects of learning, or SEAL, programme, although I know that programme starts at primary level; the parental attitudes surveys; and the ages and stages questionnaire. There are lots and lots of other possible assessments from which inspiration can be drawn for a light-touch but none the less effective set of regular assessments.
So what next? First, I welcome the Government’s commitment in this area. I particularly welcome the recruitment of 4,200 extra health visitors. I also welcome the extension of the family nurse partnerships and the fact that developmental checks will be made on children at six weeks, six months, one year and two years. What I would press the Minister on, in the most friendly way, is to ensure that those checks are reliable and standardised, and that they include social and emotional checks, not just those for physical well-being. That includes a check at six weeks to assess the degree of attunement between parents and baby—the interactivity and development of empathy upon which all social relations form a base—and an assessment of the relationship between the parents. It is a tragic statistic or fact that most domestic violence and child abuse often begins in this very early period of a child’s life.
At six months and one year, there should be another check on the attunement and attachment between parent and child, and at two to three years there should be a check on parent-child interaction, warmth, authoritativeness and the child’s level of personal, social and emotional development, as described in Clare Tickell’s review, supplemented by the questionnaire on strengths and difficulties at the age of three. At the age of four, there should be a light-touch assessment of how the child is doing and how they might be helped to be school-ready and to make the best of themselves. Will the Minister also confirm that, at five years, there will be an assessment of a child’s level of personal, social and emotional development, as described in the Tickell review?
I also press the Minister to confirm that data on children’s personal, social and emotional development at age two, three and five will be available to hold Government, local authorities and children’s centres to account, as recommended by my fellow reviewers, Clare Tickell and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). I understand that some in government might not want to collect or use data from the review of ages two and three, because they see it as too prescriptive or as requiring bureaucracy, but I hope that my tirade earlier about the nanny state will expunge any remaining view that this is part of some immense bureaucracy. This is actually designed to defeat and counter that sort of bureaucracy and to reduce the need for any state intervention in someone’s later childhood or adult life.
Pat Glass
I want to support what my hon. Friend has said. When we have assessed the academic capability, particularly in things such as maths and science, of the many young people aged 14, 15 or 16 whom I have worked with, we have found that they are age appropriate. However, when we look at their personal and social development, we see that they are in the P scales, well below what we would expect a child to have at two and three years old. If we could tackle those things at three, four and five years old, before allowing those children to get to 15 or 16 without being able to talk to one another or hold a conversation without hitting each other, and without being able to go into a shop without causing trouble, we would make their lives, and our own, much better.
Mr Allen
Again, I agree strongly with my hon. Friend. I am sure that the Minister also agrees with, and will respond positively to, her sentiments. Time is running out, so I will move on quickly and put down markers about the new health visitors. I hope that the early implementer sites for delivering health visitor commitment will be able to test some of the things that I have talked about. My final marker is about children’s centres. They already provide very good and effective outreach and family support, and I hope that the Minister will be able to ensure that they include the social and emotional development along the lines recommended by the Munro review.
Rather than continuing and taking up the Minister’s time, I would like to repeat my thanks to her and her officials for all the support she has given this issue during her time in office. It has made a difference and I hope that it continues to do so. The forthcoming review provides the Minister with an opportunity, which I am sure that she will seize, to make a difference to the lives of not only someone we meet on a casework basis or some group, but literally millions of children, babies and young people. She can help them realise their potential and see what they have to do to make their lives much more rounded and capable, and not many of us in this place ever get a chance to do that. It is a fantastic opportunity that has fallen to the Minister, and it could not fall to a better person.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Minister, you have nine minutes to do all of that.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
Thank you, Mr Havard. May I begin by welcoming you to the Chair? I understand that it is your first time in the Chair. This is the civilised end of the House of Commons.
Sarah Teather
Okay. It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing this really important debate, which he finished by saying what a great privilege it is to be able to do this job.
The hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who is also present, takes a real interest in this area. We are all united by this sense of wanting to make a difference to many future generations. I know that that is why the hon. Gentleman was keen to do this piece of work on early intervention for the Government. We were very grateful to him for his work and we look forward to his second report. We are particularly grateful to him for championing the issue of emotional and social development. As he said, such development is a vital part of school-readiness, which Dame Clare Tickell took up in her review of the early-years foundation stage. She made it clear that school-readiness is about being able not just to hold a pen but to form relationships. As the hon. Gentleman said, if a child has not acquired those skills, they could have 12 years of misery ahead of them and a lifetime of difficulty in forming the kind of relationships that they need to in order to get on in school and work.
There is already a huge amount of evidence on the importance of this area. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that given that we are still awaiting his second report and that we are about to produce our own publication on our vision for the foundation years, I am limited in what I can say today in response to his questions. However, I can assure him that all of his questions are issues with which we are still wrestling and that he is absolutely in the right area. I will not be able to give him any details until we respond formally. When we do, we will be responding to the outstanding recommendations from his first report and to Dame Clare Tickell’s review of the foundation stage, and we will be holding a formal consultation on that. I hope that we will be able to produce those publications this side of the summer recess, so there is not long to wait. Some of that detail is still being thought through.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about a number of issues, including attachment, the assessment processes, the need to have an integrated process and the importance of focusing on the early years for social mobility. It is important to stress that early intervention is wider than just early years. It is a concept of intervening before a problem becomes so unmanageable that it requires people at different stages in their life to be rescued. It is to enable people to put the pieces of their life back together again and to move on. Although it is wider than focusing on nought to five, those early years are a critical part of an early intervention philosophy. A wide range of evidence shows that sound social and emotional development is absolutely critical to a child’s success. It helps them to form positive relationships and to understand the emotions of others, which the hon. Member for North West Durham mentioned. It also helps to create the resilience that is necessary to be able to deal with the challenges that life throws at everybody at different stages. Without the strong parental attachment and bonding that happens in the first few weeks, months and years of life, it is difficult for young people to grow up to be able to cope with the difficult things that unfortunately befall most of us at some stage in our lives.
We know that poor parenting and, in particular, harsh, inconsistent and neglectful actions lie behind many of the child behaviour problems that last into adulthood and are common in young people who find themselves within the criminal justice system. Such children are often much more disruptive in the classroom and much more likely to be excluded from school. It is important that we support parents early before that cycle sets in and becomes so entrenched that there is nothing we can do about it.
There are many different ways in which we can support parents. I will speak a little about some of those things in the last few minutes and address the points made about assessment. It is not only the Government’s role to support parents. Many other organisations, including those in the voluntary sector, do an absolutely vital job in supporting parents to form close attachments with their children. There are parent and toddler groups, often run by faith groups, in my constituency and I suspect in many other constituencies as well. They perform a vital role in supporting parents to understand good parenting behaviour and to learn from one another.
Arrangements for assessment in the early years have been strengthened by the early-years foundation stage, which Dame Clare Tickell has just reviewed for us. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a lot more can be done, in particular to try to integrate health and early years. That is why I have been working very closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), the Minister with responsibility for public health and child health, on the statement that we will be producing before the summer recess, as well as working closely with the sector. We are determined to try to ensure that we draw from the best of good practice from health and integrate that with the best of good practice that already exists in many early-years settings.
There are already regular health checks for children in their first year, which offer parents an opportunity to raise any concerns they have at a very early stage. A key principle of the early-years foundation stage is that early-years practitioners should undertake ongoing assessment and discuss children’s progress regularly with parents and carers. However, Dame Clare Tickell made recommendations that I hope will make the process more transparent for parents. They focus on three key areas, including the area that the hon. Gentleman wants us to focus more on—emotional and social development. They will create clarity in the conversation that early-years practitioners are able to have with parents and will focus on how children are developing.
The hon. Member for Nottingham North said that he hopes the Government will take seriously the need for better assessments. Obviously, we need to balance different factors. We need to have more information for the right people to ensure that we can intervene, but the assessment should not be so burdensome that it takes away from practitioners’ being able to spend quality time with children and helping them with their development. That is the balance that we are seeking to strike as we think through our recommendations in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s report as well as the report of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), Dame Clare Tickell’s report and the Munro review.
Dame Clare recommends a written summary assessment when a child is aged between two and three, building on the current requirements of the EYFS. That chimes with much of what the hon. Gentleman was recommending. She suggests introducing that in a phased way, reflecting the development of policy over the next few years as we roll out the extra health visitors and ensure that the healthy child programme is available to all children. So in the first phase the summary assessment should inform the health visitor review wherever possible, but be done by early-years practitioners and be a key factor for helping parents to understand their child’s development. In the second phase, Dame Clare suggests that there should be a single integrated joint review by health and early-years practitioners at around two, once the healthy child programme is fully implemented.
I am going to run out of time, because I have only one minute before I need to sit down, but I will say to the hon. Gentleman that the Government absolutely understand the need to focus on early years and the importance of early years in getting this right. It is the reason we have extended free early-years entitlement to disadvantaged two-year-olds, subject to Parliament’s passing the Education Bill, which is being debated in the other place at the moment. It is the reason why we are focusing on making sure that Sure Start children’s centres do more on evidence and trialling payment by results to address the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. We will respond fully to his report as soon as the Government receive it. I must now sit down, but I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to debate this issue today.
Wicksteed Park
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard, and I wish you well in your career on the Panel of Chairs. I am delighted that the Minister with responsibility for culture, heritage and tourism is here to listen to the debate, and I thank Mr Speaker for allowing me to hold it. The debate is fundamentally about celebrating the 90th anniversary of Wicksteed Park in Kettering.
Wicksteed Park is a combination of a country park and a leisure park in the town of Kettering in Northamptonshire, and it is right in the middle of my constituency. I often speak of the Kettering constituency as being middle England at its very best, and Wicksteed Park represents the very best of Kettering. It is a park of some 147 acres, with about 40 different rides, activities and amusements, and everyone in the town, most people in Northamptonshire, and hundreds of thousands of people from the east midlands and further afield will at some point have spent time enjoying themselves there. It is a huge honour for the town and for the borough of Kettering that the park is now celebrating its 90th anniversary.
Wicksteed Park is named after its founder, Charles Wicksteed, who was an engineer by trade. He was born in 1847 and was a man of great energy and vision who, in his business career, invented lots of different machines. He was primarily involved with steam ploughs but also got involved with making gearboxes for early motor vehicles, and later in his life he invented a hydraulic hacksaw that would cut through steel at an extreme speed—perhaps his biggest success. He came to Kettering, married a Kettering girl and settled down, and in 1913 he started to purchase land where Wicksteed Park now is, to develop an amenity space for local people.
Kettering in those days was very much a boot and shoe town. There were lots of factories, and many of the workers helped to make the boots and shoes in the little outhouses of their own terraced properties. There was no leisure space, in the modern sense of the word, even though there was lots of farmland because Northamptonshire is a very agricultural area, so Charles Wicksteed had a vision to create an amenity space, a park that could be enjoyed by Kettering residents and their families. He purchased the 147-plus acres along the River Ise, and with the first world war starting in 1914 and with the land fit for heroes when the war was finished, his vision came into its own. He invested a great deal of his own money in the park, creating a man-made lake some 30 acres in size—Wicksteed Park lake—and the park was first opened to the public in any proper sense 90 years ago in 1921.
Wicksteed Park was the first theme park—in the modern sense of the word—in the country. It has other unique features, including the largest free children’s playground in the United Kingdom. In the water chute ride, opened in 1926, it has the oldest working ride in any amusement park in the country, and the railway that goes round the park attracts some 200,000 passengers every year. It is the biggest commercial narrow-gauge railway in the country. My point is that in the middle of Kettering we have a unique asset, of national importance.
Wicksteed Park is not Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Drayton Manor or Chessington World of Adventures. It could go down that route, becoming all-singing, all-dancing, commercial and multimedia, and attracting all sorts of leisure interests. There is nothing wrong with that, but Wicksteed Park has chosen another route because of its special status. Charles Wicksteed had the vision to establish not only Wicksteed Park, but also the Wicksteed Village Trust, to carry on the development of the park and his work after his death. Sadly, he passed away in 1931, but the trust continues to this day and its chairman is Oliver Wicksteed, the great-grandson of Charles. I pay tribute not only to Oliver but to all the other trustees on the trust board for their work, which is volunteering in action.
Kettering people are proud that the park was effectively left to the people of Kettering and the wider area to enjoy. They are proud of the fact that the park is run by a trust. It is different from a commercial outfit or a local authority-owned park. As such, Wicksteed Park is the ideal recipient of the funding that is now available through the Heritage Lottery Fund. Heritage lottery funding is there to do what it says on the tin: to preserve and enhance the heritage of our great nation. We have in Wicksteed Park an important part of our nation’s heritage—a visionary combination of a country park and a leisure park, which exists not to be all-commercial, but to provide recreational and amenity facilities for local families, and in particular children. What Wicksteed Park needs is investment to preserve the heritage of the park, and to encourage its educational use. There is a huge opportunity for the generosity of the Heritage Lottery Fund to make a difference to a little bit of Britain’s heritage, in the middle of the best of England.
The Wicksteed Trust was established by Charles Wicksteed in 1916 to carry on his work after his death. The objectives of the trust are to provide
“free access to open spaces conducive to health”.
The open spaces in the park of 147 acres comprise gardens, an arboretum and the general park land. The operation of the leisure park is carried out through a wholly owned subsidiary company called Wicksteed Park Ltd. The leisure park is situated within the wider Wicksteed Park. As a charity, the trust cannot attract commercial investment or operate on fully commercial lines. It is not local authority-owned or funded, despite the fact that Wicksteed Park provides the main recreational park facility in the borough of Kettering. Understandably—this is not a criticism—the park does not benefit from resources from the local authority, of which I am honoured to be a member, or direct Government funding. As such, I believe that it ticks all the boxes in terms of where Heritage Lottery Fund money should go.
The park has applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a “Parks for People” grant of approximately £2 million, which will help to restore the park, and present its social history in an interesting, educational and imaginative way. I am delighted that it has got through the first phase of that process, and now proceeds to the second phase. There is a huge local community buy-in to the success of Wicksteed Park, and if a local asset ever enjoyed huge local community support, it is surely Wicksteed Park.
Wicksteed Park is not reliant on funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, but it would make a huge difference. It would make a huge difference to the increasing range of educational activities undertaken in the park. It has all sorts of assets that the community can enjoy. Not only are there acres and acres of open spaces, mainly grassland, there are nature trails, a fishing lake, the arboretum that I mentioned, and platforms on which productions may be staged, songs may be sung and plays may be delivered. There are many buildings that can take a large number of people. The main pavilion is big enough for more than 1,000 people, and I believe that it is the largest social event space in Northamptonshire.
The park wants to maximise its income through innovative activities such as Asian weddings. It is one of the main venues in the country for such weddings, and attracts newly married couples from throughout the east midlands and further afield. All sorts of attractions can be held in the park and its facilities. As for educational activities, it recently held a “one world, one people” event for Northamptonshire schools, when local schoolchildren came along to celebrate the different attributes of nations around the world. They became Chinese dragons, played the didgeridoo, did maypole dancing, and of course had a big, grand parade at the end.
There are Victorian theme days when schoolchildren are encourage to undertake a project, and to imagine that they are going to the seaside as a Victorian schoolchild, making use of the train in the park, and dressing up in Victorian costumes. That gives children a really wonderful experience outside the classroom. “Stories in the park” is an event when stories are read to children under the trees outside, in a different setting from their normal school classroom. Perhaps the highlight is the now annual Bastille day, when children come along to learn about the importance of learning modern languages. All the signs in the park are changed from English to French, and everyone is encouraged to speak a foreign language. That gives pupils, just for a day, a sense of what it might be like to live in another country, and to communicate in another language.
The park’s facilities offer local schoolchildren huge opportunities to enhance their classroom experience. That is why Wicksteed Park is unique. From Charles Wicksteed’s original vision of providing people with a place of recreation that gives them an objective in life and their children a safe and happy playground, we now have an increasingly modern facility that is adaptable and flexible to the needs of modern families and their children.
Wicksteed is also important to the local economy because it employs between 100 and 350 people, depending on the time of year—there is obviously a lot of seasonal employment there. Perhaps the best-known employee is Wicky Bear, the park’s mascot, who, along with his friends Charlie the dog, Pong the panda and Kerry the koala, regularly entertains local young children.
Lots of events are held at Wicksteed every year. For example, there is the crazy hats fundraising walk, which raises tens of thousands of pounds for local cancer charities. In this 90th anniversary year, the park is holding a number of themed events, such as “Wicksteed at War”, to commemorate the contribution of Kettering and Northamptonshire in the second world war; “The Way We Were”, which goes back to the 1950s and 1960s; and a 1970s and 1980s weekend. In September, the Abba tribute group Björn Again will perform an outdoor concert. Lots of imaginative things are going on in the park to get people to come along.
With 1 million visitors every year, we can see how important Wicksteed Park is not only to Kettering, but to areas further afield. Kettering is very proud of Wicksteed Park. It is important not only to Kettering, but to Northamptonshire and the wider east midlands that the park continues to be a success. With heritage lottery funding, we could make a real difference to the park as it approaches its centenary in 10 years’ time.
Wicksteed Park is a facility of national importance, and it would be a huge shame were it unable to build on the good work it has done. Its fundamental problem is that it is asset-rich and cash-poor. Charles Wicksteed had a vision of a superb amenity for local people, but the park does not have the endowment to keep it going every year. With heritage lottery funding, the imagination of Oliver Wicksteed and the rest of the trust board, the large number of visitors who come along every year and the good will and support of people in Kettering and further afield, Wicksteed Park has every chance of becoming even stronger as it approaches its centenary in 10 years’ time. I very much hope that the Minister shares my ideals.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
I call Mr Penrose. I am glad to see you have not brought your didgeridoo.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
No didgeridoos, but I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Mr Havard. I understand this is one of your first outings, so I am delighted to be here when you break your duck, as it were.
I must confess that I almost did a double take when I walked in, because I am slightly more used to seeing my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) sitting in the Chair, but this time he is representing his constituents in his usual enthusiastic fashion. I congratulate him on securing the debate, because it is all too infrequent that we have a chance in this place to celebrate a notable local success, and my hon. Friend has demonstrated the value and importance of doing that. His enthusiasm, and that of the people of Kettering, has come across very strongly in his remarks, and I thank him for that.
I am dredging the mists of a rather distant memory, but I have a feeling that I may have been to Wicksteed Park. I fear it was quite a few years ago, when I was a child, but I am pretty sure I was taken there by my godmother or a family relative. I suspect that, just as one knows one is getting old when policemen start looking younger, one must be getting old when a childhood play area one has been to starts to qualify for heritage lottery funding—that must be the definition of getting ancient.
I was fascinated by the news that Wicksteed Park was one of the first examples, if not the first example, of what I will call a theme park, although it is not only a theme park, but a leisure park and a country park, as my hon. Friend has rightly said. However, it is one of the first examples, if not the first example, of such a facility being created anywhere in the world. It struck me that where Kettering leads, Disney follows, and there is much to be admired in that.
It is fascinating to see the way the park concept has developed, because, as my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out, it is a mixture of a leisure park and a country park. Obviously different, newer examples of the form have gone down different routes, but Wicksteed Park is one of the originals of the form. The park shows the social background in which it was created at the time and, based on what he has been saying, it has managed to remain true to those roots and to its function of serving the local community—a great many ordinary municipal parks have also tried to do that. The park is a fascinating blend and mix of that.
It is great to hear that the affection Kettering holds for this local amenity is clearly so strong. The park is a good example of the kind of big society volunteer support that a community is willing to provide and produce when it takes a facility such as this to its heart. People are willing to volunteer their time and sometimes their money in order to ensure that somewhere they themselves have played as a child is available for their children and grandchildren as well, which is clearly what is going on here.
My researchers have been hard at work and got very enthusiastic because they found what they told me is some fantastic old footage on the BBC website of people having a great day in the park many years ago. That was part of a report recently done by the BBC to highlight the anniversary, and it includes some comments from those who have had very happy memories of their past visits. The briefing note from my researchers says, “Catch it if you can, before it disappears.” Clearly the footage is worth seeing, and I commend it to everyone. For anyone who has not been to Wicksteed Park—I think that I did many years ago—that footage captures not only its historical essence, but its modern context.
More broadly, the park is an example of the kind of heritage asset—I am using a small “h” at the moment because I do not want to prejudice what I will say in a minute about the Heritage Lottery Fund—that is unusual in its own right. There are lots of different examples of other kinds of heritage asset in pretty much every hon. Members’ constituency dotted right around the country. They are vital for telling the local story of an area and illustrating a facet of the history of a local community. Some of those heritage assets are important from the context of the grand sweep of our national history. There are many examples of large ruined castles, stately homes or whatever. Many heritage assets are not so grand, but they are, none the less, tremendously important from the point of view of the local story. The park is clearly a heritage asset that is tremendously important from Kettering’s point of view, but there are many others around the country.
I urge hon. Members and, indeed, anyone else reading the debate to go to the English Heritage website and look at the new list for England, which is effectively a database of all the national listed buildings, including parks, gardens, battlefields, protected shipwrecks and scheduled monuments. All those things have been gathered together in an easily accessible database, which was launched last month or the month before, so it is still very new. That database gives amazing background, depth of vision and detail about the reasons why, in this case, Wicksteed Park—it might be any other asset in any other constituency—is tremendously important to that community. The database gives a wealth of interesting detail and, for anyone who is interested in heritage, local history, archaeology or any of the related fields, it is already proving to be an invaluable local resource. I hope that that database will serve to burnish some of the local pride that my hon. Friend has made clear is felt in Kettering.
I also want to make a few remarks on my hon. Friend’s comments about the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is important for Wicksteed Park. My hon. Friend has been in this place for as long as me, so I am sure that he appreciates why I must be careful in what I say. Ministers are quite rightly not allowed to intervene on or interfere with individual funding decisions by the lottery distributors. It would be a slippery slope, if any Minister—past, present or future—tried to move down that road, creating an open door for political favouritism and accusations of bias. Rightly, the lottery distributors, ever since they were set up, have jealously and carefully guarded their independence from anyone in Parliament telling them what to do.
The application for Wicksteed Park will therefore have to travel under its own steam and survive on its own merits. However, I am sure my hon. Friend has done its chances no harm by securing the debate and by making such a passionate and well informed case for its importance. The application going, as I think he has mentioned, from phase 1 to phase 2 of the “Parks for People” programme might therefore be worthy of serious consideration. I will have to leave the matter at that point, or I would be crossing the line that I have just drawn for myself and others, but I am sure he has done Wicksteed Park a huge favour by putting the case so clearly.
As I walked into the Chamber, my hon. Friend was kind enough to give me a map of Wicksteed Park, which includes the various facilities that he has described— boating lakes, aviaries and all the other bits and pieces. Featured in the bottom left-hand corner is a rather sweet picture of Wicky Bear, whom he has described as the park mascot. A picture of Wicky Bear is also hidden somewhere on the map, but I must confess that for the life of me I could not find it during his speech. I am sure that, given a lot more time and a microscope, I could, but perhaps he will point it out to me afterwards. The map demonstrates the depth and variety of facilities available in Wicksteed Park, which the local community clearly values hugely.
I will not go on too long, but I am entirely sympathetic to my hon. Friend’s comments. It is wonderful that there are such facilities around the country, in all their variety, and we must remember that the rather dry phrase, “heritage assets”, describes not only ruined or even roofed buildings, such as gorgeous palaces of one kind or another, but buildings in all shapes and sizes, and Wicksteed Park is one of the more fun shapes and sizes. I am delighted that Wicksteed Park exists, that it is being so carefully looked after and that it is so greatly valued and loved by its local community. I wish it every great success not only for the next 10 years, as it goes from its 90th anniversary to its centenary, but with any luck for the 90 years after that and beyond. Given how it is regarded by local people, it is set well to survive, so with any luck the hon. Gentleman’s successor but two—which will not be for many years, I know—will be able to stand up in this place and to lay out for the then House of Commons just how successful Wicksteed Park has been in the intervening 90 years of its career.
With that, I do not propose to delay anyone any longer. I am delighted to be here and to respond to the debate. I am sure that I speak for everyone when I wish Wicksteed Park an excellent and happy 90th birthday, and I look forward to many more.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Consumer Institutions
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
I am today publishing a consultation on proposals to reform the landscape of consumer institutions. A copy of the consultation document has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will be available on the BIS website.
The Government’s objective in pursuing and implementing consumer policy is to empower consumers to make wise decisions when purchasing goods and services. Empowered consumers embrace new products and services and demand choice, thereby stimulating competition and innovation from traders as well as high standards of consumer care. It is the investment and quest for efficiency which drives innovation and growth in the economy. Consumer empowerment is therefore a vital part of the Government’s growth agenda as well as a key element of its broader citizen empowerment mission. (The Department has also led the development of a cross-Government empowerment strategy which was published in April as part of the growth review.)
In this context, the consultation document sets out proposed reforms to the UK’s consumer institutions (the scope of the consultation excludes those institutions focused solely on financial services or on public services such as health). These reforms are designed to strengthen the front line for consumer empowerment and protection while cutting down the complexity, confusion and duplication that accompanies the proliferation of bodies.
The proposals set out in the consultation document have been guided by the following objectives:
Reducing complexity of the consumer landscape—At present, there is a plethora of publicly funded bodies involved in consumer advice, representation and enforcement. Not all of these enjoy wide public recognition, and it may not be obvious to consumers where they should go to get the advice or redress they need. The Government therefore want to simplify and streamline the institutional landscape.
Strengthening the effectiveness of consumer enforcement—Effective enforcement of the law is essential to protect consumers from rogue traders and unfair market practices. A recent National Audit Office (NAO) report has identified the costs to consumers, and hence the economy, of sharp practices as £6.6 billion. At present, responsibilities for enforcement are split between local trading standards and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Trading standards face particular challenges as a result of reduced local authority spending, while the NAO has pointed to problems of overlap and lack of co-ordination between trading standards and the OFT. The Government therefore want to clarify responsibilities and ensure better use of limited enforcement resources through more effective leadership and integration of effort around the country.
More cost-efficient delivery, closer to the consumer front line—Ensuring the cost-effectiveness of consumer advice, representation and enforcement is increasingly critical as public resources become more constrained. Streamlining bodies and maximising the benefits to be achieved by linking national activity to local intelligence and front-line delivery of advice and enforcement is one of the ways in which this can be achieved.
In order to achieve these objectives I am proposing that responsibility in future for each aspect of consumer advice, representation and enforcement should be clear and should rest principally with one of three key institutions:
The Citizens Advice Service comprising Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland. The Government propose that almost all central Government funding for consumer information, advice, advocacy and education (except on consumer finance) will transfer to Citizens Advice which enjoys high recognition and trust among the public as well as a track record of effective advocacy. The Citizens Advice Service would become the key consumer advocate for the Government.
Trading Standards comprising Local Authority Trading Standards Services (LATSS), the Trading Standards Institute (TSI), the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers (ACTSO) and the support infrastructure offered by the Local Government Group. The Government propose to deploy national Government funding to facilitate a more integrated approach to national and cross-boundary threats. This activity would be more effectively co-ordinated at national level by chief trading standards officers to ensure that enforcement gaps do not arise and that activity overall is better targeted.
The proposed new Competition and Markets Authority to be created by merging the OFT and the Competition Commission, will play a key role in ensuring that markets are operating fairly and in the interests of consumers. It will have powers to investigate markets in which there are or may be structural problems and to use competition or consumer law to resolve these.
The first two of these groups have high public awareness and trust levels. Their activities reach very large numbers of consumers in practical ways.
The consultation proposes: transferring the functions of consumer focus to the Citizens Advice Service; transferring most of the consumer enforcement functions from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to Local Authority Trading Standards Services; and transferring the OFT’s information, education and advice functions (including the consumer direct helpline) to the Citizens Advice Service.
As a consequence of transferring its functions, consumer focus would be abolished; it is listed in schedule 1 of the Public Bodies Bill currently in the House of Commons.
Consumer policy is reserved but a number of the proposals in relation to trading standards may be applied differently in Scotland as responsibility for local authorities is devolved. BIS has produced this consultation following discussions with devolved Administrations and taking account of their views.
City Status Competition (Dumfries)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
In the written ministerial statement I made on 16 June 2011, Official Report, column 74WS, Dumfries was listed as having entered the competition for city status. The documentation sent to the Cabinet Office clearly stated that the bid had been submitted by Dumfries and Galloway council, a statement that was accepted in good faith. It has since become apparent that the bid was not submitted by the council. As all applications for the civic honours competition must be submitted by the relevant local authority, the application will not be considered further as part of the competition.
Fukushima (Interim Report)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)
I have today responded to the three recommendations for Government contained in the chief nuclear inspector’s interim report on events at the Fukushima nuclear site in Japan.
I welcome the findings and recommendations in Dr Weightman’s interim report and commend him and his team for the important work that they have undertaken so far in pulling together information and lessons from the events in Japan.
In the response the Government undertake to:
continue to work with international partners in the G8, G20 and IAEA to ensure that information is shared in a timely and open manner in the event of any future global nuclear event;
carry out a review of the Japanese response to the events at Fukushima and identify any lessons for UK emergency planning by the end of 2011; and
review the UK’s own national nuclear emergency arrangements to ensure that they are as robust as possible and can deal effectively with prolonged nuclear incidents, and update guidance before the chief nuclear inspector’s final report.
Copies of the Government’s response have been placed in Libraries of both Houses.
Fruit and Vegetable Exceptional Support Scheme
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
On 10 June 2011, Official Report, column 49WS, I informed the House about the disruption of the EU fruit and vegetables market and the impact on growers of the consequences of the E. coli outbreak in Germany, including a fall in consumer confidence and the import ban on EU produce imposed by countries including Russia. I told the House of discussions in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 7 June of exceptional measures to address the situation and support growers, and of proposals put to the EU Fruit and Vegetables Management Committee.
On 14 June, the Management Committee agreed a European Commission proposal which came into effect on 18 June and I wish to inform the House that we have launched a scheme to implement the resultant measure in the United Kingdom. The scheme is being run by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and it is open for applications now. The EC measure is time limited and it is important that those affected by it are aware that the scheme will be in place only until Thursday 30 June.
The main features of the scheme are as follows:
It provides aid for the withdrawal of produce from the market, non-harvesting and green harvesting (meaning premature harvesting for disposal) of specified produce, the markets for which have been most affected.
It is open both to producer organisations (POs) and to producers who are not members of a PO, who may make arrangements with a PO or failing that, apply direct to the RPA and be registered with them.
The specified crops are tomatoes, lettuce and endives, cucumbers, sweet peppers and courgettes.
In the UK, it applies to withdrawal and harvesting operations notified to the RPA between the 18 June and 30 June 2011.
Maximum rates of aid for each crop are set out in the regulation, representing about half the normal market price for such produce in June.
The producer notifies the RPA in advance of the intention to withdraw produce so that an inspection can take place to verify quantities, compliance with standards etc., and agree an approved disposal route.
Applications for aid must be lodged with the RPA by 6pm on 30 June.
RPA will notify the EC on 18 July of the quantities of produce withdrawn in the UK.
The EC will calculate the total of applications across the EU. If the aid would exceed the scheme budget of €210million, it will set a reduction coefficient to be applied to all claims.
Payments to producers must be made by 15 October 2011, but the first payments are planned to commence late in July.
Full guidance is available on the RPA website, together with the notification form for growers to use as part of the procedures.
The scheme differs from the proposal described in my earlier statement in respect of the inclusion of endives and support for green harvesting. Beyond those details, however, it is important to note that that the EU measure we have agreed is no longer based on a possible first-come, first-served basis, but provides for claims for aid to be treated equitably across all member states. It is not possible at this stage to judge whether the scheme will reach the budget ceiling but if it did, any reduction would be applied at the same rate to all claims. Moreover, as I set out above, the scheme we are implementing will also be open to all growers whether or not they are a member of a producer organisation.
I welcome the measure as a contribution to restoring the normal operation of the market and bringing to an end a situation in which UK growers, at the peak of their season for these crops, are facing huge commercial challenges and financial threats not related to the competitiveness or quality of their produce but as a consequence of a crisis for which they cannot be blamed. The E. coli outbreak hit consumer confidence and reduced demand and led to the imposition of trade barriers by Russia and other countries, with the damaging consequences for our wholesale markets in particular which I have described to the House. It is unfortunate that despite accurate reports that an agreement had been made to lift the Russian ban, this was subject to a certification process, which has yet to be agreed, so de facto the ban remains in place.
While the newly launched scheme does not address all the aspirations that have been raised, in particular, for full retrospective compensation for losses nor measures for the wider supply chain, I believe that it does represent practical and substantial help for growers and a viable route to reduce and undo the disruption to markets, by, for example, reducing the flow into our wholesale markets of surplus produce from other member states, as well as the immediate impacts here.
The contribution by EU taxpayers via funds which were already part of the European agriculture guarantee fund (common agricultural policy) existing budget, will thus help to restore the functioning of the market.
My understanding is that UK consumers have continued to support UK produce and I hope they will continue to do so. We will continue to work with growers and their organisations to deliver the benefits intended by this scheme and to move the industry on to a more stable situation in which quality and competitiveness will deliver the success it deserves.
Private Military and Security Companies
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)
On 9 March 2011, I announced that, following a bidding process, the Government would be entering further discussions with Aerospace Defence and Security (ADS) to determine the next steps for ensuring the implementation of a robust code and monitoring regime for UK-based private military and security companies (PMSCs).
I can now confirm that following further consultations, ADS have been appointed the Government’s partner in developing and implementing UK national standards for PMSCs. ADS have established a special interest group, the security in complex environments group (SCEG), which will support the Government in the transparent regulation of companies which operate in this sector. Membership of the SCEG is open to all UK-based PMSCs who have signed the international code of conduct on regulation for private security providers.
We are in the forefront of countries working to establish national standards derived from the international code which was signed in Geneva in November 2010. One hundred and twenty-five PMSCs, of which 45 are UK-based, have now signed up to the international code and more are in the process of joining. At an international level, the UK, along with the Swiss, US and Australian Governments is now working with NGO and industry partners according to a published work plan to establish a mechanism to monitor compliance with the code. Each stage of the work plan is open to public consultation and can be accessed through the international code of conduct’s website: www.icoc-psp.org. There will be no duplication between UK national and international standards.
The UK Government will use their leverage as a key buyer of PMSC services to promote compliance with the international code and to encourage other PMSC clients to do likewise.
Winterbourne View Private Hospital
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)
I promised to update the House about ongoing activity in relation to Winterbourne View private hospital.
The House will wish to be aware that steps to assure the welfare of patients at Winterbourne View are progressing well. Commissioners are arranging alternative placements. Most patients have now been moved and the remainder will leave Winterboume View shortly following a full review of each individual’s needs. There will be no new admissions to this hospital and enforcement action is being taken by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The multi-agency safeguarding process led by South Gloucestershire council is well under way. There is a range of advocacy arrangements in place and Castlebeck Care report that it has commissioned advocacy services for all patients in its care. Support is being considered on an individual basis at Winterbourne View through a multi-agency care planning process and independent advocacy.
The House will know that Castlebeck Care, South Gloucestershire council, the NHS and CQC have initiated investigations into their procedures and actions. The Department of Health will review the results of these and I will report back to Parliament at the completion of that review.
CQC expects to complete its investigation of all Castlebeck Care’s registered services by 1 July. Additionally CQC has started an internal audit and a human resources investigation, which will be finalised shortly. CQC will inspect rigorously a sample of hospitals for people with learning disabilities.
Following these inspections CQC is also exploring how it might do a wider review of the different models of learning disability provision. CQC is being advised on this work by a stakeholder group and will share the proposals on its planning and methodology with the Department of Health and Ministers as soon as possible.
CQC will also conduct an organisational review of actions which will look at the implications of events at Winterbourne View for the way in which CQC operates.
The South West strategic health authority is consulting the Department of Health on proposed terms of reference for its work to co-ordinate serious untoward incident investigations for all the English patients in Winterbourne View. This will investigate the NHS processes that operated in relation to the organisation of the care of patients treated in Winterbourne View.
Castlebeck Care has commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to undertake an independent review of all its provision, and Debra Moore Associates to undertake a clinical review of its services.
South Gloucestershire council has appointed Margaret Flynn, chair of the Lancashire safeguarding adults board, to chair the serious case review, which will take evidence from all the agencies involved. The indicative time scale is four to six months.
I have today placed in the Library the terms of reference for the Department of Health’s review. The review will receive independent advice from a range of experts in the field.
EHRC (Annual Report and Accounts)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I am today laying before Parliament the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s 2009-10 annual report and accounts. Copies will be available in the Vote Office.
Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Today I will lay before Parliament the Government’s responses to two important consultations on the future of the justice system—“Breaking the cycle: effective punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders”, which was launched on 7 December 2010 and “Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales”, which was launched on 15 November 2010. I am also introducing the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to give effect to those measures requiring primary legislation. I will be making an oral statement this afternoon.
Protecting the public from crime, ensuring those who break the law face the consequences, and providing swift, cost-effective and fair access to justice are fundamental responsibilities of the state towards its citizens. Yet the last 13 years of Government have left a justice system in urgent need of reform.
In the area of criminal justice, a tidal wave of criminal justice legislation has left the system in crisis: neither punishing offenders properly for the crimes they have committed, nor giving adequate protection to the law-abiding public.
In civil justice, we have a system burdened by spiralling costs, slow court procedures, unnecessary litigation, and too limited an awareness of alternatives to court—all of which add to a fear of a compensation culture. In particular, our current system of legal aid too often encourages people to bring their problems before the courts, even when they are not the right place to provide good solutions and sometimes for litigation that people paying out of their own pocket would not have pursued.
The package of reforms I am bringing forward today aims to reform radically our justice system to focus it on fundamental priorities.
Punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders
Within a year of leaving jail, half of prisoners (49%) are reconvicted of further crimes, creating new victims and harm to society. While they are behind bars prisoners face hours of enforced idleness, free from the discipline of hard work. Underpinning these problems are widespread drug and alcohol abuse, and poor mental health. The previous Government’s responses have left a dysfunctional cycle of persistent crime, inadequate punishment and failed rehabilitation. Over 20 Criminal Justice Bills in 13 years created an unworkable sentencing framework and a statute book littered with over-prescriptive law that undermined the expertise of professionals.
The consultation set out wide-ranging plans to deliver tougher punishment, to introduce a rehabilitation revolution to prevent offenders committing further crime, and to ensure that the sentencing framework is sensible and workable. The Government have listened carefully to the points raised in more than 1,200 submissions and are seeking to take forward measures under five themes, including:
Punishment
Creating a working week in prison of up to 40 hours instead of enforced idleness.
Introducing tougher, properly enforced community punishments. This includes: allowing courts to impose longer curfews; enabling courts to ban overseas travel; and properly enforced financial penalties, including seizing assets from those who do not pay.
Introducing a mandatory custodial sentence for knife possession in aggravated circumstances.
Payback
Creating more ways in which offenders make reparation. We will begin by implementing the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996 and legislating to extend our powers to deduct and use money earned by prisoners to support victims; and
Overhauling unpaid work obligations so that offenders work longer hours, carrying out purposeful, unpaid activity that benefits their local community.
Progression
Getting more offenders off drugs and alcohol for good, by piloting an initial five drug recovery wings and by cracking down on the use of illicit drugs in prison. The MoJ will also work closely with the Department of Health to tackle inappropriate use of prison to house low-risk individuals with mental illness.
Extending the use of payment by results to cut reoffending, with services delivered by the voluntary, independent and public sectors. Already, at HMP Doncaster the provider, Serco, will pay back 10% of the contract price unless they reduce reoffending by 5% points from current levels. In July six new pilots will begin in areas including Greater Manchester and London.
Transparency
Opening up justice so that the public has a clearer view of how the system is working for them.
Creating a more proportionate justice system, focusing resources where they will be most effective, including creating a clear national framework for the use of out of court disposals, reforming the use of remand, and reducing the number of foreign national offenders. We will also conduct an urgent review of the indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection with a view to replacing the current IPP regime with a much tougher determinate sentencing framework.
Clarifying the law on self-defence.
Alongside these measures, there should be no misunderstanding about things the Government have never proposed and are not doing. Contrary to some reports, the Government have never proposed targets to reduce the number of prison places, abolish short sentences or the mandatory life sentence.
What all the proposals we are taking forward amount to is a clear break by the Government from the mistakes of the past. By implementing this bold but realistic package of reforms, we are seeking to deliver a system which effectively punishes the guilty while substantially improving the national scandal of our reoffending rates. They should also reduce costs and improve delivery. This is a new, more intelligent course for the criminal justice system and one that we anticipate will make a tangible difference to addressing crime and helping victims in England and Wales.
Reform of legal aid
We are also committed to overhauling our system of civil justice, including through an independent review of family justice, wider access to alternatives to court, measures to streamline civil justice, a criminal justice system efficiency programme and improvements to the “no win, no fee” conditional fee regime. The overall aim is a fundamental shift in the justice system towards greater effectiveness and efficiency—and a move away from the sorry situation in which the average citizen dreads recourse to the law.
Legal aid reform is a crucial element of this wide-ranging agenda. The current system of support too often encourages people to bring their problems before courts. In addition, legal aid has expanded into areas far beyond its original scope. It is now among the most expensive systems in the world, second only to Northern Ireland, costing over £2 billion a year, or £39 per head of population compared with £8 per head in New Zealand, a country with a broadly similar legal system, and as low as £5 per head in some EU countries. In the current fiscal climate, this is simply unsustainable.
The proposals in the consultation set out to address these problems by: ensuring access to public funding in those cases that most require it; encouraging early resolution of disputes instead of unnecessary conflict; and improving affordability and value for money for the taxpayer.
Our plans attracted more than 5,000 submissions. Following careful consideration, today’s response makes some significant changes in matters of detail, but seeks to take forward the substance of most of the reforms published in November, including:
Retaining routine availability of legal aid for cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm, or immediate loss of their home, or where their children may be taken into care. Following consultation, we are strengthening specific provisions to ensure availability in private family cases for victims of domestic violence, for children at risk of abuse or abduction and for special educational needs cases.
Pressing ahead with introducing a more targeted civil and family scheme. Prioritising critical areas means making clear choices about availability elsewhere. Legal aid will no longer routinely be available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits.
People will instead use alternative, less adversarial means of resolving their problems (notably, in divorce cases, where the taxpayer will still fund mediation). Fundamental rights to access to justice will be protected through retention of certain areas of law within scope and a new exceptional funding scheme for excluded cases.
In sum, the Government intend to implement the substance of the legal aid reform package, refined in specific places. This constitutes an extensive set of very bold reforms, the overall effect of which should be to achieve significant savings while protecting fundamental rights of access to justice.