House of Commons

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

Thursday 15 September 2011

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

1. What assessment his Department has made of the ability of British-based train manufacturers to win contracts for rolling stock.

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

2. What assessment his Department has made of the ability of British-based train manufacturers to win contracts for rolling stock.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Since privatisation, Bombardier, as the only current UK-based train manufacturer, has supplied the majority of new trains across the UK main line rail and London underground networks, with a combined total of over 4,500 new carriages ordered since 1996. Going forward, there are a number of contracts that the Department would expect Bombardier to bid for, including the Crossrail project for the supply of around 600 carriages, and it is already a pre-qualified bidder. The tender for this contract is due to be issued in 2012. There are also potential future orders for the London Underground deep tube lines.

[Steve Rotheram]

I listened to what the Secretary of State had to say and, quite frankly, I could have predicted his response. Why is he not prepared to do anything to reconsider his disastrous decision to award the Thameslink contract to a company that intends to build these trains in Germany?

[Mr Hammond]

I sometimes get the feeling that I am talking to a brick wall on this subject. I have said it before and I will say it again: the criteria by which the bids were to be evaluated were laid down by the Government in 2008. The criteria have to be followed, although they might not be the criteria the hon. Gentleman would like. We have made a commitment to look at the way we specify the criteria in future public procurements, but on this project it is Labour’s mess and we are landed with it.

Tom Blenkinsop: I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman told the Transport Select Committee that there was an option to review or restart the Thameslink procurement process at any time during the year before naming the preferred bidder. Will he now admit that that was a terrible mistake, which has put at risk Bombardier, Britain’s last train manufacturer, and thousands of British jobs down the supply chain?

[Mr Hammond]

The only other option available to the Secretary of State—I have to repeat myself again—would have been to cancel the Thameslink procurement completely and abandon the project. That power exists, but there is no power to alter the terms under which the competition is conducted once it has begun. That was made very clear by the representative from the European Commission and by the academic lawyers who gave evidence to the Select Committee.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that he will look to include socio-economic conditions in future procurement contracts and to give them sufficient weighting that the full economic impact of the contract can be taken into account?

[Mr Hammond]

The Prime Minister has agreed that the growth review should include a review of public procurement in the UK, and that work is now under way. We will look at what happens in other EU countries that are similarly constrained by EU procurement rules, and we will look at best procurement practice in large commercial companies to maintain long-term best value. We will certainly look at the opportunities provided by, and the appropriateness of, including socio-economic criteria, where appropriate.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to join me in congratulating Invensys, based in my Chippenham constituency, on winning a multi-million pound signalling contract on the Thameslink project. A world leader in train-signalling technology, Invensys has in the past experienced some difficulty in winning domestic contracts. What steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking to ensure that recognition of UK engineering talent is more commonly the rule rather than the exception?

[Mr Hammond]

The general rule is that we would expect to evaluate bids for contracts on their merits. Companies such as Invensys and, indeed, Bombardier have won many contracts on their merits, but we will look at whether we should, in appropriate cases, include wider socio-economic issues and factors, which some other EU member states routinely do in their public procurement processes.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister made a speech about the importance of investment in infrastructure. Will the Secretary of State provide some examples of how that might lead to more opportunities for UK-based train manufacturing in the short term?

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. We are sensitive to the pressures that the UK train manufacturing supply chain—not just Bombardier but the component suppliers—are under, and the Department is urgently looking at some other projects that might be advanced. In particular, the industry proposed a project to modify the cross-country Voyager train fleet so that it could run under electric power, which would provide—if Bombardier were to win the contract—a substantial piece of work for the crucial design department in Derby. That is at the heart of securing the future of that business.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister told the right hon. Gentleman to speed up delivery of Crossrail. Will he update the House on the new completion date for the project, which will, I presume, now be earlier than December 2019, the date to which he pushed it back after the election?

[Mr Hammond]

The Deputy Prime Minister did not tell me to speed up the Crossrail project. The thrust of his speech was the need to ensure that committed capital funds are spent on their intended profile. The requirements to keep demand in the economy mean that we must get those vital capital programmes spent on programme, and the Crossrail project is spending on programme and will deliver the completion of the project from 2016, with full running from 2019.

[Maria Eagle]

So the Deputy Prime Minister was wrong—there is no plan to bring forward projects and no plan for growth. May I ask the Transport Secretary about the procurement of trains for Crossrail? After his disastrous decision to award the Thameslink train contract to a company that will build the trains in Germany, putting at risk Britain’s train manufacturing industry, he has said that he is reviewing the Crossrail contract. As he has just confirmed that Crossrail is still being delivered on his slower timetable, rather than reviewing it for six months, why does he not scrap the process and start again, and this time ensure that Bombardier has a fair chance to secure the work. Finally—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we have the gist, and we are grateful.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is all over the place. There is nothing to scrap in relation to the Crossrail rolling stock procurement programme, because we have not started that procurement yet. We announced that we will postpone the issue of the invitation to tender until the new year, in order that consideration be given to the findings of the growth review and how public procurement in this country can best support the strategic interests of the supply chain. The broader Crossrail project, involving a major infrastructure investment—the tunnels across London—is, as the hon. Lady and anyone who travels around London knows, already under way as is manifest in the large number of big holes in the ground.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of recent trends in levels of rail travel.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Annual statistics for the year ending March 2011 published by the Office of Rail Regulation show that passenger travel rose during the year to reach an overall, all-time high of 33.6 billion passenger miles. The number of rail journeys has been rising steadily each year since privatisation with only one slight drop in the total during 2009. Since then the upward trend has resumed to reach a total of 1.4 billion journeys undertaken. Long-distance rail travel has nearly doubled since privatisation.

[Simon Hart]

Will the Secretary of State put some pressure on Network Rail about the state of their stations? Whitland station, in my constituency, is now in such a deplorable state that it works against people wanting to travel on rail and against attracting tourists to our area.

[Mr Hammond]

Management of stations is the responsibility of train operators. Under the revised franchise programme that the Minister of State has announced, we intend to transfer leasehold ownership of stations to the franchise train operator, so that it can have a more direct, hands-on involvement. However, I will look into the specific example about which my hon. Friend asks.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s extraordinary statement that rail travel is something for rich people could be made only by one of the southern millionaires in the Cabinet. If he came to Rotherham, he would see plenty of people who are not rich, but they are now being threatened with the ticket office at Rotherham station, which is being rebuilt, being taken away. May I put it to him that many of my constituents do not do computers and need help and aid? That ticket office at Rotherham station must stay.

[Mr Hammond]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point, and I agree that there will be a need for assisted channels—

[Mr MacShane]

What are assisted channels?

[Mr Hammond]

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what assisted channels are. Even as the purchase of tickets, over time, is bound to become more computer based, as new technologies are deployed and more tickets are bought online, through mobile technology and so on, there will still be a need for an assisted channel, and we will ensure that there is one.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Price is clearly a major factor in determining how many people use the railways. The previous Government went for above-inflation increases each year, and we have argued for increases below inflation. The Government have gone for 3% above RPI. Does the Secretary of State accept that 8% increases in rail, and 7% increases in London transport, is simply too much for people to deal with.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman says “we”. I am not sure who the “we” is. We have decided that we will have to increase rail fares by 3% in real terms for the next three years in order to protect the major programme of investment in the rolling stock, electrification and new infrastructure that the country needs. It is a tough decision, but it is the right decision.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I ask the Secretary of State to face the House, as he is addressing us?

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What assessment he has made of the potential road safety implications of increasing the maximum length of heavy goods vehicles.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

In March I published a feasibility study and impact assessment on longer semi-trailers, undertaken by consultants including the Transport Research Laboratory. The research, which is available in the Library, includes consideration of the potential road safety implications.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Many streets in my constituency are already unsuitable for long heavy goods vehicles, and the thought of even longer vehicles trying to get down narrow city streets will horrify many people. As the Minister knows, blanket lorry bans are not possible in many urban areas, for all sorts of reasons. May I urge him to think again, and to reject the proposal to allow even longer lorries on to totally unsuitable streets in urban and rural areas?

[Mike Penning]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but he should note that because the turning wheels of longer semi-trailers are at the back, their turning circles are much tighter than those of existing lorries. I know that because I used to drive heavy goods vehicles myself. However, I will look into the points made by the hon. Gentleman, and we will announce our proposals when the House reconvenes next month. Then at least the industry will know exactly where we are going.

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

Has the Minister considered the environmental impact of very long vehicles, particularly in relation to small rural roads, and the safety implications for pedestrians and cyclists of elongated public service vehicles in the form of articulated buses?

[Mike Penning]

We have indeed considered the environmental impact of longer semi-trailers, and have concluded that there will be less pollution in the community. There will be fewer lorries, because the longer lorries will be able to carry more cargo than can be carried now. We considered carefully whether longer semi-trailers posed a risk to cyclists in particular, and the risk is not there.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I know that the Minister is in some pain this morning owing to a tooth abscess, and I do not want to add to his discomfort, but people—motorists, cyclists and pedestrians—are frightened by heavy goods vehicles, and longer vehicles will cause even greater anxiety. Given the 40% cut in road safety funding and the results of the Department’s own consultation, which suggest that the number of casualties may be marginally higher if longer vehicles are introduced, will the Minister ensure that the road safety element features highly in his consideration? Surely it must be at the top of his agenda.

[Mike Penning]

It is very kind of my shadow opponent to worry about my abscess, but I promise him that the NHS dentist will look after it for me.

We will carefully consider the road safety implications of longer semi-trailers, but we must sweat our assets better on the roads. We are not going to introduce heavier weights, and we are not going to introduce the mega-trucks whose introduction has been proposed to us. We will look carefully at the length of trailers to ensure that more products can be taken around the country with the same weight, the same fuel and fewer emissions.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Surely the best way of improving road safety is to put all transport on to rail, but will my hon. Friend tell me how safety can be improved on roads such as the A64? What specific plans does he have in that regard?

[Mike Penning]

I shall have to write to my hon. Friend about the A64. As for moving more transport on to rail, the industry rightly says that trains often take goods to the rail hubs, and trucks—which will now be the longer semi-trailers—take them from there to the distribution centres and supermarkets. When the longer vehicles are introduced, there will be fewer traffic problems, fewer lorries and more rail transport, which is what we want.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of the importance of the voice of the passenger to decisions about rail investment; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The Government recognise the importance of passenger opinion to their decisions about rail investment. The National Passenger Survey produces a network-wide assessment of passenger views on rail travel, which is used to inform the refranchising process alongside franchise-specific consultations. Other work by Passenger Focus, the independent advocate for rail users, also provides valuable input to decision making.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

When I meet Slough’s rail commuters next Tuesday, they will tell me that they are fed up about the £170 increase in their fares next year, and fed up that three of the 10 most overcrowded trains in the country serve Slough. We are to have no new carriages, the Minister is dithering about whether we will be able to use Oyster cards—which will help to relieve the position—and Crossrail, although welcome, will slow down Slough’s service. What has the Minister to say to the commuters whom I am meeting on Tuesday?

[Mrs Villiers]

I recommend that the hon. Lady say that this Government are fully committed to a major investment programme for our railways, much of which will benefit her constituents, including electrification, the intercity express programme, the provision of new rolling stock in the future, and improving the overall reliability of the line for her constituents, with the bottleneck at Reading station being dealt with. We are taking the concerns of the hon. Lady’s constituents very seriously. We recognise the anxiety about rail fares, but we are determined to get the costs of the railways down so that we can give better value for money to passengers and taxpayers.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the latest assessment of the High Speed 2 consultation that closed in July? Will she also reassure my constituents, all of whom are rail passengers, that every single one of their views will be taken into account?

[Mrs Villiers]

The Government take the process for designing the future of high-speed rail very seriously. All representations made to the consultation will be carefully considered and an announcement will be made later this year.

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

6. What recent discussions he has had on reform of rail franchising.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The Secretary of State has held discussions that cover franchise reform in a number of meetings with rail passenger groups, local authorities, train operators. Network Rail and others.

[Mr Evennett]

I thank the Minister for her reply. Does she agree that as well as encouraging investment the Government’s franchising policy must be focused on efficiency, which in the long run will ensure that inflation-busting fare increases become a thing of the past?

[Mrs Villiers]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Our rail franchising reform has the dual purpose of promoting private sector investment and delivering better services to passengers and of reducing the cost of running the railways. As I said in answer to the previous question, that is part of the wider strategy of working with the rail industry to get costs down and provide better value for money for passengers.

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

Talking about leaving messes that other people have to clear up, the privatisation of the railways has been a mess ever since it was introduced. May we address the issue of the franchise for the east coast line, as the commute to and from London that it provides for my constituents is a disgrace? When they want to travel cross-Pennine, they have to use trains that should be in the York railway museum.

[Mrs Villiers]

I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman’s assessment of the impact of privatisation. More people currently travel by rail than at any time since the 1920s, and reliability levels are high. I acknowledge that reliability on the east coast line should be better, however, and both East Coast and Network Rail are focused on that, as is my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). We do think that reliability needs to improve on the east coast line, but we also believe that, overall, privatisation of the railways has brought some tremendous benefits, including increasing passenger numbers.

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

Will the Minister ensure that any changes to rail franchise specifications will not necessarily involve the loss of ticket offices at local stations?

[Mrs Villiers]

The Government will carefully consider the McNulty review recommendations, including in the context of the specifications we put in place for rail franchises. Many of the decisions about ticket offices are addressed in what is known as the ticketing settlement agreement, and we will also consider that. We need to get the balance right by modernising the system so that it reflects the fact that the many new ways of buying tickets—such as the increasing use of smarter ticketing and internet purchasing—will in future change what we require from ticket offices, while also ensuring that people have the right channels through which to buy tickets.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

7. What impact assessment his Department undertook in relation to the decision to end concessionary coach travel for elderly and disabled people.

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

10. What consultation he has had with coach operators on the effects of the withdrawal of the coach concessionary travel scheme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

The decision to end Government funding for the half-price coach concession was announced as part of the 2010 spending review. The Government have corresponded with affected operators on the proposed change and my officials have held discussions with National Express—one of the operators affected by the phasing out of the concession. An impact assessment relating to the ending of the coach concession has been submitted to the Reducing Regulation Committee. The final assessment will be published on the Department’s website and a copy will be placed in the Library of the House.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but I suspect that he will have received, as I have, countless letters from constituents who see much more expensive coach travel coming down the line as a result of the scrapping of the scheme by October 2012. Am I right in my understanding that no public inquiry with disabled or older people’s groups has been carried out? If so, what justification can he have for scrapping the scheme without first consulting the most affected users?

[Norman Baker]

Of course we assessed the proposal as part of the spending review, and I mentioned the Reducing Regulation Committee assessment a moment ago. May I suggest that the position is not quite as apocalyptic as the hon. Gentleman makes out? A year ago, after the 2010 spending review announcement, National Express said:

“We are already planning for the removal of the coach concessionary fares scheme in October 2011 and will announce new products aimed at the over 60s and disabled travellers in due course. We believe the financial impact of the scheme’s removal is manageable and will be mitigated by our own plans”.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the Minister for his comments. Many elderly and disabled people in my constituency have become reliant on coach travel because of its ease of use and cost-effectiveness. If this decision results in the withdrawal of some routes, what choice does he think those vulnerable groups in my constituency will be left with, given that train travel is acknowledged to be very expensive?

[Norman Baker]

First, we have retained the bus concession in its entirety when many thought that was vulnerable in the current financial circumstances—that has not been chopped in any way. Secondly, the senior citizen railcard continues to exist, and it enables those people to receive a significant discount on rail travel. Thirdly, as I have said, National Express, which is by far and away the largest coach provider, is intending to put its own scheme in place, and I am sure it will do that. I say that, first, because it makes commercial sense for National Express to do so and, secondly, because the profits on its coach division increased by 14% in the last six months.

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

This proposal beggars belief—only on planet Norman can this be a good idea. Does the Minister not understand that removing the concessionary coach fares—an entitlement for almost 12 million pensioners and an additional number of disabled people—will, as Age UK puts it, have a “devastating effect” on many people, who will struggle to afford their coach journeys in future? Does he not see that by cutting too far and too fast his approach is having an unfair impact on pensioners and disabled people, and increasing the chances of them being socially isolated?

[Norman Baker]

That was rather over the top, if I may say so. The fact is that National Express operated its own coach concession arrangements before 2003, and it indicated last year that it believes the situation is manageable and that it intends to introduce a further concession. As I said a moment ago, the profits of the UK coach division of National Express have increased by 14%. Indeed, the profits of the National Express Group—a very successful company—have risen by 26% in the first half of this year. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the public purse should subsidise the profits of National Express, that would be an odd position for the Labour party to take.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

8. What recent steps he has taken to encourage cycling.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

The Government are strongly in favour of cycling, as we said in our coalition agreement. On 5 July, I announced the allocation of £155.5 million to 37 authorities to deliver packages of measures that support economic growth and cut carbon emissions, as part of the £560 million local sustainable transport fund—many of these include cycling. I will announce the remaining allocations in summer 2012. In addition, I have established a cycling forum, which met for the first time this week. We want to get more people cycling, more safely, more often.

[Chris Skidmore]

The Minister will undoubtedly be aware of the huge success that cycling city status has brought south Gloucestershire. Could he now seriously consider the North Fringe to Hengrove major scheme bid that his Department has received recently? The scheme will further enhance cycling provision and will boost economic growth.

[Norman Baker]

I agree that the initiatives in south Gloucestershire have been successful, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his inventiveness and ingenuity in including that question under this heading. He will understand that the project he mentions is subject to assessment under the development pool arrangements. A decision will be made later this year, but his support for the scheme is noted.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

CTC reports that the biggest deterrent to cycling is fear of busy roads. What are the Government doing to improve driver training and put more emphasis on cyclists’ needs? How can the Minister ensure that dangerous or intimidating driving is made as unacceptable as drink driving?

[Norman Baker]

Dangerous and intimidating driving is already subject to police enforcement, but we are taking steps to ensure that drivers are aware of cyclists on the road. A Trixi mirror pilot has been approved for London, and it is now in place and showing good results. The Under-Secretary with responsibility for road safety is very aware of this issue and is looking at driving training for HGV drivers in particular.

[Mr Speaker]

We are better informed about Trixi mirrors and we are grateful to the Minister for that.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to ensure the economic sustainability of the rail network.

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

12. What steps he is taking to ensure the economic sustainability of the rail network.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Despite the deficit, the Government are investing £18 billion in the railway, supporting projects such as Crossrail, Thameslink, electrification and extra carriages on crowded routes. We are also determined to get the cost of running the railways down, and we are putting together a reform package to deliver this which will draw on the report produced by Sir Roy McNulty.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the Minister for her reply. The Government have already announced improvements to the midland main line, which it is hoped will result in line speed improvements, but there is still a very strong business case for full electrification. What hope can she give me and many other MPs along the midland main line route that the Government will consider full electrification, particularly in the light of the HS2 route having being published so recently?

[Mrs Villiers]

I can say that, yes, we will be consider whether the midland main line can be electrified as part of the work in HS2 control period 5, but we will also have to consider competing projects such as the northern hub or the electrification of the trans-Pennine route.

[Rehman Chishti]

On train fares, may I ask the Minister for special consideration for commuters in Gillingham and Rainham and the south-east, which have had excessive RPI plus 3% increases since 2006? The Minister will know that commuters in the south-east have had excessive and unfair increases for that period.

[Mrs Villiers]

I well understand my hon. Friend’s concerns, and he has lobbied hard on this issue. The fares are contributing to investments that have been made on the Southeastern franchise in the past and fares now and in the future will contribute to the major investment programme that the Government are delivering, but in the longer term it is vital that we get the cost of the railways down to respond to passenger concerns about value for money.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Elderly and disabled constituents of mine would like to access the rail network but are prevented from doing so by the poor station facilities. Merseytravel has had a budget cut of two thirds, which has caused delays to the installation of a lift at Formby station, to give one example. That lift is vital if elderly and disabled people are to be able to travel on the rail network at all. Will the Minister consider reversing that cut?

[Mrs Villiers]

I will certainly look into the specific case that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned and write to him about it. I emphasise that access for all funding is continuing under this Government and is part of a major programme of upgrades that we have committed to undertake, despite grappling with a deficit that is as serious as anything in our peacetime history.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

11. What plans he has to review the business case for (a) High Speed 2 and (b) Crossrail.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Economic cases for large projects are periodically refreshed—for example, to reflect the latest economic forecasts. A robust economic case for HS2 was prepared for the recent consultation, with a benefit-cost ratio of 1:2.6. An update will be published later this year. The latest update of the Crossrail economic case was published in July 2011, with a BCR of 1:1.97. I should make it clear that the economic case is only one of the criteria used in decision making for transport infrastructure projects.

[David Mowat]

I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. As he made clear, the business case for HS2 is stronger than the business case for Crossrail. The HS2 business case gets even better if the link north of Birmingham is taken into account. Given that fact, will the Minister consider bringing forward the construction of HS2 in order to stimulate the economy in the same way as has been mooted for Crossrail?

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for the HS2 project. Let me give him an example to reinforce his point. At the time the decision was made to build the extension to the Jubilee line, the BCR was less than 1, but I do not think that many people would argue today that we could possibly do without the Jubilee line extension. The construction profile and overall project profile for HS2 are based on the requirement to obtain parliamentary and other statutory consents and the cash-flow limitations of the Treasury’s ability to fund a project on such a scale. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to accelerate it.

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

I know the Secretary of State will be aware that there is widespread political and business support in my city, Sheffield, for HS2. Will he also consider how improving the connecting links to the wider city region could make the business case for HS2 even stronger?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I have said time and again that a major infrastructure project such as HS2 is not an alternative to routine investment in the rest of the rail network and that to get the maximum out of HS2 we will also need to improve the connectivity from the nodes on the HS2 railway to the surrounding areas.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of its procurement policy for rail rolling stock.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

As stated at the Select Committee on Transport on 7 September, for all future Government-led procurements—not just those for rolling stock—the Prime Minister has asked the growth review to examine the degree to which the Government can set out the requirements and the evaluation criteria with a sharper focus on the UK’s strategic interest, including a review of public procurement practice and outcomes in other EU member states and a review of current private sector best practice. The results of those reviews will inform future Government-led procurements.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am sorry that the Secretary of State feels that he is talking to a brick wall when Members raise legitimate concerns about the impact on jobs of the Bombardier decision. I am concerned about the impact on Leicester, where many firms are part of the supply chain. What reassurance can he give those firms now that the majority of our trains will be built abroad?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong to say that the majority of our trains will be built abroad. One contract has been awarded to Siemens, and those trains will be built in Germany. Other contracts are in the pipeline, and Bombardier remains a very strong bidder. It has demonstrated over the last 15 years its ability to win a majority of UK train orders. From 2014 we will have a second UK-based train builder, Hitachi, in the plant that it is establishing in Newton Aycliffe, with the creation of 600 new jobs.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I very much welcome the review of how the Department implements the procurement rules. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is no time like the present for a thorough review of how this country has, in the past, gold-plated EU directives and regulations?

[Mr Hammond]

I should emphasise to my hon. Friend that the review is not concerned simply with train procurement but is a review of public sector procurement across the board. It will look at what is happening elsewhere and whether there are things that we can do differently so that procurements initiated by this Government do not have the flaws that hon. Members are identifying in the Thameslink procurement initiated by the last Government.

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

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

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Since I last answered Transport questions, the consultation on high-speed rail has closed. The Department has announced £155 million of investment from the first-round allocation of the local sustainable transport fund, concluded deals to put new carriages on key commuter rail routes, set out the next stages in the Department’s rail franchising programme and launched a consultation on proposals for new lane rental schemes to cut the number of rush-hour roadworks.

[Mark Reckless]

Many of my constituents who are not rich but were used as guinea pigs for RPI plus 3% by the last Government have no choice but to commute by coach, getting up at 5 or 6 am to get into London. Will Ministers welcome the statement by Southeastern yesterday that it will henceforth use the flex possibility to consider elasticities so that areas where people are not well off and where there is significant competition may see lower fare increases in future?

[Mr Hammond]

Absolutely. We are all in favour of competition. Train operators should note what is happening in the marketplace, and where coach operators are taking their business they should use the flexibility that they have to respond.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

T2. Yesterday’s unemployment figures were disastrous for Wirral and the wider Merseyside economy. Given that RPI is now over 5%, will the Secretary of State explain how his RPI plus 3% train fare hikes will help work pay for ordinary people?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Merseyrail is on a different fares framework from the rest of the country—I think that it is on RPI. We all fully recognise the concern about rail fares. The decision on RPI plus 3% has been taken to enable us to deliver a massive programme of rail upgrades, which is essential if we are to deal with passenger concerns and promote vital economic growth.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

T4. Last night I drove down to my constituency and, unusually, the motorway was very clear. However, it is often the case that there are accidents on both the M3 and the M4 and it seems to take an unfeasibly long time to get the motorway reopened afterwards. Will the Department do something about that?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

My hon. Friend raises a very topical point. She may know that in August we had one of the longest ever post-accident closures on the M25 very close to my own constituency, as it happens, when the motorway was closed for more than 24 hours following an accident. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), has been in discussion with the Association of Chief Police Officers, the police lead on traffic services. A working group is now operating between the Highways Agency and ACPO, which will be reporting before the end of the year. We have also allocated £3 million to invest in the latest laser scanners to allow the police to record traffic accident scenes more quickly and allow the clear-up of the motorway to progress more quickly.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

T3. The Government are asking more disabled people to find work through the work capability assessment programme. Does the Minister understand that transport, and in particular cancelled station upgrades, slow replacement of rolling stock and rising prices are a significant barrier for many disabled people in Wigan and across the country? What action is he taking to address this?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

We are taking a good deal of action to help disabled passengers whom we want to have full access to the transport system. Plans are going ahead to ensure that rail vehicles and buses are fully accessible, we are also continuing with the access for all programme to upgrade railway stations, and I regularly meet disabled groups to ensure that our programmes and policies are fully in line with their wishes.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T6. Can the House be given an update on yesterday’s interdepartmental meeting on the theft of metals and the review of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964?

[Norman Baker]

I am grateful for that question because metal theft is an extremely serious issue for passengers on the rail network and for motorists who are now affected on motorways, and the coastguard service. This is a matter that we take very seriously, because of its impact on business apart from anything else. There was a very good meeting of Ministers from a number of Departments yesterday. We have a plan to ensure that we are using our existing powers as fully as possible, and to look at what other steps may be necessary to deal with this high level crime.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

T5. Businesses have been encouraged by the announcement of a Humber enterprise zone and the Government’s commitment to finding a sustainable solution to Humber bridge tolls. Will the Secretary of State give a green light to potential investors by announcing when the upgrade to the A160 will take place?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

I genuinely apologise to the hon. Gentleman. Because he was asking about the Humber bridge, I assumed that he was asking about tolls. I will write to him specifically on the A160 as soon as I return to the Department.

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

T7. Following the Government’s consultation on the future of the Dartford crossing, will the Minister consider extending the local person’s discount scheme to include my constituents and the wider Medway area?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I am happy to consider any representation that my hon. Friend wants to make, but our primary objective is to ensure that funds are available for an additional crossing in the future, and our approach to Dartford is to ensure that that can be affordably delivered.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

T9. In awarding the Thameslink contract, did the Secretary of State take into account Siemens’ industrial relations record? Siemens’ global business strategy has been described as aggressively anti-union, and staff currently working for First Capital Connect on the existing Thameslink bid have not been reassured by the Government that their terms and conditions will be protected by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 should they transfer to Siemens. Will he reassure those workers and the House that TUPE will apply in such circumstances?

[Mr Hammond]

My understanding is that TUPE will apply in such circumstances. For the record, Siemens employs 16,000 people in this country, many—indeed, I think most—are represented by the Unite union, and my understanding from the inquiries that I have made is that relationships between the union that represents them and the company are extremely good.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

T8. The extension of high-speed rail to Manchester will bring huge benefits to my constituents, both in terms of jobs and growth. Will the Minister reassure the House that this line will not stop at Birmingham but will come to Leeds and Manchester, and additionally will he confirm that if we are to have a proper integrated transport plan, we should look at a rail link between Rossendale and Manchester to complement it?

[Mr Hammond]

Ah, the sting in the tail! My hon. Friend makes a very good point and I understand the concern that some Members representing seats in the north-west, Yorkshire and places further north have about the fact that we have to progress this project in two separate stages through two separate hybrid Bills. I have made it clear on every occasion I possibly can that the Government are committed to the whole Y network project. The benefit-to-cost ratio is based on the whole Y network, and I will do whatever I can to build into the first hybrid Bill reassurance to people and businesses in Manchester, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the north east that we will indeed complete the full Y project.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister referred earlier to the access for all programme. Newton station in my constituency is in dire need of an upgrade to improve access. Will he speak to Transport Scotland to ensure that the station gets those improvements quickly?

[Norman Baker]

I am not familiar with that specific case, but I will happily look into it. I will discuss the matter with officials and write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

T10. Daniel Upcraft and his fiancée Nicola were hit by a heavy lorry while queuing in traffic on the M25 last April. Daniel was left with very serious brain injuries and Nicola tragically lost her life. The driver of the lorry was found to have had undiagnosed sleep apnoea and the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case against him. Will the Minister please agree to meet Daniel’s mother, Carole, my constituent, who is running a campaign to raise awareness of the impact of sleep apnoea on drivers’ ability to maintain vigilance?

[Mike Penning]

It would be a pleasure to meet the family, and I praise the work they are doing. This tragic loss was the result of a medical condition that is very difficult to diagnose, and we need to do a lot of work prior to diagnosis so that people are not driving with this terrible illness.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the Department for Transport carry out a full risk assessment before removing emergency towing vessels from the waters around the Hebrides and Orkney and Shetland?

[Mike Penning]

I met the hon. Gentleman recently to discuss this. We have made an assessment. The contract ends at the end of this month. I have worked closely with all local communities and the Scottish Government to try to find out whether there is more funding. We do not have the funding for it. The present contract, which was brought in by the previous Government, is a disaster for the taxpayer and the local community. I am still willing to look at other proposals, but they will have to be brought forward quickly.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend like to join me on one of the most beautiful and picturesque railway lines in the country, between Liskeard and Looe, to see for herself how our rural railways support coastal communities and the tourist industry?

[Mrs Villiers]

Yes, I would be delighted to.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Integrated transport authorities have effectively re-regulated buses in the larger metropolitan county areas, which has squeezed private bus companies and made the bus wars in rural areas particularly fierce. That is great for those who live on lucrative bus routes, but services to smaller rural villages have become so bad as to be non-existent in some places. What is the Minister doing to help people out in those smaller rural areas?

[Norman Baker]

Local decisions are a matter for local authorities, which are elected and are in the best position to make those decisions. The hon. Lady will be aware that the Competition Commission is examining the bus market and will report later this year. We will obviously give serious consideration to its recommendations.

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

1. What assessment she has made of the likelihood that new guidelines on prosecution of cases of female genital mutilation will increase the prospects of securing a conviction.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Before answering that question, I would like to offer the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House for being unable to attend questions today; she is in the United States on ministerial business relating to counter-terrorism. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), who has responsibility for disabled people, and I will endeavour to field questions from the House.

The Government are committed to eradicating female genital mutilation. The Crown Prosecution Service’s legal guidance, which was launched last week, is an important step in preventing this horrendous practice. We hope that it will raise awareness of the issue and help prosecutors bring perpetrators to justice.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the Minister for that reply. The section of the new guidelines on reluctant victims focuses very much on the difficulties of obtaining evidence and gaining victim co-operation, but for years great expertise has been brought to bear in prosecuting child sexual abuse. Could not this expertise be brought to bear in the area of FGM?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful suggestion. It is a really important point, because I am sure that much could be learned from the real progress that has been made in investigating and prosecuting child sexual abuse cases. Where appropriate, prosecutors should make links with experts in other areas in order to build a stronger case.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her response. One midwife, Alison Hughes, is organising a conference on 21 September in Birmingham, because the situation is getting serious. She now treats up to five cases a week of women giving birth who have been mutilated, and it causes huge problems. If the Minister cannot give me an answer now, will she write to tell me whether any cases that are going to be prosecuted are in the pipeline?

[Lynne Featherstone]

This is an important issue, and I am aware of the hon. Lady’s interest and involvement in it. On the conference and cases in progress, the police investigated 58 cases in 2009-10, but none so far has come to prosecution. I do not know, as I stand here, whether there is anything in the pipeline, but the legal guidance is one of the main hopes behind making prosecutors more aware of how to take cases forward, and I am very happy to deal with her directly.

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

The Minister will be aware that the charity Forward published a report in 2007 which identified that 20,000 girls under 15 years old were at risk. One of its recommendations was that the issue be treated not just as a health issue, but as violence against women and girls. Will she set out what progress is being made to place the focus not only on health, but on the violence aspect?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We certainly do put the emphasis on the issue being not just about domestic violence, but about a violation of human rights. It is the most serious of offences against young women—all women—and it is part of our action plan, which includes 88 actions. The legal guidance is also part of the issue, but we are taking a range of measures.

For example, I was at the Manor Gardens centre—[Interruption.] If Mr Speaker will forgive me, I must say also that there are guidelines for front-line services, so that people on the front line can spot girls who do not come forward and ensure that we get assistance to them, support them and signpost them and work with more people who work in the community—including those who work with the FGM forum, which is a very important centre.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

My Bill in 2003, which became the Female Genital Mutilation Act of the same year, came into force in 2004, but I have continually asked this question in the House: 74,000 young girls have undergone this procedure in the United Kingdom, every year the numbers are increasing instead of decreasing and other countries are able to bring prosecutions, so what is the point in having a measure on the statute book unless it improves the lives of people and does not just lie there?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I understand the right hon. Lady’s frustration. We are all frustrated, and in government we are frustrated, but we are working with the police and all relevant partners to try to ensure that prosecutions go forward. We have distributed more than 40,000 leaflets and posters, which have been circulated in schools and to health services. The guidelines are to enable prosecutors to bring cases, but clearly there are issues because, as she knows, when such acts take place in the family and are part of a—[Interruption.] I understand, but what I have seen from working with the FGM forum and across government is that those with a knowledge of the community are best placed to help us to get families to bring cases forward, and we are working with the police and the prosecution service to do so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

2. What plans she has to improve arrangements for flexible working.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

4. What steps she is taking to improve arrangements for flexible working.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

7. What steps she is taking to improve arrangements for flexible working.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

We want people to be able to balance their work and caring responsibilities, and the Government are committed to removing the barriers to that. Over the summer, we put forward our proposals to extend to all employees the right to request flexible working, and we will respond to that consultation in due course.

[Mr Hollobone]

Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, about one quarter of older workers would continue to work beyond retirement if they were able to work flexible hours?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The ability to work flexibly can work for many different groups of people, and that is why we believe that bringing forward measures that could give people more opportunities to do so is so important. I hope that I can count on his support.

[Alun Cairns]

There is some evidence that flexible working can have a positive impact on productivity. What incentives can the Government offer to employers to encourage more of them to offer that facility?

[Maria Miller]

I think my hon. Friend mentions one incentive himself and makes a very good point: the flexibility itself can be an incentive for companies to take it up. But we have set up legislative opportunities to improve the situation and, importantly, non-legislative opportunities, because the very culture of companies—in particular, the culture of “presenteeism”, which unfortunately too often pervades small and large companies—can make it very difficult for employees to take up flexible working.

[Stephen Mosley]

Many Members of the House will have personal experience of trying to juggle a career and looking after small children. What action is my hon. Friend taking to help parents of young children to return to the work force after looking after their children?

[Maria Miller]

I was in that position, a few years ago now. It is a difficult transition to make. That is why we are making it a great priority to introduce a new system of flexible parental leave so that new parents can choose how to share child care between them. That, along with our reforms of the benefits system under universal credit, will help many more women in particular to stay close to the labour market.

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

As we have heard, flexible working can be a very good thing, but sometimes the phrase is misinterpreted by employers, and that leads to bad practices such as zero-hour contracts and unrealistic flexibility that they look for from employees instead of giving them set hours. Will the Minister guard against always using the phrase “flexible working”? We may think it is a positive thing, but some employers interpret it differently.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. They are the sorts of issues that will come out in our consultation.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that one of the biggest barriers to women returning to work is lack of child care. Women who want to work flexibly need to know that that child care will be not only available but affordable. Has she seen the report by the Daycare Trust and Save the Children, which says that the cost of child care is driving people out of work and making it impossible for them to afford that child care? What will the Government do about this? Will she ask the Chancellor to look again at the child care elements of the working tax credit?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. It can be a real problem for families to identify the right child care. That is why, under our universal credit reforms, we will continue to invest at least the same amount as is currently in place to support child care, and we are focusing on exactly how we will deliver that. I was pleased to see that colleagues in the Department for Education have extended early years free entitlement for three and four-year-olds to 15 hours. These are the sorts of measures that will make a real difference to the people the hon. Gentleman mentions.

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

Flexible working is vital for the economy and for families. The only thing the Government have done so far on flexible working is to stop regulations coming in that would have extended the right to request flexible working to parents of 17-year-olds. At the same time, policies on jobs and on child care are making it harder and harder, with every day that goes by, for women and parents to work. With women’s unemployment at a record high and rising, and with child care support being cut as costs rise, her Government’s own memo on women says:

“we have made bold statements or promises but haven’t delivered enough”.

The truth is that they have not delivered at all; they are making it worse. What is the Minister going to do, and when does she think that women’s unemployment will start to fall—this month, next month, next year?

[Maria Miller]

Unlike the right hon. Lady’s Government when they were in power, we do not blow hot and cold on flexible working; we are committed to it. This Government absolutely take seriously the issues that are faced by women, and we have already taken a great deal of action to ensure that women are supported not only in the workplace but throughout their family life. We have increased spending on health and child tax credit, and the right to request flexible working is part of that package. We have taken 880,000 of the lowest paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. The right hon. Lady needs to look at the score card of achievements that we have put in place and compare them against her own.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking to tackle violence against women and girls.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

On 8 March this year, we published our action plan on tackling violence against women and girls. We have already delivered on that in several areas, including a commitment to provide more than £38 million of Home Office and Ministry of Justice funding over four years for local specialist services to support victims of domestic and sexual violence.

[Greg Hands]

Under the last Labour Government, rape crisis centres were closing at a rate of two per annum. Will the Minister confirm that this Government will never do anything to put such important services and their funding at risk?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for pointing that out. It is true that under the previous Government, the number of rape support centres in England and Wales fell dramatically. This Government have committed £10 million to local rape support centres over the next three years. The Ministry of Justice is working with the sexual violence sector to open 15 new centres where there are gaps in provision. The first four of those will open this year in Hereford, Trafford, Devon and Dorset. Further work is being done to identify other parts of the country where there is an acute need for such services.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

One resource identified in the action plan to end violence against women and girls is participatory local budgeting. The plan states that Stockport is to have this from March 2011. However, Stockport has been doing local participatory budgeting for three years. Will the Minister clarify whether there will be additional funding, as is implied in the action plan?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My understanding is that there will be, but I will check that and write to the hon. Lady to confirm it.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The No. 10 memo describing why women do not like this Government suggests that targeted Home Office work on women, crime and confidence is required. At the time when the officials were drawing up that memo with a focus group that looks to me as though it was made up of secretaries and researchers in No. 10, I was listening to women in my constituency, who were worried about perverts harassing them on buses and on the street. What targeted Home Office work is being done to help such women?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We are working with all the police agencies and the Association of Chief Police Officers to focus on those issues, including stalking and harassment. Tackling stalking, for example, is a key priority for the Home Secretary. We have committed long-term funding to the national stalking helpline over the spending review period and we have set up a national stalking strategy group to ensure that actions on stalking are taken under the violence against women and girls action plan. That is an example of one area of work that is targeted.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

5. What her policy is on permitting civil partnership ceremonies in religious premises.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Earlier this year, I announced our intention to implement section 202 of the Equality Act 2010 to remove the ban in England and Wales on civil partnerships being registered on religious premises. It is a voluntary measure for faith groups that want to allow that to happen. It is an important step forward for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, and for religious freedom. We are considering the responses to the public consultation and working to bring the regulations into force by the end of this year.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Of course it is reasonable for religious premises that wish to hold civil partnerships to be able to do so. However, does the Minister agree that it is entirely inappropriate for the Government to get involved in any decision about civil partnerships being held in a particular religious venue?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I reassure my hon. Friend that I totally agree with her sentiment. The Government have made the decision to enable premises that want to host civil partnership registrations to do so. This is about religious freedom. I am absolutely clear that it is not for the Government to force any religious organisation to host civil partnership registrations if they do not wish to do so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I hope that all churches will want to celebrate same-sex commitments. However, I am worried that the Government are introducing another anomaly. When gay people get married in a civil partnership they will be able to have religious symbols and ceremonies, but if straight couples do not want to get married in a church, but would none the less like to have religious music or symbols, they are not allowed to have them. I think that we should go for straightforward equality with gay marriage and straight marriage being exactly the same.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have had many conversations on this issue. I know that the hon. Gentleman wants these things and we have discussed them. Right now, we are moving forward on allowing civil partnerships to be registered in religious premises. From listening to people, it is clear that there is a desire to move forward on equal marriages and partnerships. We are working with people to move that agenda forward.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise to colleagues but, as so often, demand has exceeded supply and we must move on.

Palestine and the United Nations

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

11:34

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I appeal to colleagues who are almost unaccountably not staying for the urgent question to leave quietly so we can hear Sir Gerald?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Always a treat, Mr Speaker.

I should like to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement stating the intentions of Her Majesty’s Government with regard to the application next week of the Palestinian Government at the United Nations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

First, Mr Speaker, may I apologise to you and the House for the absence of the Foreign Secretary this morning. I think it is well known that he and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister are on a visit to Libya and I am sure that the whole House will wish them both well as they make that journey and return safely.

With permission, I will make a statement in answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question about the Government’s intentions with regard to the application next week of the Palestinian Government at the United Nations. The Palestinian leadership has yet to submit any application to the United Nations. If and when an application is received, we will make a decision about how to respond. Without knowing the content of any such application, it would be premature to speculate on what the Government’s response might be.

This year marks the 20th year of the middle east peace process—20 years since the Madrid conference was launched. For the Palestinians and Israelis, not much has changed in nearly two decades since the Oslo accords were signed. The Israelis continue to face threats from violent extremists and the Palestinians still have no state. The UK has long been clear that peace in the middle east, enabling a resolution of the long-running dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, has enormous importance for global and regional security. The goal of the international community should be to ensure that this is the last year of process and the beginning of a lasting agreement between the parties. Events in the wider middle east region call for a redoubling of international efforts to support peace, stability and democracy. Nowhere is that need more pressing than in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The world can no longer claim that change in the middle east will come slowly and incrementally, or allow the middle east peace process to limp along indefinitely, as it has done. If the peace process becomes a casualty of regional change, it will feed instability and violence, not democracy and human development. While the Arab spring goes much broader than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this dispute deeply affects the politics of the broader region. The fluid dynamics resulting from the Arab spring make the prize of stability that would result from any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians even more significant.

There is no alternative to negotiations to address the fundamental issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a solution cannot be imposed from outside. The parties need to redouble their efforts to break the impasse and resume negotiations on a two-state solution before the window to such a solution closes. Bold leadership is needed from all sides. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians can afford to let the opportunity for peace slip further from their grasp. The two-state solution is the only way of realising the Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own and the long-term security that the Israelis deserve.

The Prime Minister made our position on United Nations’ recognition of a Palestinian state very clear during the visit of President Obama in May. He agreed with the President that a Palestinian state was a legitimate goal, but that the best way of achieving that was through a comprehensive agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. So, our focus remains on continuing to push hard for a return to negotiations on the basis agreed by the Prime Minister and President Obama. The United Kingdom Government want to see borders based on 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, security for Israel, and the right for Palestinians to govern themselves in a sovereign and contiguous state. We see Jerusalem as a shared city which will be the capital of both countries and we also, of course, accept that there needs to be an agreed and just solution for Palestinian refugees.

However, Palestinian action at the UN this month now looks increasingly likely. As I have said, we do not yet know the form that such action might take. We are working closely with partners to build consensus on a way forward that recognises the progress the Palestinians have made on their state-building efforts, that meets Israel’s legitimate security concerns and that avoids confrontation in the UN.

Whatever action is taken in New York, it is important that this increases the prospects for a return to negotiations. It is important to remember that action in the UN is not an end in itself. September is not the “closing date” for resolution of this conflict. What happens next is vital, which is why our goal remains to ensure that steps taken now pave the way for significant, conclusive talks. It is vital that any action in the UN does nothing to endanger the prospect of talks. It is emphatically in our national interest to see an independent, democratic Palestinian state living in peace with Israel, not at some ever-receding point in the future, but within a limited, practical time frame—not a part-deal on temporary borders that gives no promise for the future, but an agreement on all final status issues that will signal an end to all claims. I would like to assure hon. Members that the British Government will not cease in their efforts to support the parties in finding a long-term, sustainable solution to this conflict that will make this vision a reality.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the Minister, although his reply was on the long side. We need exchanges to be pithy, because I want to accommodate colleagues who wish to question the Minister.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be totally inconsistent to support freedom for the people of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, but not actively to support, through this country’s UN votes, comparable independence for the people of Palestine, who have been waiting 64 years for UN decisions to be fulfilled and implemented? Will he understand that a Palestinian success will transform the situation in the middle east, but that if the Palestinians go to the UN Security Council and, if needs be, the General Assembly and fail, the Israelis will regard it as a triumph and it will be the end of the 20-year peace process? Will the Government stand up and put their hand up for the Palestinian people at the UN?

[Alistair Burt]

The Government have always been clear about their recognition of a Palestinian state at the conclusion of a process of negotiation between the parties in which mutual security has been guaranteed. We see no reason to move from that position, because anything else would threaten the compromise and security position that we all want to achieve. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the importance of success in New York and what it would mean. We agree entirely. It would be a disaster if in New York one side proclaimed triumph and the other reacted to a disaster. We are working hard with all partners to try to ensure that, whatever comes out of the UN, it is in the spirit of both sides feeling that something has been gained and that we have a situation moving towards those negotiations that need to succeed. We are all well aware of how success or disaster could be viewed and what the consequences could be. It is very important that at this stage we work as hard as possible for a resolution that will mean that both sides will be able to recognise that they have gained something and that we all have an opportunity and real hope for the near future.

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

Does my hon. Friend understand the profound sense of disappointment that there is in the House—and will be outside—at the nature of his remarks? Britain’s influence and reputation will inevitably be substantially diminished unless we show a positive approach to this issue. The Minister did not really answer the contradiction posed by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman). How is it that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary can be in the middle east, doing everything in their power to support the principle of self-determination, while the British Government, so close to the question being asked in New York, are unable even to take a position on the Palestinian application? Does he understand that the most telling criticism of British policy in the middle east has always been that of double standards? Is this not just an illustration of that?

[Alistair Burt]

If my right hon. and learned Friend would like to tell me the final terms of the resolution that will be presented to the UN, we might be in a position to answer the question. However, as I indicated, our position on recognition of Palestine as a state is assured as a result of the processes that have been gone through and the negotiations that are vital between both sides. As I mentioned in my statement, what happens next week is not an event, but part of that process. Palestinian statehood will not be secured by a resolution, whatever anyone thinks or whatever is passed at the UN. It will be secured by the mutual recognition of both sides, which comes through the negotiation process that both sides have been committed to. Our position remains that we are determined to ensure that whatever happens at the UN next week—and he genuinely should not prejudge anyone’s position in this on any side—it is good for the future and not damaging to the negotiation process.

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

I refer the House to my relevant entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) for tabling an urgent question on this important issue. Surely it would have been better for the Government to have come to the House this week with an oral statement covering this issue and the developments elsewhere in the region, including Syria.

Labour has long supported the establishment of two states living side by side in peace and recognised by all their neighbours. There is widespread frustration and disappointment at the failure to make any progress in recent years. We seek an immediate return to meaningful negotiation between the parties, based on the 1967 borders with land swaps, resulting in a Palestinian state living in peace and security with Israel.

The Palestinians’ path to independent statehood will require recognition at the United Nations, and Labour supports that goal. We will judge any move made at the United Nations next week—such as the potential upgrading to observer status of the Palestinian delegation—on the basis of the contribution that it can make to securing meaningful negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and achieving a comprehensive agreement. Contrary to what the Minister has said today, however, we believe that the options before the international community are now clear. This morning, President Abbas, who has seized the attention of the world on this issue, has said that the Palestinians will pursue statehood in the absence of genuine alternatives.

Will the Minister set out the Government’s position for the House today—the last opportunity before the House rises for the recess—and tell us how the United Kingdom will vote on the following three very real scenarios? First, how would we vote in the UN Security Council on full recognition? Secondly, what would be our position in a vote in the UN General Assembly advocating full recognition? Thirdly, how would we vote in the General Assembly on enhanced observer status for the Palestinians?

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what was, at the beginning of his remarks, a clear statement of a position that is virtually identical to that of the Government. That is to say, he and his party will make a judgment on any option that is put forward next week on the basis of the contribution that it can make to an ultimate settlement. We will do exactly the same. I am sure that he will respect my position when I tell him that I cannot answer his hypothetical questions, because every nuance in every comment adds to the general pot that is now being discussed. There are times when these issues have to be put privately, before a public position can be taken.

Over the past few weeks, we have heard many statements from representatives on all sides, indicating that a vote might be taken in the United Nations Security Council or that it might not, that it might be taken in the General Assembly or that it might not, or that this might depend on a Quartet statement. All those issues are still live and current, and although I quite understand the House’s desire to know the negotiating position, it would be genuinely unfair of hon. Members to press me on that at this stage. My answer would have to be the same. I understand entirely where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, and we take comfort from understanding, from his first remarks, that he and his party recognise the position that we are in. We want to ensure that nothing that is put forward and agreed next week will damage the prospect of peace between the parties, which we believe will come from a negotiated settlement and, we hope, as soon as possible.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. So far, this matter has absorbed 13 minutes, and the vast majority of Back Benchers are still waiting to speak. What is required from Back Bench and Front Bench alike is brevity.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s firm commitment to a two-state solution, but I put it to him that what has changed over the past 20 years has been the building of a wall through part of the west bank and a programme of settlement building that is very close to closing the door to a two-state solution. May I urge him to take very seriously the Palestinian bid for statehood while, understandably, calling for some conditions?

[Alistair Burt]

The obstacles and difficulties that my hon. Friend refers to are precisely the reason that this opportunity should be taken before the door to a two-state solution closes.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister agree that although a negotiated settlement for two states—Israel and Palestine—can bring peace and security to the two peoples, a resolution that cannot deal with the critical detail of borders, Jerusalem and refugees may simply raise false expectations, leading to frustration and violence, thereby impeding the essential and urgent path of negotiations?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Lady accurately characterises the difficulties and nuances in this situation. It may not be all about a resolution; it may be about a resolution with a Quartet statement dealing with parameters. All that is up for discussion. She is acutely aware of the subsidiary issues that would go alongside any resolution and which are being much discussed at present.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

I commend the calm and balanced approach set out by my hon. Friend—so unlike the wild and irresponsible statements by others on both sides of this House, whose long years have clearly not brought them wisdom. What matters—[Hon. Members: “Withdraw.”] No, I will not withdraw it; I believe it and I am happy to restate it for anyone who cares to hear it again. What matters in this situation is actual changes on the ground, in the feelings, thoughts and fears of Israeli people and Palestinian people. What does not matter is posturing in the House of Commons or the United Nations General Assembly by politicians trying to associate themselves with a cause and taking up a brave position, but not thinking about the people whose interests should be at the heart of it.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Minister—find a question there.

[Alistair Burt]

I am grateful for the wisdom and advice of colleagues on all sides and at all different stages in their parliamentary careers. I welcome it from those who, like me, have been around for a while and from those who are new here. My hon. Friend gets to the heart of it when he says that there are dangers and risks that come from people taking established positions at a very early stage, when the truth, as we all know, is that negotiations proceed on a parallel track, sometimes in private and sometimes leading to a different outcome. We all need to keep our counsel calm and wise over the weekend, and I am absolutely certain that those most closely involved in negotiations would entirely fulfil my hon. Friend’s requirements.

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

That last intervention from the Conservative Back Benches could have been more appropriate in the Israeli Parliament. Is the Minister aware that if there is a vote at the United Nations, what we do will be seen as how far Britain is genuinely committed to the Palestinian cause and to the creation of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state alongside Israel? Time and again British Governments have said, like today, that they are in favour of a Palestinian state, but so far there has been little action to bring that about.

[Alistair Burt]

It is because we are well aware of the implications of the United Kingdom vote on any resolution that we are being so careful and working so hard to ensure that a resolution is not couched in terms such that it either leaves one side completely dissatisfied and adds to the frustration or indefinitely extends the chance of reaching a settlement to deal with the frustrations that the hon. Gentleman very properly articulates.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that when Netanyahu visited the United States in May 2011 he said that he wanted to negotiate with the Palestinians and that Israel would not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state? However, does he not also agree that it is difficult to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority when its main partner is Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel or renounce terrorism and continues to fire missiles on Israeli towns?

[Alistair Burt]

Our position on Hamas is well known and we have no contact with it. However, as we know, there are difficulties on all sides, and each side has reasons why it has not wanted to proceed to negotiations or why it might rebuff others. Equally, each side knows that if it really wants a settlement, it is in its power to try to overcome those difficulties, seek confidence and assurances from each other and move on. What is different now—this may come through next week—is the urgency of the situation, as conveyed by the whole international community. We need to make progress and that requires all sides to be prepared to take the steps to help that happen, difficult though they may be.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

For many decades the Palestinian people have sought justice, peace and recognition. The vote in the UN is the culmination of a very good campaign that has been supported by a wide range of Palestinian opinion. Does the Minister recognise that not to support it—to vote against it—will put the whole cause back a long way and reduce the chances of any kind of long-term peace and settlement in the whole region? He must be more positive than he has been so far today.

[Alistair Burt]

I am positive about our wanting a situation next week that leads to proper negotiations to see the settlement of the dispute, because of the frustrations that the hon. Gentleman articulates. I cannot be more positive about that than I have been, but there is no resolution yet and I would take issue with the sense that this is the culmination of a campaign. My sense is that the United Nations procedure next week is an important event, but there will be a day after and facts on the ground will not be different the day after. What the UN has to lead to is something that makes the situation on the ground capable of the solution and compromise through negotiations that we need. That will be to the benefit of both the Palestinians and the Israelis alike.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that we need to ensure that among the various roads to peace there are at least some without roadblocks on them?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Gentleman raises, in his own way, a practical issue that affects the occupied territories. It is much discussed in this House and, as we are aware, something that a settlement between the two parties will ultimately sweep away, so that we have a viable west bank and Gaza continuing the economic progress that we have seen in recent years, as supported by the United Kingdom. However, those issues have to be dealt with by the parties themselves in the negotiations that we all wish to see.

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

Polling consistently shows that over 60% of both Israeli and Palestinian communities support a two-state solution. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that everything is done to support the peoples of both countries in their aims and aspirations?

[Alistair Burt]

I entirely concur with the hon. Lady.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Am I right in recalling that in 1948 the United Nations voted for a hasty two-state solution before agreement had been reached between the parties and that the result was an immediate outbreak of hostilities between them?

[Alistair Burt]

There are many interpretations of what happened at the UN in 1948, but my hon. Friend is right to suggest that a resolution at the United Nations by itself does not secure the peace between peoples unless it is soundly based on proper recognition, respect and confidence between the two. That is what we earnestly wish to see from the negotiations, which we hope will restart shortly and which we are pressing for as part of our approach to this weekend.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The sense of urgency that the Minister talks about seems to be almost entirely absent from the Government’s position. On the contrary, in his response to the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) he talked about mutual recognition. Does that not give the game away? Is this not actually about giving the Israeli Government a veto over when a Palestinian state is recognised?

[Alistair Burt]

No. What I am actually about is what I said.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement and the words that he used. Personally, I strongly believe that there need to be negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and that at the end of that process the state of Palestine should be recognised. May I therefore urge him to join the United States in the Security Council in vetoing the premature creation of a Palestinian state and also in the General Assembly in voting against such a proposal, but to make it clear that at the end of negotiations, when matters are satisfactorily resolved, we would universally recognise the Palestinian state?

[Alistair Burt]

My hon. Friend tempts me again to take a position on a hypothetical situation. Let me say again that I cannot go into that until we see a resolution. I stick to the position that I have taken, which is the belief that the United Kingdom must ensure that whatever is tabled next week and whatever gets through the United Nations leads to a proper approach to negotiations in which both sides can feel confident of some movement.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Can I ask the Minister a simple question? I have heard all the problems that he has outlined and the finessing of those on our Benches, but does he agree with those who say that if there is recognition, it would be a barrier to progress? Would it not be better for two nations to recognise each other and continue to negotiate a settlement than for one to reject, acting as a colonial nation, and for the other to be an imprisoned nation?

[Alistair Burt]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. The barriers to progress are many, and they are very much about trust and confidence as well as the legacy of negotiations in the past. A situation where one side proclaims victory and the other feels defeat will not help anyone, no matter what the subject matter might be. Let us therefore try to work towards a situation next week where a resolution will not bring that about, which is what many parties are seeking to achieve.

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

I welcome the Minister’s cautious approach on this issue. As said by other hon. Members, there is no way that a unilateral declaration of statehood can make up for negotiations. There is a risk of the issue becoming a battering ram for those who seek the delegitimisation of Israel, so will he give us an assurance that the British Government will take no part in anything that seeks to do that?

[Alistair Burt]

I can assure my hon. Friend that neither this Government nor the previous one had any truck with the delegitimisation of Israel, and they both took many steps to reject those who tried to project such an image—and that will continue. Ultimately, the relationships between the rest of the world and Israel and, indeed, the rest of the world and the Palestinians will be much affected by the way in which they can work together to get the agreement that we all seek. We will do everything in our power to encourage that.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

Following the recent terror attacks on southern Israel and the storming of the Israeli embassy in Egypt, does the Minister agree that what Israel needs now is partners and peace on the ground rather than being isolated at the UN?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sharp point. The situation in the middle east has changed, not only over months but over weeks. It increases the sense of urgency with which this Government are approaching these next few days and our determination to say to both parties that, in the midst of such instability and concern, what an extraordinary event it would be to go away from the United Nations with something that the international community was confident would lead to progress and in respect of which both sides could accept that they had gained something and would therefore want to respond to the international situation of concern and the need for urgency. That is what we would like to seek.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

As someone who supports the creation of a Palestinian state, does the Minister agree with me that if there is to be enhanced or full representation for Palestine at the UN, those representatives need to be able to speak with authority for the majority of decent Palestinians as opposed to an extremist minority?

[Alistair Burt]

I am sure that the ultimate representation of Palestinians at the UN, which is clearly a matter for the Palestinian Authority, will be decided by what President Abbas said when he announced the relationship with Hamas, stating that it had to live up to the principles of a democratic future state of Palestine, with recognition of previous agreements, recognition of the state of Israel, and an end to violence.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister continually refuses to give an indication of the approach that the Government will take next week because the negotiations are ongoing. The negotiations, however, are not ones from which the British Government are an absent partner; they are actively involved in those negotiations, so it is fair to ask what attitude the British Government are taking towards them. Will the Minister at least say how the Government would vote on the three particular scenarios put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)?

[Alistair Burt]

I give a straight answer to a straight question. No, I will not respond to those scenarios, for the reasons I gave. I was asked about our approach, but I hope I have made our approach, as well as our determination, very clear. The detail is not there because the detail of a resolution is not before us. Of course it has been widely discussed, and although we are not an active party to the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, we have a huge interest. I hope I have conveyed the approach and the intention of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as a gesture to make sure that whatever is put forward to the United Nations next week has some credibility, returning Gilad Shalit to his family this week would be a step forward?

[Alistair Burt]

This Government have long campaigned for the unconditional release of Gilad Shalit. I take my hon. Friend’s point: we are all aware that gestures and things could be done that would be highly damaging to the process as a result of what might happen next week, yet extraordinary gestures could be made that would mark a real difference and a step forward. One such gesture would certainly be the release of Gilad Shalit, but that is not, of course, within the control of the Palestinian Authority.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Minister talks about not handing anyone victory or defeat, but does he recognise that, if the vote were taken and the Palestinians were defeated at the United Nations, this would simply hand an absolute victory to those in Tel Aviv who would recognise that there was no pressure to make any progress whatever?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience on these matters, but I have to say that those in the respective foreign affairs departments looking at the issue would recognise that there is significant pressure from the United Kingdom on all. Again, I cannot be tempted to commit to a particular position on a vote that is not yet clear.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

In June, I visited the west bank and east Jerusalem and saw the consequences of the state of Israel’s policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people. Bearing in mind that Israel does not honour United Nations resolutions, is it not time that Britain, Europe and the rest of the world treated Israel in the way we treated apartheid South Africa?

[Alistair Burt]

The consequences of the failure to resolve this long-running matter have many different shades on all sides. That is why it is essential to see it resolved and why we feel a sense of urgency to do so.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

First, can the Minister confirm that Britain is not going to participate in the UN so-called Durban III conference? Secondly, will there be a common EU position on the question of recognition of Palestinian independence?

[Alistair Burt]

Two good questions. First, yes, I can confirm that there will be no UK participation at Durban III. Secondly, the more effectively EU partners can work together, the better, and we are much in contact with each other at this time.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the real judgment should be for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, particularly on mutual recognition, security guarantees, an end to violence and incitement, settlements, borders, Jerusalem, refugees and other day-to-day trade issues, and that any intended UN declaration, including on observer status, simply evades all those issues?

[Alistair Burt]

As my hon. Friend has made clear and as I mentioned in the course of my remarks, many subsidiary issues—hugely important ones—are being considered at the same time as any potential resolution. Of course, he makes the point that much of this is wrapped up together, so taking one position out of all those and believing it to be definitive is highly unlikely. That is why we continue to press for both sides to be in negotiations on all the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the Minister. I have done my best to accommodate the level of interest of colleagues and I apologise to those whom I have not been able to accommodate. If the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray)would stop wringing her hands and listen to the explanation, she might leave better informed. There is a business statement to come and two very heavily subscribed debates are to take place under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee. Ordinarily, I try to get everybody in; I cannot today. I hope that it is understood.

Business of the House

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

12:07

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The business for the week commencing 10 October will be:

Monday 10 October—Remaining stages of the Protection of Freedoms Bill (day 1).

Tuesday 11 October—Remaining stages of the Protection of Freedoms Bill (day 2).

Wednesday 12 October—Opposition day [unallotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 13 October—Motions relating to the use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and Committees (HC 889), improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny (HC 800) and ministerial statements (HC 602), followed by general debate on High Speed 2.

The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The provisional business for the week commencing 17 October will include:

Monday 17 October—Motion relating to MPs’ pensions, followed by motion relating to disclosure and publication of documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 18 October—Remaining stages of the Pensions Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 19 October—Opposition day. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 20 October—Consideration of Lords amendments.

Friday 21 October—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 13 and 20 October will be:

Thursday 13 October—A debate on responses to the riots.

Thursday 20 October—A debate on scrutiny of arms export controls (2011): UK strategic export controls annual report 2009, quarterly reports for 2010, licensing policy and review of export control legislation (HC 686).

Finally, on 12 July, the House was able to convey its gratitude to Sir Malcolm Jack on his retirement from the office of Clerk of the House. As today is the last sitting day before the Clerk retires, may I take this further opportunity on behalf of the House to reiterate our gratitude and to send him our warmest wishes for the future?

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that reply. On behalf of the Opposition, may I join him in expressing again our thanks to Sir Malcolm for everything that he has done in the service of the House and of our democracy, and in wishing him all the best for the future?

May we have a statement from the Prime Minister on why, at Prime Minister’s questions, he keeps saying things that simply do not accord with the facts. Yesterday, he told the House:

“Bank lending is actually going up.”——[Official Report, 14 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 1034.]

Wrong. The Bank of England’s most recent data show that overall lending to businesses is falling. Yesterday he also claimed that private sector employment has increased by 500,000. Wrong. The Office for National Statistics confirms that private sector employment increased by only 264,000 in the year to June 2011. In answering a question about growth in the European Union by trying to talk about America instead—curiously, as America has not been part of Europe for nearly 250 years—he claimed that the UK is growing faster than the United States. That was wrong too. The US economy has grown by 2.6% over the past year to the end of the second quarter, while the UK has grown by only 0.7%.

The Prime Minister takes the most important decisions, and he has a responsibility to do so on the basis of accurate facts, yet it is now clear that he is repeatedly getting things wrong. It might be incompetence—he might actually believe all this stuff—but either way, it is no wonder that the public are losing confidence in the Government’s economic policy.

May we have a debate on the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for England? The Leader of the House will be aware of the deep disquiet, not to say anger, about the proposals, which, in places, will divide communities and destroy relationships that have been built up over many years between constituents and their Members of Parliament, and all in pursuit of an over-rigid mathematical formula. For example, there is a proposed constituency for Gloucester minus the cathedral that makes it a city, and one for a new seat called the Mersey Banks, covering three different local authorities, where one would have to leave the constituency three times and go over a bridge to get from one end of it to the other. It is no wonder that words such as “muddle”, “utterly random” and “barking” have been heard this week. Even the mild-mannered Business Secretary has complained.

This is only the beginning because, as the House will be aware, the same inflexible formula will be applied every five years from now on, so we can expect further regular disruption, with MPs and their constituents not knowing who will be representing whom next. Given the disruption that the changes will bring, I suspect that quite a few Members who voted for the Bill that led to the proposals will now be saying to themselves, “What have we done?”

May we have a statement on reports that the Government propose to ask bereaved relatives, including those on low incomes, for payment when they go to register the death of a loved one? The charge, estimates of which vary from £100 to £180, is apparently intended to pay for a new system to check on causes of death, but the cost, which is no longer to be hidden in funeral directors’ charges, will be collected when families turn up, often in a distressed state, at the register office, or they will be sent an invoice later. Given that the Conservative party made such a fuss at the last election about a so-called death tax, will a Minister explain at the Dispatch Box why they now plan to impose one?

Finally, having mentioned Mr Steve Hilton last week, this week we have been helpfully provided with a restricted memo from his comrade at No. 10, Mr Andrew Cooper. Headed, “The problem”, it reveals that women voters just do not like this Government. In a damning section, it says that

“we are clear that there are a range of policies we have pursued as a Government which are seen as having hit women, or their interests, disproportionately, including: Public sector pay and pensions…Tuition fees, Abolition of Child Trust Funds, Changes to child tax credit and the childcare element, Changes to child benefit.”

Mr Cooper is clearly a man who can get his judgment and his facts right. We wish him well in trying to persuade his boss to do the same.

[Sir George Young]

Yet again the right hon. Gentleman has made no substantive criticism of the business the Government have laid before the House for the next two weeks. He will have noted that we have allocated two days for the Report stage of a Bill, which was virtually unheard of in the Government of whom he was a member.

On statistics, may I say to the right hon. Gentleman that he should look carefully at the dates to which the statistics that he read out apply. He might well find that the Prime Minister’s statistics were perfectly accurate, and that the ones that he used were also accurate. The period over which one takes statistics is crucial, and ‘twas ever thus.

On the Boundary Commission, it is indefensible that a constituency such as Arfon currently has some 40,000 voters, whereas East Ham has more than 90,000. That is the position that the boundaries Bill, which is now on the statute book, was set to address. We are also reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament. This House is the largest directly elected Chamber in the whole of Europe, and we believe that Members can perfectly adequately represent 77,000 people, and many already do. I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman has been inconvenienced by the proposals. I understand that there might be an interesting discussion between him and the shadow Chancellor, and my sympathies are entirely with him. He knows better than anybody that the place to make such representations about boundaries is not in the House, but to the Boundary Commission.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

What about your boundaries?

[Sir George Young]

This is my fifth boundary review. I have been expanded, reduced and abolished. These reforms have no surprises.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a serious issue about the fees that are payable on the registration of a death. The issue may arise from the coroners legislation, and I will ask the Lord Chancellor to write to him with a response.

The right hon. Gentleman ended with a reference to Mr Hilton. Last week, the right hon. Gentleman bombarded me with seven requests for debates, and I assumed that the Opposition would choose at least one of them for the Opposition day on Tuesday, but not one of the subjects that he felt were so important last Thursday appeared on the agenda. I think we have rumbled him. For him, these sessions are just as much opportunities to display his great sense of humour as to make serious bids for debates.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on social mobility and aspiration? I am sure that many people were touched by the report in The Sunday Times of an 11-year-old girl, Aliyah Tribak, who was desperately trying to raise funds to go to the independent school that she wanted to get into but could not afford, as she is from a deprived background in Tower Hamlets. If the Government are serious about social mobility and allowing people to meet their aspirations, surely it is time that we reintroduced the assisted places scheme, so that the best schools in the country are available to the poorest and not just the preserve of the rich and privileged.

[Sir George Young]

I understand the forceful case that my hon. Friend makes for the restoration of assisted places. Our view is that the best way to make progress is to pursue our policy on free schools, which inevitably have a much broader catchment area than those of the independent sector, and to drive up standards for all children in all schools, which is the thrust of my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary’s policy. I hope that that will achieve the objectives of social mobility and aspiration that my hon. Friend has just enunciated.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

May I add my thanks to Sir Malcolm Jack and wish him every success for the future?

In his business statement, the Leader of the House mentioned a couple of Back-Bench debates, one on Hillsborough and the other on the riots, both of which arguably started as a result of an e-petition that reached 100,000 signatures. At Tuesday’s meeting of the Backbench Business Committee, we discussed the best way to proceed with e-petitions, and decided that in the short term we were only able to hear proposals involving e-petitions directly from Members as part of a bid, which we would consider on their merits as we would for normal bids. The Committee will continue to discuss the matter to find a long-term solution for dealing more satisfactorily with e-petitions and to ensure that, rather than becoming gimmicks, they are meaningful. Until we find such a long-term solution, will the Leader of the House commit to giving the Backbench Business Committee additional time to accommodate the new e-pressures that the Government have put on us?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and her Committee for finding time to debate the two e-petitions that had crossed the 100,000 threshold. We note her public service announcement that e-petitions will be debated only if they are picked up by a Member and then formally presented to her for debate.

The hon. Lady asked about time for her Committee. As I have said on earlier occasions, we will honour the commitment to a minimum of 35 days in a Session, and because the current Session is longer, more than 35 days will be provided. Now that the bulk—although not all—of the legislative programme has been completed in the House of Commons, I hope that in the months and weeks ahead it may be possible to find more headroom for Backbench Business Committee debates. As is clear from the business that I have just announced, there will be more time for the Committee than there has been in recent weeks.

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Very tragically, a toddler was killed last year in a house fire in my constituency. The inquest has now reported that the fire was caused by another child playing with matches, which then ignited a highly flammable mattress. Could time be found for a debate on fire safety, which would include advice on preventing access to flammable materials and on the use of flame-retardant furnishings to help reduce the risk of such tragic events happening again in the future?

[Sir George Young]

The whole House will have been sorry to hear of the loss of life of the toddler in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I believe that there are restrictions on the materials that can be used in many items of furniture. However, I will raise the instance that the hon. Gentleman has given with the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), who is responsible for consumer affairs, and see whether there are any further steps that we can take to avoid a repetition of the tragedy.

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

The Government have proposed the most fundamental changes to our planning system for 64 years. Widespread concern has been expressed about the fact that the national planning policy framework fails to strike the right balance between growth on one hand, and the protection of our natural environment and ensuring a real say for local people on the other. Do the Government intend to put the final draft of the framework to Parliament, following full consultation, so that both Houses can vote on it?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a period of consultation on the draft national planning policy framework. The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has responsibility for planning, has on many occasions sought to reassure both the House and the country as a whole that our policies—unlike some designed by our opponents—will create sustainable growth, but not at the expense of the environment and the green belt. The framework does not override local plans, and it protects the green belt, areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest and the rest. I personally would welcome a debate at the end of the process, so that the House could have an opportunity to let its views be heard on this important issue.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the relative merits of unilateral and multilateral approaches to the taxation of banks? This Government introduced a unilateral tax on bank balance sheets. We could discuss whether that is a better approach than waiting for a global tax, which I think would still not have come about.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we would still be waiting for the global tax if it had been necessary to secure universal agreement before it went ahead. She is also right to remind the House of the unilateral bank levy that we introduced, which will raise almost £10 million during the current Parliament. The one-off bonus tax proposed by the Labour party has real disadvantages, not least the fact that the person who designed it says that a permanent tax would not work.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

In my constituency, which adjoins Newcastle, four young people have died in recent months after taking cocktails of substances including legally dispensed methadone which has been sold on to them. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health about what he will do to try to prevent such tragic events from occurring again?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to put those questions to the Secretary of State for Health on Tuesday 18 October. In the meantime, I will write to the Secretary of State asking whether any further steps are possible—in addition to those that we have already taken—to stop the unnecessary loss of young life among those who are taking these concoctions.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Could time be found for an urgent debate on a new European Union directive which, according to the charity Diabetes UK, will result in up to 1 million people with diabetes having their driving licences taken away? It would appear that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is applying the directive far more swiftly than it is being applied in other countries. The ban is due to be introduced next month, so may we have that urgent debate?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. I do not know whether he was present for Transport questions earlier today and had an opportunity to raise the issue with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but I am aware of the draft directive, and will raise it with my right hon. Friend and ask him to drop the hon. Gentleman a line.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I think it is generally agreed that the Select Committee system is increasingly showing its worth, but the Leader of the House will be aware of two emerging difficulties: the refusal of witnesses to attend, and the level of veracity of the evidence given. Will he arrange a debate to explore possible remedies, or undertake to consider the issues and report back to the House?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I think the issue would be best explored in the first instance through an informal meeting between me and the Liaison Committee, as I imagine that it affects a number of Select Committees. I should be more than willing to engage in such a discussion to establish whether any further steps are necessary.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My constituency contains the villages of Irchester and Wollaston, which are separated by some beautiful countryside. I have been contacted by residents who fear that the Government’s planning proposals will lead to the land being concreted over. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), may we have a debate that would expose the myth that the Government’s planning legislation will concrete over the whole of the countryside?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the role that he is playing in demolishing such myths. I said earlier that I would welcome a debate on the draft national policy framework, but if there is a local plan, local people can protect that piece of land from development. I think the message conveyed by my hon. Friend’s question is that it is important for each local authority to have an up-to-date local development plan, informed by local opinion, so that any development that takes place has a local consensus behind it.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will be aware that the public service workers are to be balloted on industrial action aimed at protecting their pensions—industrial action that the workers do not want and the country does not need. Even at this late stage, can the Leader of the House use his good offices to ask the Government to demonstrate, not with warm words but with action, that they are taking the negotiations seriously?

[Sir George Young]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I wonder if I could put the same question to him. Can he use his good offices to persuade the relevant unions to call off the action? It is unnecessary, it would damage economic growth and recovery, and many of us consider it to be wholly premature.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the House can vote before Christmas on our sitting hours? The Procedure Committee is considering both sitting hours and the calendar of the House, but would it not be best for us to have a report on sitting hours? I think that there is a strong wish to return to the earlier start on Tuesdays that operated between 2003 and 2005.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will know that the Select Committee on Procedure is conducting an inquiry into the parliamentary calendar, and I understand that some eight hon. Members gave evidence to it yesterday. I am not sure that the Committee is planning to report within the time scale that my hon. Friend has suggested, but certainly any change in the sitting hours will be subject to a vote in the House, which I suspect will take place some time next year.

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

Before the election the Prime Minister promised to take tough action against people who are involved in knife crime, but we know from the latest figures that people who are involved in such crimes are now less likely to go to jail. May we have an urgent debate on the matter?

[Sir George Young]

We have had an opportunity to debate the Government’s proposals on legislation. We have taken a much tougher approach to those who carry knives and then engage in aggressive behaviour, who are now more likely to end up in prison than was the case before.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

On hearing threats of industrial action emerge from the TUC conference, my constituents are understandably concerned about the impact on their children’s education and the emergency services, for example. Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on industrial relations, so that Members can express their views on whether we need to strengthen the laws governing strike ballots?

[Sir George Young]

It is very disappointing that there have been proposals for ballots on industrial action while negotiations are still going on between the Government and the unions. Any such action would be premature. We have no plans at this stage to change the legislation on industrial action, but we will monitor the application of the law in that important area, particularly if strike action takes place, and we will bear all views in mind if it does prove necessary to reassess the legal framework.

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

I am very pleased that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills have now said that bringing Siemens to Hull is a key priority for the Government, but may we have a debate so that we can learn whether Department of Energy and Climate Change Ministers have a long-term commitment to the offshore wind energy sector?

[Sir George Young]

I understand that such commitments have already been given in broad terms by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. There will be an opportunity on 20 October to press him further on these issues; in the meantime, I will share the hon. Lady’s concern with him.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House grant an urgent debate on the future of my local hospital, Chase Farm, not least because before the general election my constituents were joined by the Prime Minister on their “Save our A and E” campaign and given assurances, and unsurprisingly they and I feel utterly let down?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s disappointment. We said before the election that there would be a moratorium on such closures, and there was a moratorium. That case was re-examined in light of the four criteria set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. He asked the borough council to see whether an alternative configuration could be developed, but that was not the case, and an independent review showed there were real safety issues in the current configuration. Against that background, difficult decisions were taken, but I understand that those decisions have the support of local doctors.

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

After lots of time, effort and money, the Department for Work and Pensions central complaints champions have come up with, and circulated to all DWP outlets, the groundbreaking formula that a complaint

“is an expression of dissatisfaction about the service”

received. Please will the Leader of the House inquire of his DWP colleagues what this exercise has cost? Would not the money have been better spent on staff and on the pensions of the people working in benefits offices, who are delivering the service to those who have been made unemployed by this Tory Government, with unemployment now at levels not seen since the ’80s?

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman’s account of that incident. I will ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to write to the hon. Gentleman about it.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House grant us a debate on banking and specifically the Vickers report, so that we can discuss why the Labour party continues to oppose real reform and instead supports the failed system?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will have heard the Chancellor’s statement earlier this week. The Government are now examining the report in detail and we want to keep the House updated on its implementation. We welcome the report and have given our support to its central recommendations. An initial response will be given by the end of the year. We were all pleased, if somewhat surprised, to hear the shadow Chancellor apologise on Tuesday for being partly responsible for the failed system of regulation under the previous Government.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

May we then have a debate on bank charges, following the news this morning that both RBS and Clydesdale bank are, for the first time in their history, to charge credit unions for banking services, so that we can make our view clear that banks should not pass on their charges to vulnerable organisations and customers in the current circumstances?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern. One of the Vickers report’s recommendations is that it should be much easier to switch accounts from one bank to another. I therefore hope that if a bank raises its charges, it will be easier for people to transfer their custom to a bank that offers a more competitive service.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House grant a debate on the independence of British newspapers? Yesterday while perusing his copy of the Morning Star, he may have read, beneath the headline “Could You Be Any More Wet”, the TUC’s reaction to the Leader of the Opposition described as “heckling, derisive laughter” and “deflation”. Given that dramatic about-turn, may we have a debate on that, too?

[Sir George Young]

I am afraid that I did not read yesterday’s Morning Star, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for providing me with an abbreviated edition. The ownership of newspapers was the peg on which he hung his question, and that is a matter for the Leveson inquiry.

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

May I associate myself with the tributes to Malcolm Jack? Not only has he been a brilliant, innovative, modernising Clerk, but he shares with me the privilege of having graduated from the London School of Economics.

On our return after the recess, may we have an urgent debate on what is going on in Iceland? It still owes this country billions of pounds, which it refuses to pay to local authorities and individuals, and it is becoming quite a rogue state in that it is colluding with Japan in killing minkes and other whales and is now making arrangements with the Chinese Government to exploit the natural resources that are the inheritance of us all.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman, using some fairly stark language about Iceland, has raised a number of issues, some of which fall to the Treasury, while others, I suspect, fall to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. I will raise them with my colleagues. I am unsure whether there is any direct action that we can take on any debts of the Iceland Government, but he will know that there are some consequentials from the failure of the Kaupthing bank.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Agriculture and food processing industries play a vital role in Staffordshire and exports from these sectors are increasing year on year. May we have a debate on the contribution they can and will make to growth and employment, provided that that is not impeded by unnecessary regulation, of which we see more looming across the channel?

[Sir George Young]

I have every sympathy with my hon. Friend’s request. He might like to present himself to the salon of the Backbench Business Committee to suggest such a debate. We will support British farming as much as we can and encourage sustainable food production, so that we can have a secure, environmentally sustainable and healthy supply of food with improved standards of animal welfare.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Sadly, the number of assaults on NHS staff appears to be on the increase. May we have a debate about how we might ensure the safety and security of health workers?

[Sir George Young]

I deplore any assaults on those who work for the NHS. In the first instance, it would be for the local NHS trust to take up any such problems and improve security. If the hon. Gentleman can pass on to me specific examples from his constituency, I will raise them with my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and see whether there is any role for the Government to play in reducing the number of attacks.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be pleased to see that the Backbench Business Committee has scheduled two e-petitions debates, one on the Hillsborough disaster and another on the response to the riots. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a golden opportunity to show due courtesy and respect to the hundreds of thousands of petitioners by setting a precedent and having a Cabinet Minister present to respond to both debates?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that subject. As I have said before, there have been occasions when a Cabinet Minister has responded to a debate in Westminster Hall. I will certainly pass on to the relevant Minister my hon. Friend’s specific request for the debate on Hillsborough, so that he is aware of the feeling in the House that it would be appropriate for him to respond.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

On 9 June, the Leader of the House agreed to use his considerable influence to seek a decision about the Pingat Jasa Malaysia medal, as we were then awaiting the decision of the medals review. I was told that it was hoped that there would be a decision by the summer, but the summer has come and gone and my questions are being bounced between the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, leading me to wonder if the “Circumlocution Office” is again operating. May we have a statement immediately after the House returns in October on what is happening in that medals review and when we can expect the brave veterans concerned to be able to wear their medal with pride?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Lady’s impatience to get a decision, but the summer has not, I hope, entirely gone—some of us have lingering hopes there might be a few days of sunshine left. I will, however, raise the issue with the relevant Minister and see whether we can expedite a decision, as I know the process has gone on for quite some time.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are short of time. May I appeal to colleagues to ask single, short—one sentence—business questions of the Leader of the House? This would be a dramatic breakthrough and of benefit to the House as a whole. I know that a fine example will be set by the hon. Member for New Forest East.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I was afraid that you were going to pick me, Mr Speaker. May we have a debate on the importance of in-patient beds in acute mental health facilities, given that those at Woodhaven hospital in my constituency face the possibility of closure, unless people write in urgently to the consultation that is under way?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. As he says, a consultation process is under way to which I urge him to respond, although I am sure that he has already done so. I know that others will have heard our exchange and that if they share his concern, they also will write to the NHS trust.

[Mr Speaker]

I am pleased to say that they will also have heard the single sentence from the hon. Member for New Forest East, and I feel sure that they will have appreciated it.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

Last week, on a visit to my local Remploy factory in Wishaw, I met some disabled people who are genuinely terrified that they are about to lose their jobs and see their factory close. Will the Leader of the House give time for a debate on that very serious subject?

[Sir George Young]

Of course I understand the concern of anybody who is confronted with the possible loss of their job. I will raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

In the light of the Prime Minister’s renewed commitment to strengthening families and the fact that the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Project has now opened in my constituency, may we have a debate on the crucial importance of the foundation years and early intervention in families who are struggling to bond with their new babies?

[Sir George Young]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that she will apply for an Adjournment debate, where we might be able to debate the matter at more length than the Speaker is likely to allow me now.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

May we have a serious debate on the boundary changes? We have no intermediate levels of government in our country, we are reducing the number of elected people and we are increasing the power of unelected officials from Brussels, from Whitehall and from town halls. We are taking away the voice of the citizens of Britain. This is a serious diminution of parliamentary democracy.

[Sir George Young]

What the right hon. Gentleman proposes would be totally irregular. It is for the Boundary Commission to decide our boundaries. The matter will be debated at the end of the process, when the order comes before the House.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

May we have an urgent debate on controlling the deficit? The Government have clearly set out their spending plans, but such a debate might allow us to clarify how they compare with the plans of the Labour party, which in government did so much to create the deficit we inherited.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. It is worth reminding the House that the reductions in public expenditure this year are only £2 billion more than what was planned by the outgoing Labour Government.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House to use his good offices to encourage the relevant Minister in the Department responsible for social inclusion to have a debate on the human rights of the deaf community in the UK, instead of leaving it to the Minister responsible for culture and communications when deaf people are denied access to video relay and use of British sign language?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern, I will raise it with the appropriate Minister and ask that the hon. Gentleman be sent a written reply.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

May we have an early debate on the Government’s planning proposals, to give us all the opportunity to dispel the inaccurate myths being promoted by the Campaign to Protect Rural England and some other organisations, and to make it clear to the country that the Government’s planning proposals will substantially enhance the ability of and opportunity for local councillors and local people to affect what happens in their own areas?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend served with me as a Planning Minister—

[Tony Baldry]

Four years.

[Sir George Young]

Indeed, for four years. He therefore has some insight into the planning process. I indicated earlier that I would welcome a broader debate on planning policy so that the myths can be laid to rest.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House set aside time every week for “PMT”? As I understand it, his defence of the Prime Minister is that when the Prime Minister says something, for us to understand the statistic we just need to know the timeline he is applying to it. If the Prime Minister had a “Prime Minister’s Timeline” session every week, we would be able to understand that when he says, “Growth in the UK is bigger than in the United States of America”, he means that that was so under a Labour Government.

[Sir George Young]

The short answer is no.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

In 2004, the Wood report said that many British companies were at a disadvantage because of European Union procurement laws. Bearing that in mind, and given the disastrous procurement by the previous Labour Government of the Thameslink rolling stock contract, may we have a debate to address that, so that we can really have British jobs for British people?

[Sir George Young]

I hear what my hon. Friend has said. That matter was raised in Transport questions. We are reviewing the procurement rules to see whether British companies can compete on a level playing field with others when such contracts come up again.

[Mr Speaker]

Just in case I was unclear earlier, I ought to say that at no stage has there been anything wrong, irregular or in any way objectionable about the length of the Leader of the House’s replies. I was referring purely to the questions.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the “Review into the Needs of Families Bereaved by Homicide” report issued by the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, so that this House can consider how its recommendations should be dealt with?

[Sir George Young]

We are grateful to Louise Casey for producing the report and we all applaud the work of victim support schemes in our constituencies. I would welcome such a debate. I remind the House that, following the report’s publication, we have made £500,000 available to take forward some of the immediate recommendations.

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

May I ask for a debate on the criteria used by the Boundary Commission in its review and the inherent instability built into the system for the future? A city such as Sheffield has wards of 14,000 people, so only a small amount of house building in a new constituency such as mine is likely to mean that in five years’ time, there will be a knock-on effect in Rotherham, Doncaster and Barnsley, because the ward size in Sheffield is such that it will not be possible to carry out further reorganisation there. This complete reorganisation is bad for democratic accountability.

[Sir George Young]

I repeat what I said earlier: it would be quite wrong of this House to get involved in the detailed boundaries that will be set out under the review process. The place for the hon. Gentleman to make his representations is not here; it is to the Boundary Commission.

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

May we have a debate on attempts by the EU High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy to force through the creation of a permanent military headquarters for the European Union, using the artifice of permanent structured co-operation under the Lisbon treaty and contrary to the wishes of this Government?

[Sir George Young]

If it is contrary to the wishes of this Government, I very much hope it will not happen. There will be an opportunity at the next Defence questions to raise the matter, but in the meantime I will share my hon. Friend’s concern with the Secretary of State for Defence.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

I have evidence that Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s economic development agency, is behaving in a manner and using practices that may damage sustainable economic growth in my constituency—that evidence has been brought to me by constituents. In addition, it would appear to suggest that connected, highly questionable planning practices are also taking place within the Scottish Government, which could also damage economic development in my constituency. I brought those matters to the attention of Sir Peter Housden, the permanent secretary to the Scottish Government, and reminded him of his responsibilities under the civil service code. I have also called for an independent inquiry into these matters, but all I have had in response is obfuscation, diversionary tactics and a point-blank refusal by a senior civil servant to look into my evidence and complaints—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. When the Speaker said one question, he did not mean one that lasted five minutes.

[Mr McCann]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That was the question.

[Sir George Young]

It sounded from the question as though this is a matter that has been devolved to the Scottish Government. None the less, I will raise the issue that the hon. Gentleman has just touched on with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to see whether there is a role for the Westminster Government to play.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

A number of my constituents and 20,000 others across the United Kingdom have lost significant sums in the Arch Cru investment fund as a result of improper regulation. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate on this subject, so that they can hear the issues being aired and, I hope, demand compensation?

[Sir George Young]

I commend the campaign being run by my hon. Friend. Many MPs have received letters from constituents who have been affected by that failure. As he may know, the Financial Services Authority is investigating the case, but I will raise his concerns with Treasury Ministers. Although I cannot promise a debate, I hope that I can promise him a letter.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

For the third time in a year, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), has withdrawn proposed regulations on ship-to-ship oil transfer in British waters. Given that the reason for the latest delay appears to be a wish to comply with Government policy on simplifying regulation, will the Leader of the House intervene to cut the red tape and help the Minister, if necessary by providing time in which legislation can be brought to the House, so that we can resolve this matter on which we have been waiting for action for almost two years?

[Sir George Young]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman had an opportunity to raise that issue just now in Transport questions, but I will raise it with the Secretary of State and see whether we can cut through the red tape.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

May I join my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) in asking for a debate on the proposed trade union strikes, so that the public have an opportunity to see where this House, including the shadow Chancellor, stands—on the side of the British public, or on the side of the trade union barons who are intent on disrupting our public services and damaging our economy?

[Sir George Young]

I would welcome such a debate, but I cannot provide the time. My hon. Friend will know that the basis for the discussions between the Government and the trade unions is the report Lord Hutton produced earlier this year, which proposes a fairer balance between, on the one hand, the beneficiaries of public sector pensions and, on the other hand, taxpayers. Further discussions are due to take place next Tuesday. I hope the trade unions will respond, and in the meantime I think that it would be quite wrong to go ahead with industrial action.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Given that Harrow council has issued a tender document for the procurement of bailiff services that requires the successful tenderer to pay back to the council 10% of the fee they obtain from the person from whom they collect the debt, may we have an urgent debate on the use of bailiffs, the services provided and the fees allowed, so that this House can express its view on such unfair practices?

[Sir George Young]

The Government have given a commitment to provide better protection against aggressive bailiffs, so I can offer some encouragement on that part of my hon. Friend’s question. On the first part, I will ask Department for Communities and Local Government Ministers whether there is any irregularity in Harrow council seeking a kick-back from any contract that it lets.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will no doubt have been shocked as I was to hear that two senior members of the Ulster Unionist party have been summoned to Orange Order disciplinary proceedings after they attended the funeral of the murdered Catholic police officer, Ronan Kerr. May we have a short debate in which all Members of this House can demonstrate our support for Tom Elliott and Danny Kennedy and recognise the responsible way in which they have offered leadership to that community?

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. I cannot provide time for a debate but I will draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State both my hon. Friend’s remarks and the support that he had from other hon. Members in the House.

Point of Order

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

12:52

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

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 30 June, I wrote to the Prime Minister about serious concerns I had about an answer he gave in Prime Minister’s questions about the protection of children from paedophiles under the Protection of Freedoms Bill. Three months on, I have not yet received a response and I wondered whether you could do anything to encourage the Prime Minister to respond to me, as the Bill will be before the House when we return in October.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I am sure that the hon. Lady appreciates that that is not a matter for the Chair and is therefore not a point of order. Those on the Treasury Benches will have heard her comments and I am sure that the Prime Minister, like all Ministers, will want to give prompt replies to correspondence from Members of this House. If she wishes to take it further, she could go to the Table Office to find out how else she can ensure that she receives a prompt reply.

Royal Assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Before we move to the main business, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011

Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.

Backbench Business

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[31st Allotted Day]

Food Security and Famine Prevention (Africa)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Before I call Amber Rudd to move the motion, I inform the House that after the opening speeches from each side there will be a six-minute time limit on Back-Bench contributions in this debate, as a large number of Members wish to participate.

12:54

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the contribution of the British public, via the Disasters Emergency Committee, and the British Government to the famine relief effort in the Horn of Africa; recognises that emergency food relief must always be the last resort and that improving the productivity and resilience of domestic agricultural systems in Africa must be a priority for the UK and the international donor community; and calls upon the Government to increase its focus on improving awareness around nutrition and agriculture in the developing world to support farmers and secure greater international food resilience and to champion the welfare of those in the developing world in the discussions on food price volatility at the upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes.

The motion was tabled by me and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and is supported by 30 other Members—it is truly a cross-party motion supported by Members from throughout the United Kingdom. I believe that that reflects the seriousness of the subject matter and the settled desire of the House to have the opportunity to debate it.

One might think that things had improved in the horn of Africa if one only followed the media, but unfortunately they have not. The food crisis has, I am afraid, got much worse. Last week, the UN announced that a sixth region of Somalia has entered the famine. There are now 750,000 people at risk and an estimated $2.5 billion is required to prevent that starvation escalating, but there is currently a $950 million shortfall without even estimating the needs beyond December 2011.

Despite such uncertainties, the UK has led the international response. Despite the many economic difficulties we all have at home, the UK Government have led and I believe that they should be commended for that. They have done what they set out to do and have not tried to balance the books on the backs of the poorest, and they have contributed £188 million. The UK public’s generosity through individual gifts reflects their support for the Government in this generosity. By the end of last week, they had given £57 million, which is greater than the amounts given by the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Switzerland put together. The UK Government have a responsibility, however, both to the general public, who have given so much, and to the citizens of the horn of Africa, who have so little, to ensure that that money really delivers.

Famines are political. We all know that the immediate response to a famine must be food, aid and shelter, but we should also look hard at what else can be done earlier on. It is not the lack of food but the fact that some people cannot get access to the food that causes the famine. The main cause of food security in Africa is war and conflict. Famine is about so much more than food: it is about a famine of education, democracy, health, transport and so many other items. The food famine becomes a symptom of that vast failure. The last famine in Europe was the Irish potato famine, which was a failure of politics as much as a failure of the agriculture that season.

I believe that we in this House should encourage and support the efforts towards conflict prevention through the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and any Government Department, and we can work with the organisations that are already settled in such societies to try to do that. I am aware that external interventions in fragile states are fraught with risk. We know that they can make things worse, but we must nevertheless be bold and try always to support good governance so that we can try to promote the emergence of civil society.

As the Nobel prize winner Professor Amartya Sen famously noted, there are no famines in democracies that have a free press. We can and should help support organisations that help with building a free society—that is the true version of early prevention of a famine. We also must not lose sight of the help we can give towards building agricultural resilience to famine. Agriculture is the lifeblood of the national economies of the horn of Africa. In 2009, 50% of the gross domestic product of Ethiopia came from agriculture, and the equivalent figure was 22% in Kenya and 60% in Somalia. The majority of the labour force in those countries work in rural areas and 80% are smallholders working less than 2 hectares. When we consider that the Palace of Westminster covers 3 hectares, we can begin to get a feeling of what a small area they have to work in and how precarious their living is. We should try to focus our support on the organisations working with those small farmers and micro-scale producers who can produce a much greater yield than the large monoculture farms. Seven out of 10 of the world’s hungry are members of those small rural households.

The UK public, generous as they have been, expect results from UK aid. I welcome once more the huge international effort, of which the UK has been so supportive, to provide immediate famine relief, which is saving lives day by day, but we must also focus on long-term agricultural resilience, helping communities to improve their yield. If we do that—if we can help them build up their own incomes—we also help them towards building up their own civil societies. A community who have a surplus can invest in their own education and in their own health service, so we have the twin benefit of helping with the production of agriculture and helping communities create their own incomes, thereby building, from the bottom up, the civil society that can then provide the stability of a democracy that is less likely to go into famine.

We all know that this is complex. When we talk about famine, people start listing, as I have, its many different elements. We must not let the complexity of the subject put us off. We must continue putting our efforts into prevention. We must try to work with the famine as it is at the moment, but above all we must try to make sure that it does not happen again by supporting people so that their own civil society can emerge.

13:01

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am pleased to open the debate along with the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting us time to have this very important debate.

The famine in Somalia and the widespread emergency that exists across the region is the result of many failures. The failure of rainfall is often cited on the news, but just as important, if not more so, are the failures of Governments, both regionally and internationally, the failure to address the underlying causes of famine and food insecurity, and the failure to act in time and in a manner that prevents people from not having enough food. In Somalia, of course, there is also the fundamental failure of the state and the absence of peace and stability for the best part of two decades.

The UK has undoubtedly taken a leadership role in responding to the current crisis. The public’s generosity should be applauded, as should the Government’s contribution to the relief effort and the incredible work of our British charities. However, if we want to consign famine and chronic hunger in Africa to history, we have to ask ourselves some tough questions. Do national and international Governments respond quickly enough to emerging crises, and are we doing enough now to prevent further deaths in the horn of Africa? As the hon. Lady asked, have we done enough to boost small-scale agriculture production and support rural livelihoods in our international development work in Africa? Have we been too complacent about food price volatility, commodity speculation, biofuel land-grabs and food export bans? I hope that there will be answers to some of those questions during the debate.

I was 10 when I first saw TV images of dying children in Ethiopia. A quarter of a century has passed since then, and it saddens and angers me that yet again we see those scenes on our televisions. The crisis did not start when we first saw the reports in the news; the first warning signs came as early as last August. I have questions about the role of African Governments in facing up to and addressing emerging crises and about their capacity to respond. One NGO worker recently told me that in some parts of Africa they cannot mention the F-word and the C-word—famine and cholera—because the Governments simply do not like to hear them. Denying that the problem exists is not the way to stop it happening.

I also ask myself why, despite early-warning mechanisms being in place, the international humanitarian system waited until people were dying before it responded on the scale that was needed. Surely there needs to be more flexibility in the way that centrally held emergency funds can be released. I know that the report of Lord Ashdown’s humanitarian emergency response review underlines the importance of anticipation, but anticipation must be followed by action if it is to have any significance. I note the reference in the report published by DFID today to slow-onset crises and how we might better respond to those.

That leads me to the situation now. We know that 750,000 people are at risk of dying in the next few months alone. That is the equivalent of a city the size of Leeds. Thousands of people, predominantly women and children, are turning up at already swollen refugee camps every week. We must find a way to address ongoing needs—health and sanitation as well as food needs. As I understand it, many of the humanitarian grants that have funded the relief operation last for only six months, and some start to expire as early as October. We need a plan.

I could speak for longer about the current situation, but I know that the Secretary of State is here to provide an update and I want to turn to the issue of how we prevent such catastrophes from happening again. Last week, the United Nations Secretary-General called for the crisis in the horn of Africa to be turned into an opportunity. Among other things he called for investment in sustainable livelihoods; he is entirely right. One of the best ways to do that would be for the international community to stop paying lip service to the idea of supporting rural livelihoods in Africa—to the smallholder farmers and pastoralists—and get on and do it. We also need to have hard, grown-up conversations with African Governments about their expenditure priorities.

Some 70% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa are dependent on farming. When I visited Kenya last year I met many families who told me that their livelihood was their land but often their land did not produce enough for them to live on. They are sub-subsistence farmers. The sad thing is that it does not have to be that way. There are many brilliant projects run by charities such as Farm Africa, in which small interventions—better seeds, appropriate fertilisers, crossbreeding of livestock and basic knowledge about planting and irrigation—produce hugely increased yields and improve the resilience of local populations. The challenge is to scale up those initiatives, to extend their reach and to get all African Governments investing properly in agricultural extension services and appropriate research and development.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case about what can be done at a micro-agriculture level to support those farmers. Does she agree that the success of that absolutely depends on UK Government leadership in gaining access to markets for those farmers?

[Heidi Alexander]

I certainly do, and I shall come to some of the wider international issues later in my speech.

If we are serious about addressing these problems, the UK needs to look at how we prioritise our overseas aid expenditure, setting a standard for other donors in respect of investment in agriculture. Between 2007 and 2009, DFID gave on average $32 million per year to agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa—1.8% of our total bilateral aid in the region. When we increase our aid budget in 2013, what will we spend the additional money on? How much will go into supporting smallholder farmers and pastoralist communities? I have seen research that suggests that of the 14 operational or summary plans publicly available from DFID for African countries, six make no reference at all to agriculture or farmers, three make passing reference, two refer to food security in relation to humanitarian spend and only three—Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Mozambique—have any significant focus on agriculture and farming.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I compliment my hon. Friend on her speech. She mentioned land purchases by western farming interests and other wealthy countries—some in the far east, in Asia. Does she not think that there has to be some change in the mechanism so that it is impossible for wealthy countries to buy and take very valuable land which they then keep for themselves and for private food exports to themselves, leaving the people surrounding them in Africa in the very vulnerable and dangerous situation in which they are now?

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I am not an expert on these issues, but I think that the international system needs to change. It seems completely wrong that huge amounts of land in parts of Africa are growing crops that go into our cars rather than food that goes into the mouths of the people who live in those areas.

Before I move on to some of the wider international issues, I take the opportunity to ask the Secretary of State if he might update us on some of the things that are already under way in the UK in terms of our contribution to food security. In L’Aquila in 2008, we made a number of commitments. When will the Secretary of State publish the data on disbursements for 2010-ll? I know that the Department claims to be on track, but there are those who would like to see the evidence of that money being spent. Will he also tell us if and when a decision will be taken about investing the funds of the global agriculture and food security programme?

I want Africa to have the chance to realise its potential—

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

As the hon. Lady mentioned L’Aquila, does she agree that the UK claims to be on track for the disbursements, but other countries, such as Russia, France and the United States, are way behind what they promised?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I gently remind the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) that the Backbench Business Committee recommended eight minutes for her speech and that of the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). We are now overshooting, so perhaps she will bear that in mind. I know that she has taken interventions, but many hon. Members are waiting to speak so perhaps she could draw to a conclusion.

[Heidi Alexander]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was trying to accommodate interventions. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) makes a good point.

Let me conclude by moving on to the international issues. Oxfam has recently produced an incredible report, “Growing a Better Future”, setting out the serious challenges that exist within the world’s economic system that prevent the poorest people in the poorest countries from accessing the food they need. We have already talked about the purchase of land for biofuels and there is also the issue of excessive commodity speculation increasing volatility in food prices, and those issues need to be addressed. I know that it is not completely in the gift of the Secretary of State or the UK, but let us think about how we champion those issues in discussions such as those at the G20 in Cannes.

I have covered a number of issues this afternoon, but I conclude by saying that our world is becoming ever more interconnected, and the fears of some of my constituents about immigration will be addressed in the long term only if the developing world becomes a place where the local population want to remain. I can understand why a family living on the outskirts of Nairobi, having fled the countryside because they cannot feed their children, may want a better life. The inequalities that exist between the developed and developing world must be addressed. We have a responsibility to do so and, more importantly, it is countries such as ours that have the power to act. The scale of the crisis in the horn of Africa is a wake-up call. I hope that we rise to the challenge.

13:12

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) on two extremely good speeches on the vital subject that the House is debating.

The motion has three specific points. I want to say a few words about all three, but I start by acknowledging that the motion mentions the generosity of the British public through the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. Throughout the country, people have supported that, and nearly £60 million has been raised. That, together with the efforts of the British Government and other Governments around the world, seeks to address the crisis in the horn of Africa and to stop a disaster becoming a catastrophe.

The House will be aware of what is happening in the horn of Africa. The rains have failed. Enormous numbers of people are moving first from the centre of Somalia down to Mogadishu and then from Somalia out across the borders into Kenya and Ethiopia. The Dollo-Ado camps in Ethiopia now contain 120,000 Somalis, 80,000 of whom have arrived there in the last few weeks. In Mogadishu, which I visited just three weeks ago, camps have sprung up all over that city. The World Food Programme is today feeding some 327,000 refugees there, in particular in therapeutic feeding.

In Dadaab, which I visited earlier in the summer—I know that the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has been there recently, too—huge numbers of people have come across the border into Kenya. I saw a sight that one rarely sees in Africa—large numbers of mothers and their children waiting in the early morning in complete silence. I was able to talk to some of them; they told awful stories about being attacked and beaten as they came with their children out of Somalia. Many had lost children on that march, and their feet were cut to pieces by that long march. I pay tribute to the Kenyan Government who are housing 430,000 people in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world, which was built originally for 90,000.

I also visited Wajir, where I was able to see the brilliant work that has been done by British non-governmental organisations—in particular Save the Children, but many others—in trying to cope with the crisis. I acknowledge and pay tribute to my shadow, the right hon. and learned Lady, for the way in which she, too, has emphasised the importance of placing help for girls and women at the centre of what we are doing—they are in the forefront of the crisis—and for the work that she has done in ensuring that this issue stays at the top of our international agenda.

The people in those camps are in many ways the lucky ones. Inside Somalia we are probably reaching about 1.2 million of the 3 million people who are in serious jeopardy at this time. Those who have followed these things will have seen that the global acute malnutrition and the serious acute malnutrition rates in Somalia are horrific. We have not seen such rates since the 1992 famine. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made clear, it is not often starvation that kills people who are caught up in famines, for the reasons that she eloquently set out; it is disease. When the rains come, the immune systems of large numbers of people, already shredded by hunger, will not be able to withstand the waterborne diseases that will cut like a knife through that very vulnerable population. Cholera is already endemic in Somalia and Mogadishu, and measles and malaria will also affect huge numbers of very vulnerable people when the rains come.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Will my right hon. Friend use his considerable leadership in his capacity as Secretary of State, within the international community, to get to the root of this issue? We want to deliver humanitarian relief now, but if we had spent half the money that we will now have to spend in advance, we would have avoided the problem and people would not have been in stress and dying. Spending money in advance rather than waiting for the crisis is surely the way we will have to deal with this in future.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point, which I am coming to directly.

Britain has engaged vigorously over recent months in addressing all these issues, and I pay tribute to the outstanding team that Britain has in Nairobi, across Departments of the British Government, working with our partners and providing real leadership and advice across the international system.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Before my right hon. Friend leaves the emergency situation, which he has described in great detail, I congratulate him on his early and substantial response, but I am concerned about the details of a written answer that he gave me in which he suggests that the regional financial shortfalls in the horn amount to $918 million. In spite of our own considerable contribution, that is a very worrying figure. I know that my right hon. Friend is working hard to encourage the international community to contribute more, but is there anything else that can be done?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will come to that point directly. Let me set out what we in Britain are doing to help. First, in Somalia, Britain will be vaccinating more than 1.3 million children against measles and 670,000 children against polio, and providing mosquito nets for 160,000 families. During the last week, we think that we have managed to reach an additional 40,000 families inside Somalia, and 10,000 tonnes of food to treat and prevent moderate malnutrition have now arrived in the country. In Kenya, we are providing clean water for more than 300,000 people in Dadaab, and in northern Kenya more generally, we are helping 100,000 who have received 600 tonnes of UK-funded food aid during the last month.

We have been working in Ethiopia for many years—this relates directly to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce)—and it is for that reason that since 1992 the prevalence of malnutrition has fallen by about 50%. That shows the difference between working in a country where development can take place and Somalia, where it is very difficult. In Ethiopia we are feeding more than 2.4 million people. We recently provided 50 tonnes of seeds and 60 tonnes of fertiliser, and we are helping to vaccinate 300,000 livestock, which is important in enabling people to continue with their livelihoods when the famine is over. We are working extremely hard to persuade others to support that effort, with some success. Around £400 million has been pledged for Somalia since 1 July, and I will be working on that, along with other Ministers, at next week’s meetings of the United Nations and the World Bank. Progress is being made, but insufficient progress.

I come now to the central point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon, who chairs the International Development Committee, and which is dealt with in the final part of the motion: the importance of trying to ensure that these crises are addressed upstream and that food insecurity is replaced by food security.

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

The Secretary of State referred earlier to women as the prime victims of the famine and rightly paid tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). As he is coming to this passage in his speech, will he ensure that DFID continues the work that we did on recognising that women make up the majority of food producers in Africa and the need to involve women where they often have few rights and decision-making powers in their communities? Will he ensure that his Department puts women at the heart of all its policies in Africa and continues to do so?

[Mr Mitchell]

I can vigorously reassure the right hon. Lady that that is the case. One cannot begin to understand development unless one realises the importance of putting children and women right at the centre of everything one does.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The population of Ethiopia has grown fourfold in the past 50 years. The populations of Somalia and Kenya have grown threefold and fivefold respectively. Between one quarter and one third of the married women in that region would like to avoid or delay pregnancy. I understand that there are an estimated 76 million unwanted births a year. Will access to modern contraception be part of the Government’s plan?

[Mr Mitchell]

It absolutely is. I wrote to the hon. Lady about that in June. She is entirely right: it is outrageous that less than 25% of women in sub-Saharan Africa have access to contraception. A prime part of the Government’s development policy is to try to ensure that up to 10 million couples who currently do not have access to contraception get it.

I was talking about the importance of food security and of people being able to feed themselves. At the end of last week, I visited an extremely important project, run by Britain and the World Food Programme, that seeks to build food security in Karamoja in northern Uganda. It encapsulates the old proverb, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach him to fish and he will be able to feed himself.” We are engaged in a project that hitherto has spent £28 per person on securing food aid. Over the next three years we will spend £33 per person. As I saw for myself, that food security is developing well. In 2009 more than 1 million people in Karamoja were receiving food aid and the region was suffering from deep food insecurity, but by the end of this year we believe the figure will be below 140,000.

In looking at that programme we saw all the things that need to happen, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon knows so well. We saw effective irrigation, the harvesting of water through reservoirs, families growing food for themselves and market traders turning up on the sites where that food is being grown and buying the surplus. We saw feeder roads developing and warehouses springing up, which is very important. That is the way ahead to ensure that deep food insecurity is tackled. That is what we have been doing in Ethiopia, and the approach has helped to ensure that Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are not now experiencing famine.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I compliment the Secretary of State on visiting Somalia and Mogadishu and on the work he has been doing there in particular. The situation in Somalia is clearly very difficult and dangerous. Did his visit give him any hope that there will be greater political stability and physical security for refugees that will enable them to return home once the famine is over and resume their farming businesses and practices?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on the key issue: the deep insecurity and ungoverned space in Somalia. I underline our strong admiration and support for the brave people who go in to try to deliver life-saving aid and support there. An announcement was made last week by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia on political developments and their intention to hold elections of some sort in a year’s time. He will also know of the work done in the Kampala accords earlier this year, not least by President Museveni. I do not hide from the hon. Gentleman the very great difficulties in achieving what he underlined needs to be achieved. All this emphasises the importance of the work on resilience. The hon. Member for Lewisham East mentioned the humanitarian and emergency response review that we commissioned, which was carried out so well by Lord Ashdown. The Government have adopted all the points that he made in that report, lock, stock and barrel, and in some cases we will go further.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is very often the world’s poorest people who are most dependent on the free services provided by ecosystems and that therefore, economic development of any sort that undermines those ecosystems or is un-green will not only not help those people, but actively harm them? Will he continue to put an increasing focus, as I know he is, on tackling the environmental causes of some of the base poverty we see in the world today?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Had he been with me in Karamoja last week, I think it would have warmed the cockles of his heart to see the work being done by the World Food Programme and Britain specifically to address those concerns.

I must draw my remarks to a close. I wish to end by making four points. There are 400,000 people, mainly children, in danger of dying as a result of the famine in Somalia. Britain has set out clearly what needs to be done. People across all parts of our country, as well as the Government, have given their money and support. We cannot put a price on a life, but we can put a price on saving one. It is time for other countries to recognise that fact and reach deeper into their pockets.

13:27

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I would like to thank the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) for tabling the motion. We strongly support the terms of the motion. The House obviously wanted the opportunity to debate the terrible suffering in the horn of Africa, which is why so many Members have attended the debate to speak.

I very much endorse what has been said by the Secretary of State. As he told the House, he has been to the horn of Africa and to Mogadishu, and I pay tribute to him for that—it was a brave thing to do. I imagine that he was advised absolutely not to go there. He is the first Minister to go there since 1992. I really give him credit for that. I also pay tribute to the tremendous work of the Department for International Development and our high commissions in the region. They are doing important work for people who face such terrible suffering.

When Islamic Relief took me out to see its inspiring work in the area, I saw for myself the effect of the worst drought for 60 years. It is an area where the land is not bare. There is abundant vegetation, but the trees and shrubs are all parched because of the drought. The area should be teeming with cattle, goats, camels, donkeys and giraffes, but instead the shrubs and trees are white and grey and everywhere the skeletons of cattle and goats can be seen. I saw a huge, majestic giraffe lying dead at the side of the road. The women we met in Wajir in the north-east of Kenya told us how one by one their animals had fallen victim to starvation because of the drought. Their herds had dwindled almost to nothing—herds that had provided them with their livelihood, milk, meat and income. They do not have any money left, and they and their children do not have enough to eat, but although the women and children are so thin, they are not starving, because they are getting food, such as that I saw being given out by Islamic Relief with the support of DFID. Let us make no mistake: our aid and the work of our aid agencies is saving lives. I pay tribute not only to Islamic Relief, but as the Secretary of State did, to Save the Children, Oxfam, World Vision and the multinational organisations such as UNICEF and UNHCR, to which we contribute. They are alleviating suffering and saving lives, and every person in this country who contributed to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal should be really proud of what the money they have given is doing.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My right hon. and learned Friend represents in her constituency, like I do in mine, a considerable Somali community. Will she take this opportunity to acknowledge the huge contribution that the diaspora are making either by giving aid through DEC or by sending aid directly home through mosques, community associations and all the others? They are showing a real sense of solidarity.

[Ms Harman]

I absolutely agree, and that was going to be my very next point. Not only should everybody who gives to the DEC feel proud of what their money contributes to, but so should every one of the many members of the African diaspora, from Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, who not only work hard in this country and support their families here, but send remittances back to their country of origin. We should be proud of what they do, too; it makes an enormous difference.

[Malcolm Bruce]

The right hon. and learned Lady is making an important point. Does she agree that the huge contribution that individuals have made to the disaster relief fund, plus the actions of her own Government, give the lie to those who say that the British people do not want their aid budget maintained or their commitment to the UN target achieved?

[Ms Harman]

Absolutely. Everyone should be proud of the work that our Government, through DFID, are doing, and that is why I support so strongly their promise to maintain our commitment to increase aid to 0.7% of gross national income by 2013. I know that they will do everything they can to step up their efforts to get other countries to do the same. We are doing our bit; so must other countries.

The drought has hit a wide area of the horn of Africa, but its impact on people is dramatically different in different areas. For example, in Ethiopia—and I underline the points that the Secretary of State made—for a number of years our aid and the work of our aid agencies with the Government of Ethiopia has put in place measures to protect against the impact of drought. They have prepared systems of what they call cash transfers—systems to give money to people whose crops have failed and cannot feed themselves; they have stockpiled food ready for such people; and they have built roads so that remote areas can be reached even when there is drought. Although those people are suffering hardship, they are not starving. They are able to stay on their land and in their villages, and they are not forced to abandon them and flee, but work will have to go on, and, as the Secretary of State said, the danger is not over when the rains come, because they can bring with them cholera and malaria.

Ethiopia shows that aid works, but it is a tragically different story for Somalia, which shows that, because of conflict, when people do not have access to aid and there is no preparation for drought, people are left totally at the mercy of drought. The best that they can hope for is to flee their lands and become refugees; the worst is to see their children die of starvation. With preparation and with humanitarian aid, people can cope with drought, but they cannot cope with drought and conflict, and that has caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee Somalia for the Dadaab camp in north-east Kenya. The numbers are absolutely overwhelming. A camp that was built for no more than 90,000 people now has more than 430,000 and is growing by 30,000 a month. Every single day, there are more and more people: between 1,000 and 1,300 arrive every day, and each day those who come are more dehydrated, more undernourished, more exhausted and more traumatised.

Some people, in order to avoid the effect of the searing heat on their children as they walk from the Somali border, travel at night through a no-man’s land, but that makes them even more vulnerable to attack. Aid agencies are organising buses from the Somali border, but although they are putting on more and more buses, they cannot keep pace with the flood of refugees. The accommodation in the camp cannot keep pace, either. When people arrive, they have to stay under makeshift cover outside the site. They wait in makeshift shelters until they are registered, and then they join the other—soon to be half a million—people in this camp in the middle of nowhere.

It is hard to describe how bleak the camp is. When we came into land on the small landing strip, we flew over terrain that looks like the surface of the moon. It is so barren, there is just nothing, and then suddenly we saw hundreds of thousands of tents in the middle of nowhere. It is just desperate. For all the work of the camp staff and of the aid agencies, it is not a safe place, either. Of the group of women whom I met in the camp, which is 80% women and children, all said that they wanted to go back to their homes in Somalia—that, if only there was peace, they would go back to their land there. They said that they had fled not the drought, but the conflict.

The camp director said that he wanted me to take back to this country just one message: “Whatever you do, please do what you can to sort out the situation in Somalia.” Of course there have to be high-level meetings at the UN and the EU to ensure that the wider international community plays its part, but the deep and long-standing conflict in Somalia will not be solved just by summits in Brussels and New York. We need to support the work of organisations such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Governments of Muslim states, who can help, and the African Union. We need to draw not only on the diaspora in Canada, America and continental Europe, but on the Somali diaspora in this country—on their advice, support and wisdom.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In Bristol, there is a very large Somali community, many of whom are my constituents, and their work to send remittances and to support development in Somalia and, indeed, in Somaliland is fantastic, but it is done individually. Does my right hon. and learned Friend think that we could do more to encourage them to come together so that big projects might be funded along with commercial operations, particularly in Somaliland, where ports could be opened up and infrastructure built? Can we do more on that front?

[Ms Harman]

Yes, I absolutely agree. We need to do a great deal more to recognise remittances. People sometimes think that such activity is undertaken only by Government Departments or by people giving to organisations such as Oxfam, but many individuals give their own money. The cost of sending money is also quite high, and we could do more, such as by creating diaspora bonds to enable people to invest. There are many ways in which we can support remittances, and we should do so.

We have no embassy in Somalia, but aid agencies such as Islamic Relief are working on the ground there, and the Government should draw on their expertise in order not to get them involved in politics, but to use their connections with the civil society, which must be built up.

In the immediate term, our Government must continue to give aid to Somalia. They have rightly prioritised aid for conflict-affected states, and Somalia is certainly conflict-affected. They have rightly emphasised, as we did, value for money, auditing and monitoring, but in reality, on aid spent in Somalia, that level of scrutiny will not be possible. We must still give the aid, however, otherwise the Somali people will suffer terribly as they flee and then just become aid-dependent miles from their home, in a camp where there is no future for them. We must continue, and the Opposition will support the Government in continuing, to give aid to Somalia.

The Government must also redouble their efforts to work internationally to tackle climate change and to protect people who are affected by it. Our aid is making a huge difference, but we will prevent suffering in future if, as Oxfam has so clearly demonstrated, we bring about a major change in the way food is produced and distributed. The world produces more food than it needs, yet here in the 21st century 1 billion people go hungry. What is needed is support for greater long-term investment in agriculture, an end to exploitation by international land speculators and action to stop speculation on food commodities which causes prices to soar and means that hungry people cannot afford them.

Our Government will be at the G20 summit in November. I hope that the Secretary of State will ensure that the issues that have been raised by hon. Members in all parts of the House will be high on the agenda, with all the G20 countries not only keeping their promises on aid—Britain has, but others have not—but tackling the inequality and exploitation that sees global wealth accumulate while the poor starve.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I remind Back Benchers that there is now a six-minute time limit?

13:40

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I spent time with Oxfam in Ethiopia during the famine of 1984. It is difficult to describe the horror of famine—its scale, one’s helplessness, the Martian-headed skeletons of marasmus, the swollen bellies of kwashiorkor, and the glassy eyes of children one knows, notwithstanding all efforts, will be dead by tomorrow. Then and now, these famines of biblical proportions kill fellow human beings slowly, painfully, and desperately. It is the death of their humanity and a collective test of ours.

I want to make three points in the short time available to me. First, we need to do more to enhance and improve food and crop production in the horn of Africa and elsewhere in Africa. It is not sustainable to seek to keep alive millions of people in the horn of Africa in the hope of yearly grain surpluses from Nebraska, Australia or elsewhere. The UN estimates that $2.4 billion is required to meet immediate humanitarian needs until this December. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) observed, there is a funding gap of $1 billion, and no funding for ongoing needs and recovery. This is simply not sustainable. We need to enhance agricultural production in Africa and the horn of Africa.

Secondly, we have to face up to the reality of population growth as a development issue. If a country’s economy is growing each year by 3% and its population is growing each year by 7%, then each year its sustainability is going steadily backwards. For example, the population of Ethiopia is now twice what it was at the time of the 1984 famine. Here is the wake-up call: in Ethiopia, even in a good harvest year, aid agencies are still feeding the same number of people as the number who received food aid in 1984. It is difficult to cultivate large parts of Ethiopia because of endemic malaria. Elsewhere, land is exhausted by over-use. Up in the Simien mountains, I have seen farmers with oxen and ploughs seeking to cultivate ever more marginal rocky outcrops, desperate for any extra land. The situation is unsustainable. Along with Lynda Chalker, I represented the UK Government at the UN population conference in Cairo in 1994. That conference, held over 15 years ago, was the last attempt by the international community to address the issue of population growth, and it needs addressing again.

Thirdly, the deliverers of the apocalypse ride together: hunger, illness, death and conflict. As the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) made clear in her very welcome contribution, Somalia is a failed state—a basket case. It is a liability to itself and to its neighbours, viz the recent murder and kidnapping in Kenya: a personal tragedy and a broader tragedy for the Kenyans’ tourism industry and economy. Al-Shabaab has brought chaos to Mogadishu and terror to the rest of the region. The African Union deserves our support in seeking to bring stability to Somalia, but that process needs focus, concentration and consistency. For far too long, so-called Somali warlords have been ripping off the west in phoney peace talks in the luxury of Nairobi resort hotels, running their businesses from the comfort of Kenya while pretending to try to find peaceful solutions for Somalia.

Nor should we forget that the one part of Somalia that is stable, peaceful and potentially productive is what was once the British Somaliland Protectorate and is now Somaliland. For 20 years, Somaliland has had repeated democratic elections, a functioning presidency, a functioning Parliament and defined borders, and it has been wishing for and wanting de jure recognition by the international community. At the first consultative meeting on ending the transition, which was held recently in Mogadishu, I observed that it had delegates from all sorts of places, including the EU and the UN, but, as far as I am aware, no invitation had been sent to Somaliland for observer status or to take part in those discussions. Of course we need stability in Somalia, but the international community also needs to resolve the legal status of Somaliland. Unless we resolve the conflict in Somalia, we will never have peace in the horn of Africa, and until we have peace in the horn of Africa, we will continue to have famine.

13:45

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), my colleague from Oxfordshire. I agree with everything that speakers on both sides of the House have said so far. It is very heartening, faced with such an appalling situation, that there is this extent of agreement between us. I join what has been said in commending the response of the British public, the Department for International Development, the non-governmental organisations and the diaspora communities. That is good to see, but we are all aware that there is so much more to do.

First, I stress the importance of global action to counter the role of financial speculation in driving up food prices and increasing their volatility, as shown in research by the World Bank and UN bodies. It would be helpful if the Government could confirm UK support for effective EU regulation in this respect, as well as action at the G20.

Secondly, I draw the House’s attention to a good point that has been made to me in a helpful briefing from CABI—the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International—which is based in Oxfordshire: that losing less food is as important a contributor to food security as growing more. Currently, farmers lose an average of 40% of their crops to pests and diseases, and most of that is unnecessary. Using existing knowledge and providing timely, practical and specific advice through local clinics to farmers on the management of plant pests and diseases can have a significant impact on food security right now, with no need for additional water, land or other resources. Obviously, people need extra water in places where there is not any, but the point is well made. To this end, I commend the Plantwise initiative, which is supported by DFID and by the Swiss aid agencies.

[Joan Ruddock]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, tragically, these countries will suffer worse conditions, certainly with less water, if climate change continues unabated, and that in the interests of preventing famine in Africa, the international community needs to redouble its efforts to tackle climate change?

[Mr Smith]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend—that is imperative. When we see these awful experiences of people, we are reminded of the real human consequences of climate change and the necessity of action.

Thirdly, I want to refer to the situation in Sudan. The role of conflict and political strife in creating and exacerbating chronic food insecurity is well known, and it is important to push for greater humanitarian access into regions of Sudan, including Darfur, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. However, we have seen in the past how the Government of Sudan have used negotiations over access to further their own narrow political interests—for example, tactically negotiating for restrictions on its opponents during the wet season, when their own army is at a disadvantage and guerrilla groups have the advantage, and then nullifying agreements for humanitarian access during the dry season, when traditional forces have the advantage. I urge the UK Government to take that into account when engaging in the vital discussions that are necessary on improving humanitarian access.

I should also like to highlight the importance of engaging with diaspora organisations that are organising relief—for example, the Nuba Mountains Welfare Association. We can all see how, in politically sensitive situations, these organisations may get more access to displaced people through informal networks than established NGOs, which may be understandably cautious about getting involved or directly blocked by restrictions imposed, in this case, by the Government of Sudan, or in other areas by local warlords. Improving DFID’s relationship with diaspora groups and pursuing innovative partnerships can bring real benefits for civilians in conflict areas who cannot be reached through traditional means.

In the specific case of Abyei, where displacement following the invasion and occupation of the region by the Sudanese armed forces disrupted the traditional planting season, it is imperative that the UK Government prioritise the pursuit of a solution on its political status and do not just focus on implementation of the temporary interim agreement.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell]

On the humanitarian efforts, we have given substantial funds and indeed pre-positioned resources to the common humanitarian fund. On Abyei and the border, which the right hon. Gentleman is right to prioritise, we continue to give strong support to the process led by President Mbeki to get all parties together.

[Mr Smith]

I welcome what the Secretary of State says. I am sure that he will take into account the repeated and as yet negated promises for a referendum for the permanent residents of Abyei. Continued political insecurity, even after the displaced people have returned, may lead to a near-permanent reliance on food aid in a region that is actually fertile and where communities could otherwise return to self-reliance in the medium term.

My final point relates specifically to South Sudan, but has broader application elsewhere. It relates to points that others have already made. It is vital that resources are focused on programmes that support individual farmers and that, in particular, support is targeted towards women, given the traditional breakdown in responsibilities, whereby women are often the agents in cultivation among the Dinka and other significant tribes in the region. That will help to ensure that aid improves cultivation, rather than simply increasing cattle herd sizes or inflating bride wealth prices. Support for the formation of co-operatives, offering advice on issues such as the management of plant pests and diseases, and helping with marketing and so on would be especially useful.

To conclude, although the volume and reach of aid is clearly crucial in the short term—I echo what has been said about the importance of keeping up our efforts and of other countries starting to match them—it is critical that there are well-directed measures on conflict resolution, security, farming methods, pest control, infrastructure and price stability, because it is those things that will enable the parts of Africa that are suffering to become more self-sufficient in the long run. It is vital that international effort is directed towards that end.

13:52

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this important debate. Further, I congratulate all the British people and residents in my constituency who have contributed so significantly to the DEC appeal.

Today’s debate is critical and my contribution will focus narrowly on an issue that has been alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). We must ensure not only that we have sustainable high-yield agricultural practices, but that they tread lightly on ecosystems and the environment in parts of the world that are very vulnerable. Way back in 2003, the Governments of the African Union committed in the Maputo declaration to the need to provide not just high-yield agriculture, but sustainable high-yield agriculture.

The environment will, of course, be vital in any discussion of sustainable food production. Over the past 30 years, we have become increasingly aware of our own environmental impact. I would argue that we have not focused enough attention on the equally important issue of food production, which can have a serious environmental footprint. The Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member along with several hon. Members who are present, is currently looking at sustainable food production, focusing largely on this country. We were lucky enough to visit a farm in my constituency that has high standards of sustainable food production. However, it is not good enough just to know the answers here; we must spread the message around the globe.

If we want to prevent global poverty and famine from becoming an even bigger problem for the developed and developing world, we must invest in the communities that need the most help. There is a clear humanitarian interest in ensuring that development aid is used to create sustainable agricultural practices that move people towards food security and nutritional self-sufficiency.

One way in which that can happen is through the technique of conservation agriculture, which the United Nations defines as being based on the three principles of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation. Leading members of the Tropical Agriculture Association, such as Professor Amir Kassam, propose that this type of farming is the only viable option to ensure the long-term sustainability of food production in the horn of Africa. Conservation agriculture recognises the need for soil to contain nutrients and biological matter to support plant growth. That is achieved by covering the field in mulch obtained from waste crops, which protects the moisture in the soil, thus ensuring its viability over the long term.

That practice has proved successful and there is a significant increase in peer farming. I assure right hon. and hon. Members that peer farming is not something that happens in the other place; it is where farmers spread the message to their neighbours and colleagues and learn from one another to increase their yield and sustainability. This could be the key farming technique in tackling hunger across the whole of the developing world, as there are currently 450 million smallholders worldwide trying to meet the needs of 2 billion people.

The UK does not feel the impact of climate change as severely as the horn of Africa. British farmers can plough their fields, partly because they are much bigger, but also because rain is not in short supply, as we have learned this summer. Where drought is a real danger, it is crucial to maintain soil so that it can yield a crop in good seasons and in bad.

The net results of these methods can be very impressive, with less impact on the environment, increased food yields for the domestic population and improved livelihoods for the farmers. That is the basis of the Maputo declaration, which calls for 10% of the development aid budget to be allocated to improving agricultural techniques. In countries such as Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, where 80% of smallholders farm less than 2 hectares, food production is labour intensive and inefficient, and as a result the yields are low. These countries suffer extremely from poor food security and we have to focus on priming the pump of sustainable food production to ensure that it is not the exception, but the rule. As a result, dependence on aid will lessen, building dignity, self-sufficiency and economic growth.

There are very good examples in Africa of conservation agriculture making impressive strides in improving the output of products, creating genuine movement towards self-sufficiency and increasing nutrition for the population, in a way that has a low impact on the environment. For example, in northern Tanzania, against the backdrop of poor quality soil and soil erosion, the adoption of these techniques has led to a dramatic increase in yields from just over 2 tonnes per hectare in 2004 to 14 tonnes per hectare in 2009. Currently, 7,000 acres in this area are farmed according to the principles of conservation agriculture, and that is set to triple by 2015.

There is reason for optimism that through the responsible application of these principles, the parts of the world that most need to move towards self-sufficiency will be able to do so. I would argue that the horn of Africa needs to have its own 21st-century agrarian revolution. Therefore, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that Government spending on aid, although it seems to be a huge controversy for some of my constituents who write to me suggesting that we should reduce it, is something that we must do. If it is deployed in the right way, promoting sustainability and self-sufficiency, it can be the building block of poverty reduction and famine relief.

13:58

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Members for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing the debate, and add my tribute to those who have given so generously to the appeal. Over the past few months, dramatic events at home and in other parts of the world have diverted attention away from the huge and ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in east Africa. We have an important opportunity today to highlight what is going on in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The fact that people have been so generous to the DEC appeal and to the appeals of other agencies shows that there is public concern about this issue. It is sad that the response of citizens stands in such sharp contrast to the response from parts of the international community. Oxfam estimates that there is a shortfall of $1 billion in the funding needed to meet the immediate humanitarian needs in this year alone. I am glad that the UK Government have done their bit and I wish the Secretary of State every success in his efforts to persuade people in other donor countries that they need to do likewise.

Perhaps the most galling aspect of the crisis is the fact that the famine was preventable. As other speakers have said this afternoon, early warning systems were in place that worked and were effective, but we collectively ignored those warning signals. It is always easy to be wise after the event, but there is no reason why a potentially manageable crisis in east Africa was allowed to become a catastrophe on such a monumental scale. Although the short-term focus has to be on humanitarian relief—keeping people alive through health interventions and the provision of food, sanitation and water—we also need to look at the underlying causes of the crisis and ensure that the UK’s longer-term development work invests heavily in preventive initiatives that reduce vulnerability to famine in east Africa and other parts of the world.

Other hon. Members have mentioned the very complex political situation in east Africa, which has led to long-standing problems of conflict, political instability and weak governance. I will use the short time available to me this afternoon to focus on two other aspects of the crisis, the first of which is the impact of climate change.

A key factor in the crisis is the changing weather patterns in the region, which has always been prone to drought. In recent years, the frequency of drought has been increasing and there have been long and repeated periods of unpredictable weather. Over the past few years, those changes have been wearing down people’s resilience and changing the way they live, as they find that traditional farming methods no longer work. As has been mentioned, life for the pastoralists has become extraordinarily difficult. Without enough water, their livestock die and they lose not only their economic livelihood but their only assets. I know that some aid agencies, including the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, have been buying up livestock before they die from pastoralists in northern Kenya and other parts of east Africa, so that they can give people money to keep themselves alive through the crisis. In the longer term, however, at the global level, we need to invest in the climate fund set up at Cancun and persuade other donors to honour their commitments and put money into the mechanisms that have been established to pre-empt and prevent such crises.

The second aspect I want to discuss has already been raised by others in the context of food security and economic development. Despite the importance that we all attach to agriculture, it has been very unfashionable in development terms for a number of years and now represents a very small part of development aid budgets. An awful lot more emphasis is needed on supporting smallholders and investing in technical support for them. Since the L’Aquila summit in 2009, there have been commitments to boost agriculture spending, which has put those issues back on the agenda, but we are still looking for clarity on what that is achieving. I make a plea to the Government not to consign those commitments to the collective recycling bin, but to hold donor countries accountable for the commitments they have made.

Let me briefly draw particular attention to the role of women in agriculture. Although they form the majority of smallholder agricultural workers in Africa, they rarely own their land and they have very poor market access; in addition, they rarely have access to the kind of credit facilities that farmers in all parts of the world need to sustain themselves. Given the imbalance of power, we must not reinforce those inequalities. I think we all recognise the importance of putting women and girls at the heart of efforts in health and education, but when we talk about business and climate change, we become a lot more gender blind and start talking in more general terms. We have to understand that if we reinforce existing inequalities, we will entrench poverty even deeper in those communities.

My time is running out, so I shall conclude. We are responding to an immediate crisis, as we have to, but let us learn the lessons and try to look ahead, on a multilateral and international level, at how we can reduce the vulnerability of people economically to these shocks and put them in a better position to withstand the crises they face as a result of climate disasters and erratic weather.

14:04

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I, too, commend the hon. Members who secured the debate, which gives us an opportunity to express our appreciation to the British public, as well as to DFID and the non-governmental organisations who have played such a vital part in tackling the crisis. Our efforts have been seen throughout the world as effective, generous and brave, but continuous intervention in terms of food supplies is also needed. That will prove particularly difficult in areas that suffer from political and military instability and for those people who have been displaced and are in refugee camps.

I want to touch on two issues that will be key to reducing food insecurity around the world: science and land tenure. I believe we all need to embrace science in agriculture. I was speaking to Derek Stewart at the James Hutton Institute which, with many similar organisations, does fantastic work in the science of improving the yield and nutritional value of crops. For example, golden rice has a significantly higher level of vitamin A and is a clever, effective and relatively cheap way of getting more nutrients to those who desperately need them. We need to give such institutions financial backing so that they can develop more such crops.

The “Foresight: The Future of Food and Farming” report that was produced for the Government by Sir John Beddington and chaired by the Secretary of State, I believe, states that investment in new science and technology is critical to: producing more food, increasing the efficiency of food production and sustainability,

“securing ecosystem services…keeping pace with evolving threats such as the emergence of new and more virulent pests and diseases…addressing new challenges, such as the development of new varieties of crops that are resistant to increased drought, flooding and salinity”

and

“meeting the particular needs of the world’s poorest communities.”

Britain used to be at the heart of agricultural research and our scientists are still highly regarded, as I found when I visited Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Organisation, during the inquiry of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs into food production to 2050. Sadly, as is often the case, success has meant that Government investment has reduced; in addition, anti-science attacks on genetic modification technology have meant that many commercial plant breeding businesses have moved out of Britain.

In the past, food productivity has increased faster than the world population through investment in science, but Sir John Beddington foresees a perfect storm of a rapidly increasing world population and threats to world food production through climate change. The need for more scientific research is well made and should be responded to. We need to increase investment in methods of growing crops, both traditional and GM, which can achieve yields in drier conditions and are more resistant to disease. The role of the agronomist has been sadly reduced, with fewer being trained or employed by Governments, NGOs or commercial organisations. Britain used to export its agricultural expertise; it could still do so.

I was particularly shocked by one statistic in the foresight report:

“half of the world’s undernourished people, three-quarters of Africa’s malnourished children, and the majority of people living in absolute poverty can be found on small farms”.

It is a huge contradiction that the very poorest and the worst nourished people live on the farms that produce food. We can give those people the tools and knowledge they need to feed themselves. There is an excellent example of that in my constituency. Hay-on-Wye, well known for its literary festival, has twinned with Timbuktu in Mali, well known for its library of Islamic literature and books. They have been working to help Mali’s people through fair trade for their crafts and measures to improve health and education. On a smaller scale, a project called Jump4Timbuktu, based in Hay-on-Wye and exported to Mali, has responded to the challenges of climate change and has had great success with drip irrigation, which is incredibly simple, requiring only water, a bucket and gravity, and which shows how to use scarce resources to maximise food production in sub-Saharan areas suffering from both drought and desertification.

Some say that food security can be achieved by improving the productivity of all smallholdings and small farms. Although I have no doubt that improvements can be made, smallholdings are probably as much a cause of the problem as a solution, and in any case there is constant movement of people from the countryside to urban areas. That has gone on ever since cities came into existence, but this year was the first in which there were more people living in urban areas than in rural settlements. Small farms entail physical hard work for little reward; larger farms allow economies of scale and better results. The challenge is to enable people to make the move from these smallholdings from a position of strength, with the skills and resources necessary to make a success of urban living, rather than as economic migrants. There is nothing noble or virtuous about living in poverty and being undernourished in smallholdings.

14:10

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this debate on such an important topic.

There is no doubt that even in difficult financial times, when the disposable incomes of people in this country are squeezed, the British public are instinctively generous in their support for those in other parts of the world who are less fortunate. The work of the Disasters Emergency Committee in highlighting the famine and relief efforts in the horn of Africa has been vital in saving the lives of many hundreds of thousands of the poorest people in that region. Many of my constituents who have contacted me strongly support the work of the aid agencies and the resources that the UK Government are putting into the horn of Africa, and people in the region are very grateful for those resources. There is concern, however, that those in the most severe need and the areas most beset by conflict are the least likely to get access to the aid that they so desperately require.

As we have heard, according to the UN, as many as 13 million people across the horn of Africa region need food aid; as many as 750,000 people could die in Somalia alone over the next four months; and, worst of all, half of all deaths have been and will be of children. UN representatives on the ground have described the situation in parts of the region as worse than anything previously recorded. The question has to be asked, therefore: why do we get to such a stage of famine? Famine injects urgency, but it is often too late. That is not a new phenomenon. Since 1980, 42 droughts have occurred in the horn of Africa, almost half in the last decade alone, affecting more than 100 million people.

The situation is progressively worsening, nowhere more so than in Somalia. Not only do people need greater access to food, but there is acute need for safe water, sanitation and disease control. Famine in Somalia is coupled with massive displacement of people both within the country and to neighbouring countries. The large influx of refugees has overwhelmed local host communities, led to conflict over ever more scarce resources, exacerbated the problems massively and had a negative effect on already fragile ecosystems.

There is an urgent need to support countries that are susceptible to drought and to help to mitigate the impact on fragile environments. The summit on the horn of Africa held last week in Nairobi stated that

“we reaffirm that freedom from hunger is one of the fundamental rights of citizens of any nation. Every effort should therefore be made—by governments, citizens and the international community alike—to bring the current emergency to an end”.

More importantly, it went on:

“Every effort should also be made to ensure that in future, drought will not cause undue human suffering, including in particular famine”.

High food prices and price volatility are major contributors to the difficulties, and I want to highlight the impact that food commodity speculation is having on high food prices. That was also mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith). Banks and hedge funds are betting on food prices in the financial markets, causing drastic price swings in staple foods such as wheat, maize and soy. Massive food price hikes are catastrophic for the world’s poor because they are more likely to spend more than 40% of their income on food, as opposed to about 10% to 15% in countries such as the UK. Food becomes unaffordable, which leads to increased hunger and malnutrition as less dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables are consumed, so that people can buy staple food; to an increased burden on women, particularly as they are often forced to earn more money by taking up exploitative employment; to households using up savings, getting into debt or selling assets, including critical assets such as livestock and equipment, to pay for food; and to families being unable to afford health care and education, as more of their income is needed to buy basic food.

Historically, futures contracts were set up in US financial markets to help farmers to deal with price uncertainty in growing crops, but those contracts are now being bought and sold by bankers who have little or no involvement in the actual food being traded but who bet on food prices to make money. The World Bank lead economist, Wolfgang Fengler, highlighted that the price of corn reached a staggering 70% above the world average in east Africa as a result of a small number of farmers having control over the market and so keeping prices artificially high. It is extraordinary that it was cheaper to buy corn in the US and Germany than it was in places such as Somalia. Since January alone, the price of corn has increased by up to 200%.

While some are reaping huge profits from betting on food, poor families and people across the world are paying the price of hunger and malnutrition, but the problem could be easily solved by the UK Government backing proposals to regulate betting on food prices in financial markets. The Obama Administration in the US and, as we have heard already, the European Commission are calling for regulation to curb betting on food prices in financial markets. The UK has to play its part in backing the European proposals and not block important progress towards regulation.

[Alison McGovern]

Would my hon. Friend, like me, like to hear at the end of this debate a firm commitment to that?

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question. It is important that food commodity speculation across the world is dealt with because it is exacerbating many problems. If Ministers gave a commitment at least to consider regulation, as the US and European Commission are doing, it would be incredibly helpful to efforts to deal both with the immediate problems of famine and drought in the horn of Africa, and with the long-term issues, as many of the organisations and the horn of Africa summit have suggested we need to do in order to prevent such crises from arising again.

The World Development Movement has led the charge; now the UK Government have to support two simple proposals that would be hugely helpful—again, it would be useful to hear whether the Government support them. First, all futures contracts should be cleared through regulated exchanges. Most contracts are currently made in private, which means that it is impossible to know how much and what is being traded; monitoring is impossible. Secondly, strict limits should be set on the amount that bankers can bet on food prices.

Combining risky financial gambling with a basic human need is a recipe for global hunger. Excessive speculation on food prices needs to be curbed and the UK Government should back the European proposals for regulation. Drought and famine are avoidable. Just two years ago, the G8 acknowledged that increased investment in agriculture was vital and committed $22 billion over three years to assist affected areas. We have to act now and the G20 summit in Cannes must reaffirm that commitment.

14:17

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), as well as the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray).

Many people have already elaborated much better than I could on the issues facing Africa specifically. I do not apologise, therefore, for using this debate to examine wider global issues of food security and how the global food security system impacts on the UK domestic market. The situation in east Africa is a tragic human disaster, but it is also an illustration of a global system that is at breaking point. The impact is being felt locally, domestically in the UK and globally. Unlike so many other international development issues, food insecurity and food inflation are not exclusively about overseas or foreign parts or the developing world; they are about us here and those who sent us here. In food, more than in any other sector, we are as one—with the soy growers in Brazil as much as with the families in Somalia facing the challenges of crop failure. There is no more globally traded product group than food, so the crisis in east Africa is our crisis.

Anyone who does not believe that we need to address the long-term underlying problems of food production, famine resilience and demand and supply in the developing world in support of our domestic constituents is not living in the real world. I shall outline some of the domestic realities that we face and illustrate how crop failure, food shortages and famine anywhere in the world impact on our supermarket shoppers.

This country imports 50% of its food, which might be too much. Food inflation domestically has been running at about 6%. The price of staples such as grain and sugar in particular have been rising significantly, and the situation has not been helped by the rush for biofuels. There is no drop in food prices on the horizon; they are still going up.

We are facing the global reality of food consumption per head of population in developing countries rising even faster than population growth. Global population growth and increased consumption are putting increased pressure on marginal land, and global populations are moving from the countryside to the towns, depleting the food production labour force. Inflation is rampant. In Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland and Malawi, producers are selling locally for a better price than they get for their exports. That is causing price rises across the world.

Protectionism is probably the most dangerous development for domestic consumers here in the UK and for the global food market, and it is becoming much more prevalent. Tanzania recently imposed an export ban, and other countries could follow suit. Climatic shocks, such as the one that caused the crop failure in Somalia, are increasingly becoming the norm. All this is creating a new paradigm for our domestic consumers. Food is becoming much more expensive, and the trade in food is declining due to greater domestic demand in the producer countries. The availability of commodities at low prices is becoming rare, and the markets on which we have depended for years to deliver cheap food to our supermarket shelves are being seriously challenged.

Before anyone accuses me of being too UK-centric, let me point out the anomalies surrounding food production globally. Many experts state clearly that enough food is produced to feed the global population. There is not a food scarcity; the fundamental flaws in the food supply chain need to be addressed. The Department for International Development could play an important part in that.

An alarming quantity of food in the developing world is ruined before it can get to market. Storage is not available and productivity has not increased significantly in decades. Crops are ruined by disease, and by mismanagement due to a lack of agricultural education. Distribution is often ineffective in getting products to market, especially in the developing world. A lot of work needs to be done to get food from the farm to the fridge, but we are losing a lot on the way, often unnecessarily. Every time an African farmer does not get his food to market, or has a crop failure, a price rise in our domestic market becomes more likely. Every time we fail to support agricultural development and food education in Africa, we make our constituents more vulnerable to food inflation.

Globally, we need to address some important initiatives. The G20 initiative must be taken seriously, and I hope that the report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Food Policy Research Institute will be taken seriously. The World Trade Organisation must be a priority for the Foreign Office, and food trade must be the most important issue.

14:23

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) for securing the debate, and to the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) for her excellent speech. My reasons for speaking in the debate are twofold. First, I want to raise awareness of this issue and thank those who have given, and to appeal for continued backing for that support. Secondly, I want to discuss some of the causes of the problem and some of the strategic issues involved.

Other hon. Members have mentioned the British support for famine relief. There are some in the House and elsewhere who argue that charity begins at home. Looking into the eyes of a starving child gives the lie to that argument, however. In this debate, we have acknowledged our moral responsibility to uphold the dignity of the people affected by the famine. Let the message from the debate be that Britain will continue to offer support to those who need it, wherever in the world they live. I thank from the bottom of my heart all those in my constituency and around the country who have given through the Disasters Emergency Committee, and we call on Governments around the world to do likewise and to stand up for the needs of the most vulnerable people in the world. The famine might no longer be on our TV screens, but that does not mean that it is not happening and that people no longer need our support. We have a moral duty to show our support for the people who are affected.

Other Members have given a good account of some of the causes of the problem, especially those relating to agriculture. There are interesting questions about the role of agriculture in development, and about whether the Department for International Development might do more work in that area.

I want to talk specifically about food speculation, although many other factors are involved. It has already been pointed out that famine is neither an accident nor a natural disaster; it is the result of human failure. The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye mentioned the comments of the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, about the causes of famine and their link to democracy. That point was well made, and needs to be listened to. People in the poorest countries do not have a voice, and that is part of the problem.

I want to ask the Minister some specific questions about food speculation, although I understand that he might not be able to respond to them as he will not be summing up the debate. If he wishes to intervene on me, or if he can answer them in any other way, that would be welcome. The evidence on food speculation is inconclusive, but that does not mean that there is no evidence; quite the opposite. Part of the reason for its being inconclusive is the way in which the speculation is happening. I shall come to that in a moment.

Let us be clear: famine involves political as well as economic failure. The food market is not serving the people of the world, as the hon. Member for South Thanet said. Mike Masters, a fund manager at Masters Capital Management, has done a great deal of research into this issue. He testified to the US Senate in 2008 that food speculation was certainly driving up food prices. He said:

“Most of the business is now speculation—I would say 70-80%.”

He went on:

“Let’s say news comes about bad crops and rain somewhere. Normally the price would rise about $1 a bushel. But when you have a 70-80% speculative market it goes up $2-$3 to account for the extra costs. It adds to the volatility. It will end badly as all Wall Street fads do. It’s going to blow up.”

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. High food prices and increased volatility seem to coincide with reduced world stocks of food, because that makes the trade more excitable. Would it not be a good idea for Governments to hold strategic stocks of food, so that they could intervene directly in these markets?

[Alison McGovern]

We need an effective market that encourages trade between poor countries and richer countries, because increased flows will help people in both. The threat implied by the hon. Gentleman’s question is protectionism, but in the end, if countries close their borders and try to stockpile, that will help none of us. However, that is a detailed question.

As a member of the International Development Committee, I have spoken to DFID about food speculation. I am told informally that the Treasury is leading on the issue and that it is not certain that there is any evidence. However, as the issue is clearly a development matter, I would be grateful if the Minister said at some point what role the Treasury has been asked to play in spotting and dealing with food speculation bubbles, specifically in relation to the G20. What action will be taken about over-the-counter trading? We need transparency and clarity on this matter—the reason the evidence is so inconclusive is that a lot of trading does not take place in regulated commodity exchanges—and the G20 is the way to get it. Will the UK support limits on speculation, either at the G20 or in other forums? Will we question the need for high-volume or high-frequency trading? Will the UK support the regulation of commodity trading alongside the regulation of financial products? If we go from having sub-prime market speculation undermining our global economy to having food speculation undermining it, we will have made the same mistake twice. I hope that at some point the Minister will comment on that regulation.

[Heidi Alexander]

The Minister will be unable to respond to the points that my hon. Friend has made today, owing to the time constraints in this debate. However, I have met Michael Masters and I know his concerns about commodity index funds. Will she join me in urging the Minister to write to those Members who have expressed concerns in this debate about the action that he might take, the conversations that he might have with his colleagues and the position that will be adopted in the upcoming discussions in Cannes?

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly helpful suggestion. The Minister might consider writing to those Members who have raised the matter in this debate or, indeed, to the Chair of the International Development Committee to explain what exactly DFID is doing to work alongside the Treasury.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

rose—

[Alison McGovern]

I hope that the Minister is about to tell me how the Treasury will assist DFID in tackling food speculation bubbles.

[Mr O'Brien]

I am not going to give an immediate response because that is not how this debate has been designed. However, I can say that before the previous intervention I had already made a note that says, “Write a letter to the hon. Member”.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Minister for that. My fear is that we have an absence of leadership on some of these issues. I hope that his clarification will help us to move away from that.

At the end of the day, Britain has shown over the last decade what can be achieved to tackle global poverty if people right at the top of our politics are prepared to stand up and perform their moral duty to help poor people wherever they happen to live. I hope that all of us in this debate are behind that approach, and that the Minister will assist us in taking forward our aim of tackling not just today’s urgent problem, but the long-term strategic difficulties with food speculation.

14:32

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken—particularly the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who has just spoken—on such a united debate.

As many Members have mentioned, smallholder farmers are one of the keys to food security, and therefore to poverty reduction and creating sustainable livelihoods. That in turn will lead to less aid being required, which must be the goal that we are looking for. However, corruption in many countries in Africa must be tackled, including the secret sales of mines, with the money going to tax havens and no directors’ names being available, which means that it cannot be tracked. Not enough emphasis has been put on agriculture in developing countries, but I believe that the world has woken up to the importance of the agricultural potential there.

A couple of months ago, I along with several colleagues went with the International Development Committee to Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi, three very different countries. Whereas Rwanda is investing in terracing, soil nutrition and irrigation, the DRC is in chaos, spending money on things that will not reduce the poverty of those who live there. Burundi has land that is extremely impoverished. The crops that we saw were extremely poor, and the farmers there need help to use fertilisers to aid crop intensity. The soil is so poor because of erosion and the lack of crop rotation. Each family in the village that we stayed in—or that most of us stayed in—grows its own food, but a more intensive project could help them to move from poverty to a higher standard of living by selling any excess, which unfortunately they currently do not have; indeed, they do not even have enough to feed themselves.

In Uganda, where I have been involved in an agricultural project, farmers are beginning to reap the rewards of working harder and working together. They now need a machine to grind the maize into flour so that the excess can go to the markets. In Kenya, an organisation called Free the Children works with schools and women to encourage them to have a kitchen garden for use in school kitchens and at home. Children are much more likely to attend school when their parents know that they will receive a meal—any meal, never mind a nutritious meal. At home, the parents can also provide a much more varied diet if helped to begin growing a diversity of fruit and vegetables. A well-fed child can learn better and is less likely to succumb to diseases; and if they become ill, they have more reserves to recover than some of the children we see all too frequently on television. Ghana has done well over the past two decades in stimulating its agriculture. We should encourage different countries in the continent of Africa to learn from each other about what works.

In India, the Select Committee saw a farmer who had moved away from the traditional subsistence crops to grow chillies. His income had improved tenfold and he was an extremely happy man because he could afford to send his children to school.

Much of what needs to be done is simple and straightforward—for example, building rural roads, funding agricultural research, ensuring that rural people have access to clean water. Other things, such as finding effective ways to stimulate rural financial systems or to conserve soil and water, require trial and error to find effective solutions in local circumstances. It follows that those efforts need to be sustained, allowing enough time for promising developments to become embedded before switching attention and funding to some other issue.

Women make up the majority of smallholder farmers, on top of all the other jobs they do, and we know that when women earn the money, they spend 90% of it on the family—in comparison with men who spend 40% or less, as they do not see the family as being so important. As in all countries, women are more concerned with the welfare of the family, so they spend on health, education and nutrition.

In order to increase their production and therefore their incomes, smallholder farmers need access to affordable inputs, like seeds and fertilisers, and to technology, credit and advice. With climate change affecting so much of the African continent, they must also have access to drought-resistant varieties and crops with higher nutrition; they need to be shown how drip irrigation goes specifically to the roots of plants so that they do not spray water on to soil that does not need it.

The UK is committed to spending £1.1 billion over the three years since the L’Aquila summit, but we are not delivering, so I call on the Minister with responsibility for Africa to step up the finance in all areas to provide better opportunities for these countries. The Department for International Development has the opportunity massively to increase its funding to food security and agricultural development when it increases its aid budget by £1.3 billion in 2013.

When there is a crisis like the one that we see in east Africa, flying humanitarian aid in in the form of food is so costly that it makes perfect sense to invest in helping people to become self-sufficient before the next drought and famine, but African countries need to do their bit as well. They are committed to spend at least 10% of their budgets on agriculture, but that is happening only in seven countries—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

14:38

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, which shows the value of having Back-Bench debates in which there is perhaps more to agree on than divides us. We have heard some moving speeches and contributions from people who have seen first hand what is happening in the crisis-hit areas. That is important. I do not think that anyone who has seen the images on our television screens could fail to be moved by them.

As other hon. Members have pointed out, at this time of stringency and belt-tightening, it is important to convince the public that it is right to continue to protect—and, indeed, to look at how to increase—aid budgets. I recognise that the Government have listened to Parliament on this issue. I recognise, too, the generosity of the public, many of whom are, like many of my constituents, on low incomes themselves, yet they continue to give generously to the various appeals. Initiatives like the “Give a Day’s Pay” campaign, which was supported by The Independent, provide a welcome addition to the organisations appealing for aid. There was also the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, to which the public contributed about £57 million in just eight weeks.

Members have spoken about the famine problems in Somalia. The UN estimates that a quarter of its population, 1.8 million people, have been displaced. Such figures easily trip off the tongue, but as hon. Members have pointed out, we are talking about real people, real lives and real human tragedies. No one could fail to be moved by the images of mothers who have lost their children on the long march to find food or who must watch their children die in front of them from lack of food.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

As someone who has worked in such countries—and my wife has worked in the horn of Africa as an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate—may I point out that the problem is that the region has historically not been able to sustain those who live there? Perhaps now we should think about moving people to a better place that can sustain them, rather than building up camps that attract people who are then trapped, and whom we must feed for years. Does the hon. Lady agree?

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Although we are short of time, I do want to move on to the issue of sustainability. Some of the organisations that briefed us were worried about people being displaced from their natural areas and ways of life, and about the process whereby people come to sit outside the camps and are screened before they come in, with all the associated difficulties. I accept that the problem is complex. The political situation in countries such as Somalia can easily discourage those involved in dealing with the issues, but we ought to continue to deal with them none the less.

I pay tribute to those in the aid agencies who have risked—and, indeed, have lost—their lives trying to ensure that aid is delivered in sometimes very difficult situations. I also recognise the work of a Scottish charity, Mary’s Meals, which has launched an emergency relief response in Somalia as part of its latest effort to support starving people affected by the food crisis across east Africa. It is providing 100 tonnes of food aid to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to which tens of thousands of people have fled in search of food. It is estimated that the charity’s efforts will provide about 900,000 meals in famine-hit Somalia. The organisation has already been feeding more than 24,000 children with a daily life-saving meal in northern Kenya. As we approach the weekend, when many of us may be thinking about going out for a meal or having our favourite takeaway, it is worth noting that the cost of one life-saving Mary’s meal is 4p, so perhaps we could skip one of our meals out or takeaways this weekend and make a donation to that worthy cause instead.

We must learn from the various crises about how best to avoid such situations happening again. Many of the organisations who spoke to me said that warnings of the crisis were there, and that although they are well geared up to coping with crises when they occur, they are not as good at preventing them. The warning bells were ringing loud and clear, but the current systems made it hard to intervene and to get everyone to move together. I am sure that Ministers will comment on that issue, which I know they take very seriously.

Several Members have referred to food crises being caused not simply by a failure of food production or lack of food, but by some people not being able to access it. I am sure that the Minister will comment on that too.

We have also heard several good contributions about resilience. With the best will in the world, there are still occasions when we do not spend aid money on the right things. I have been told of instances in which irrigation schemes, introduced with the best of intentions, led to the displacement of some pastoral communities, who were forced to move into other areas because they could no longer keep their livestock alive as they had in the past.

When I was in Rwanda I saw some examples of how aid had helped local farmers to produce more indigenous crops. However, one of them told me that, having traditionally grown cassava, he was now being encouraged—with the best will in the world—to grow mandarin oranges, which he did not like very much, and that he did not find it helpful. That example reinforces the point that we must always work with people in those communities and listen to what they say.

14:45

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my good and hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing a debate on a subject that should be receiving far greater attention from the world’s leaders and press than it has to date.

My own recent experience of Africa has been through annual trips to Uganda with a group of Northamptonshire sixth-formers. I set up a project in 2006 with the aim of linking schools in the two countries and helping young people to gain a greater understanding of one another's lives and culture. Each year since then we have held a youth conference in Uganda, where the topics discussed have ranged from the role of women to fair trade, the environment versus development, and the role of supranational institutions. The conferences provide a fantastic opportunity for students to learn from each other’s very different experiences, but the one message that we have always heard loud and clear from those young Africans is that they want to make their own way as equals, and that aid for the poorest should offer a hand up rather than a handout.

The situation in the horn of Africa is devastating. More than 13 million people are affected in Ethopia, Somalia and Kenya, and the number is increasing. Tens of thousands of people are already dead, and the United Nations estimates that three quarters of a million risk dying in the coming months. However, to my great sadness, I have received one or two letters from constituents asking why we are bothering to try to help. They point to the fact that we have problems in our own country, and suggest that because of AIDS, civil wars, disease and natural disasters these people will die anyway, so it is all a waste of money. That is a pretty shocking attitude, but one that requires a serious and logical response. The problems of African famines are a stain on the conscience of the developed world.

I recently met a successful Asian Ugandan business man in the United Kingdom who argues that Africa subsidises the west, not the other way around. He analyses the price of a tonne of fresh pineapple or a tonne of coffee beans, which is the only income for the African producer. He then calculates the margin added by the processing of the produce—usually in the west—and the margin added by the western retailer, and concludes that the vast bulk of the value from primary goods is earned in the west. One can see his point.

I am proud that the Government stuck to the Conservative manifesto pledge to donate 0.7% of gross national income to aid. The United Kingdom is at the forefront of the relief effort in the horn of Africa, and is the largest humanitarian donor to the region apart from the United States. It is also good news that more donors are stepping up to the plate, and that the African Union and Saudi Arabia are now providing aid. However, we must accept that the international community has been slow to react. There were warnings of impending drought as early as August 2010, but little was done until the rains failed in May 2011.

We need to learn the lesson once and for all that prevention is better than cure. We must not only provide support early with the aim of avoiding repeat disasters, but achieve maximum value for British taxpayers’ money so that our constituents do not conclude that it is all wasted. We may not be able to predict droughts accurately, but we can do much more to prevent famine. Let me briefly outline three possible ways of doing that.

First, building community resilience is key. Improving access to markets for smallholders and giving targeted support to women who often provide the main support for the family can make a big difference. It is vital to focus on reducing trade barriers and tariffs for exports.

Secondly, we should work harder to address the real issues of poor government. It is a well-known fact that democracies have far fewer famines than non-democracies, even when differences in wealth are taken into account. Ethiopia, with a GDP of £18 billion, could afford to feed her people. Freedom of the press and a powerful opposition would have a dramatic impact in promoting prevention measures. Likewise, introducing property rights that allow farmers to own, rather than just lease, their land would give them greater ability to manage their own livelihoods.

Finally, when this immediate crisis wanes, I think we should look closely at Save the Children’s policy of distributing food vouchers rather than food. I am no expert, but it seems to me to be essential to enable the means of exchange. Families who are able to use vouchers to buy food and clean water to meet their own needs are empowered by that, and that creates better incentives for farmers to produce in order to meet demand. British aid is best spent helping Africans to help themselves. I fully believe in the old saying, “It’s better to give a fishing rod than a fish.”

14:50

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) on both securing the debate and their speeches. Several other Members have also made powerful contributions. They focused on the horn of Africa, and rightly so given current circumstances.

Given the breadth of the motion however, I want to touch briefly on food security in Malawi. I should first declare an interest: I am the co-chair of the all-party group on Zambia and Malawi. Some positive signs are coming out of Malawi, which it is useful to bear in mind when considering wider issues across Africa. In 2004, national food production in Malawi was 0.9 million metric tonnes in deficit. In 2011, it is estimated that there will be a food surplus of 1.2 million metric tonnes. That is a remarkable turnaround, and is in no small part thanks to the farm input subsidy programme introduced in 2005 by the Malawi Government and supported by international aid.

Agriculture is the backbone of the Malawi economy, contributing more than one third of entire GDP and employing 80% of the country’s work force. The programme targeted support at the most vulnerable households, allowing them to access the fertiliser and maize seed required to improve agricultural productivity and food security. A voucher system was used, which targeted millions of maize farmers and hundreds of thousands of tobacco farmers. Farmers used the coupons to purchase fertilisers and seed.

Combined with sometimes favourable rain seasons, the programme resulted in dramatically increased maize harvests. That has allowed the Malawi Government to transform the country from a land of perennial famine to a net exporter of maize. Malawi now exports 400,000 tonnes of grain to Zimbabwe and 80,000 tonnes to Swaziland and Lesotho. Not only has harvest yield increased, but the programme has improved the food loss situation. In talking about the importance of food production, other Members have touched on reducing food loss, and post-harvest food loss in Malawi has fallen to 7.6% in 2009-10, which is a dramatic improvement on the previous figure. As the United States Agency for International Development confirms in its most recent assessment of food security in Malawi, the outlook is good.

There are, however, considerable diplomatic and governance issues in respect of Malawi, as the Minister will know, and there are still pockets of the country where the situation is not so positive, mainly in the south. Concerns have also been raised in some quarters about various elements of the programme, particularly the multinational seed suppliers and some issues touched on earlier by the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). However, the Malawi successes are worth highlighting as examples of where, beyond addressing initial, pressing famine needs, long-term planning can make a positive difference, as there may be lessons for other parts of Africa.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), I want to use this debate as an opportunity to pay tribute to the Scotland-based charity, Mary’s Meals. It started its work in Malawi back in 2002, providing school meals to impoverished children. Incredibly, it now provides meals to 450,000 Malawian schoolchildren a day. Food security is central to the raison d’être of Mary’s Meals. The organisation was set up after a conversation between its founder and the eldest son of a Malawian woman dying of AIDS. When he was asked what he wanted from life, his response was that he wanted to have enough to eat and to go to school one day. Those are not particularly lofty aspirations, but for very many people in Malawi they were but a dream. It is on that basis that Mary’s Meals adopts a very simple approach in Malawi, which is that education is the best route out of poverty and food insecurity. A hungry child is a restless child, and a restless child is less likely to learn. Education is key to climbing out of poverty and to ensuring food security for the people of Malawi and other countries.

As I stated, Malawi is far from perfect. There are many problems there and many issues still need to be addressed: too many of its citizens still live in inhumane poverty; too many children go without food; and too many people still die of HIV/AIDS. However, at a time of great famine in other parts of the continent, the progress made in Malawi is a timely reminder of what specific and targeted Government action can do to increase food security for some of the most impoverished in the world.

14:55

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

I am pleased to be able to participate in this afternoon’s debate. I know that quite a few Members still wish to speak, as we were a bit later starting this debate than we might have been, so in the hope that everyone who has waited so patiently will have an opportunity to make a few remarks, I will cut down my comments and therefore not get to the aspects of my speech relating to food security and our united belief that prevention is better than cure.

I wish to associate myself with the comments made by all those who have paid tribute to the voluntary organisations that are doing such fantastic work. I also wish to reflect on some of the things that the Government could learn from the current humanitarian crisis and on how we might improve our response in future. I wish to pay tribute to ShelterBox, a great Cornish charity set up by a group of Rotarians, that provides humanitarian aid. It does so mostly in the form of shelter, but it also enables people to cook food and ensures a good supply of clean water through its boxes. It was set up in 2000 and has responded to more than 140 disasters in more than 70 countries. This voluntary organisation relies totally on individual donations and does not receive any funding from the Disasters Emergency Committee appeals.

The ShelterBox team that is currently in east Africa went out there in July. ShelterBox response teams are made up of highly trained volunteers, and they have been working with people from the UK, Australia, Canada, the USA, France, New Zealand and Germany. So far, they have been able to assist more than 8,600 families, contributing more than £2.2 million-worth of aid. They have been doing that in the refugee camps in Ethiopia, as well as in Somalia. They often undertake such work in extremely difficult circumstances, at great risk to themselves, and it is important that we pay great and fulsome tribute to all those volunteers.

In Kenya alone, ShelterBox boxes have assisted 7,000 families and in the Dadaab refugee camp approximately 1,000 people a day are being helped, with 100 to 150 tents put up daily. The teams are working with a great number of organisations from all over the world and with local people, who are assisting with putting up the tents. The people in the teams wanted me to say to the Government that they have really noticed the improvements that have been made—the much better co-ordination among the non-governmental organisations and the various supranational organisations on the ground—which are making their life much easier. However, they are able to address only a fraction of the need.

Other hon. Members have set out how much more needs to be done. On 15 August, Adrian Edwards, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman, said:

“As well as needing food and water, these new arrivals urgently need proper shelter, medical help and other basic services”.

The UNHCR estimated that another 45,000 tents were needed, which brings me on to the recommendations that I would like the Government to consider.

I welcomed the humanitarian emergency response review carried out by Lord Ashdown and published in March. I remind my hon. Friends that the aim of the review was to deliver the maximum possible benefit to those affected by disasters while at the same time delivering value for money for the UK taxpayer. I also welcome the Government’s response for two particular reasons: first, they recognised the important role of independent charities and the value of their role in disasters emergency relief; and, secondly, they made a commitment to set up a rapid response facility to pre-approve high performing UK charities and to enable them to do more of what they do so well.

At the time, the Government announced that there would be a consultation on the rapid response facility. I hope that while the consultation is going on the Government will learn from the excellent work of ShelterBox. A key message the charity has given to me is that, despite the fact that we are all going to work and redouble our efforts to prevent problems, disasters in the world are increasing as a result of climate change and other issues. It is important that we should be able to build up reserves so that when disaster strikes we can quickly get aid to where it is needed. Of course, tents take time to be manufactured, and it is important that the Government should enable organisations such as ShelterBox to manufacture its very specialist tents, which can provide so much important shelter and comfort.

I hope that the consultation can be speeded up and the recommendations implemented so that more UK charities, such as ShelterBox, can provide desperately needed help and do what they do best. Although charity begins at home, it does not end there. I urge the Government to do all they can to enable this great little Cornish charity to carry on making its substantial contribution.

15:01

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this debate. I went out to Kenya with my hon. Friend about a year ago and I shall touch on some of the things we saw during that visit, which had a profound impact on both of us, not just negatively as we saw the problems faced by people out there, but positively as we saw what incredible things could be done for a very small outlay.

Let me start by talking about Somalia. As I said in my intervention, there is a Somali community of significant size in Bristol—some say that it is about 20,000 strong. Many arrived as refugees but others arrived from the former British colony of Somaliland. It is obviously no coincidence that Somalia has coped a lot worse with the drought situation than neighbouring countries, such as Ethiopia. Ethiopia has in place a food safety net to deal with such situations and when I went out there with the all-party group for Somaliland, we stayed in Addis Ababa and had lots of conversations with individuals from the Department for International Development and from the embassy. We then went out to Hargeisa to see the situation in Somaliland.

I was struck by the efforts that have been made on the aid front in Ethiopia, including the food safety net and public service agreements, which, despite political instability, problems and issues caused by the climate, were there as, indeed, a safety net. There is a complete lack of that in Somalia. There is also an effective early warning system in Ethiopia, which is not possible in a country as unstable as Somalia.

Constituents have time and again expressed their concern that Somalia has never had the political attention it deserves, and questions are always asked about why Sudan is seen as a political imperative as opposed to any other country that is riven by tribal conflicts or that has problems. I suspect that it is partly because Somalia is seen as such an intransigent and difficult-to-solve problem. One thing that could be done, however, is to give recognition to Somaliland. I was one of the founder members of the all-party group for Somaliland and it has been politically stable since the civil war of 1991, it has fair and free elections and there is huge potential to build the infrastructure and work with the diaspora to set up commercial organisations and use the ports at places such as Berbera for exports, making the country a lot more profitable and cementing its stability.

On food security, according to the World Bank, investment in agriculture in the developing world is between two and four times more effective in reducing poverty than investment in any other sector. As my hon. Friend said quite compellingly, agriculture has not been at the forefront of aid efforts; often the sector does not appear in country plans. It is important, and I hope that today’s debate helps to put down a marker that it should be given more priority.

When I was in Kenya last year with the all-party group I saw the work of the UK organisation Send a Cow, which has been working for over 20 years in Africa, and subsequently went to visit its offices near Bath. The organisation tells me that it takes an average of three to five years for an extremely poor community to become self-sufficient through one of its programmes. It would argue, and I agree, that that is a much better investment than having to provide food aid every time the rains fail. Self-sufficiency is key. The organisation achieves that by creating a network of peer farmers, so that the people who benefit from its initial work then train others in the community. Each family that the organisation works with passes on livestock, seed and skills to an average of 10 others in their community.

We saw in Kenya what a difference is made by small changes to farming methods—such as planting fertiliser pellets a certain distance from seeds so that they do not burn the seedlings as they come up—and investment in barns to improve grain storage. We saw the work of FIPS-Africa—Farm Input Promotions Africa—and FARM-Africa in developing disease-resistant strands of crops and we learned more than we ever needed to know about the insemination of goats. Those are small changes, and sometimes they are surprising because we think that they are things that people should have learned through farming the land over years.

When I went to India I spoke to a farmer who had just moved back to organic farming. He had come under huge pressure from companies selling pesticides to adopt what we in the western world would call modern farming methods, but when he switched back to organic methods his crops were far better and he was able to sell his food at market and make more money as a result. Some of these things have to be relearned, and we have to be careful that we do not try to impose our way of doing things.

[Alison McGovern]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that highlights the point made earlier about the question of DFID’s focus on agriculture and whether there needs to be a shifting of emphasis to some of the points that she is making?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is true. In Bangladesh I went to a village where free-range chickens were running around. We went down the road and saw a structure made of twigs which was basically a battery cage for hens. The person I was with said, “This is progress. We are doing things the way that you do them.” In the western world we are trying to move away from battery cages and towards free-range farming. I worry—if I can end on a political note that has not yet been struck in this debate—that in this country the farming agenda has moved very much more towards speaking up for the farmers, for the vested interests and for the producers of food, and it is not about welfare methods or the consumers. There is an increasing emphasis on intensification, as we saw with the farming Minister’s support for the intensive dairy farm at Nocton. We need to set the standard in this country and abroad, and say that there is a sustainable way of feeding the world which does not involve locking animals up in battery cages and putting cows in the equivalent of multi-storey car parks.

[Sarah Newton]

I am very sad that the hon. Lady has chosen to introduce a degree of party politics to this debate. I cannot let her comments stand. This country, quite rightly, should be very proud that it has some of the highest, if not the highest, standards of animal welfare, some of the best farmers and some of the best farming practices in the whole world. Of course we can always do more, and we should aim to do so, but that is the position.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is the position because over the past 20 years or so there has been significant progress on animal welfare. That is not a matter for today’s debate, but I have real concerns that the tide is turning in the wrong direction and that is a problem.

I want to end with a quote from Oxfam’s Grow campaign, which states:

“The vast imbalance in public investment in agriculture must be righted, redirecting the billions now being ploughed into unsustainable industrial farming in rich countries towards meeting the needs of small-scale food producers in developing countries. For that is where the major gains in productivity, sustainable intensification, poverty reduction, and resilience can be achieved.”

That is the way forward, and I hope that we can play a major role in helping the developing countries—particularly those stricken by the famine that we are debating today—to adapt and secure their future livelihoods in that way.

15:10

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I also thank the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) for calling for the debate. I pay tribute to the outstanding work of the all-party group, which has provided so much information to so many of us. In addition, I thank all those in the country and, in particular, in my constituency, who have contributed to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, and the UK Government for their most generous response. In particular, I pay tribute to the Government of Kenya, who have hosted the refugees in a tremendously welcoming way, which should not be forgotten.

So many right hon. and hon. Members have spoken eloquently and with great learning about this matter that I want to touch on only a few points in the hope of allowing others to speak. The motion states that food aid

“must always be the last resort and that improving the productivity and resilience of domestic agricultural systems in Africa must by a priority for the UK and the international donor community”.

I absolutely agree. Agriculture, as many hon. Members have said, has been given insufficient attention over many years. It was seen either as something of the past or as a cash cow that could be taken for granted. Instead, much Government and aid money was ploughed into factories, which in many cases are now out of production, sitting there idly. But the farmers are still there, and what more they could have done with that investment themselves. It has not been ignored by NGOs, such as Oxfam, Tearfund, Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, Islamic Relief and many others, which have ploughed a perhaps lonely furrow over the last couple of decades, but I am glad to say that the tide is turning.

There has often been stirring rhetoric about the importance of agriculture, but in reality it has been heavily taxed, budgets for support have been low, and investment in infrastructure has been lacking—roads, storage capacity, power, irrigation, and many other things, including, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) mentioned, research.

I recall calculating in the 1990s that the marginal tax rate for a smallholder coffee farmer in Tanzania was far higher than the highest income tax rate then prevailing in that country due to the crop levies that were being imposed locally and nationally at a time of low prices. I am glad to say that the Tanzanian Government listened and took action.

What can be done? First, agriculture must be at the heart of any developing country’s plan for economic growth. I draw particular attention to the many comments that have been made about the centrality of women who do most of the work in this area and their importance to development. Agriculture provides food security, exports, employment, and, most importantly, cash direct to ordinary people. This priority has to be reflected both in the national budgets and in the taxation systems of those countries.

It follows that agriculture must also be at the heart of international development. I join colleagues who have called on the Government to put more money into supporting agriculture in the coming years. The Government are moving in the right direction, but they are not going far enough at the moment. I am delighted that the CDC will be looking to invest more in agriculture, and I urge it to live up to those words. I also welcome DFID’s increased interest and support through programmes such as the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, where it is investing directly in smallholder agricultural products.

Productivity has to be taken seriously. It is not just a matter of improving yields, although that is essential. It is also a question of proper logistics, warehousing, cold storage, transport, packaging and marketing. As many have said, too much has been wasted.

Thirdly, the technology that is available to large-scale agriculture must be available to smaller farms. I have seen excellent examples of very small-scale farms with drip irrigation, which can improve yields dramatically, but much more could be done. Measures could be introduced to check and maintain soil fertility, ensuring the availability and affordability of fertilisers, training and extension.

I would like to make one further point, on the impact of neglected tropical diseases such as worms and schistosomiasis. The Minister knows all about this. In fact, he rightly introduced the topic to the all-party group on malaria, which published a report on neglected tropical diseases this week. It is absolutely vital that these diseases are tackled, which can be done at very low cost. They have a significant impact on productivity, as people suffering from them have a downgraded ability to work, particularly in the fields. If we can tackle these neglected tropical diseases, we will also be tackling problems of productivity and agriculture.

Finally, as has already been mentioned, borders must be opened up to trade. We have seen recently that countries in an area affected by drought are tempted to ban the export of cereals to needy neighbours because of fears for their own food security in the medium term. Although their caution is understandable, it should surely be possible to take a regional approach. I urge bodies such as the East African Community to deal with food security on a regional basis and co-operate as fully as possible. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today and welcome the contributions from all Members who have spoken on this important subject.

15:15

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose comments on the role of agriculture in development I agree with strongly. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and the whole Backbench Business Committee on calling this important debate.

I believe that few people across the country could fail to be moved by the scale of the disaster that has inflicted itself on the horn of Africa. More than 13 million people have been affected in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, and 800,000 people have become refugees. Christian Aid and Oxfam have said that the crisis has three main causes: the worst drought in the region for 60 years; high food and fuel prices; and conflict, particularly in Somalia. Somalia’s per capita gross domestic product is only $333—among the lowest in the world—and 43% of its population survive on less than $1 a day.

It is clear that long-term solutions to prevent a repeat of such a famine will require good governance, sound growth policies and active preparedness through the building of food reserves in the affected countries. However, a major factor contributing to the crisis has been underinvestment in the smallholder agriculture sector across the whole east Africa region. I welcome the contribution made by the G20 Agriculture Ministers in their June summit in Paris, where they called for an increase in food production, made food security a central issue in the G20’s reforms over the next year and pointed out the need for a 70% increase in agricultural production by 2050 to deal with a global population that is likely to rise to 9 billion people.

In developing countries there is a need to double food production to prevent future crises. Three out of every four people in developing countries live in rural areas, and 2.1 billion people still live on less than $2 a day. We know that investment in the agricultural sector does more for growth and poverty reduction than investment in any other sector. I strongly welcome the launch of Oxfam’s Grow campaign, which is aimed at highlighting the importance of food security and calls for the regulation of commodity markets and policies that promote the production of food rather than biofuels. Currently, subsidies for first-generation biofuels amount to $20 billion a year.

There is a clear and pressing question for the international community on food price regulation. The 2010 agriculture and commodity prices report of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation found that in June 2008 the prices of basic foods on international markets had reached their highest levels for 30 years, threatening the food security of the poor worldwide. In 2007 and 2008, as a result of high food prices, an additional 115 million people were pushed into chronic hunger. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation this May in Rome, rising global food prices since last June have pushed a further 44 million people into extreme hunger.

The World Economic Forum’s report on global risk describes the link between water, food and energy as one of the future drivers of social and economic instability across the world. The International Food Policy Research Institute predicts a 30% increase in demand for water, and the International Energy Agency forecasts that the world economy will require at least 40% more energy by 2030. Half a billion people throughout the world face chronic shortfalls in water now, and that number that is likely to rise to more than 4 billion by 2050 as a result of climate change, with food production being particularly exposed.

The UNFAO outlined in its June report on crop prospects that food insecurity has reached alarming levels in east Africa, and throughout the continent some 23 countries are in need of external assistance to feed their populations. The OECD secretary-general, Angel Gurría, spoke in early June at the International Economic Forum of the Americas of the imperative to increase public and private agricultural investment and of an end to export bans.

There is an ongoing debate among non-governmental organisations and economists about the contribution of commodity price speculation and trading in commodity derivatives to the volatility of global food prices. Last week, Members were lobbied by Michael Masters and David Frenk of Better Markets, who also spoke to Governments in Paris and in London, about the need for concerted G20 action on commodity derivatives. They established the clear link between speculation from index funds and the monthly spike in commodity derivative stocks.

Such speculation does not add liquidity to those markets or help farmers, and we need the Treasury to join Governments throughout the G20 to put in place a global version of the Dodd-Frank Act, making sure that all transactions are regulated by the stock market and that, in such transactions, position limits are placed on the trading of financial institutions.

15:22

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, for not being present for the whole debate. I wanted to be but could not. I was not going to speak—I was going to listen—but I have decided to say something.

Africa is one of the richest continents in the world, and if the conditions were right it could feed itself properly. I speak as someone whose wife started an International Committee of the Red Cross camp in south Sudan for 100,000 people. She was often shelled by the Government there, and because of that she slept most of her six months at the camp in a slit trench.

That brings me to the point that I want to make, and forgive me if it has been made already, but in so many countries it is the authorities that are the big obstacle. In so many countries in Africa, it is the leaders who tend to think that, because they are the president, the prime minister or whoever, they own that country and everything that goes on in it; and, of course, so much that goes in goes out somewhere else—to offshore bank accounts, on Mercedes cars or whatever—and does not get through. I do not know how we are going to correct that problem, but I do know that that is largely the problem. The Department for International Development is under this Government, and was under the previous Government, fully aware of it, and is doing its very best to make sure that the money that we give, either as a Government or through our wonderful charities, some of which we have mentioned today, gets all the way through.

Personally, I think that the forum of the world, the United Nations, should get a grip and somehow come up with a plan to make sure that people in Africa are fed properly, either by moving them to a place where they can be sustained or by getting some sort of arrangement with authorities whereby they do not interfere and we do not have to pay a levy—like I had to, not in Africa but in Bosnia, where we stopped the practice—to get food through to the people who need it. That is disgraceful. I very much hope that the United Nations, which is the highest authority in the world, can somehow get its act together to make sure that the people of Africa get fed properly and are not prevented from receiving proper aid by the authorities, either locally or nationally.

I hope the House will forgive me for speaking.

15:25

[Amber Rudd]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will wind up the debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is always interesting to hear from him about his passionate support for the people of Africa and about what his wife has been doing to support them.

I thank the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary for attending and thank their opposite numbers for kindly coming here as well. The common theme of the debate has been that we need to do all we can to help the people of the horn of Africa. All Members have taken the time to congratulate the UK public on their contribution and express wholehearted support for the Government’s efforts, only stopping to try to redirect those efforts and introduce their own examples or themes regarding things they think can really make a difference.

I should like to repeat a couple of the points that have been made and ask the Under-Secretary to respond to them in due course. Sadly, he will not speak on this occasion, but I am sure that he will come back to us individually. First, I will comment on food price volatility and commodity trading. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said she was not sure whether that is a matter of concern although it has been suggested that it is. It would be helpful to those of us who are concerned about food security to achieve a settled view, if that is possible, on whether it is something that we should be concentrating on. If it is, we absolutely need to address it, but if not, we do not want it to distract us from all our other efforts. Time and money are limited and we need to know where to focus them. It has also been interesting to hear so many Members speak strongly about the importance of focusing aid towards women, who support their homes and families, and I emphasise that point to the Under-Secretary.

The complexity of the causes of the famine has not put the House off; instead, each Member has dealt with them with in their own way, drawing on their own experience to do so. The House should be proud of the fact that Members have put in such effort, resulting in a very good debate. The most important message to emerge is the urgency of improving agricultural resilience in these countries. If we can help people to grow their own food and feed themselves, we will help them to mitigate the difficulties that cause the famine we are now witnessing.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to have this debate and congratulate everybody on their speeches. I have very much enjoyed hearing so many Members speak so strongly and passionately about other people and countries that they care about. It is good for the House that we have done that. I commend the motion to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the contribution of the British public, via the Disasters Emergency Committee, and the British Government to the famine relief effort in the Horn of Africa; recognises that emergency food relief must always be the last resort and that improving the productivity and resilience of domestic agricultural systems in Africa must be a priority for the UK and the international donor community; and calls upon the Government to increase its focus on improving awareness around nutrition and agriculture in the developing world to support farmers and secure greater international food resilience and to champion the welfare of those in the developing world in the discussions on food price volatility at the upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes.

Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Before I call Mr Steve Baker to move the motion, I remind Back Benchers that a large number of people wish to take part in this debate and that therefore Mr Speaker has put a five-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions.

15:30

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the issue of Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent.

I am extremely grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for making this debate possible. My predecessor, Paul Goodman, took this issue extremely seriously and I am sure that had this mechanism been available he would have called such a debate. I am also extremely grateful to the Members who turned out to support me at the Committee: my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) who spoke about Sri Lanka, the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin).

The origin of this debate was my request for a debate on human rights in Kashmir and the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North for a debate on Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, some commentators mistakenly thought that we sought to conflate the two issues. That is not the case. It suited the Backbench Business Committee to bring the issues together under the heading of “Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent”.

I have a simple purpose: to give a voice to the thousands of British Kashmiri constituents who demand and are entitled to representation in this place, their Parliament. I am aware that many Members wish to speak about Sri Lanka, so for the sake of time I will rely on my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North to cover that issue. I will say only that I support my Tamil constituents’ demand for an independent international investigation.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend rightly said, I will speak more about the issues relating to the Tamil community later. Does he agree that what is needed is justice for the Tamil people?

[Steve Baker]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. When I come on to my later remarks, I think he will share my view that this issue is part of the legacy of the British empire and its withdrawal from the world.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the importance of this debate is that it will give a voice not only to parliamentarians, but to the people of the countries that are affected, such as those in the disputed region of Kashmir?

[Steve Baker]

Not for the first time, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is absolutely our reason for being here: to give a voice to those people.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I genuinely congratulate all the Members who have got this matter on to the agenda of our Parliament this afternoon. There are many people in Stoke-on-Trent from Kashmir who feel strongly that the issue of civil rights and justice needs to be on the diplomatic agenda of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and that it must negotiate on this issue. We need to deal with the human rights abuses and it is important that this debate is followed through.

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I am pleased that there seems to be a cross-party consensus on the nature of this conversation, and I hope that will continue throughout the afternoon.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that seeking a judgment on behalf of one side is a bit pejorative and that what we really need is to create healing between two groups of people that have both been harmed by a very damaging terrorist war?

[Steve Baker]

My hon. Friend will find as I make progress with my remarks that I agree with the thrust of what he has said. I certainly do not wish to be divisive.

The status of Kashmir and the history of events leading to its division have long been contested and have led to at least three wars between India and Pakistan. India claims that the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir legally acceded to it in 1947. Pakistan claims that Kashmiris were denied their choice of which state to join and holds that the status of Kashmir can be decided only by a plebiscite in line with UN resolutions. Kashmir has been divided since 1948 by a ceasefire line, known as the line of control. It is not my intention to rehearse the whole history of events as time does not permit it.

The region remains one of the most militarised in the world, with thousands of troops on both sides of the line of control. Further to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), I do not think that is in the interests of either country. Various peace negotiations have taken place, leading to a number of practical, confidence-building measures, but I am afraid that the Mumbai attacks interrupted them.

For me, the history of Kashmir emphasises an absolutely vital point—the importance of peace and comprehensive non-aggression, because when violence begins, despair is not far behind. There are those who say that we should not be discussing these matters today, but for me the ghosts of empire have left us with an inescapable paradox. On the one hand, India is entitled to make its way in the world; it is the largest democracy in the world and there should be no echoes of paternalistic colonialism. On the other hand British Kashmiris, for whom the Kashmir issue is of deep, abiding and passionate concern—for the world is a small place—demand and are entitled to a voice in this place on this issue.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

On that point, the British Kashmiris in my constituency are asking for justice for Kashmir—for investigation and action to stop human rights abuses. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a key thing to do?

[Steve Baker]

Absolutely, and I shall come to that point.

I do not intend any lazy demagoguery, as that would be too easy—no cheap condemnation of India and, I am afraid, no false hopes for Kashmiris.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Steve Baker]

No, I am sorry; I must make progress.

I wish to discuss Kashmiris’ rights to life, liberty and democratic self-determination, and to connect those issues. My Kashmiri constituents have brought to me allegations that I scarcely believed of killing, mass murder, rape, brutality and arbitrary detention. Having visited Mumbai and found India a mature country with a sophisticated democracy and institutions modelled after our own, I found those allegations hard to believe, yet the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s human rights report of May 2011 confirmed that reports of human rights abuses on both sides of the line of control in Kashmir continued in 2010. Indian Prime Minister Singh has said that human rights violations by security forces in Kashmir will not be tolerated and he has instructed security forces to respect human rights. We must hope that his words are honoured by those in Kashmir.

Human Rights Watch this year called for a repeal of India’s Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. It says that soldiers found responsible for serious human rights violations remain unaccountable because of immunity provided under that law. There might be propaganda on both sides—indeed, I am sure there is—but no one should allow themselves to believe that allegations of human rights abuses in Kashmir are unfounded.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have just received a communication from an Indian paper called Daijiworld. The headline reads, “India reacts strongly to British parliamentary debate on Kashmir”. We have not even had the debate and already a parliamentary democracy is telling us that we should not be having it. That is not quite a point of order, but this really is an insult from the Indian journalists who say we should not even be debating this in our own House of Commons.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, Mr MacShane. Perhaps you have just introduced a new practice in which people stand up and say, “Nearly point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.” You are quite right: it was nearly a point of order but it certainly was not one for the Chair. However, it has been put on the record.

[Steve Baker]

I am most grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution.

As I was saying, we must not deceive ourselves. Moving on to issues of freedom of movement, of association, of speech and so on, I want to mention a report by Amnesty International entitled, “India: A ‘lawless law’: Detentions under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act,” which contains a number of allegations regarding the use of preventive, administrative detentions. The contents include:

“Violations of the principle of legality…Delayed and secret reasons for detention…No access to judicial authority…Restrictions on access to legal counsel…Indefinite detention of foreign nationals…Immunity of officials…Incommunicado detention …Torture…Detention without any legal basis”.

That Amnesty International report deserves an answer.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the suffering of the people in Kashmir and the problems that they face daily. Does he share my concern that the international community has not put this issue high enough up the agenda by seeking to reach a resolution that brings peace to such a beautiful part of the world?

[Steve Baker]

The hon. Lady is right, and I am most grateful to her. Of course, I share that view, which is why we are here today.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman be characteristically even-handed and mention the Amnesty report, “As if Hell fell on Me: the Human Rights Crisis in North-west Pakistan,” given that this debate is about human rights issues on the subcontinent as a whole?

[Steve Baker]

I am most grateful—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention, I remind him of the guidelines about the length of his contribution.

[Steve Baker]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have taken my last intervention. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) makes a good point, although I have not read that report. I am seeking to be even-handed, but even so, I have to enter this into the record for the sake of discussion. The “lawless law” report states that by using the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act

“to incarcerate suspects without adequate evidence, India has not only gravely violated their human rights but also failed in its duty to charge and try such individuals and to punish them if found guilty in a fair trial.”

I wish to express considerable humility on this point, because the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act is very much in line with the principle at least of our own control orders and terrorism prevention and investigation measures. The House should therefore not be too quick to condemn the principle of what India is doing. It is very much in line with what we have done. In my Second Reading speech on TPIMs, I condemned administrative detention outright and then withheld my vote from it, so I hope that I will escape the accusation of hypocrisy.

We need to consider how these measures arise. Why do democracies turn to such measures? I suggest that when democracy is denied, people turn away from it and end up seeking violence. I am proposing, for the people of Kashmir, a comprehensive policy of non-aggression, peace and democratic self-determination under the terms of the UN resolutions. I accept that the situation in Kashmir can only, and must, be resolved by Kashmiris, India and Pakistan, but we must acknowledge in this place the absolute moral, legal and political equality of the Kashmiri people and take whatever steps are appropriate to secure demilitarisation, democratic self-determination and a prosperous and secure future for Kashmir. I hope that the Government are listening and will take whatever steps they can.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind Members that there is a five-minute limit on speeches.

15:42

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be called to contribute to this important debate and I congratulate the hon. Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and for Ilford North (Mr Scott) on securing it. I am pleased that it has proved so popular with parliamentary colleagues, although the unfortunate flip-side is that we have a strict time limit on our contributions.

Like the hon. Member for Wycombe, I wish to focus my comments on the situation in Kashmir. This topic is important to me because my constituency, and Birmingham as a whole, has a large British-Kashmiri population, some of whose members are here for the debate and many of whom have written to me asking me to voice their concerns in the House. The subject is also important to me personally, because I am of Kashmiri origin: my family originated from the Mirpur district of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, both my parents were born there and I still have family and friends there. Consequently, the plight of Kashmiris and the necessity of finding a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute have loomed large in my life.

For too long the beautiful region of Kashmir, often described as paradise on earth, has been caught in one of the world’s most dangerous conflicts, but it is a conflict that is little reported and often does not get the media and global political attention that it needs and deserves. I am grateful, therefore, that this debate has given us an opportunity to focus on the issue. I know, too, that many British Kashmiris are grateful to the all-party group on Kashmir and Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry, a former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, for their efforts to raise the profile of this dispute and to secure political debate and action.

The failure to resolve the Kashmir dispute, and particularly the failure to give effect to UN resolutions from the 1940s urging a plebiscite in Kashmir so that the Kashmiri people can determine their own future, has resulted in an uprising in Indian-administered Kashmir, the suppression of which, according to Amnesty International’s “lawless law” report, has led to grave human rights violations. The report highlights disturbing and unacceptable cases of abuse, with the application of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978, in particular, undermining efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution. Amnesty International found that many cases in which the Public Safety Act had been applied involved lengthy periods of illegal detention of political activists seeking Kashmiri independence, in violation of Indian national law as well as international law. Many cases featured allegations of torture and other forms of ill treatment being used to coerce people into making confessions.

One of the most offensive features of the Public Safety Act is that it provides for immunity from prosecution for officials operating under it, thereby granting impunity for human rights violations under the law. The application of the Act, together with the discovery of mass graves in Kashmir, the Mumbai attacks in 2008 and Kashmir’s bloody summer of 2010, have undermined the prospects for a resolution of the dispute.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech, and I am proud to be sitting here listening to her. Does she agree that India should accept the findings of the commission on the mass graves in Kashmir?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I endorse her contribution. I know that she, too, is a passionate advocate of human rights on the Indian subcontinent.

A resolution is needed, desperately and urgently. The world, and especially the people of Kashmir, cannot afford for India and Pakistan to be engaged in perpetual dispute over the region. The human cost is too great. The partition of the two countries in 1947 resulted in hundreds of thousands dead. In the three wars that have been fought between the two states more than 15,000 people have died, and the estimates of the number of dead following the uprisings in Kashmir range from 40,000 to 100,000. Both countries spend too much of their budgets on defence; that money should be channelled into eradicating poverty and promoting health, education and human rights. India and Pakistan have both acquired nuclear weapons, and the fear that the hostility between the two countries, which springs from a mix of religion, history and territory, might change quickly into armed conflict is very real and never too far away. Meanwhile the people of Kashmir continue to suffer, so a resolution of the dispute deserves and demands our attention, and talks must be pursued with vigour on all sides.

[John Hemming]

Does the hon. Lady agree that this debate shows that we are not forgetting Kashmir? The treatment of the people of Kashmir is key, and we will not ignore that.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I endorse the hon. Gentleman’s comments. As I have said, I am grateful that we are having this debate today.

I said that all sides needed to pursue a solution with vigour, because too often the rest of the world sees only India and Pakistan as the main contestants in the dispute. It is my contention, however, that the Kashmiri people themselves are the central party and should be treated as such, as it is their future that is at the heart of the dispute.

I also think that the British Government have a vital role to play, not only because of our history but because our country is home to large diaspora communities from India, Pakistan and Kashmir. We therefore have a unique insight into the intricacies of the dispute, and an important role to play in achieving its resolution. We should be a critical friend to both India and Pakistan, and a strong advocate of the rights of Kashmiris. They are a strong, resilient, proud, generous and passionate people, and their land is a place of great natural beauty and potential. Their plight demands our attention, and they deserve our efforts to bring the injustice that they have suffered to an end.

15:48

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and the others who have secured this joint debate. I also assure my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) that I intend to ask for justice for all in Sri Lanka.

[Mr Binley]

I am delighted.

[Mr Scott]

I knew that he would be pleased to hear that.

As we have heard from the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), it seems that we are not allowed to debate in our House of Commons issues that affect our constituents. Well I can assure the authorities in India and Sri Lanka that we are perfectly at liberty to discuss items that affect our constituents, their lives and their families.

I want to focus today on Sri Lanka. We have seen reports from the United Nations that 40,000 innocent women and children were massacred at the end of the conflict. When I raised the matter with the Sri Lankan authorities, I was told that I was wrong and that the Channel 4 programme “Sri Lanka’s Killing Field”, for which I pay tribute to Channel 4, was also wrong. I have said that there should be an independent international inquiry—if I am wrong, such an inquiry would surely show that the Sri Lankan authorities were innocent and I would apologise—but that has been turned down. There must be justice for all in Sri Lanka—I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South about that—but that must include justice for the Tamil people, who must receive answers to some important questions.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful speech and for co-authoring today’s motion. Does he recognise that as well as the thousands and thousands of Tamils who were killed by the Sri Lankan regime, 17,000 Tamils are still caged behind barbed wire and another nearly 200,000 in transit camps have been refused permission to return to their homes?

[Mr Scott]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it surely cannot take two years—it is now some two years since the conflict ended—to decide whether somebody is a terrorist or whether they should stand trial; nor should it take two years for those trials to take place. That certainly should have happened by now. I would add that there are still children in some of the camps who are four or five years old, and I have yet to meet an 18-month-old terrorist.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for the passion that he brings to this issue. Does he agree that our constituents have a right to know who was responsible for the deaths of their family members in Sri Lanka and that the record of the Sri Lankan Government to date suggests that they will not get that answer from the Sri Lankan authorities?

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend is perfectly correct: there should be answers to those questions.

[Mr Binley]

As ever, my hon. Friend is most generous in giving way. I have visited the Puttalam camp on the west coast of Sri Lanka, which holds 160,000 Tamils who were driven out from the north mainly through fear of the actions of the Tamil Tigers, and I know that because I talked to those people without any regard to the Sri Lankan authorities and that is what they told me. Does my hon. Friend accept that?

[Mr Scott]

I obviously accept what my hon. Friend says; equally, however, we saw on our TV screens only recently that people in Libya said one thing when they were interviewed at first and something quite separate a few weeks later.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is very generous in giving way. I have listened to the recent exchanges, but does he not agree that the most important thing that should come out of today’s debate is the need not to lose sight of justice for all?

[Mr Scott]

I totally agree and reiterate that there must be justice for all. I would never say that there should not be.

In the short time left to me—that is, in this debate, not beyond that—I would like to raise a number of issues. I have said in the past that, when the conflict ended, a number of babies and children below the age of 12 were not accounted for. I have asked the Sri Lankan high commission to share with me what happened to those babies and young children. To this day I have not received an answer. I will continue to follow that up, but I would also ask the Minister to look into the matter, just as I have asked our high commissioner in Colombo.

We are also getting sad reports of what are called “grease devils”. These are men who attack people after applying grease to their bodies so as not to be captured by the authorities. They then run into military camps or police stations, having attacked their victims—normally women—in their homes. I am not casting any aspersions against anyone as to who they might be, but I would like to see the practice stopped and the perpetrators caught. I would also like to ask what has happened to the elderly and disabled people who were left behind at the end of the conflict, on 18 May 2009, because they are still unaccounted for.

I have here a list of various things I could run through, but I shall not do that because of the time. What I want to say, to everyone in the House, is that we have a duty. We have a duty to represent not only our constituents, but those who have no voice, wherever they are in the world. We have a duty to stand up for innocent people, whether they be Tamil or Sinhalese, and to get justice.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Amnesty International’s country report on Sri Lanka this year will be of equal concern to both the Tamil and Sinhalese communities? The report says that in the immediate aftermath of the elections, the Rajapaksa family,

“which controlled five key ministries and more than 90 state institutions,”

introduced a constitutional amendment in September that

“removed the two-term limit on the presidency”.

[Mr Scott]

Yes, that is a great concern. Again, individual action is needed on all these items.

Today, however, we are here to speak about human rights on the Indian subcontinent. We have to speak about human rights in Sri Lanka; we have to get justice for the Tamil people. If we do not get it, we will all have let those people down. I, for one, will continue to do everything in my power—whoever I upset, whether they be colleagues or not—to continue to try to get that justice for the Tamil people. We have said that we will look at the situation in November to see whether the Sri Lanka Government have failed to take action. It is now mid-September, so it is not long till November. I hope that, for everyone’s benefit, the Sri Lanka Government will allow an independent international investigation into what happened. I believe that that is what we must go for. I know that the Minister stands up for the rights of all in this area, so I hope that will happen.

15:56

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow such a passionate and well-informed speech by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). In common with other Members, I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) for making the arrangements to enable it to take place.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) said, there are significant numbers of people of Kashmiri origin across the UK. The vast majority of my constituents from the Indian subcontinent are of Kashmiri origin, so this debate has provoked great interest not just in Ladywood, but in Dudley, too. I want to pay tribute to this community’s contribution to life in Dudley—to its economic, social, cultural and political life—since the ’60s when people from Kashmir first came to the town. I want to place on the record my thanks and gratitude for their support and friendship and for their wise advice—not just on the issue we are discussing today, but on so many other issues, as well. They believe that the people of both Pakistan and India deserve peace and prosperity and that this ongoing dispute is hindering the progress that can be achieved towards both.

Prosperity and peace in the long term requires a resolution between these two nuclear forces, because the stability of the region as a whole depends on a just solution. Given the amount of bloodshed that has arisen from this issue—bin Laden used the Kashmir issue as one of the reasons for al-Qaeda’s attacks on the west—surely the only route to long-lasting peace is through the democratic route. I believe we have to be absolutely clear that the future of Kashmir must be decided by the people of Kashmir, because the only way in which we will see justice for the Kashmiri people is through the right to self-determination, agreed by India in the UN and supported by the UK Government. That is the basic democratic principle—a principle that the west has supported in other countries, and one that we should support in relation to Kashmir.

I would like to see our Government urge India and Pakistan to progress the talks that have recently started again, albeit in a low-level way. Our historic role in the region places on Britain a responsibility to do all it can to help bring about a speedy resolution to the dispute. We should stand ready to assist in the process—by encouraging economic development, by improving education and health care systems, and particularly by supporting peaceful elements in civil society.

I believe that the UK must also take a number of other steps. We condemn terrorist attacks wherever they occur—and quite right, too—but the Indian military has committed human rights atrocities against Kashmiris since the last India-Pakistan war in 1999, so we should be very clear about condemning those attacks and calling for an immediate stop to human rights violations. Human rights abuses have also been carried out by some terrorist groups against Indian targets. We need to see the enforcement and implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and UN monitoring of the situation. Crucially, people in Kashmir have as much of a right to a free press as we take for granted in the UK.

Finally, the Government could exploit much more effectively the expertise and experience in communities such as mine here in the UK, so I invite the Minister to come to Dudley to hear directly from my constituents their views on achieving a peaceful solution based on self-determination for the Kashmiri people.

15:59

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

My constituency has a large Kashmiri community, many of whom worship together at the Shah Jahan mosque, which is the UK’s oldest purpose-built mosque. Not all members of the Muslim community in Woking have roots and family in Kashmir, but a significant portion do, some of whom are in the Gallery today. The community is well established and contributes greatly to many areas of life in Woking, including local politics. I am pleased that last year we had our first Muslim mayor, and first Kashmiri mayor, Mohammed Iqbal, who was a wonderful civic ambassador for our town. I welcome the chance to speak in the House about the human rights situation in the subcontinent and especially in Kashmir, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on his part in securing the debate.

The Foreign Office reports that human rights abuses continue each year on both sides of the line of control. Last year, violent clashes in Indian-controlled Kashmir saw about 100 civilians killed, and Amnesty’s recent report concluded that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is holding hundreds of people each year without charge or trial. Any such human rights abuses should be condemned, no matter what the political or historical background. But when the problem is political and historical, the violence and abuse is likely finally to come to an end in the region only when a diplomatic solution is found.

The region has suffered greatly in the past few years, not just from the ongoing instability, but from the devastating earthquake in 2005 and the floods in 2010. I hope that the next couple of years will see more positive developments and a return to diplomatic talks that will pave the way to security and the right to self-determination.

It should be recognised that the UK not only has strong historic links to the region but plays a major aid role. UK taxpayers’ money has repaired 450,000 properties and built 16 new schools and 40 new bridges in Azad Kashmir as part of the earthquake reconstruction and rehabilitation programme. Additional money was raised through the generosity of British citizens, as I witnessed at countless local fundraising events and street stalls hosted and led by our Muslim community in Woking. Further, more than £1 million has been spent by UK taxpayers in the past five years via the conflict pool that goes towards support for human rights, conflict prevention and peace-building efforts. Projects such as educational programmes in schools that are vulnerable to militant influence, and the promotion of civil society exchanges across the line of control, are highly worth while, and I hope that the funding of such programmes will continue.

Everyone knows that progress will be slow and that resolutions to disputes such as that affecting Kashmir will not be found overnight, but every long journey starts with just one step. There is now some sort of dialogue between India and Pakistan about Kashmir. There has been talk of the possibility of a new era of diplomacy; the new Pakistan Foreign Minister’s recent visit to India showed signs of progress, with additional agreements about trade over the border. Sustained and composite dialogue, however, is not yet forthcoming. [Interruption.] On such an important issue, we could do with less backchat from some Members on the Labour Benches, because everyone in the Chamber deserves to be listened to.

The Government’s long-standing position is that it is not the UK’s role to be initiating talks or identifying mediators for such talks, and I understand the reasons for that. With the Minister, I spoke back in 1997 to a group of Oldham Kashmiris about this very issue, but I fear that we are not much further on. However, I welcome the Government’s recognition of the people of Kashmir’s desire for self-determination. The Government must know that the prospect of achieving long-term stability in the region, and an end to the kind of violence and human rights abuse that occurred last year, will take a major step forward only when India and Pakistan return to composite and regular dialogue.

In the quiet, measured yet determined way that our Foreign Office is capable of, I hope that it will do everything appropriate that it can to encourage India and Pakistan themselves to initiate proper dialogue and talks. This country must always stand up for the proud Kashmiri people who have been the real victims for so long—for too long—in this terrible historic dispute.

12:20

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

The civil war in Sri Lanka was one of the region’s most dreadful conflicts of recent times. In its last five months alone, 100,000 people were killed, 40,000 of them civilians. War crimes took place. The United Nations found serious violations of international humanitarian law, and the European Commission described

“Unlawful killings perpetrated by soldiers, police and…groups with ties to the Government”.

Earlier this year, Channel 4 screened a devastating documentary using video film from victims and perpetrators that proved, according to the UN rapporteur, “definitive war crimes”. It showed hospitals and so-called safe zones being targeted for bombing, people executed in cold blood and at point-blank range, and soldiers joking about women who had been sexually assaulted and shot dead as they piled their naked bodies on the backs of lorries. I commend Channel 4, and reporters such as Jonathan Miller, for continuing to investigate the harrowing story.

Even after the war, more than 300,000 Tamils were held in camps, and although most have been released, the International Crisis Group says that they were sent to places that were

“devoid of the most basic amenities.”

Many still live under canvas, and 3,000 are still in “rehabilitation” camps, held without charge and without any access to legal help. Sri Lanka’s military continue to control civilian life in Tamil areas, including aid, and routinely steal Tamil property for use by military personnel and their families.

The President of Sri Lanka, a probable war crimes suspect, has taken on enormous powers over the judiciary and policing, limiting the courts’ ability to prevent abuses of civil rights. The Elders, an international group, has condemned Sri Lanka for

“persecution, intimidation, assassination and disappearance of government critics, political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders.”

Independent overseas reporters are not permitted. As the International Crisis Group says,

“Reconciliation after long periods of conflict never happens quickly. But in Sri Lanka there is a serious risk it may not happen at all.”

Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission consists of people who supported the Sri Lankan Government’s actions during the civil war. The Government say of the LLRC’s job that

“what happened in the past must be relegated to history”,

although, as the UN stresses,

“not to hold accountable those who committed serious crimes...is a clear violation of Sri Lanka’s international obligations and is not a permissible transitional justice option.”

Gordon Weiss, the former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka, has said:

“This is Sri Lanka’s Srebrenica moment. In fact, it’s a Srebrenica moment for the rest of the world.”

I agree. The world must say to other Governments that there is nothing to be gained from taking the Sri Lankan option of brutal repression and war crimes.

The last UK Government, thanks—to be fair—to the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), brought an end to GSP plus, the generalised system of preferences that led to a preferential trading agreement between Europe and Sri Lanka, voted against the International Monetary Fund’s $2.5 billion deal with Sri Lanka, and prevented it from hosting a Commonwealth summit. Britain must not lose that lead. Elsewhere, Switzerland and Germany have just forced Sri Lanka to recall a senior diplomat after accusations that he made troops fire on civilians and took part in torture and summary executions. However, another man implicated in similar crimes, Major-General Prasanna Silva, has just been appointed a military attaché to the UK. I call on the Minister to reassure the House that he will not permit Major-General Silva to serve here. I want Britain to prove its place at the head of the international community, and I hope that the Minister can enable it to do so by removing this man’s diplomatic privileges.

Britain must take a brave and principled lead—just as we did in Kosovo and, with France, in Libya—and do all that it can to ensure that a full independent international investigation of war crimes takes place. Those of us who believe in justice want the people responsible to be held to account, just as all of us would agree about Colonel Gaddafi, Radovan Karadzic and Charles Taylor. We cannot allow the international community to slip back to the cosy days of 2009, when the UN disgracefully ignored calls for a war crimes investigation, or when the Secretary-General spoke of Sri Lanka’s “tremendous efforts”. Sri Lanka still wants to host the Commonwealth summit in 2013. We should be clearly saying “No, not until there is a fully independent, UN-led international inquiry.” I hope that if one thing comes out of today’s debate, it will be that commitment.

16:10

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

May I join other Members in paying tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and for Ilford North (Mr Scott), who helped to secure the debate? I also pay tribute to the previous Member for Wycombe, who did a lot of work on Kashmir. He came to my constituency to speak to my Kashmiri community on a number of occasions, and he continues to help and offer assistance. I also pay tribute to the Backbench Business Committee. In holding this debate, it has sent a clear message to both the Kashmiri and the Tamil and Sri Lankan communities that this Parliament is listening, and that Members are prepared to debate the issues that are of greatest concern to our constituents.

[Steve Baker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the great things about the Backbench Business Committee is that it chooses issues for debate thoroughly independently of Government policy, as has been shown today?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I could not agree more. I was initially sceptical about the Backbench Business Committee and what it could achieve, but I only have to look up at the full Public Gallery and consider the number of e-mails and letters I have received over the past few days, to be reminded that the subjects it chooses for discussion are highly relevant to our constituents.

I also want to thank the Minister. In our dealings on the Kashmir issue, he has always been helpful, and his door has always been open. He has also laid at our disposal the help of his officials, who have done a great job in providing us with information and assistance. I am grateful for that.

I speak on this subject as vice-chairman of the all-party groups on both Pakistan and Kashmir, and, most importantly, as an MP who represents more than 4,500 Kashmiri constituents. When I first became the parliamentary candidate for Burton, I went along to the local community centres and mosques to talk to the Kashmiris in my constituency. Although we addressed all the issues that matter to them, such as education and policing, time and again they would return to the burning issue of Kashmir and ask for our help. It was with that experience in mind that I pledged to be the first MP for Burton ever to visit Kashmir.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his powerful speech. Does he share the Kashmiris’ frustration about this dispute being one of the longest in our history? It involves two countries that have nuclear weapons and it has caused three wars to take place, yet the international community does not appear to be taking it seriously enough.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Gentleman articulates the views of so many of my constituents. They ask, “Why isn’t it on television or in the newspapers? Why is what is happening in Kashmir not being reported here in Britain, and why is the international community not doing something about it?”

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman sets out his points very well. Does he agree that today’s debate demonstrates that we are listening to the concerns of our constituents, and that we are keen to move the issue forward so that proper progress can be made on it internationally?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I agree, and I know that the hon. Gentleman does a great deal in this House on these issues. I congratulate him on that.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman asked why the world was not doing something about Kashmir. Does he agree that that may have something to do with the Simla agreement, under which Pakistan and India agreed that they would settle the issue bilaterally without outside interference, and in a completely peaceful way?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I am afraid that I would agree more if we had seen more proactive responses from both Pakistan and India. Having been to the Pakistan-administered side of Kashmir and spoken to many people, I found it frustrating to see that many politicians there are inhibiting the efforts to find a solution.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I will make some progress, if I may, as time is short and I have given way on a number of occasions.

I am reminded very much of what happens in respect of the Falkland Islands: every time there is a general election in Argentina, the issue of the Malvinas is brought up as a way of sabre rattling and winning votes, and a similar thing happens in both Pakistan and India. That is why it is incumbent on the UK to use any influence it has to move the situation forward.

I have been to the Falkland Islands as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and I visited Gibraltar last year on holiday. I have spoken to Gibraltarians and Falkland Islanders, so I know that the thing they have in common is their right to self-determination. They have the right to choose how they are governed and who governs them. That is at the heart of the Kashmir issue: it is about the fact that the people of Kashmir should have a right to self-determination and to choose their own path forward. I have seen the Pakistan-administered side of Kashmir for myself, and it is clear that that area has been devastated, not just because of the earthquake and the flood, but because of the way in which this trouble has held that region back. It is time that the United Kingdom—a Commonwealth country—used its best efforts to move this situation forward.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not our colonial past that is important in resolving this issue, but our recent experience in trouble spots such as Northern Ireland?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I do. I also think that this is about our relationship with the area. We have a strong Pakistani diaspora in the UK and we have strong trading ties with India. We have a unique relationship with both those countries, which may allow us to get them around the table and move things forward.

The situation in Kashmir matters for a number of reasons. First, because it is about self-determination and the right of the Kashmiris to choose. Secondly, because the two countries involved have nuclear weapons, so this potential flashpoint could have devastating consequences. Most importantly, it matters because the lives of too many Kashmiris are being devastated, on both sides of the line. I have spoken to too many families where grandparents have never seen their grandchildren or where children have not been able to return to see the grave of their mother or father. It is for those types of people that we have a responsibility to use our best efforts to help to move towards a solution. I know that the Minister has a heartfelt interest in this matter, and I know that, for the sake of all my Kashmiri constituents, he will do his best.

16:17

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

First, may I apologise to the House for the fact that I will not be able to be here for the wind-ups, as I was already committed to chairing a meeting at 6 o’clock? I am grateful to the hon. Members who sponsored the proposal of this debate to the Backbench Business Committee, because we are debating this issue on the fourth international day of democracy, as nominated by the UN and celebrated by Parliaments throughout the world.

This is the right day for us to be debating this subject of human rights in the Indian subcontinent, because human rights are a precursor to democracy; without basic human rights and the full protection of human rights, there is no prospect of genuine democracy. When representatives of regimes that are denying human rights complain, as they do sometimes, that, as a British parliamentarian, I should not be interfering in their internal matters, I am confident that I can reply that there are international standards of democracy and human rights. It is the duty of every democrat, particularly every democratically elected parliamentarian, to uphold those standards throughout the world, without fear or favour. That was put rather more poetically by constituents of mine, some of whom are in the Gallery, who signed a petition stating:

“Human beings are like parts of a body, created from the same essence. When one part is hurt and in pain, the others cannot remain in peace and be quiet”.

I will therefore focus on human rights in Kashmir, although my Sri Lankan constituents, who come from both Sinhala and Tamil communities, are well aware of my passionate commitment to human rights in that country. That was expressed when the former representative of the UK Government to Sri Lanka, Des Browne, came to address a meeting in Slough just 18 months ago.

At the outset, I ought to say that I am a friend of both India and Pakistan, even at times when there are tensions between those two countries. I am also a friend of Kashmir, however, and of its people, who have not enjoyed full democratic and human rights since Britain left behind this bit of unfinished colonial business when we ceded control of India and Pakistan nearly 65 years ago.

I was at Labour’s conference in 1995 when it resolved that Britain was under an obligation to seek a solution of the Kashmir issue. I am proud that Labour Foreign Secretaries from Robin Cook to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) have been willing, as they have worked to develop our relationship with that great democracy and growing economic power, India, to raise the uncomfortable issue of Kashmir. I am disappointed that the current Government do not feel the same duty, at least when they are in the territory of India. Whatever one’s view of the future of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, there can be no doubt—

[Andrew Griffiths]

rose—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Lady makes a party political point about this Government and our commitment to Kashmir. Can she tell us just one thing her Government did to move the issue of Kashmir forward?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

As I have been saying, for some 65 years, this has been an issue—[Interruption.] If my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) wants to intervene to question my historical knowledge, he is welcome.

For a long time, this subject has limped forward. British Foreign Secretaries have been prepared to raise the issue in Pakistan and India, even when it has been very unpopular. That is one thing that needs to happen—what we need is not silence about the issue, but a preparedness to stand up for human rights in public even when it is unpopular.

At the moment, it is not possible in Kashmir for journalists to report basic protests such as those that followed the death of a boy who was hit by a police tear gas canister just this June. Only when the press is free to publish reports of protests and when voters feel safe as they walk to the ballot box will there be any chance of resolving this bitter dispute. To that end, I echo the call from the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) for the repeal of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act and of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. If we succeed in making Kashmir a society where human rights are protected, what then? That goes to the heart of the hon. Gentleman’s question.

I think Mr Hameed, the gravedigger at the martyrs’ graveyard in Indian-administered Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, made the point very powerfully: “The solution to the problem will only be arrived at when India, Pakistan and Kashmiri people meet at the same table. Our kids pelt stones. The security services fire a bullet. What kind of democracy do we live in?” We need to ensure that the people of Kashmir live in a democracy and can determine their future. Until we protect their human rights, the possibility of a democratic resolution to the troubles that have divided that beautiful country for so long is lacking. I think the whole House agrees that democracy is the best way to resolve these issues and the whole House knows that without human rights, democracy cannot exist.

16:23

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I start by paying tribute to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), a fellow former Royal Air Force officer. I joined him and many other Members from both sides of the House in helping to secure the debate from the Backbench Business Committee, to which we are very grateful.

I shall focus on Kashmir. I have spoken in Westminster Hall debates on Kashmir and at meetings of the all-party group for Kashmir, but this is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak on human rights in Kashmir in this Chamber, and I am very grateful for it. My constituency in west Yorkshire has thousands of Kashmiris living in Thornton Lodge, Crosland Moor and Lockwood. They raise the situation in their homeland with me weekly, so I am proud to be speaking on their behalf.

I fully understand that international issues are never straightforward, so to try to understand the dynamic of the region I undertook a private visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir last November. I flew into Islamabad in Pakistan, and after delivering blankets, clothing and tents donated by the good folk of Huddersfield and Colne Valley to some of the flood-hit villages in the area of Nowshera in Pakistan, we crossed the border into AJK. I was based in the vibrant city of Mirpur—a fantastic place, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) rightly said—on the beautiful Mangla Dam lake. I was honoured to be invited for tea at the homes of families with loved ones who live in my constituency, but their love of tea is not the only close cultural link that the Kashmiris have with the UK. When I was invited to meet the Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Sardar Attique Khan, in Dadyal, I was welcomed by their military band, complete with bagpipes and kilts.

I saw a beautiful and peaceful Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir, but time and again I have been told of human rights abuses in Indian-controlled Kashmir, some of which we have heard about in this Chamber in the past hour, so I fully appreciate that this is a region where terrorism and security concerns are rife. Of course our own previous Government have been accused of being implicated in activities such as rendition in the wider region. The position is not always black and white.

An hour ago in Central Lobby, I bumped into a Kashmir-based journalist I met over there. As a former journalist, while I was in Kashmir I addressed a group of 50 Kashmiri journalists at the Press Club in Mirpur, and I stressed to them the importance of factual reporting. Wild accusations and the emotionally charged inflating of casualty figures do not help the cause of those campaigning for peace in the region. For example, yesterday I received an e-mail telling me of hundreds of unidentified graves, with the accusation that they contain the bodies of victims of unlawful killings and torture. I have no idea whether that is true; we must be wary of propaganda and deal in facts.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many Kashmiri journalists simply cannot report facts, because they cannot get press accreditation that will enable them to go into areas where the police are in control?

[Jason McCartney]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. I made that point myself, but journalists must not over-compensate for their inability to go to those areas by wildly inflating reports; they must stick to the facts. As a journalist I was sometimes frustrated by similar situations, which can be very difficult.

[Lyn Brown]

Mass graves should be investigated. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if India agreed to a commission, we could see the truth of the claims that are being made and end the torturous anxieties of many people in Kashmir, who are worried that their relatives may be languishing in such places and that they have no rest?

[Jason McCartney]

The hon. Lady must have had a sneaky peek at my speech because I will come to that in about 20 seconds.

I welcome Amnesty International’s report on Kashmir, “A Lawless Law”, and want to highlight some of its conclusions, which I fully support. I call for a repeal of the Public Safety Act, which results in the long-term detention of people in cases where there is insufficient evidence for trial. I call on Indian-administered Kashmir to allow peaceful protests and exercise proper crowd control, and to carry out an independent, impartial and comprehensive investigation into all allegations of abuses, including the unmarked graves and allegations of torture. I call on the UK Government to keep Kashmir on their agenda and raise these issues with the Governments of Pakistan and India whenever they meet.

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and well-informed speech. Does he agree that we must seek as a matter of urgency to improve the lives of Kashmiris by improving cross-border trade between Pakistan and India and into Kashmir and by allowing travel, particularly to enable family and loved ones to visit?

[Jason McCartney]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There already have been some cross-border relations on opening up the border for trade. I was impressed by Prime Minister Khan’s attitude towards commerce, jobs and green technologies—he talked about wind turbines, which massively impressed me.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

Does the hon. Gentleman support and appreciate initiatives taken by the Pakistan and Indian Governments, with meetings at ministerial level, to find a peaceful formula to resolve the issue of Kashmir and related issues?

[Jason McCartney]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. His office is on my corridor, so we will probably bump into each other and talk about this many more times. Yes, we want a peaceful solution and the best way to end war-war is to jaw-jaw and talk about these things, and I hope that the UK Government can be part of that.

Some eagle-eyed Members might have noticed the little green badge that I am wearing—[Interruption.] I thank the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane). It was given to me by the Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and it says, “Kashmir Seeks Attention”. Today, Kashmir has our attention, and all hon. Members in the Chamber should be very proud of that.

16:30

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Kashmir is the forgotten tragedy of the contemporary world. No other people has suffered such pain, such loss, such despair, and, worst of all, such a sense that their demands for justice are being ignored by the rest of the world. Here in the House of Commons we need to face up to our failures.

The first failure was the disastrous handling of the end of British imperialism in India. The second was the refusal of both India and Pakistan to abide by UN resolution 47, which stated:

“the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.”

That resolution was adopted in 1948; 63 years later, it has still not been implemented. The third failure is the refusal of successive British Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries of all parties to accept that Britain has an historical duty to work to allow the Kashmiri people to be free of the oppression under which they live.

Kashmir is not a faraway country of which we know nothing. The British Kashmiri community is now nearly 1 million strong and is part of the warp and weft of today’s Britain, just as in the past Huguenots, Jews, Poles and Irish people came with their culture, faith, languages and ways of life and became part of our island nation. I think of many dear friends in Rotherham, such as Councillor Jahangir Akhtar, Councillor Shaukat Ali, Councillor Mahroof Hussain, Mrs Parveen Quereshi, and Lord Nazir Ahmed in the other place, as well as friends in Tinsley and Sheffield, who have educated me on the problem of Kashmir.

According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—irreproachable international organisations—as many as 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims have died since the end of the 1980s. That is a far higher death toll of Muslims than all of those killed in middle east conflicts in recent decades. Whereas the middle east conflict gets limitless geopolitical Government and media attention, the much great death toll in Kashmir is ignored. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reports that 1.5 million refugees have been forced over the years to seek asylum across the border in Pakistan or Azad Kashmir.

In December last year, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary after receiving a report from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Its officials interviewed under private conditions 1,296 people held by India. Among them 498 had suffered torture from electricity; 381 had been suspended from the ceiling; 294 had muscles crushed in their legs by prison personnel sitting on a bar placed across their thighs; 181 had their legs stretched by being “split 180 degrees”; and 302 “sexual” cases were reported involving rape or sexual assault. The ICRC stated:

“The abuse always takes place in the presence of officers”

from India.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

As a former journalist, would my right hon. Friend like to speculate on why those horrible tortures have failed to reach our media?

[Mr MacShane]

There is a serious problem in that this is the first debate dedicated to this subject in my 17 years in the House. I very much respect the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), but Ministers have not raised this issue at a sufficiently high level. I hope that the Minister can assure the House that the Foreign Secretary will raise that recent Red Cross report with India at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference next month.

A few years ago the world was shocked at the death of 8,000 European Muslims in Srebrenica and the sight of 250,000 Kosovan Muslims fleeing from Serb troops. Why has there been silence on 1.5 million Kashmiris being forced out of their homes or up to 100,000 Muslims killed by Indian forces?

Just before he was elected, President Obama made the correct connection, noting that there would be no solution in Afghanistan without change in Pakistan, but he added that Pakistan needed help from India to resolve the Kashmir question. Afghanistan, Pakistan, India—the API triangle that lies at the heart of any future for this vital world region. Sadly, once in office President Obama dropped India, out of his desire to see movement and, as a result, got no movement at all, despite the best efforts of the late Richard Holbrooke. India is part of the problem, as is Pakistan. India must be part of the solution, as must Pakistan. Until the global community faces down India’s refusal to accept responsibility for its actions in Kashmir, there will be no peace in the region. It is time to break the silence that grips British Ministers.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees that members of the British Kashmiri community, many of whom are watching from the Gallery and elsewhere, will be delighted that we are having this debate, but it will not be worthwhile if it does not result in action by our Government to try to secure peace in that part of the world.

[Mr MacShane]

My hon. Friend is right. We do not want a curtain of silence to fall at 6 o’clock, when the Minister sits down at the end of his winding-up speech. This debate must be the beginning, not the end, of Britain finally accepting our responsibilities on behalf of our fellow British citizens for the great wrongs that have been done in Kashmir.

Britain might feel that it has no locus standi on Kashmir—as a former Minister I remember those discussions in the Foreign Office, and on this issue I have only respect for the current Foreign Office team—in which case, let the Government ask the European Union to set up a fact-finding mission to report on human rights abuses in Kashmir. Perhaps we could ask respected world leaders, such as the former US President, Jimmy Carter, or the former Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, both Nobel peace prize winners, to mediate between Pakistan and India on Kashmir, while fully respecting the rights of the people of Kashmir, because this question must not be settled above their heads between New Delhi and Islamabad. Senator Mitchell’s intervention in Northern Ireland was extremely important in helping to bring peace there. Peace in Kashmir would be a Nobel peace prize worth striving for.

Direct British rule in the Indian subcontinent lasted a mere 89 years, from 1858 to 1947. The denial of the rights of the people of Kashmir has so far lasted 63 years. Britain should do more to help find a solution and tell truth to power in both India and Pakistan.

16:37

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

We have already heard much discussion today of the value of human rights. Human rights are indivisible, self-evidently of great value and internationally applicable, as the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) explained rather more eloquently than I will attempt. Human rights must also be understood in context—the context of where a country has been and where it is trying to go. That does not devalue the human right itself or the right to the individuals there. When we comment on other nations, their actions or the actions of those within them, we must have a full understanding of the historical context and of what has happened there to lead to the situation today. It is against that background that I would like to talk about Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has only recently emerged from three decades of horrendous civil war, a civil war that claimed countless thousands of lives, both in the north among the Tamil community and in the south among the Sinhalese majority, with Government Ministers, ordinary people and Ministers and representatives of foreign Government being killed throughout that time of great conflict. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the breakaway group in the north and east of the country, waged a war using terrorist tactics including assassinations, suicide attacks, vehicle bombs, attacks on trains and buses, and even attacks from the air, in order to try to force the Sri Lankan Government to accede to demands for a breakaway state within what they perceived to be the boundaries of their own nation. Years of negotiations on ceasefires and attempts to bring an end to the hostilities failed or made no real progress, with neither side sufficiently trusting the other.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend talks about history and human rights, and that is important. Before British colonisation of Sri Lanka the Tamils had their own kingdom in the north. Does he not agree that one of the problems that we face today arises from the effects of colonisation?

[James Wharton]

I agree that we, as the inheritors of the legacy of the British empire, have a duty to acknowledge our role in many of the problems that were created throughout the world by the way in which the empire ceased to be and by the legacies that we left behind. That is one reason why it is perfectly valid and right for this House to debate these issues today and for us as a nation to do what we can to set others on the right path by applying pressure and giving assistance where we can, so that where there are troubles and problems in the world we can make a small but, I hope, significant contribution to resolving them. In Sri Lanka, that legacy is part of its history, but its more recent history is that terrible civil war, which after years of negotiations had not been brought to an end and was continuing to hold back and drag down a country that has so much potential and could do so much for its own people and on the international stage.

In 2006, the Sri Lankan Government launched a campaign to bring the civil war to an end. It was an effective but ruthless military campaign of the sort necessary to put down an organisation such as the LTTE using military means. We have heard much discussion of some of the atrocities that are alleged to have been committed during that campaign, but in the context in which it happened we must all understand that the LTTE was one of the worst oppressors of the Tamil people during and before the conflict. That context must be understood and appreciated: the LTTE fought using civilian clothes, used civilians as human shields and had thousands of child soldiers in the field.

[Mr Scott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever might have happened during what was a terrible conflict, which nobody can deny, it still does not change the fact that civilians were massacred after the event?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend is of course right, and that is why I started my speech by talking about the value of human rights and their importance objectively, but that does not mean that the context in which we comment on other countries is not important, and that is what I want to discuss in my closing remarks.

That campaign having ended, we must acknowledge where Sri Lanka is and where it is going; where it is today and where it is going tomorrow. It is all too easy to be consistently critical of others who fall short of the standards that we may choose to set for them ourselves, but we should not do so without acknowledging where progress is being made. The end of the campaign has brought great benefits to Sri Lanka. We have seen the eradication of terrorism on the island, and elections are taking place in the north and east, as those areas join what is becoming a mature democracy throughout the rest of Sri Lanka.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that democratically elected Governments should be held to a higher standard than any other group or institution in society? Does he think that it is legitimate for a democratically elected Government to drop cluster bombs on hospitals?

[James Wharton]

No, I do not. The hon. Lady will be unsurprised to hear that I do not believe that it is legitimate for a Government, whether democratically elected or not, to drop cluster bombs on hospitals. As I conclude my comments, however, I shall turn to the issue of reconciliation—what is being done, what must be done, what should be done and what we all would like to be done—in Sri Lanka.

First, I shall comment on some of the positive results of the conclusion to a three-decade-long civil war that claimed so many lives. The right to dissent and to freedom of expression in the north and east is now stronger than it had been for the preceding 30 years. De-mining operations are starting to make real progress in clearing up the hundreds of thousands of landmines and unexploded ordnance that litter the Sri Lankan countryside. The British Government are making a contribution to that work through DFID, the Mines Advisory Group and the HALO Trust, clearing up about 100,000 landmines and unexploded ordnance throughout the country.

The rehabilitation and re-homing of former LTTE combatants and of displaced people is well under way. Some 300,000 were displaced by the conflict, but only about 6,000 are now left in the welfare camps, because they have been given the opportunity, facilitated by the work of the Sri Lankan Government, to go home. The reconciliation and accountability that is such an important part of Sri Lanka moving forward has begun. The LLRC, although it has come in for some criticism today, has not yet given its final recommendations, and we should reserve judgment until it reports. Only recently, the Sri Lankan Government have approved a national action plan for the development of human rights that will, I hope, be implemented over the coming years, so that we are able to judge them on its success.

A lot of progress still needs to be made. We must not be an uncritical friend of Sri Lanka’s, but we must be a friend of Sri Lanka and of the Sri Lankan people. I hope that the House will support that.

16:45

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Today a delegation from Conservative Friends of India heads off to the subcontinent. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) has ensured that when they land in Delhi they will walk into a major media storm. The UK Parliament should be very wary of intervening in the dispute over Kashmir.

Members have talked about the UN resolution and the plebiscite, but the resolution had a condition—

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) rose on a point of order as a result of a tweet that he had received, I attempted to intervene on him, but so powerful was his flow that I could not. Will my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) confirm that when a newspaper makes a statement through social media, it does not speak for the Government of the Republic of India, and these are two very separate matters?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is right, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend knew precisely that when he made his “nearly a point of order”, as Mr Deputy Speaker called it.

The UN resolution attached a condition to the holding of the plebiscite—the withdrawal of the Pakistani forces that had invaded that part of Kashmir in 1949 when the maharajah of the state of Jammu and Kashmir had vacillated over whether to become part of India or part of Pakistan. The invasion precipitated the maharajah to jump towards India, with the consequences that we have seen since.

Of course, it is absolutely right that this House should always take a keen interest in the protection of human rights around the world, but hon. Members and members of the public watching this debate must think there is a certain irony in the fact that although the hon. Member for Wycombe sought to raise his concern about human rights issues in India, it is not India but five of India’s closest border neighbours, including Pakistan, that the 2011 “Failed States Index” lists among the 50 most failed states in the world.

[Steve Baker]

I tried to approach this with considerable caution. I am not sorry if the Indian media pick up on this issue, as I would like our constituents’ concerns to be given the widest publicity. I paid tribute to India as the world’s largest democracy and a country with institutions based on our own which seek to reinforce the rule of law, and noted that Indian Government institutions have recognised many of these human rights abuses. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that, on the whole, the House has sought to be balanced.

[Barry Gardiner]

I accept the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman says that he has contributed to the debate, and I would not wish to challenge that. However, if one looks at the immediate neighbours surrounding India, one will often find that there is far greater cause for concern in those jurisdictions than in India.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

rose—

[Shabana Mahmood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

No, I will not.

Some of the worst human rights abuses of recent memory have occurred in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, in a part of the world where, frankly, India stands out as a beacon of democracy on the subcontinent. The relations between India and the UK, at both a trade and a strategic level, are excellent. They reached new levels of cordiality after Tony Blair’s visit in 2005, when the two Prime Ministers signed the New Delhi declaration, and they have been further strengthened by the current Prime Minister’s visit last year. Economically and culturally, as well as strategically, it would be a retrograde step should a debate such as this sour those excellent relations.

I first visited Kashmir in 2000, when I took a delegation of MPs on a fact-finding visit. We visited at a particularly important time: two years previously, both India and Pakistan had declared themselves nuclear weapon states. Pakistan had announced that it would adopt a doctrine of first use in certain circumstances. India had stated to the international community that it would never use nuclear weapons first. It was a time of great tension.

In 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee travelled to Pakistan to meet Nawaz Sharif. It had been hoped that that might reduce the tension between the two states and all seemed well. Three months later, however, Pakistan-based militants invaded across the border at Kargil on the line of control into India. A bloody border conflict started in what became known as the phoney war. That invasion directly violated the Simla agreement of 1972, in which both nations agreed to resolve the issue of Kashmir by exclusively peaceful means.

President Clinton summoned Nawaz Sharif to the White House and persuaded him to withdraw Pakistani forces from Kargil. The confrontation de-escalated until Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Musharraf, who had been the key architect of the Kargil incursion. In 2000, Musharraf proclaimed himself the new President of Pakistan, without the benefit of a general election. In the following months, India was subjected to some of the most vile and well-orchestrated state-sponsored terrorist attacks ever seen, including the hijacking of an Air India flight, the attack on the temple at Gandhinagar and, of course, the attack on the Indian Parliament.

Despite the constant threat to India’s citizens from hostile parties at home and abroad claiming thousands of lives every year, India has continued to stand for tolerance and human rights in that part of the world. Terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have continued to bombard India with state-sponsored terrorism supported by Inter-Services Intelligence.

It is against that background that we must consider today’s Amnesty International report. The report documents detentions under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act and makes some specific allegations. It is right that this House should consider them, albeit in the context of public safety that I have outlined. The report relates to more than 600 individuals detained under the Public Safety Act between 2003 and May 2010 when the research was conducted. That is fewer than 90 people each year for seven years. Amnesty states:

“The research shows that instead of using the institutions, procedures and human rights safeguards of ordinary criminal justice, the authorities are using the PSA to secure the long-term detention of political activists, suspected members or supporters of armed groups and a range of other individuals against whom there is insufficient evidence for a trial or conviction”.

That sounds remarkably similar, as the hon. Member for Wycombe admitted, to this country’s Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. On 14 July last year, he voted to keep detention at 28 days and I think I voted to bring it down to 14 days.

At this year’s Reith lectures, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, talking about security, said that

“not all intelligence can be turned into evidence. It can fall well short. As I have said before, of evidential standards, hearsay at third hand, things said, things overheard, things seen and open to varying interpretation, rarely clear-cut even with the benefit of hindsight…and which any judge would unhesitatingly kick out even if the prosecution thought them useable. That requires us to accept that not everyone who presents a threat can be prosecuted.”

It is in that light that we need to consider these allegations.

16:53

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

May I first declare that I have an interest? I am the secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Sri Lanka and I visited that country with the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) at the behest of the Sri Lankan Government to review the reparations resulting from the tsunami.

Sri Lanka is a country that is coming to terms with the consequences of considerable strife and conflict. It takes time to overcome the horrors of conflict. We should therefore tread carefully and be cautious of making judgments without very clear facts and evidence. We should be especially careful not to give fuel to the most blatant of propaganda, not least because we experienced that in a part of our nation and should understand a little more.

[Mr Scott]

Does my hon. Friend believe that the Channel 4 programme and the UN report were both propaganda?

[Mr Binley]

I think that the Channel 4 programme is open to question and that those questions have not been answered. However, the United Nations report is credible and we should be cognisant of that fact. The British Government have also recognised that, and it is right to call for an independent, thorough and credible investigation into the allegations of violations of human rights laws. I totally support such an investigation, but it should be into the violations on both sides of the conflict. I fear that point has been missed a little today.

The roots of the conflict run very deep. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fought a separatist campaign for the best part of 30 years and we have heard some of the horrors of that campaign from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). The Channel 4 documentary painted a truly horrendous picture, but we are not sure that it told the whole story. Images were brutal, horrific and degrading and if they were true that was totally unacceptable and intolerable, but nothing in the broadcast showed direct evidence of the Sri Lankan Government’s culpability and we must be sure of that before we start talking about it.

[Mr Scott]

rose—

[Mr Binley]

Before my hon. Friend leaps to his feet, let me say that I think he has seen too many television documentaries to believe everything that he sees on our television programmes.

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way again. If he agrees that there should be an independent inquiry, as he has said, does he agree that the Sri Lankan Government should agree to such an inquiry? Obviously, it would show them to be innocent if they are.

[Mr Binley]

I agree with my hon. Friend and I press the Sri Lankan Government to do so.

Contrary to what the broadcast stated, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan Government to extract civilians from the combat zone during the conflict. Local journalists were given access to the front line and members of the Sri Lankan armed forces sacrificed their lives to save about 300,000 civilians trapped by Tamil Tigers. Those are not my words but those of Gordon Weiss, the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, who has written:

“It remains a credit to many of the front line SLA (Sri Lanka Army) soldiers that, despite odd cruel exceptions, they so often seem to have made the effort to draw civilians out from the morass of fighting ahead of them in an attempt to save lives”—

that from a hostile witness against Sri Lanka.

[Robert Halfon]

On many issues, my hon. Friend and I are at one, but on this one I think we take a very different view. He has quoted one United Nations individual, so may I quote the former President of Finland who is an international mediator? He has said:

“Countries operating outside international norms watch each other carefully. They will be taking courage from Sri Lanka’s apparent success at avoiding international reproach. This is a worry for all those who want to see more democracy, greater respect for human rights and less violence in the world.”

[Mr Binley]

Of course, I accept that statement from my hon. Friend with no problem whatever.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being customarily generous in giving way, but I join some of his hon. Friends and many Opposition Members who share concerns about the way in which Sri Lanka has conducted itself, particularly since the end of the conflict. It is a matter of record as, surely, he will be generous enough to recognise, that the International Committee of the Red Cross was for far too long denied access to prisons in Sri Lanka, which held many of those whom the Sri Lankan Government had chosen to detain.

[Mr Binley]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and I have made those concerns known to the Sri Lankan Government.

Sri Lanka needs a chance to heal, but that will not happen in an atmosphere of hiatus and emotive external interventions. We must all be careful because, as has been said, we share responsibility for the situation. That is clear, and we have to do all we can to help the Sri Lankan Government, who are trying to make considerable advances. They are trying to address the alleged crimes and human rights abuses and they are trying to provide a credible process for overcoming the issues facing internally displaced people. They are trying to achieve a sustainable political settlement, including on devolution, and those casting aspersions need to be careful about the statements that they make of what they say are facts but often are not.

As stated, one consequence of the conflict has been the significant numbers of internally displaced persons. I said that I had visited Puttalam, where I saw 160,000 people in the most terrible conditions, and that I talked to many of them. They said that they were displaced by shelling and demolition. Equally, though, some had been displaced by, and were scared of, the Tamil Tigers. That needs to be understood as well, if we are to be balanced in our judgment.

[Mr Scott]

rose—

[Mr Binley]

I cannot afford the time.

The process of reconstruction is taking longer than we would like, but Sri Lanka is a small country and we need to recognise that its resources are limited too. I believe that we should give Sri Lanka every opportunity and support to help them create a united country. I hope that that succeeds, as we must all do, but equally I hope that the independent inquiry will take place, because it will put to rest some of the propaganda that is actually hindering progress in that nation.

17:01

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to mention two issues that have been raised with me by constituents. The first concerns India and the second Sri Lanka. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), I classify myself as a friend of India. I can do nothing else—I am married to a Goan and have only just come back from visiting my in-laws in Goa. I celebrate India’s success in recent years. I celebrate its politics. I witnessed the Anna Hazare campaign of Gandhian peaceful direct action to address corrupt politicians. I only wish that we had had such a thing here a few years ago—it might have helped when the Members’ expenses scandal was exposed. I also celebrate the nature of the way in which India is developing its economy. I wish that there was greater redistribution of wealth, but at least there is a dynamism in the economy itself.

In celebrating India’s progress, I feel that I have the right—as a friend of India—to draw attention to a continuing blemish on the Indian constitution. I am talking about the continued acceptance of the death penalty. There are currently 324 prisoners on death row in India, and although there has not been an execution for seven years, the political climate has changed, and there is a real fear of an imminent implementation of the death penalty. I want to use the Floor of the House to make an appeal on behalf of my constituents for the life of one person in particular, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, whose case I have raised over the years with a number of colleagues. Unfortunately, he is at imminent risk of execution in New Delhi.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Would my hon. Friend comment on the fact that when I was looking through my annual report, I discovered that the issue on which I had the biggest postbag from my constituents was Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar’s threatened execution by the Indian Government?

[John McDonnell]

There is real consternation among the community in this country and across the world. This case has been taken up by Amnesty International as one of its urgent appeals across the world. As I said, I want to use this platform to appeal to the Indian Government and the Indian President to address the case of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and to consider the abolition of the death penalty itself.

Devinder’s mercy petition was rejected in May and his case is now moving towards the execution process. He was sentenced to death in August 2001 after being found guilty of involvement in a bomb attack in 1993 that tragically killed nine people. He was found guilty solely on the basis of an unsubstantiated confession that he made to the police and which he later retracted. He thought that it had been made under duress from the police. He was subsequently arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act at New Delhi airport in January 1995. That Act has now been repealed and was criticised internationally and inside India for being incompatible with international standards for fair trials and fair arrests.

In March 2002, the death sentence against Devinder was upheld by the Supreme Court, but the opinion was divided, with two judges in favour and the senior judge coming down in favour of acquittal. In December 2002, a review was made of the judges’ decision, again resulting in a split decision. Usually, in such circumstances, a recommendation is made that the President accept the mercy petition, but unfortunately the petition was rejected in May this year, as I have said. Now, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar faces the death penalty.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I must declare an interest, in that I was born in India. I am therefore familiar with its constitutional system and traditions. My hon. Friend talked about the changes in the country, but does he also acknowledge that India’s main party and the Government have undertaken to reconsider Mr Bhullar’s case as a result of pressure from the international community? Does he agree that the Indian authorities responded to that pressure?

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly right. As a result of the campaign in India and the support that we and Amnesty International are giving it, there could be a breakthrough in this case that could lead to the abolition of the death penalty. There are clear concerns about the fairness of the trial, as well as about the eight-year delay in implementing a decision, which I believe constitutes cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment. As a friend of India—as many of us here are—I therefore appeal to the Indian Government to think again, to allow the mercy petition to go ahead and to allow this person’s death sentence to be commuted, but also to consider the issue of the death penalty itself, which I see as a continuing blemish on the Indian constitution and political system.

[Barry Gardiner]

I was most concerned to hear my hon. Friend say that the only evidence against Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar was the confession that he had made in police custody. The Amnesty report, “A lawless law”, describing another case, records that

“the trial court dismissed two of the three outstanding charges against Sheikh noting that the only evidence against him was a confession made by him while in police custody which was inadmissible in court (in India, confessions made to the police are inadmissible as evidence because of fears that they may be coerced).”

Would my hon. Friend care to comment on that?

[John McDonnell]

Yes, that is common practice, and it is usually taken into account when considering the mercy petition. That did not happen in this instance, however. There have been four recent cases in which mercy petitions have been rejected by the President. That is a change in practice that we have witnessed over the past seven or eight years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) suggested. There is a change of political climate on this issue in India at the moment, and I think that it is to the detriment of India. On that basis, pressure needs to be mounted in India and internationally, to address not only this individual case but the whole question of the abolition of the death penalty.

The issue of Sri Lanka and the treatment of the Tamils has also been raised with me. I want to associate myself with the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) in this regard. A key issue is that, although the commission took place and various recommendations were made by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, a number of them have not been implemented. For example, the simple recommendation that a list of names of those in detention should be published still has not been implemented. As a result, a number of my constituents are still anxious to find out what has happened to their families and where they are in detention.

When people are released from detention, despite reassurances that they will be assisted with resettlement, that is not happening in every case. Some are living in very distressing circumstances, but they are getting no assistance. Furthermore, there is a continuing problem of land having been taken over, particularly by the military, and reallocated to the majority community. In that way, members of the Tamil community are being displaced yet again as a result of the Government’s actions. I would welcome our own Minister putting pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to address those issues and to get back into negotiations with the Tamil National Alliance, which has withdrawn from the current negotiations because of the Government’s intransigence. In that way, we might be able achieve an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation again.

17:09

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and for Ilford North (Mr Scott) on securing this debate. I also want to thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating some of the precious time at its disposal for this afternoon’s debate.

I want to restrict my remarks to the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Having previously represented Bury North, my hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that thousands of my constituents have a personal concern about the human rights abuses taking place in Jammu and Kashmir. Many have personal knowledge of the problems in that part of the world, while many have families still living there who regularly witness the human rights abuses that are taking place. However, it is not possible in the brief time available to do more than highlight the main points of what we all know is a long-running issue.

The seeds of the current conflict were sown more than half a century ago in 1947, when the partition of India took place. The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which had a Hindu ruler but a predominately Muslim population, was divided between Pakistan and India. The people of the state of Kashmir were denied any say in whether they would join Pakistan or India. They wanted what those in so many areas of the world still want today: to determine their future themselves, in a vote of all Kashmiri people. The United Nations passed resolutions to that effect in 1948, but to this day the situation continues. Kashmir remains divided by the line of control, with thousands of troops ranged against each other on both sides of that line.

From time to time over the past 64 years the conflict has flared up and hit the world’s headlines. There have been several attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement, but for the majority of the time the conflict has simmered away beyond the public’s gaze and attention. Sadly for the people of Kashmir, the killings and torture continue. The latest figures supplied by the Jammu Kashmir Self-Determination Movement show that there have been more than 93,000 killings since January 1989, resulting in some 22,000 women left widowed and 107,000 children orphaned. I commend the work of the Jammu Kashmir Self-Determination Movement, under its chairman Raja Najabat Hussain, for ensuring that the problems of that troubled territory are not allowed to be completely forgotten.

As we have heard this afternoon, many of the current human rights abuses are taking place under the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978. Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director, has said of that Act:

“The Jammu and Kashmir authorities are using PSA detentions as a revolving door to keep people they can’t or won’t convict through proper legal channels locked up and out of the way. Hundreds of people are being held each year on spurious grounds, with many exposed to higher risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment.”

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has also expressed concerns about human rights abuses on both sides of the line of control in its human rights report, issued in May this year.

The people of Jammu and Kashmir are long suffering and patient. It seems that there is always another problem in the world that takes precedence over theirs. All they want is to be given the right to determine their future by themselves. Everyone appreciates the huge challenges facing the Foreign Office, particularly in the middle east and Afghanistan. However, I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will use every opportunity to advance the cause of peace in the troubled region of Jammu and Kashmir. We are fortunate to have a Minister who understands the issue, has tremendous knowledge of it and has a general personal interest in the plight of the Kashmiri people. I know that he will do all he can to ensure that one of the longest-running conflicts in the world is resolved.

17:14

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing the debate. May I say that I agreed with everything he said in his excellent speech? Given the shortage of time, I shall focus my remarks on the conflict in Kashmir. My primary concern is to press the Government, above all, to use their good offices to the maximum to help bring about a just settlement in Kashmir—one that is acceptable to the people of Kashmir. I say this directly to the Minister—a man representing my local county for whom I genuinely have the greatest affection and respect. I think that he will listen to today’s debate and do his very best to move things forward.

Thanks to the many thousands of my constituents from Kashmir, many of whom are close personal friends—some are here today, listening to our debate with great interest—I have long been familiar with the terrible sufferings of the people of Kashmir. Time and again, the appalling things happening in Kashmir have been brought to my attention. One hon. Member spoke of possibly exaggerated figures, while others have mentioned figures that, even if only half true, would be appalling. My suspicion is that the figures are accurate and that the reality might even be rather worse than has been said.

Some 15 years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Azad Kashmir—Pakistan Kashmir. By way of Mirpur and Kotli, I visited a refugee camp. I saw how some people had suffered in Indian Kashmir: they had escaped, but having been displaced from their homes, they were still living in refugee camps. While I was a member of the all-party group on Kashmir, I visited the Foreign Office with other colleagues to press the previous Government to do all they could, first, to stop the human rights abuses and, secondly, to try to bring about movement towards a peaceful and just settlement. I say peaceful and just because a peaceful settlement is not enough; it has to be just as well. It is possible to have a peace that is a peace only because of force majeure, which would not be right. The peace must be acceptable to the people of Kashmir.

It has been said many times by many colleagues that Britain has a special responsibility in this part of the world. It was once part of the British empire; we ruled and governed that part of the world for centuries. When we left, partition took place and a lot of blood was shed. Mistakes were made, and this might be one of the most serious of those mistakes, which lingers on as a legacy of empire in a strange way.

[Steve Baker]

As so often, I am surprised at the degree to which I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree, however, that one of the problems of the legacy of empire is that, although it gives us a special responsibility, it is also in many ways a curse because that very legacy is often what makes our word so very unwelcome in various countries, including in India?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Indeed. I am short of time, but I hope to come on to the point that Robin Cook said when he was Foreign Secretary that he wanted to embark on a process of ethical foreign policy.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although we must do everything we can to condemn human rights violations on either side of the line of control, we must also look to whatever means we can to ensure that we support self-determination and a lasting resolution for the people of Kashmir?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and thank her for her intervention. Wherever suffering occurs, we must always support human rights; we have a record in doing so. More than one of my hon. Friends has mentioned that India is a great democracy. Indeed it is, but great democracies can also commit sins and have blood on their hands. In Britain, we consider ourselves to be a great democracy, but recent revelations about the Hola camp and what we did in Kenya, as well as about what we did to certain prisoners in Iraq suggest that even a democracy like ours can have blood on its hands. We must not excuse terrible things just because a country is a democracy.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that no democracy—whether it be the world’s largest or not—should be afraid of a debate, either in the House, like today’s debate, or anywhere else, if that debate helps to shed some light on what is going on in another part of the world?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

I was about to make an important point about Robin Cook’s reference to an ethical foreign policy. It did not make him popular with America, but Robin Cook stood by his position and resigned over the Iraq war. That contrasts with what I believe Palmerston once said, and here I paraphrase—that in politics, there are no such things as rights and wrongs, only interests. We must raise ethics above interests sometimes in politics, as I am sure all Members do. In time, I hope that we will ensure that Pakistan and India come to a moral and ethical solution, allowing Kashmir and the Kashmiri people to determine their own future.

17:20

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

This is a hugely important debate. As we hope that the Arab spring heralds a new dawn, we must be clear that freedom is a right for people in other continents too. I want to focus on the regime that calls itself the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, because I believe it is neither democratic nor—I am sure that Labour Members would agree—socialist.

The relatively normal relations Sri Lanka enjoys with the west, with little condemnation of its thin democratic credentials or genocide of Tamil civilians, have always mystified me. It is worth looking at the evidence. If we judge a democracy by its rule of law, property rights and religious tolerance, the Sri Lankan Government fails on all three. First, the Sri Lankan military is above the rule of law. As Members have said, 17,000 Tamils are still caged in barbaric camps. We still hear reports of Tamil civilians being summarily executed or disappearing, and that follows the genocide of 40,000 Tamils in the past decade. Secondly, property rights do not exist. Large areas of Tamil land and housing are still occupied by the Sri Lankan military.

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend may have seen the document from the Sri Lankan Government saying to their army that it is perfectly acceptable to take Tamil property. Does he agree that that is a disgrace?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The evidence that he has seen shows, as I am pointing out, that Sri Lanka is not a proper democracy.

Thirdly, there is no tolerance of minorities. An estimated 180,000 Tamils are still displaced, either in transit camps or sheltering, and the names of prisoners have still not been published, so families cannot find out if their relatives are alive.

There is a saying that one judges a man by the friends he keeps. In the same way, one can judge a Government by the allies they keep. In the past decade, Sri Lanka’s key allies have been Iran, North Korea and Colonel Gaddafi. Colonel Gaddafi gave Sri Lanka £500 million in financial assistance for so-called development projects. In return, Sri Lanka strongly opposed the no-fly zone in Libya and offered him sanctuary. Even after Gaddafi was threatening Benghazi, Sri Lanka organised mass rallies in his support, protesting against NATO intervention. We all know the story of North Korea, yet Sri Lanka was happy to sign a major weapons contract with it in 2009. We also know the story about Iran, yet Sri Lanka signed business and oil contracts with that country in defiance of international sanctions. Despite that, Sri Lanka continues to be a member of the Commonwealth and the United Nations.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

In the light of all the reports, television coverage and films shown on Channel 4, and the international condemnation, does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is the right time to demand that the Sri Lanka Government be expelled from the Commonwealth until they accept the international court?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. As I will say in my concluding remarks, we should also boycott the Commonwealth leaders summit in Sri Lanka in 2013.

As has been highlighted, the genocide of 40,000 Tamils has brought the civil war death toll to 70,000. We must make a distinction between murder and genocide—genocide is scientific, organised killing. Having taught the Sinhalese to hate the Tamil minority, the Sri Lankan Government used the Tamil Tigers, who are opposed by moderate Tamils, and whose systematic killing of civilians we all condemn, as the excuse for a litany of horrific events and actions. Let us take a couple of examples.

In 2008, according to Human Rights Watch, the Sri Lankans used rockets to obliterate entire refugee camps full of women and children. In 2009, the Sri Lankan Government’s tactics evolved again. They declared a 35 sq km “safe zone” for Tamil civilians, and dropped leaflets appealing to civilians to move into the safe zone as soon as possible. Immediately after several thousand people had gathered there, near a United Nations food distribution plant, the Sri Lankan military shelled the area heavily, killing thousands of people in a few hours.

The United Kingdom has financial leverage. We have millions of pounds’ worth of business and tourism with Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka needs the west. But we have seen what happened in “The Killing Fields”, and we must press for a UN resolution and tough economic sanctions to pressurise the Sri Lankan Government to change their ways. As I said a moment ago, we must boycott the leaders’ summit in Sri Lanka in 2013. I welcome the Canadian Prime Minister’s call for a boycott, because symbolism is incredibly important in politics.

There are very few Tamils in my constituency, so many people may ask why I am here today, but I believe that because of my background, it is my duty to try to support nations that have suffered from genocide. That is why I have been involved in Rwanda and have been there, why I have been very involved in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and why I am supporting the Tamils.

[Mr Scott]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I will not, because there is very little time. I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me.

We must be clear about the fact that Sri Lanka is a rogue nation. It has carried out genocide against the Tamil people, and we must do all that we can to stop the persecution of the Tamils once and for all.

17:26

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I commend the Backbench Business Committee for choosing this topic for debate. I am delighted that we have discussed mainly Kashmir and Sri Lanka. I do not want to detract from what anyone said about those subjects, and I agree with the thrust of the arguments that have been presented. I want to raise a rather different issue.

There are 260 million people worldwide who suffer from massive human rights abuses. Such abuses have continued for centuries, indeed millennia, often unacknowledged and unchallenged. It was only with great difficulty that the issue of caste discrimination, or discrimination based on caste and descent, was raised at the Durban millennium summit, but it massively affects the people of south Asia, particularly India.

I am the chair of the trustees of the Dalit Solidarity Network, and also an officer of the all-party parliamentary group for Dalits. The hierarchical division of a society, ascribing inherent privileges to birth, runs contrary to the United Nations’ universal declaration of human rights, article 1 of which states:

“All human beings are… free and equal in dignity and rights.”

The caste discrimination system divides people on the basis of their background, parents and work, and results in the greatest degree of poverty and discrimination in the case of India. The sadness is that the Indian constitution specifically outlaws caste discrimination, and, moreover, was written by the great Dr Ambedkar, who was himself a Dalit person. He tried to prevent the discrimination, and indeed every law in India prevents it from taking place, but it does still take place. Dalits represent one third of the world’s poor. Caste discrimination affects jobs, education, medical care and international aid, and also results in the violent subjugation of communities. Dalits have little access to public health or sanitation facilities.

According to official Indian statistics, 13 Dalits are murdered every week, five Dalit homes or possessions are burnt every week, three Dalit women are raped every day, and a crime is committed against a Dalit person every 18 minutes. Dalits, who were formerly known as “untouchables”, are forced to do the most disgusting, dirty, dangerous, menial jobs, such as carrying human waste around in wicker baskets on their heads, picking up human faeces from the streets and railway lines, and cleaning out sewers—all the dirty jobs that no one else wants to do. When we walk around the glittering town centres of modern India, beneath them the most vile discrimination is taking place against the very poorest people, and the chances of those people’s children escaping from the system are very low indeed. They are discriminated against because of their background and their place within the identifiable Hindu caste system.

It is right to raise this issue in Parliament, and we must encourage the British Government to ensure that their aid system recognises this discrimination and the need to address it. At present there are protected jobs in the public sector for Dalit peoples, but that does not extend to the private sector, and this arrangement has only served to fossilise the levels of unemployment in the Dalit communities. The Department for International Development has recognised this discrimination and, so far as I am aware, ensures that no aid projects perpetuate it.

I want to draw the House’s attention to six key issues. The first two are that a significant proportion of Dalit women face verbal abuse, physical assault, sexual harassment and assault, domestic violence and rape, and that bonded labour is normal, even among Dalit children. The remaining issues are that there is forced prostitution, manual scavenging, limited political participation and non-implementation of relevant legislation.

Our job is to speak up for the UN declaration of human rights and to draw attention to this disgraceful discrimination against so many people.

17:31

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Millions of British citizens have a family origin from the Indian subcontinent, so it is right for this mother of Parliaments to debate not only human rights there, but security on the Indian subcontinent as well. First, I should add my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and for Ilford North (Mr Scott) for securing the debate, and to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to take place in the Chamber. It is, however, unfortunate that we are bracketing the bloody civil war that took place in Sri Lanka with the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Now that the civil war has ended, there must be reconciliation, peace and an inquiry into what happened in Sri Lanka.

I want to focus on Jammu and Kashmir. Having grown up with Indians over many years, I have debated and talked about this issue for some 25 to 30 years. We must recognise that India is the greatest democracy in the world, with 1 billion people having the opportunity to vote. It is often forgotten that there are more Muslims in India than in the whole of Pakistan and Bangladesh combined; it is a truly secular state, which offers equal opportunity to people of all religions. It has also been the subject of many terrorist atrocities, most of which, it is claimed, emanate from the state of Pakistan. Naturally therefore, the Indian Government are concerned about whether Pakistan can be trusted.

The seeds of this mistrust lie in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. We cannot forget the origin of the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. As other Members have said, it was this House that made the decision to allow India and Pakistan to secede and set up their own states. Jammu and Kashmir had the opportunity of joining either India or Pakistan. While it deliberated, Pakistan invaded. There is an illegally occupied area of Kashmir, therefore: the area that is Pakistani-controlled. The area that is administered by India represents what was wanted by the people of Jammu and Kashmir at the time of secession. All the atrocities that have taken place on both sides of the dividing line should be investigated, and both sides should be held to account.

Let us compare the two states in their current forms, however. In Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, all political parties can debate and stand for elections. In fact, there was an 85% turnout for this year’s local elections in Jammu and Kashmir. All Members of this House would like to see such a turnout for a general election, let alone a local election. By contrast, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir political parties are allowed to form and agitate only provided they accept Pakistan’s right to rule Kashmir—that is not even-handed in any extreme. We must seek to even out the position and make sure that people understand that the current position is not even. We have heard far too often this afternoon about the position in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, and not enough about Pakistani-occupied Kashmir. We need to make sure that we have an even balance and that the people who are here get the opportunity to air their grievances.

17:35

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted that this House is having the opportunity to debate the full array of issues in the short time available, and I know that we have to hear at least one other speech by a Back Bencher before the wind-ups. It is important that I have the opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents who are here to press their strongly held belief that there is a need for greater exposure of the human rights issues, particularly in Indian-administered Kashmir, and for greater attention to be paid to them. I accept that there are all sorts of issues between Pakistan and India, and I am not going to try to take too many sides on these things. However, I have to say to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) that it is predominantly in the Indian-administered side of Kashmir that the more severe human rights issues—about detentions, curfews and disappearances, and about many of the other aspects highlighted in Amnesty International’s “A ‘lawless law’: Detentions under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act” report, and by the Red Cross and others—arise time and again.

I greatly respect the Minister on these issues. I have been to see him in his office to discuss this matter, and I know that he listens carefully. He has to take a very balanced view on these questions, but I know that he would agree that it is important that the British Government try their best to raise the issue more vociferously and more passionately with Pakistan, but especially with India. What I find most distressing are the reports of this persistent abuse of the Public Safety Act on the Indian side of the Kashmir border, and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958, which is still in force in the region, and causes so many difficulties and human rights abuses. It is important that we see not only a dialling down of the tensions at the line of control, but a demilitarisation in the Kashmir region. Although the Indian Government have made some efforts, through the high-level committee and in other attempts to amend some of these awful pieces of draconian legislation, the process has been very slow and not strong enough. I therefore urge the Minister to raise these issues more vociferously and to consider the role of the European Commission and whether we can get these issues raised on an international stage. This issue is very important and I hope that he will listen to the very many voices that have been raised.

17:37

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I have only two minutes left, so I am going to speak very fast. I wish to refer to an article written by Dr Angana Chatterji, the associate professor of social and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Along with her cameraman and a number of other people, she went to Jammu and occupied Kashmir. Her article states:

“Dirt, rubble, thick grass, hillside and flatland, crowded with graves. Signifiers of military and paramilitary terror, masked from the world. Constructed by institutions of state to conceal massacre. Placed next to homes, fields, schools, an army practice range. Unknown, unmarked. Over 940 graves in a segment of Baramulla district alone. Some containing more than one cadaver. Dug by locals, coerced by the police, on village land. Bodies dragged through the night, some tortured, burnt, desecrated. Circulating mythology claims these graves uniformly house ‘foreign militants’. Exhumation and identification have not occurred in most cases. When undertaken”—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sadly, we have to start the wind-ups now, and I apologise to the hon. Lady.

17:39

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

I join other hon. Members in welcoming this important debate, and congratulate the hon. Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and for Ilford North (Mr Scott) on sponsoring it and Members on both sides who have participated in it. In particular, I commend the Backbench Business Committee for providing this opportunity.

In recent meetings with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, I have discussed the role of promoting human rights in British foreign policy. There is a very clear message about the need for consistency on human rights and that is central to the debate. The other theme of the debate is the importance of engaging diaspora communities in our foreign policy. It is very encouraging to see a crowded Gallery on a Thursday afternoon, reflecting the concerns in the Kashmiri and Sri Lankan communities in this country as we debate these important issues.

We approach the subject in a year where we have seen momentous events in north Africa and the middle east. Those events have had at their hearts demands for freedom, democracy and human rights. We as a country have a responsibility to play a positive role both bilaterally and multilaterally in promoting human rights, using, for example, soft power through institutions such as the BBC World Service and the British Council. The British Council operates programmes in the Indian subcontinent, including in Sri Lanka. It is an important tool in our soft power armoury and tonight I want in particular to commend the courage of the personnel of the British Council, who are doing great work to promote human rights across the Indian subcontinent.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that although good things are happening in those countries, the press here is very silent about both Kashmir and Sri Lanka and much more needs to be done not just by politicians but by the media to bring the issue up the world agenda?

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

A number of hon. Members referred to the Channel 4 film, “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”, which was broadcast in June, bringing images of atrocities committed against civilians in Sri Lanka in the concluding months of the decades-long war. The footage was truly appalling and the 25-year conflict has left Sri Lanka scarred. The military conclusion of active hostilities between the Government and the LTTE was reached in 2009, but only after mass atrocities and alleged war crimes by both sides. This leaves Sri Lanka with dual tests of accountability and reconciliation. Civilians, be they Tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim, have paid the heaviest price. For them, justice must be realised.

Beyond the sphere of domestic Sri Lankan politics, the international community has a responsibility to secure justice. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband), the former Foreign Secretary, visited Sri Lanka during the closing period of the war in 2009 to bear witness to the chaos and suffering that had been inflicted on civilians. Assessments made at that time of wrongdoing by people on both sides of the conflict have since been verified and Government forces are alleged to have been responsible for deaths by shelling the so-called safe zones, as described by a number of hon. Members. The LTTE belligerents had forced internally displaced persons to act as human shields, and those seeking to escape were simply killed.

Justice must be sought because that is the right thing to do, but it is also right that we should pursue justice as a means of deterrent. Writing recently in The Times, Lord Ashdown made a poignant observation:

“The point about law is that it exists not just to deliver justice after the event but also to govern behaviour beforehand”.

Restrictions on journalists in Sri Lanka meant that this was a war without witness. Testimony brought about through the mechanism of accountability will shed light on the dark events that have scarred Sri Lanka’s recent history—testimony that reveals the human rights atrocities that were committed in Sri Lanka and testimony that leads to justice.

Although the tactics of the LTTE, an organisation that has rightly been labelled as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, were abhorrent, the legitimate grievances of the Tamil people will not be resolved without a lasting and just political settlement. Can the Minister share with the House any recent discussions the Government have had with the Sri Lankan Government on their plans for reaching a political settlement and devolving power? Has the Minister made any representations about the number of people still being held in so-called rehabilitation centres? Is he satisfied that there is sufficient media freedom in Sri Lanka?

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) raised the very important issue of the death penalty and the case of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, which he has championed for many years. I echo what he said both about Mr Bhullar’s case and more broadly on the question of the death penalty. As a fellow friend of India, I press it to abolish the death penalty. Of course, as we are having a debate on south Asia, we should similarly press Pakistan to abolish its death penalty; there are 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) made the point that we have had a very big contribution to our country from the Kashmiri community that lives here. We saw that reflected in the powerful and passionate speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). Hon. Members in all parts of the House have reflected the concerns of their constituents.

In government we sought to urge both India and Pakistan to bring about a lasting resolution to the issue of Kashmir that takes into account the wishes of the people of Kashmir. I welcome some of the developments that have been referred to: the visit of the Pakistani Foreign Minister to India, improvements in cross-border trade, and talks between India and Pakistan. Will the Minister update the House on recent discussions with counterparts on the formation of a lasting political settlement that takes into account the wishes of the people of Kashmir?

A number of human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have voiced very serious concerns about the human rights situation in both parts of Kashmir. For example, the limits to media freedom in Indian-administered Kashmir have been described by a number of hon. Members. Have the Government raised that matter with the Indian Government?

My hon. Friends the Members for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) highlighted Amnesty’s recent and very disturbing report about unmarked graves and the need for an investigation by the Indian authorities. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) raised the issue of irregularities and a lack of openness in elections in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and that, too, is an important question which I encourage the Minister to raise with Pakistan in our bilateral relationship. We must continue to work both bilaterally and multilaterally with India and Pakistan, and urge all sides to seek a lasting resolution to the issue of Kashmir, which takes into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

If I may finish where I started, the Arab spring has reminded us that the thirst for freedom, democracy and human rights is not western but universal. It also reminds us that in many parts of the world there are real concerns about double standards in the policies of the major powers. It is vital that we take a consistent approach to human rights, and the desire for that consistency has been reflected in this debate.

17:48

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

I thank all colleagues for their participation in the debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for his thanks to the British Council, which does such excellent work for us abroad, and for his reminding us of the increasing importance of the diaspora in British politics and the contribution that they can make, not only to debate here but, in many instances, to reconciliation and support in the communities from which they originally came.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Steve Baker) and for Ilford North (Mr Scott) for securing the debate and to the Backbench Business Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe spoke in measured tones on a difficult subject, plainly putting to the House the views and anxieties of his constituents. I shall of course deal with Kashmir during the next few minutes. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North spoke with passion in support of his Tamil constituents and reminded the House, as did one or two others, why we have such an obligation to speak here, without fear or favour, on the matters that concern us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), in describing his colourful arrival in Pakistan and Kashmir, reminded us of how we are seen in many parts of the world—an honour to this House that we respect by the way in which we conduct ourselves here by dealing with difficult subjects in moderation, sometimes in tricky areas.

The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) reminded us that, before we get too moralistic and righteous in what we say here about other countries, we should acknowledge our own human rights failings, both past and present. The fact that the House listened with respect to voices that challenged some of the more popular sentiments represented by many who are watching the debate shows that the House can listen to both sides of a complex debate. That should reassure any Government looking at the work of the House of Commons that they should not fear our debates, if transparency, accountability and justice are as close to their hearts as they are to the hearts of parliamentarians here today.

The Government have been clear since they took office that the protection of human rights is crucial to both the values and the interests of the UK. When the Foreign Secretary set out his vision for the future of our foreign policy in a series of speeches last year, he said that those values were part of our national DNA and that they would be woven into our foreign policy decision making. We cannot achieve long-term security and prosperity for the UK unless we uphold them.

Few parts of the world are as important to the promotion of our values and our interests as south Asia. The region's giant, India, is the world's largest democracy— vibrant, pluralistic, secular and multi-ethnic—but it has faced significant problems with domestic insurgency, communal violence and caste discrimination. Some of the toughest human rights challenges in the region are exacerbated by the dispute between India and Pakistan. The latter country, which has only recently come under civilian rule, is facing arguably the greatest existential threat from terrorism of any nation in the world. To the north and south, Nepal and Sri Lanka continue to grapple with the legacies of decades of destructive insurgency. Bangladesh is affected more than almost anywhere else by the pressures of population, poverty and climate change. The smallest country in the region, the Maldives, is the world's newest democracy.

Despite that challenging context the UK does not shy away from engaging frankly with our partners in the region, holding Governments to account when human rights standards slip. The UK is all too familiar with the challenges of balancing personal freedoms and the rule of law, with the first duty of Government to protect their citizens. Our approach is idealism tempered with realism. We are absolutely clear about what is right and wrong and what foundations are required for truly free societies, but we also recognise the limitations on our ability to enforce change anywhere in the world. Societies progress at their own pace and the UK will continue to work with them, utilising our strengths but without arrogance, on what can be a long and difficult road to freedom, security and prosperity for all.

Let me make a few remarks about the two main issues that have come up today—Kashmir and Sri Lanka. I fully understand the sense of frustration felt by many people in the UK about the situation in Kashmir. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) reminds me, the context of that is the years I spent both growing up and living in Bury North and representing many Kashmiri citizens and friends there.

I have answered a number of questions tabled in the House asking for the UK to take a more active role in resolving the dispute. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) accurately described the cost over the years of the long-running problem to the communities in that area. The position of successive British Governments has consistently been that any resolution must be for India and Pakistan to agree, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. As India and Pakistan are currently making efforts to build confidence in all aspects of their relationship, I believe it is important that they be given space to determine the scope and pace of that dialogue. No matter how well intentioned, any attempts by the UK or other third parties to mediate or prescribe solutions would hinder progress.

We continue to monitor developments In Kashmir closely, especially as reports of human rights abuses on both sides of the line of control continue. We are all aware of the violent protests that occurred in Indian-administered Kashmir during the summer of 2010. More than 100 civilians were killed and a number of security forces personnel were injured. During the unrest there were allegations of excessive use of force by security forces against protesters and allegations that protesters themselves had used violence. We are also aware of the large number of detentions that have since been the subject of an Amnesty International report. However, we welcome the renewed engagement by the leaders of India and Pakistan to grope towards, perhaps for the first time in a long time on a personal basis, answers to this issue. We also note that the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that human rights abuses by security forces in Kashmir would not be tolerated, and we welcomed his appointment of three interlocutors to engage with a wide range of interested parties to help to resolve the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir. We understand that those interlocutors will publish their recommendations soon.

Our officials in our high commissions regularly discuss and regularly raise difficult issues in Kashmir with both the Indian and Pakistani Governments and with contacts in those areas. Our resources from the conflict pool also support work promoting human rights, conflict prevention and peace-building efforts, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) reminded us.

I thank hon. Friends for raising various issues relating to Sri Lanka. I assure the House that I have a regular and very frank relationship with Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris. We discuss all the significant issues that have been raised today. The allegations of war crimes and other human rights violations committed by both sides in the military conflict are of great concern to us. The UK has consistently made its position clear: Sri Lanka needs to address accountability through an independent, thorough and credible process that meets international standards and allows the people of Sri Lanka to move towards reconciliation and lasting peace and security.

Sri Lanka has faced enormous challenges during the many years of war and its aftermath. Its Government have made important progress in some areas. We hope that all those displaced by the conflict who have returned to their home areas will be resettled in permanent accommodation in the near future. De-mining and reconstruction of key infrastructure in the north is progressing. However, just as it is fair to note progress, so it is fair to note that it has not been complete everywhere and that serious challenges remain, as I saw when I visited Jaffna earlier this year.

[Steve Baker]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Alistair Burt]

No. My hon. Friend will have an opportunity to speak in a moment.

We believe that further action is required to make peace sustainable. In particular, minority political grievances need to be resolved, the mechanisms for protecting and promoting human rights need strengthening, and Sri Lanka’s communities must collectively deal with the legacy of such a long conflict. Sri Lanka has begun to address some of these issues. We hope that the Government will set out their view of a political solution to the causes of the conflict and rapidly demonstrate their commitment to resolving minority concerns sustainably. The LLRC report, which will be published in November, must set out clear steps towards accountability in respect of allegations of war crimes.

Under international law it is the primary responsibility of the state concerned to investigate and, where necessary, prosecute credible allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Experience has shown that countries that take concrete action to address conflict issues through a process of truth, justice and reconciliation are more likely to achieve long-term peace. By corollary, those that do not take such action will not achieve peace. We want to see Sri Lanka take those actions. While we share international concerns about the credibility of the LLRC, it is a Sri Lankan-led process and we want the Sri Lankan Government to use it to address allegations effectively and allow their communities to live and work together.

The international community can also provide support to Sri Lanka. The comprehensive report of the UN panel of experts is most welcome, and we welcome the UN Human Rights Council’s consideration of those recommendations. We understand that this, and the disturbing Channel 4 footage, on which I made some fairly straightforward comments at the time, will be considered by the LLRC before it produces its report in November. It is a step in the right direction that we wish to encourage.

The passion and commitment of Members who have spoken in today’s debate and the balance achieved through different Members speaking their truth on difficult areas should, I hope, persuade any constituent that we care about these issues, that they matter to the UK Government and that foreign Governments have nothing to fear from our honest inquiry springing from the values that we know they profess to share.

17:58

[Steve Baker]

It is an incredible honour and privilege to open and close the debate today. It has been a debate on the most exquisitely sensitive of subjects, and I think that Members on both sides of the House have at least sought to be even-handed. I know that some Members perhaps felt that the balance swung one way or another, but I think today we can all be proud of Parliament. As happens so often, I found myself agreeing with the hon. Members for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Luton South (Gavin Shuker). I find myself recognising that although we in this House often disagree on means, we so often agree on ends. The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) made a passionate call for action—a call that I confess I did not have the courage to make. I congratulate him on making it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) reflected powerfully on his visit to Kashmir, and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), in talking about his long involvement, demonstrated his passionate commitment to the issue. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mounted a passionate and even-handed defence of India. The hon. Member for Brent North was absolutely right to talk about the structure of the resolution. In the end, in this House and elsewhere we need to move away from fault and look at how prosperity, peace and progress can be delivered for people, wherever they may be. I am proud of Parliament today because we have represented all our constituents in the best possible way.

[Mr MacShane]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order to ask you, sir, to pay a tribute on our behalf to Sir Malcolm Jack, as he rises for the last time in the chair as chief Clerk of this our House of Commons? That funny triangle of you, Sir Malcolm and his colleagues is one that the public do not know much about, but I certainly pay tribute to the fact that Sir Malcolm has been a constant source of advice, friendly help and courteous consideration. I am sure that his successor will be every bit as good.

Sir Malcolm is an expert on Portugal and has written a very fine book on it, which I can recommend to everybody who wants to understand mediaeval and renaissance Portuguese history—undoubtedly very helpful as he tries to steer his way through our Standing Orders and “Erskine May”. I invite you, Mr Speaker, as one of the last acts of this two-week session, to say just a word of thanks to him on behalf of all of us.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I endorse every word that he has just uttered, and I am delighted indeed to volunteer on behalf of the House the tribute sought by him.

Malcolm Jack has served this House with dedication, passion and intellectual flair for 44 years. His is a quite outstanding track record of selfless public service in the interest of Parliament and of the country. It has been a superb record. Malcolm is a brilliant man, not given to issuing press releases to advertise the fact. He rejoices in helping the House, he has exceptional interpersonal skills and he commands the loyalty, respect and affection of literally thousands of people who work in the House and who observe the House from outside. As he retires, he will do so with the affection and goodwill of everyone who works here, and we hope that he has a long, healthy, happy and, I suspect, very industrious and enterprising retirement.

18:00

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Business without Debate

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

delegated legislation (Committees)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion made,

That the motions in the name of Sir George Young relating to the Electoral Commission and the Local Government Boundary Commission for England shall be treated as if they related to instruments subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice has been given that the instruments be approved.—(Sir George Young.)

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Royal British Legion (Princes Risborough)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Vara.)

18:02

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure to have the opportunity to address the future of the Royal British Legion hall in Princes Risborough, which I believe is a subject only slightly less fiercely contested than those that we have dealt with this afternoon.

I know that you, Mr Speaker, have taken an extremely close interest in the issue, including through extensive correspondence, as the hall falls within your constituency. The Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), being a resident of Princes Risborough, has taken a very close interest also, so my sense this evening, given that it turns out my regional Whip is quite interested too, is that the public have had a four-for-one offer on the subject.

The Royal British Legion was founded in 1921 to provide help and welfare support to those who had fought in the first world war. It currently boasts 380,000 members and about 2,700 branches throughout the UK. On 9 October 2008, the new legion club was launched. It was the culmination of a £5 million project by the Royal British Legion to replace older legion clubs with a new generation of professionally run social clubs.

Twelve months later, with nine clubs, including Princes Risborough, trading under the new legion club name, the project was declared a failure. Contributing factors included the smoking ban, changes in consumers’ drinking habits and the economic downturn, and the nine revamped venues were put up for sale. I understand that Princes Risborough is the only remaining branch that has not been closed and/or sold.

Princes Risborough Royal British Legion hall was erected in the 1950s. Crucially, it was built and paid for by members of the local community for the benefit of the branch and its activities. The premises are on two floors, with the ground floor providing a bar and dining facilities and the first floor a large hall with stage. This facility has served the purposes of the branch and the wider community for over 50 years. Throughout that time, the club made a trading profit year on year.

Just over two years ago, the branch was approached by New Legion Clubs, which requested that the branch transfer the lease of the premises to it. In return, NLC promised a refurbishment of the premises, a membership recruitment drive, professional management, and future security for the branch and the club facility. The branch subsequently agreed to this request, the refurbishment was undertaken, and the premises reopened. As part of the memorandum of understanding between the parties to this arrangement, it was clearly stated that

“in the unlikely event that NLC should fail as a business, the lease would be surrendered to RBL HQ and the Branch”

would

“be given the option to re-open as an Original Legion Club”.

Some 12 months after the reopening, the branch received a letter from Royal British Legion HQ stating that New Legion Clubs was a failing business and that it was to be put into administration, with all nine NLC premises, including Princes Risborough, to be sold for the maximum return. The branch requested that the memorandum of understanding be honoured and that it should be given the option to reopen as an original legion club or as a facility offering wider community use. The request was denied and the premises were put on the open market. However, it was agreed that the branch could continue to operate from the premises and hire out the facilities, provided that there were no alcohol sales.

With the full support of the branch, Princes Risborough town council submitted a bid of £400,000 to purchase the property for use as a community facility, while pledging to allow the branch a permanent presence on site. RBL HQ rejected this bid. Its preferred purchaser was, I understand, a developer that intended to convert the site to residential usage. However, when the developer realised that it was not likely to obtain “change of use” planning permission, its offer was withdrawn and the property was put back on the market. The branch made a direct bid of £350,000 to purchase the property. That bid, which was supported by a professional business plan, the town council and the wider community, was rejected in favour of selling the property to a developer. That, too, fell through. The third time the property was offered for sale, there were only two bidders: W. E. Black Ltd, which bid £475,000; and the locally based Chilterns Christian Fellowship, which bid, we understand, a materially higher amount.

I want now to concentrate on the memorandum of understanding. In his letter of 3 August to Councillor Alan Turner, Andrew Axcell, the commercial head of RBL, acknowledged that when the branch agreed to the transfer of the lease to enable use by New Legion Clubs, the briefing notes that were in use contained the statement that if NLC failed,

“The lease for the building would be surrendered back to the Legion. The Branch would then have the option to form a Club Committee, if it felt that a club could be successfully run by its own members. The Club Committee would be able to lease the building from the Legion and open another club in the traditional manner.”

However, Mr Axcell then went on to explain that the trustees of RBL had decided that they had legal grounds to ignore the MOU on the basis of

“the duties which are placed on them by the trust document or by charity law”.

In your letter of 22 August, Mr Speaker, to Chris Simpkins, the director general of RBL, you said:

“you have simply not addressed the point that I made in the fourth paragraph of my letter of 3 August—namely, that the Princes Risborough Branch asked that the commitment in the Memorandum of Understanding...be honoured. That commitment has been dishonoured, and it should not have been. If the Royal British Legion nationally did not intend to honour the MOU, it should not have signed it. As your organisation did sign it, my constituents and I are entitled to expect that you honour it.”

This point has not been addressed in any of the correspondence that you, Mr Speaker, have received from Mr Simpkins’s office. The building ran into difficulties only following its relationship with New Legion Clubs.

In his letter to you, Mr Speaker, of 17 August, Chris Simpkins said that

“charity Trustees have a statutory duty to act, at all times, in the best interests of the Charity’s beneficiaries. In so doing, Royal British Legion Trustees are bound by the terms of our Royal Charter. Whilst the importance of the contribution which the premises at Princes Risborough makes to community life is appreciated, this is not a consideration that Trustees are entitled to take into account when evaluating offers for the sale of the premises. Trustees are required to secure best value in the disposal taking all relevant factors into account and therefore ignoring all irrelevant factors. I appreciate how difficult this fact might be for local people to understand and accept, but there is no escape from it.”

You, Mr Speaker, local councillors and Risborough residents feel that if the hall is sold to the Chilterns Christian Fellowship, it will cease to be a resource for the community, at least in an equivalent way. I do not know this particular fellowship, but as a Christian I would be disappointed if a church turned out to be a net loss to the community. Although such considerations are material to the decisions that might be taken by property owners, I would like the Government to respond to the objective questions of law that this matter raises in the context of localism and the big society.

It seems to me that local attitudes to the development of a church are somewhat tangential from the law and this House in a free and open society. However, the Royal British Legion signed a memorandum of understanding that it subsequently decided not to honour. The principle of that action should be a matter of concern to this House. The hall was built and paid for by local people and the memorandum of understanding was material to the decision by local people to permit New Legion Clubs to take over the facility. Such matters of trust are fundamental to a good society and to a civilisation based on voluntary action and co-operation.

It is very much to be regretted that the Royal British Legion appears to have fallen short of the standards of honour that are customarily associated with its members. I wish to know whether that apparent dishonour has been forced on the RBL, perhaps by the law or by bad legal advice. If the RBL could have honoured its memorandum of understanding within the law, of course it should have done so. The RBL has refused a public meeting in Risborough with the New Legion Clubs review board to discuss this matter further. I would therefore be grateful for the Government’s advice, in particular on the matters of law at hand, on the implications for the Government’s big society programme and on the Localism Bill and the community right to bid.

18:12

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

I am pleased to be responding to this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) not only on securing this debate, but on speaking on behalf of you, Mr Speaker, and making it very clear what the issues are. When I was first told that I would be responding to this debate, I had a moment of self-doubt, but the Secretary of State assured me that I am exactly the right person to respond. I hope that any deficiencies will be forgiven on this occasion.

There is clear and passionate concern in the community of Princes Risborough over this issue. I have read the correspondence and heard what my hon. Friend has said. There is a strong belief that a better outcome was possible within the constraints of charity law. I hope that I can address that particular point. My hon. Friend, I think, invited me to give a Government view on a legal interpretation. I am sure he will understand that it is not possible for me to do that. Perhaps in the course of my remarks I can give him some pointers that he can take forward. Princes Risborough is evidently a very fortunate town, given that so many Members of this House are so strongly engaged in securing it a better future. I and the Government are sympathetic to the concerns that have been raised. I applaud the efforts of the local community and the town council to save the hall on behalf of the local branch.

My hon. Friend has set out the rollercoaster of events that have taken place and brought us to this situation. All too often, when hon. Members bring issues before the House by way of Adjournment debate, it is a case of spilt milk. On this occasion, as well, I have to say that it is not possible for the Government to come along and put the milk back into the bottle. Of course, the underlying problem is that, as a charity, the Royal British Legion is required by charity law to act in the best interests of the charity and obtain the best price it can when disposing of land, and it would be inappropriate for the Government to intervene and cut across that process. I note, however, that it would have been lawful for the Royal British Legion to transfer the property to the local branch provided that the local branch was set up as a charity and had the same objectives, broadly speaking, as the legion.

That brings us to one of the crucial points that has been in dispute between the legion and those who support the efforts of Princes Risborough’s residents. Where land or property is held in trust for charitable purposes, special rules apply under charity law once charity trustees decide to sell. In general, the charity must obtain professional advice and seek the best price it can get. That approach is designed to maximise the funds that can then be reapplied to the charity’s purposes in other ways. Charity trustees cannot sell land or property at less than best price unless to another charity with compatible charitable purposes or where the land is to be leased to a beneficiary of the charity.

A charity’s trustees are ultimately responsible for running the charity. Their freedom and independence to act in the best interests of the charity and its beneficiaries within the law and the terms of the charity’s governing document is a fundamental principle of charity law. It is the trustees’ decision whether to dispose of land at below best price to another charity with compatible charitable purposes or whether to sell it on the open market for the best possible price and use the funds generated to further the charity’s purposes in other ways. I suggest that the crucial point is the option that the Royal British Legion had to take the former course rather than the latter.

A review of the Charities Act 2006 is due to begin shortly. That Act requires the Government to carry out a review of its working every five years and to report to Parliament, and the review will consider the rules around the disposal of charity land. It is expected to take between six and nine months and it will report to Parliament. In all probability, there will be an announcement about that next month.

It is worth asking what the rules are and which issues my hon. Friend might want to consider raising during that review. Existing charity law dictates that trustees must always act in the best interests of their charity. How they demonstrate that is usually left to their discretion, but when it comes to selling, leasing or transferring their charity’s land, the law sets out clear requirements to ensure that those important transactions are properly managed in the charity’s interests and that the trustees obtain the best price that is reasonable in the circumstances.

In most cases, the law enables trustees to proceed without approaching the Charity Commission for specific approval before they carry out the transaction. Trustees must think carefully before disposing of valuable assets of the charity. They might be useful in the future and therefore the trustees must be satisfied that any disposal would be in the best long-term interests of the charity. They should consider whether it would be better to retain the land for longer and perhaps continue to take any income from it so as to earn more from it later; to consider continuing to use it for the benefit of the charity in spite of the money that could be realised; or, as I just said, to decide to transfer it to another, parallel charity.

In most cases, charities can undertake a disposal of land without the need for prior authority from the Charity Commission. In cases where the trustees have decided that it is in the charity’s best interests to dispose of the land, the trustees must ensure that they have obtained and considered a written report from a qualified surveyor, advertised the disposal following advice from the surveyor and satisfied themselves that the proposed terms are the best that can be reasonably obtained in the circumstances of the disposal. Those requirements were referred to in the correspondence from the representative of the Royal British Legion that my hon. Friend read into the record a few minutes ago.

This is not the first case in recent years where a charity has decided to sell a property against the wishes of the local community. In many cases—this is one—the local community might want to take over the assets at below best price for continuing charitable purposes. The important point is that that is not possible unless they are similar charitable purposes to those of the selling charity. Disposal at below best price is permitted only where the property will continue to be used for charitable purposes that fall within the disposing charity’s purposes. In some cases, even where the local community wants to use the property for the same charitable purposes—this might well be such an example—the trustees may decide that selling at below best price would still not be in the charity’s best interests and may proceed to sell the property on the open market. Ultimately, that is a decision for the trustees of the charity, having sought suitable professional advice.

As I said, the Charities Act requires the Minister for the Cabinet Office to appoint a person to review that Act within five years of its enactment. The review is expected to be broad in scope and will consider the charity law provisions regulating land transactions. The review is expected to take between six and nine months and must report to Parliament on its conclusion. It is unlikely that the review will recommend changes that would undermine the fundamental principles of obtaining best price for disposals to recycle funds to the specific charitable purposes, except where, as I have said, the charity has compatible purposes. It is also unlikely that there would be a change reducing the freedom and independence of charity trustees to make decisions, with professional advice where appropriate, that are in the charity’s best interests, within the law and the terms of the charity’s governing document.

I know that my hon. Friend and you, Mr Speaker, are articulate, persistent and ingenious, and I would be disappointed if hon. Friends and Members were not able to draw from this incident the strength and determination to make a submission to that review of charity law—perhaps one that uses this case as an object lesson and draws attention to how important it is that a charity, when reconfiguring its assets, has regard to the opportunities for other charities in the locality with a common purpose to continue to provide a charitable service using those assets.

Perhaps also a representation could draw attention to the provisions of the Localism Bill—by then it might be an Act—which my hon. Friend drew attention to and asked me to comment on. When the Localism Bill becomes an Act, it will introduce a community right to buy. I want to make it clear that it will not be an absolute right to buy, but there will be a window of opportunity for community organisations—the town council, for example—to make a bid for community assets. The Government are well aware that the most common problem that communities face when trying to save a building or amenity is a lack of time and not being given enough notice to do anything about the issue.

Over the past decade, communities have been losing local amenities and buildings of great importance to them, such as village shops, the local pub or community centres. The Localism Bill is introducing measures that will provide people and community organisations with a fair chance to bid to take over assets and facilities that are important to them. Any submission made in pursuance of the review of the Charities Act might want to draw particular attention to the community right to buy, and to consider whether it might be appropriate to draw lessons from this experience.

It is certainly the Government’s intention that it will be much easier for local communities to save important community assets, enabling them to tackle real social need and build up resources and employment in their neighbourhood in more innovative, enterprising and cost-effective ways. There is no doubt that, under the provisions in the Bill, the community and the town council in Princes Risborough would be able to nominate the British Legion hall as an asset of community value, and when the British Legion decides to put the hall up for sale, the town council and the community would have additional time to raise additional funds and develop a robust business case.

I realise that this issue has created a great deal of difficulty and tension in the community in Princes Risborough, but I want to pick up on one of my hon. Friend’s points about what might happen, should the premises be transferred to the Chilterns Christian Fellowship. Both he and I hope that the fellowship would play a full and active part in supporting the community of Princes Risborough and making the facilities available. I understand that it has indicated that it would be willing to support the activities of the local branch, possibly including hosting some of its activities. Speaking in personal capacity, I would welcome that, and I want to encourage constructive dialogue between all parties to ensure a satisfactory outcome.

As I said earlier, there is no way that I, on behalf of the Government, can put the milk back into the bottle, but I hope that I have done something to assure the House that there will be a better route in future, and that there are still positive outcomes to be had in Princes Risborough.

Question put and agreed to.

18:28

House adjourned.

Ministerial Correction

Thursday 15th September 2011 Ministerial Corrections

Thursday 15 September 2011

History: GCSE

Thursday 15th September 2011 Ministerial Corrections

[Chris Skidmore]

To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many mainstream comprehensive schools entered (a) no pupils, (b) fewer than five per cent. of pupils, (c) fewer than 10 per cent. of pupils and (d) fewer than 25 per cent. of pupils for GCSE history examinations in 2010.

[Official Report, 20 July 2011, Vol. 531, c. 1041W.]

Letter of correction from Nick Gibb:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on 20 July 2011. While the total number of mainstream comprehensive schools identified was correct, the answers to the individual components were not. The answer was produced using a spreadsheet that contained a summary of results for each school. The spreadsheet contained results for some schools that were suppressed due to small numbers of entries; the suppressed schools were not included in the analysis in error. In revising this analysis we have taken into account the suppressed information to provide an accurate answer.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Gibb]

2,734 schools have been identified as being mainstream comprehensive.

(a) All of these schools entered pupils for GCSE history

(b) 17 had fewer than 5% of pupils entered for GCSE history

(c) 139 had fewer than 10% entered for GCSE history

(d) 1,031 schools had fewer than 25% of pupils entered for GCSE history in 2010.

The correct answer should have been:

[Mr Gibb]

2,734 schools have been identified as being mainstream comprehensive.

(a) 63 of these schools entered no pupils for GCSE history

(b) 88 had fewer than 5% of pupils entered for GCSE history

(c) 210 had fewer than 10% entered for GCSE history

(d) 1,102 schools had fewer than 25% of pupils entered for GCSE history in 2010.

Petition

Thursday 15th September 2011 Petitions

Thursday 15 September 2011

Glass Bottles (Pubs and Clubs)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Petitions

The Petition of residents of the United Kingdom,

Declares the Petitioners concern that glass bottles can cause serious harm to victims when used as a weapon.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to bring forward a law to stop the serving of glass bottles and glasses in pubs and clubs after 9 pm.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Sheryll Murray, Official Report, 20 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 11P.]

[P000952]

Observations from the Secretary of State for the Home Department:

The Government condemn the horrific bottle attack suffered by Mr Jack Nutting and praises the campaign he has launched to prevent this happening to others.

The Government recognise the benefits that glassware bans and safer alternatives to traditional glassware can have in limiting the harm caused by alcohol-related violence. However, we do not consider that a ban on glass bottles and other glassware should apply to all pubs and clubs nationwide after 9 pm. Many licensed premises operate without any violent incidents.

The Government therefore believe that they should avoid dictating from the centre and instead empower the police, communities, and licensing authorities to take steps to prevent alcohol-related crime and disorder, including banning glassware, when it is appropriate in the particular circumstances. The Licensing Act 2003 (the Act) devolves responsibility for the administration of licensing to local authorities acting as “licensing authorities” (LAs). Any premises wishing to sell alcohol must submit an application to the local LA, which must discharge its functions under the Act with a view to promoting the licensing objectives. These are: the prevention of crime and disorder; public safety; the protection of children from harm; and the prevention of public nuisance.

Under the Act as it currently stands, a “responsible authority” (such as the police), or residents and businesses “in the vicinity” of the premises, can make a representation about the application. The LA will ordinarily hold a hearing to consider the representation, which can result in conditions being imposed on the licence that are “necessary for the promotion of the licensing objectives”. A number of conditions relating to glassware are quite common. They include bans on the use of bottles by customers; requirements for the use of safer alternatives to traditional glassware; and bans on customers leaving with glassware. These conditions can be absolute, or may apply at certain times or contain other exceptions (such as for wine bottles sold as part of a table meal). Therefore, if the police consider that the premises may, due to its location and style, present a risk of violent crime, they can make a representation to seek the imposition of conditions that are specific to the premises. Carrying out licensable activities otherwise than in accordance with an authorisation is a serious criminal offence, so these conditions have real impact.

After the licence has been granted, responsible authorities and interested parties can apply to the licensing authority at any time for a review of the licence. Therefore, a ban on bottles or glassware is likely to be imposed after an incident of crime and disorder, whilst more serious or repeat incidents may result in the premises being shut down either temporarily or permanently.

The Government are currently bringing forward measures in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (the PRSR Bill) that will shift the balance of the Act in favour of communities and the police. In particular, the limitation that only those members of the public or businesses who are “in the vicinity of the premises” can make a representation or apply for a review will be scrapped. This will mean that any person or business, regardless of where they live or operate, will be able to take these steps. The PRSR Bill also contains measures to make the LA itself a responsible authority, so that it does not have to wait for others to act before it takes steps to promote the licensing objectives.

Furthermore, we are lowering the test that applies to LAs’ decisions from “necessary for the promotion of the licensing objectives” to “appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives”. This is an important change that will enable LAs to impose conditions more easily and without being constrained by the idea that they need to be sure that the condition is “necessary”.

These measures will put communities and the police in a much better position to take steps to prevent violent crime and reduce the harm it causes.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 15th September 2011 Westminster Hall

Thursday 15 September 2011

[Sir Alan Meale in the Chair]

Scientific Advice (Emergencies)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Relevant documents: Third Report of the Science and Technology Committee, Session 2010-12, HC 498, Government responses HC 1042 and HC 1139, and oral evidence of 15 June 2011, HC 1059-i]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Mr Vara.)

14:29

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, and to be opening the first debate that the Select Committee on Science and Technology has held in Westminster Hall during this Parliament. The occasion is tinged with regret, shared by all Committee members, because it is the last time we will have with us our excellent Clerk, Glenn McKee, who has served the Committee brilliantly. We wish him well in his new career. I think it is a punishment that he has been sent to the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, but that is another matter.

This is a particularly important report. It was published in March 2011 and it looks at the Government’s use of science in emergency preparation and response at a national level. We built on two of our predecessor Committee’s reports—one written in 2006 entitled “Scientific Advice, Risk and Evidence Based Policy Making”, and one entitled “Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy,” which was published in 2009. This is a complex area and we tried to consider four different case studies: looking backwards over two events that have occurred, looking forwards at one event that is certainly going to occur, and looking at an event that has a potentially high impact but low probability. I will cover those events during my contribution.

In the first case, we looked at the 2009-10 H1N1 flu pandemic, otherwise known as swine flu. In the second case, we looked at volcanic ash and the disruptions that occurred to our air space last April. Looking forward, we considered the potential for cyber-attacks, which are a very real threat. The event that has potentially high impact but low probability is the occurrence of solar flares, which are caused by adverse space weather and have the potential to disrupt electrical systems. Again, I will cover some of that later.

Hon. Members might wonder why we chose those four case studies. Obviously, the first two—swine flu and volcanic ash—were the most recent emergencies that the UK had experienced and were very high-profile events, both here and abroad. In addition, both events relied heavily on science and engineering to provide answers to very important questions—for example, who should be vaccinated against swine flu or how much volcanic ash an aircraft can fly through safely.

We then chose the other two risks that could lead to an emergency in the UK. People are obviously more familiar with cyber-attacks than with the space weather event. Fortunately, we have not encountered either on an emergency scale. However, the name of the game is to be prepared; we wanted to see whether the Government were prepared and what they were doing to be ready for potential events.

I would like to make a couple of personal observations. I welcome the degree of co-operation that we had from Government officials, particularly those from the Cabinet Office, the lead Department. I have been involved with issues to do with information assurance and the cyber security world for a number of years, so I found it very refreshing that there was an acceptance that such matters had to be dealt with on a much more collegiate basis than was historically the case.

These things do not just belong to Cheltenham and the dark arts down there; there are serious issues and we must engage every citizen in looking after their personal data and their security. A cyber-attack could clearly be targeted at something such as a bank or a utility, which could have a serious impact on the nation state. We are not talking about a traditional warfare target, but such an attack could nevertheless be very effective.

It is clear to me that the Government take planning for emergencies seriously and recognise the need to draw in scientific advice. However, it is never safe to say that there is no scope for improvement. Our inquiry identified some weaknesses that we regarded as serious. I will start at the beginning of the emergency planning process: the national risk assessment. That is a comprehensive and, in some parts, classified assessment of the most significant emergencies that the UK could face over the next five years. Its counterpart is the national risk register, which is the unclassified bit that gets into the public domain.

There are broadly three stages to the risk assessment: the identification of hazards, the assessment of risk, and risk comparison. If I were a fly on the wall in some Departments, I imagine that I could hear some very interesting discussions about what is scientifically plausible and what ought to go into the realms of science fiction. As Chair of the Select Committee, I get all sorts of letters from people who postulate things that do not quite add up to the laws of physics as I understand them, so I guess that the Government face the same problems.

For every risk that makes it on to the national risk assessment—whether we are talking about attacks on the infrastructure or pandemic disease—the Government produce a reasonable worst-case scenario, which is a prediction of the worst that might realistically happen, rather than a prediction of what will happen. Unsurprisingly, that is a difficult concept to convey to the public and the media.

The House must take seriously its responsibility to communicate issues of risk to the public and should work with communities to help to improve public understanding of what risks really are. Certainly, some of the red tops are not exactly famed for being proportionate and level headed in these circumstances—indeed, some of the broadsheets are not immune to criticism about being sensationalist when it comes to reporting risk. My first plea, to the broader community, the science community and journalists, is for there to be an improved and responsible way of communicating what risks actually are.

I will give an example of where the worst-case scenario can fall down. During the flu pandemic in 2009, the Department of Health held a press briefing. The media immediately reported the worst-case scenario—that there could be up to 65,000 deaths in the UK. At that time there had been 30 deaths, and at the end of the pandemic the total number was just over 450. That was a terrible tragedy for anyone involved, but the irresponsible communication of information by some journalists had the potential to cause panic. The result was a sense that things had been exaggerated by the Government.

No Minister, and no one else in a responsible position, could have withheld the 65,000 figure. The then Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), was provided with the data; he could not have withheld that information from the public, but we must ask ourselves whether there was a better way of communicating it. Focusing on the most likely scenarios might give us a better way of doing that. Yes, a Minister must say, “These are the extremes”, but we need to persuade reporters of the most likely scenario rather than the extreme possibilities.

It was not just the communication of the reasonable worst-case scenario that was the problem. The reasonable worst case was a 2% fatality rate, which meant that 2% of those infected would die. That was based on evidence from the 1918 Spanish pandemic. However, avian flu—bird flu—has an alarmingly higher fatality rate. We heard that it was simply not possible for the NHS to plan for such a scenario, so 2% was used. Our Science and Technology Committee was greatly concerned that the reasonable worst case was based not on the best available evidence, but on the need to determine how much to spend on planning.

I am pleased that the Government agreed that more could be done and that a review is under way to consider the reasonable worst-case concept. I hope that the Minister will tell us when we can expect the conclusions of the review and how the Government plan to try to develop the concept so that it becomes an accepted way of working aimed at reducing panic and concern when such events occur, as they inevitably will.

On the national risk assessment, we were disappointed to discover that the Government chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, had not been directly involved with the NRA, and had not had much involvement with the horizon scanning activities building up to it. We found that surprising; it appeared that the guy appointed to co-ordinate the best available science policy for the Government was not being brought in at the early stage of such an important field of activity. Of course, the co-ordination involves every scientific discipline; it is not just pure science. It involves statistics, engineering, behavioural science and a whole range of other issues. Science should be central to identifying, assessing and comparing risks.

Risk assessment must be informed by many sources of scientific advice, but clearly the Government’s own chief scientist should be part of the process at a high level. We came down quite strongly on this matter and proposed ways of increasing his involvement with the Cabinet Office and, specifically, the NRA. We have had partial success in getting our recommendations accepted by the Government.

As I said, the NRA is classified and not available to the public, so we ourselves cannot see how well science is being used. That was one factor influencing our recommendation that an independent scientific advisory committee on risk assessment should be set up to review the NRA. That would make Parliament and the public more confident that the process is as evidence-based as possible. At our follow-up evidence session in June, we heard from the Government that there will indeed be such a committee. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what progress has been made in forming that committee.

Risk assessment is the foundation underpinning a good emergency response. What happens when that foundation is missing was unfortunately demonstrated by the 2010 volcanic ash emergency; that took the Government by surprise, because it had not been considered a likely emergency and therefore little or no preparation had been done. It was not part of the NRA, and in fact the risk of disruption to aviation from natural hazards was removed from the NRA in 2009.

I have not been able to find anyone who admits to taking responsibility for that, but just a year later there was quite a serious emergency. That will tie back into some of the things I will be saying later about the need for greater transparency. Having spoken to a lot of earth scientists with expertise in the Icelandic area, I am certain that they would have been knocking at the Minister’s door as soon as they saw that such events were taken off the register. Within the earth science community, it has been an accepted fact that there was the potential risk of massive explosions in that area.

Once such information was in the public domain, I would have expected the Civil Aviation Authority to tie it together and come up with some conclusions and advice for the Cabinet Office. However, something went wrong. I do not suppose that I have to ask the question; I bet the Minister will not be leaving the issue off the NRA again. I suspect it will be there in the next published register later this year.

As a consequence of the lack of planning, airspace over the whole of the UK and many parts of Europe remained closed for a whole week while engineers figured out what was acceptable and what ash concentrations were safe for planes to fly through. At the time, the only available guidance was to avoid the ash: “If it is visible, do not fly through it”—hardly scientific and hardly a comforting policy for people sitting nervously in planes. It was a very expensive mess that cost airlines millions of pounds and stranded Britons all over the place all over the world.

When we were again disrupted by another unpronounceable Icelandic volcano in May, more specific guidance and protocols were in place to deal with it. That was a testament to the work of the CAA, which led to work within Europe to update the requirements for operating in and around volcanic ash.

Before I turn to how the Government respond to emergencies, I want to touch briefly on the issue of space weather. Changes in the sun’s atmosphere affect the space environment near to Earth. Events could involve injections of plasma—particles of radiation from the sun. Solar activity changes according to a cycle of approximately 11 years. Many scientists believe that we will have a solar maximum next year, coinciding with the Olympics. There is long probability, but there would be high impact if something went pear-shaped. If a small event occurs, taking out a few transformers and, just as the starter’s gun for the 100 metres is being fired, no transmissions occur from any broadcaster in the UK, we would be somewhat embarrassed. That is clearly a long probability event, but one of enormous political and economic significance. We cannot simply ignore these events.

One problem is that when one looks back at the history of similar events, comparisons are a little difficult because we have become so much more reliant on electrical gadgets and devices. I do not suppose there is anyone in the Chamber who does not have a mobile phone with them, and nobody in the Chamber who is not entirely reliant on electronic technologies. In 1989, an event caused Quebec to lose its power grid for approximately nine hours. That was a serious event, and one that could easily happen again.

The earliest well-documented event took place in 1859, recorded as the Carrington event, when telegraph systems were taken out. It disrupted systems all around the world, and that was before we became so reliant on electricity-based technologies. We do not really know what the effects of another Carrington event would be on, for example, the national grid, satellites, the global positioning system, computer chips or avionics. It is reasonably well known that some satellite technologies are built to higher standards now. I suspect that most of the military technologies that I have looked at have the capacity to be taken out of harm’s way, or are sufficiently well shielded, but an awful lot of infrastructure is not.

The Committee’s interest in space weather coincided with work that the Government were doing. Sir John Beddington had started work almost at the same time. Our inquiry kept being told that this was work in progress and that we should expect space weather to appear on the 2011 national risk assessment register. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether that has happened.

No matter how good an assessment is, we cannot prevent some emergencies from occurring. In any emergency that requires scientific input, a scientific advisory group in emergencies is set up—its acronym is, appropriately, SAGE—to advise Government and Cobra, central Government’s crisis management committee. SAGE should be the funnel for scientific advice from all sources—I stress all sources. The membership of each SAGE committee will vary according to the emergency, but most members will be scientists. The Committee felt that improvements could be made in the pre-identification of possible SAGE members, at least for every risk that is on the current risk register. We felt that that could save valuable time in bringing the right people together should an event occur. Indeed, that recommendation was accepted by the Government.

SAGE is a relatively new mechanism. With every emergency for which a SAGE committee was set up, lessons have been learned and improvements made. Things are moving in the right direction. It was disappointing to find, at the start of our inquiry, that information on the SAGE committees for swine flu and volcanic ash was more or less hidden from public view. That does not help us learn lessons. We have to be totally transparent, returning to the points I made earlier. It is also quite odd, when you consider the importance of communication and openness in an emergency, that SAGE committees have not worked in an open manner.

We found other problems. The independence of SAGE from Government was ambiguous. Scientific advisory committees really should be independent of Government to ensure that their advice is impartial. We also heard concerns from some scientists who were members of SAGE committees. They felt unable to talk to the media, thus depriving the media access to the real experts. There are problems in communicating some of these issues, and some experts are very good at communicating risk to the public. All in all, the Committee was pretty unclear about the rules governing SAGE. Our recommendations can be summed up in two points: be more transparent; and publish guidance on how SAGE should operate and stick to it. That way we will know what to expect. We were told that guidance would be produced this summer; the Minister might like to update us on progress. Putting those concerns aside, overall SAGEs have been a useful mechanism for getting scientific advice to Government quickly. Adjustments need to be made, but we were not calling for a major rethink. Sometimes a subtly different approach is needed for different events.

Nine days after our report was published, a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the north coast of Japan, causing massive loss of life and severe damage to infrastructure. Japan will be dealing with the consequences of that tragedy for some considerable time. An immediate concern was the integrity of the Fukushima nuclear power station and the risks it posed to human health. We watched with interest as the UK Government and a new SAGE committee swung into action to assess whether there was a need to evacuate British nationals. This time—this relates to the point I made about lessons learned—the SAGE committee had a higher public profile. Sir John Beddington was very prominent in briefing both the media and Britons in Japan via teleconferences. A few months down the line, it is clear to me that the UK’s reaction has been proportionate and evidence based. SAGE played a crucial part in that. I would like to think that our work influenced the positive way in which the Government and SAGE worked during that emergency.

My final point is on cyber-attacks. We were slightly limited by the classified nature of some information, but we took some fascinating evidence in this case study. It was the only risk examined that could be the result of malicious human activity. The Stuxnet worm, which targeted Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme, was a real-life example of how organised and structured cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure could succeed, and cyber-technology, unlike some conventional weapons, can be copied.

Cyber-security has received a huge amount of attention recently, with the publication of the Government’s 2009 “Cyber security strategy of the United Kingdom”. The subsequent formation of the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance was welcome, because so many public and private bodies are tasked with ensuring our security in cyber-space. However, tasking a body with providing direction and co-ordination is pointless if it has no powers and insufficient funding. We recommended that the Government clarify the funding and powers of the new office. Again, we have not yet received a response and would welcome comments from the Minister.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

I apologise for my fleeting visit to the debate. I am on a Public Bill Committee this afternoon but, as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I thought it important to support the debate.

In terms of cyber-security, so much of the UK’s national infrastructure is dependent on the private sector, so one of the key tasks of the OCSIA is to work with those private sector defenders and providers of our national infrastructure, to ensure that they are well protected. One of the issues in Committee was what powers the OCSIA had to oblige those private sector providers to look after their cyber-security. Perhaps that is an area on which the Minister might enlighten the Chamber later.

[Andrew Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman who, in Chester, is my neighbour. He is always posing me challenging questions, but he makes a fascinating point. The threat to national security from cyber-attack is clearly as serious in the private sector as it is in the public sector, and probably more so. That is a great challenge. We cannot have a world in which everyone who worked in a bank would be security cleared to the level that the Minister’s staff are—that is not realistic and it could not be done for every utility. That is why extensive sharing of expertise across boundaries is necessary in the sector, to ensure that lessons from the public sector are learned in the private sector, and vice versa, including sharing information with academics.

The hon. Member for City of Chester must recall one academic witness, a man who was held in extremely high regard by the current Government because he was party to writing a paper for them, when they were in opposition. He said that he did not want to be security cleared, so there are some interesting dichotomies. The Minister needs to contemplate that problem and, I hope, answer the challenging question posed by the hon. Gentleman. In that complex world, without becoming obsessed by security clearance for everyone on the planet, how do we improve information sharing and expertise in and out of and across the boundaries between the private and public sectors?

Soon after the second volcanic ash event, when we were reflecting on the report and talking about some of the information, communication and technology issues, one of the officials said in a meeting I was at that, when the second volcano erupted, they reached for the Select Committee’s report to see how to handle things. I know that that was intended to butter me up a little—I welcome it—but, all in all, the Committee has done a sound piece of work which I hope is taken on board by the Government.

I hope that Members will agree that our inquiry on “Scientific advice and evidence in emergencies” continues to be pertinent to how disasters and emergencies, here or abroad, are handled by the Government. Last winter we had a resurgence of swine flu cases, and we are currently approaching the peak flu season this year again. This May there was another volcanic eruption, which affected our airspace briefly in Scotland and northern England. Severe weather is occurring more frequently, and last winter we had extraordinarily low temperatures that I do not recall having before. Also, as I said earlier, we are approaching the solar maximum. I do not want to scaremonger and create panic. What I want to do is to highlight the fact that the issue is live.

With the right processes in place, and good use of scientific advice and evidence, emergencies can be planned for and effectively managed and information can be communicated to the public. We all in the House would agree that it is our responsibility, collectively, to handle situations such as the ones I have described in a manner that crosses the political divide. I hope that the Minister will agree that we can all learn lessons from each other and we need better ways of working with outside agencies, whether that is people responsible for communicating information to the public or experts who can provide information. I hope that the House will take note of our report and that the Government will act positively on the outstanding issues I have listed.

14:59

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I do not intend to speak in as much detail as our Chair, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), because I cannot hope to match his expertise. I want to discuss risk, and how we identify it, assess it, manage it and, in particular—this is the subject which I will start with—communicate it to our constituents.

We should acknowledge some real difficulties in communicating. There is a difference between the scientific community, which has a key role in identifying and assessing risk, and the public and how they understand such matters. There are differences of nuance—often, the situation is complicated, with all sorts of different variables coming together, and we will never succeed in communicating that level of complexity to the general public, so there has to be a fairly simple message which can be clearly understood. If we take our example of a reasonable worst-case scenario, the potential flu pandemic, scientists tend to look at the impact on populations as a whole, but the general public are interested in the risk to them as individuals and to their immediate family members, friends and neighbours.

One of the things that was clear from the evidence presented to us was the significant degree of uncertainty and the way in which the figures on the reasonable worst-case scenario evolve rapidly over a period. Although that was absolutely correct from a scientific perspective, the way in which it was communicated to the general public simply fed a sense of uncertainty and might have undermined people’s trust in the figures. One week people were told one figure was the likely outcome, but a few weeks later that figure had changed dramatically, and there is a risk that such things can undermine confidence in the whole process.

Furthermore, scientists trying to establish a causal link between two things will say that X led to Y only where there is clear proof that that was the case. However, many of us tend to rely on intuition and to suspect causal links, even when the same standard of proof has not been reached. There are, therefore, real difficulties around communication.

Page 28 of the report says that the Government’s definition of a reasonable worst-case scenario

“is designed to exclude theoretically possible scenarios which have so little probability of occurring that planning for them would be likely to lead to disproportionate use of resources…They are not predictions of what will happen but of the worst that might realistically happen, and therefore we would expect most pandemics to be less severe and less widespread than the reasonable worst case. By planning for the reasonable worst case planners are assured that they have a high probability of meeting the demands posed by the hazard should it occur.”

It was clear from the evidence presented to us that there are a number of problems with the Government’s approach. First, Professor Ferguson, the director of the Medical Research Council, told us that

“the term ‘a reasonable worst case’ is, by definition, not an objectively definable term; it is a subjective term. One could take the other extreme, and I remember David King and Sir John Beddington challenging what we were doing by saying, ‘Well, if you look at bird flu, that has a 60% case fatality rate’”.

I have already talked about the figures changing, and we heard clear evidence about that in our inquiry. We were told that as more and more data arrived, the initial figure of 65,000 came down and down.

There was a real issue with time lags, which the Government must look at. Professor Ferguson told us there was

“a three to four week lag between the group I was involved in coming up with new reasonable worst cases, and then coming into the public domain in terms of getting through the DH”—

the Department of Health—

“and Cabinet Office approval process.”

As a result, what the public were told was a reasonable worst case was already three to four weeks behind the evidence that was building up.

There is a serious issue about the potential damage to the chief medical officer’s reputation. The Phillips inquiry after the BSE crisis highlighted a number of clear lessons, one of which was that the public’s trust in the chief medical officer is precious and should not be put at risk. The chief medical officer told us:

“Even a back of the envelope calculation that I did suggested to me that we would get no more than a thousand deaths, but that was not the scientifically agreed figure. So I could hardly dissent from the bigger figure.”

As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston has said, the chief medical officer gave a press briefing on 16 July. The press reported that 65,000 people could die. At that point, 30 had died, and the eventual death toll from the pandemic was 460. It must be a real cause for concern that the chief medical officer was using a figure in which he clearly had no confidence, because he did not believe it was anywhere near what was likely to happen. The review of the UK response to the pandemic, which was chaired by Dame Deirdre Hine, said:

“There was some unease about how reasonable the ‘reasonable worst-case’ scenarios were…. There was general agreement that the term was unhelpful”,

because it implied that the scenario was likely to occur.

I therefore strongly support the Committee’s recommendation that the Government should look at the concept of most-likely scenarios. On that point, the Government response was helpful. The Government said they would look at the conclusions of the Blackett review. As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston has said, it would be interesting to hear from the Minister if that has been completed and what it had to say. It would also be interesting to know whether the concept of a reasonable worst-case scenario was used when British citizens in Japan were given information about the risks posed by the Fukushima incident a few months ago.

I want briefly to touch on two other issues raised in the report in relation to risk. One is the extent to which the Government use scientific advice not only when an emergency happens, but when they formulate the national risk assessment. That raises the issue of the chief scientific adviser’s involvement in the process, and the Government’s response on that front was encouraging. They agreed that the chief scientific adviser should become more formally involved, and it would be useful, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston has suggested, to clarify the exact nature of that involvement.

The other issue is the idea of a scientific advisory committee on risk assessment. I want to end with another quote from the report, which illustrates the issue more strongly than any of the evidence that we received. Speaking of volcanic ash incidents, Dr Sue Loughlin, the head of volcanology at the British Geological Survey, told us:

“It wasn’t particularly a surprise to the volcanology community that something like this would happen, but somehow that message hadn’t got through to Government.”

The Geological Society stated that

“some Earth scientists report that they have been warning Government and others of the potential for major disruption due to Icelandic eruptions for a number of years, but feel that little notice has been taken of these warnings.”

It is important that the Government pay more attention to scientific advice in drawing together the national risk assessment, rather than just waiting until a particular incident occurs. They should also look at the basis on which they communicate risk to the general public. I in no way underestimate the difficulties involved in that, and I have tried to touch on them in my speech—those issues are sensitive, and they are not easy to communicate—but the Committee’s work illustrates that there are some real problems with the Government’s approach. I hope that Ministers will give us more detail about how they wish to take those issues forward.

15:17

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan.

Just after midnight, on Sunday 21 March 2010, the BBC website reported:

“An Icelandic volcano, dormant for 200 years, has erupted, ripping a 1km-long fissure in a field of ice…sending lava a hundred metres high.

Icelandic airspace has been closed, flights diverted and roads closed… 500 people were moved from the area”.

Three weeks later, the same BBC website reported:

“All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south…4,000 flights are being cancelled with airspace closed in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark”,

as well as in the UK. It noted that the EUROCONTROL group had said that the problem could easily persist for at least the following two days.

Over the next weeks, the problems persisted and there was great debate about whether it was safe to fly. Could ash bring down planes? What sort of ash was it? People were stranded all over Europe and the rest of the world. They had no way of getting home. Millions of pounds were spent on alternative hotel accommodation and on travel. There was absolute travel chaos around the world.

On 23 April 2009, the first cases of the H1N1 virus—the swine flu virus—were confirmed in Mexico and the US. Four days later, the first cases appeared in the UK, in a couple in Scotland. The Government announced that the stockpile of antivirals would be increased from 33.5 million to 50 million doses.

On 1 May, the first case of human-to-human transmission in the UK was confirmed. On 15 May, agreements were made to secure another 90 million doses of pre-pandemic vaccine. On 16 July, as we have heard, the chief medical officer announced that 65,000 people could die from the swine flu virus, in the worst- case scenario. On 10 September, the four UK Health Departments released critical care strategies to cope with the expected increase in demand during the second wave of the pandemic, and on 21 October vaccination programmes began with front-line health care workers and their patients in at-risk categories. Plans were laid to keep the supply chain operating and the shops were stocked. Key workers were identified; there was the potential for chaos.

On Wednesday 14 November 2012, at 6.15 pm, satellite channels start to flicker and go offline. Intermittent power cuts affect large chunks of the south-east of England. Planes are told to adopt holding positions as radar and global positioning systems start to malfunction. Mobile phones and computers develop faults and cease working. The internet goes down and trains stop running. A state of national emergency is called and an announcement is made that the UK is experiencing a coronal mass ejection—space weather—although no one is sure who is listening.

On a quiet Tuesday afternoon in 2015, cash points cease working. The problem is believed to be local, but reports are surfacing that the complete ATM system could be affected. Technicians are working on it. There are suggestions in the media that it could be a complex cyber-attack on infrastructure. More systems fail and the banking system seizes up. Shops cannot take payments. Suppliers go unpaid. Wages and benefits do not get paid. Benefits are not paid. There is chaos as the whole economy seizes up.

Those scenarios sound like the seriously dodgy synopses of some bad B-movies, and I have been over-dramatic and used a dollop of artistic licence, but they highlight some of the risks that we and the Government face. As we have heard, it is the way we identify and plan for those risks that will determine how well we cope with them.

I am often asked by people what the relevance of the Select Committee on Science and Technology is to the people of South Basildon and East Thurrock. I always refer them to our investigation into how the Government use scientific advice and evidence in emergencies. I explain how seriously the Committee and the Government take the need to know how we might keep the lights on, or the shelves at Tesco stocked, in an emergency, and that provides a great example of how something that seems not to affect people’s day-to-day lives can affect them seriously.

I do not want to frighten anyone. My introduction may have been a little alarmist and I do not want anyone to have nightmares, but the volcanic eruption in Iceland caused chaos. It cost the economy many millions of pounds and inconvenienced many people, but there was more than inconvenience. A lot of business was not done, and many people missed important events. As we heard, part of the problem was that on that occasion the Government were playing catch-up—certainly for the first part of the crisis—as the eruption had not been identified as a potential risk. It was on an earlier version on the national risk assessment, but, for whatever reason, it had been taken out.

I accept that the H1N1 swine flu outbreak never became a pandemic, but it might have done. It is not inconceivable that in the foreseeable future we shall have a pandemic, in which large numbers of people fall sick very quickly, jeopardising our ability to keep our vital private and public services operating. The question is how we will cope with that, and what we can put in place to mitigate the effects.

In addition to considering two historic events, the Committee looked at two potential risks of the future—space weather and cyber-attack, both of which sound like fantastic straplines for “Doctor Who” or “Torchwood”, but have the potential to pose a real threat. Perhaps they are not quite as dramatic as I have stated, but we did, in 1859, experience a bout of severe space weather, known as the Carrington event. Its impact was recorded as serious at the time. As the Committee Chairman said, we are now totally dependent on electricity—on electrical devices of all sorts: satellites, GPS, mobile phones and computers. Because events such as the Carrington event do not happen often, it is difficult fully to anticipate the effects.

We have all experienced attack by computer viruses and know how devastating they can be when they affect just our personal computer. At best it is inconvenient, but at worst the whole machine can be fried. If we imagine that happening on an industrial scale, or a widespread attack on PCs to harvest personal data, we can see that there could be a real problem.

Those are just some of the challenges that the Government need to prepare for, and to prepare strategies to mitigate, while keeping within the bounds of reality. That is a key issue: identifying the risk in the first place. Who do the Government listen to and talk to? What are the risks and financial implications?

To find the answers we must first identify the risk. The Committee was reassured by the fact that there is a national risk assessment. That project is charged with identifying threats and undertakes the important role of horizon scanning. However, I was surprised, as I think we all were, to hear from the chief scientific adviser that he does not have a formal role in approving what goes on to the national risk assessment. That highlights the need for the Government to make better use of scientific advice and evidence—and not only during emergencies, but prior to them—and to use the skills available to them now, to develop the NRA further and ensure that robust contingency plans for all events are in place.

The Committee considered that the Government reach for scientific advice after emergencies, but do not integrate it well enough beforehand. I should like to hear from the Government that their chief scientific adviser will now have a more formal role in the national risk assessment, and sign off on the NRA only if he is satisfied with the scientific input.

Another issue, which the Committee Chairman outlined and my Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), discussed, is how we should communicate risk to the public, and what risks the Government should prepare for. Those are not necessarily the same thing. We heard a lot about the reasonable worst-case scenario. I understand that that is an attempt to identify and prepare for a serious event, without going into flights of fancy, even if that scenario is very unlikely.

The Committee believes that the Government should also prepare for the most likely scenario—one that can easily be communicated to the public, and entailing a risk that they can understand and take simple precautions against. An example might be better information about always using the latest virus protection software on home computers, or password protecting wireless networks. However, that does not negate the need to prepare at Government level for more serious, if unlikely, events: to work with power companies to explore ways to minimise the impact of space weather; to ensure that the banking system understands potential threats; or to work with business to ensure that the supply chain would continue to function in a flu epidemic.

It would be useful to hear from the Minister, in the light of what I and other hon. Members have said, how he sees the role of the reasonable worst-case scenario, and how the Blackett review that is now under way is progressing. When may we hear some of its results?

It struck me that in several cases the Government were, if not complacent about potential risks, coming at them perhaps a little late. The establishment by the Government of the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance, which we have heard about, and on which there have been questions, is very welcome—but it is a new office, established to assess a risk that has existed for many years. I am therefore interested to hear how it is progressing and what its findings are, as well as what other new offices may need to be created following a vigorous horizon-scanning exercise. Horizon scanning seeks out as yet unknown and unidentified threats, so that we can at least start to think about their impact, and how to deal with them. It would be useful to hear confirmation from the Government that they want to identify those threats, and that they want fully to explore all the risks, regardless of whether they are too expensive to deal with or too complex to plan for. Risk should be dismissed from the national risk assessment on the basis of scientific advice and evidence.

Not all risks are confined to individual nations. Some present a global threat, and it is important to work across borders with other countries. We must continue to participate in and play an active role in collaborative programmes, such as the European Space Agency’s space situational awareness programme, so that we are better prepared for a space weather emergency. Again, will the Minister confirm our commitment, not only to that programme, but to the wider concept, and tell us whether other collaborations are taking place?

In conclusion, it is vital that we do not overstate the risks. We must not frighten people, or provide headlines for the red-tops, but we must not underestimate them. We must assure the public that the Government have a sound and robust process in place that assesses any threat using proper scientific evidence and advice and that the Government have put in place contingency plans to deal with risks based on the advice of experts. If that is done calmly, although we will always live in an unpredictable and changing world, we can be sure that whatever is thrown at us the Government will be able to help us collectively see our way through any challenge, and that we will emerge, if not unscathed, better than we might otherwise have done.

15:32

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) on the excellent work that he and his Committee have done on this thorough report. They must have spent hours and hours listening to appropriate evidence in drawing up their conclusions. I have learned a lot from studying the report, and I very much enjoyed today’s contributions from my hon. Friend and from the hon. Members for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) and for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), as well as the short contribution from the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley).

We all hope for the best, but while doing so we must prepare for the worst. Even understanding what we mean by the worst, and what the difference is between the worst-case scenario and the most likely scenario is skilled work in itself, as we have heard this afternoon. The Committee studied national risk assessment in detail, and one of the report’s main findings is that although there is good use of scientific back-up during the response and recovery stages of emergencies, that is not always the case with preparation.

What has been done to put sound scientific advice at the heart of Government policy making? In 1997, Lord May, who was then the Government’s chief scientific adviser, published the first edition of “Guidelines on Scientific Analysis in Policy Making” to show how Departments should obtain and use scientific analysis. They were updated in 2005 and 2010, and we now have more than 60 scientific advisory committees, which consist of independent experts who advise Departments, Ministers and the chief scientific adviser.

In 2002, the “Cross-Cutting Review of Science and Research” recommended that all Departments that rely on science should have science and innovation strategies, and departmental chief scientific advisers. By the time Labour left government, there were such advisers in every Department except the Treasury. Their presence enhances scientific input throughout departmental action. For example, a group of chief scientific advisers reviewed the draft Gallagher review on biofuels, and they made the final report more scientifically robust than it might otherwise have been.

In 2003, the Labour Government introduced science reviews for each Department to improve the use of science within Departments. In 2004, the science and innovation investment framework, which was designed to last for 10 years to 2014, was published.

In 2006, the joint public-private energy research partnership was launched to provide leadership for UK investments in energy research and innovation, which also contributed to Government initiatives, including the renewable energy strategy. In July 2007, the Government Office for Science was created within what those of us who are old enough to remember or were here then was the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

It is obviously important to keep science at the heart of Government policy. Before we left office, we created and published the principles of scientific advice to Government to ensure a proper working relationship between the Government and scientific advisers and advisory bodies. In 2005, we revised and updated the Government’s arrangements for emergency response.

One conclusion of the report before us focuses on scientific advisory groups in emergencies. The Committee recommended that the SAGE guidelines should address independence, transparency, confidentiality and the conduct of those involved. In this day and age, it is vital to draw on all expertise worldwide, and we should not shy away from seeking expert advice. An emergency is not a time to hide away, or to avoid bringing in the very best help that might assist us in resolving matters more effectively because of a stubborn wish not to admit that we might appreciate help, or that there could be people out there with greater expertise than our own. With the necessary safeguards for matters of national security, what can the Minister tell us about Government plans to make the operation of SAGEs more transparent?

I am responding to the debate, but the Minister is from the Cabinet Office. He will be aware that my shadow Cabinet Office colleagues are in Committee discussing the Public Bodies Bill, which is close to the Minister’s heart. The report links to the spirit of that Bill, and the Government’s response says that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation

“will be reconstituted as an independent committee of experts to the Department of Health. The reconstituted committee will have a similar remit to that of the current committee”

and will “retain its independence and” continue

“to consist of independent experts.”

Why is a committee being disbanded and put back together with a similar remit? What sort of musical chairs is that? Will the Minister explain why a simple change cannot be made to the current committee? The dogma of the Public Bodies Bill—tearing up everything and reinventing the wheel when gaps become apparent—is mad.

I also want to ask about the Health Protection Agency. One minute we seem to be about to abolish the Health Protection Agency a month before the Olympics, and the next minute that seems to be not such a good idea. Will the Minister reassure us on the agency’s functions?

Will the Minister explain exactly what the Government will do to ensure that Department chief scientific advisers play more of a leading role in the preparations for emergencies? I emphasise “preparations”, because that is what the Committee was so concerned about. What is the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills doing to improve the Government Office of Science and the chief scientific adviser’s influence across the Government? What are the Government doing to ensure that good quality scientific advice is put at the heart of all Government policy, including scientific advice in the technical sense and social and behavioural science advice? How do the Government intend to improve parliamentary and wider scientific scrutiny of the decisions that they make in emergencies? When do the Government expect to fill the posts for chief scientific adviser that are currently vacant in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Transport and, in the light of the 2012 Olympics, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport? Will those posts be filled by people who are appropriately qualified, and are the Government satisfied that each Department has the necessary expertise?

As a Welsh MP, I would be grateful for the Minister’s reassurance that appropriate channels are in place to ensure the smoothest possible joint working with devolved Administrations in any emergency, and that any changes to the system will be properly communicated to those responsible in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

As highlighted in the Pitt report on flooding, local authorities are key to an effective response to an emergency. Will the Minister ensure that local authorities have the necessary expertise and access to training, and that appropriate mechanisms are in place to allow them to work with other authorities to maximise efficiency in an emergency?

One of the report’s main conclusions is of concern:

“We have been left with the impression that while science is used effectively to aid the response to emergencies, the Government’s attitude to scientific advice is that it is something to reach for once an emergency happens, not a key factor for consideration from the start of the planning process. We conclude that scientific advice and an evidence-based approach must be better integrated into risk assessment and policy processes early on.”

It is vital for the Government to take on board that advice from its critical friend, the Science and Technology Committee, and I urge the Minister to ensure that scientific advice shapes the thinking and actions taken in preparation for emergencies, and is not a bolt-on, afterthought or optional extra. This matter is of national concern to us all, and we want to work cross-party and be as supportive as we can where the Government are making the right decisions. If, however, we feel that adequate measures are not being taken, we will point that out so that things can be done better for the sake of us all.

15:42

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

I am grateful to all Members who have taken part in this important debate for its tone and the many helpful insights that they have provided. I commend the detailed work of the Science and Technology Committee. It was undertaken in an appropriate spirit of interrogation and challenge, and contains measured and thoughtful conclusions which, for the most part, the Government have accepted.

It is important to start by saying that it is unlikely that any Government will ever get this issue completely right. The nature of emergencies means that they are unpredictable; their likelihood may rise or fall, and we do our best to estimate that, but their effects are unpredictable and we can only prepare as best we can and try to manage the risks in a sensible and proportionate way. My family motto is, “Hope for the best while confidently expecting the worst.” That is not entirely a basis on which one can prepare for emergencies because, while we hope for the best, we must plan for the worst outcome.

There is always an incredibly difficult balance to strike between underestimating a situation and appearing complacent about its malign effects on communities and the economy if we do not prepare sufficiently—although we should always err on the side of caution—and investing many resources in preparing for outcomes that are wholly unfeasible but could mean that damage is imposed on the economy or disruption on people’s lives. The nature of emergencies makes it unlikely that that balance will be achieved exactly, but it is important that we strive to get it right.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate, but I was engaged in activities elsewhere in the House. The Minister makes a good point. At times, medical scientists may offer advice that would be hard to deliver in terms of social science. There could be a conflict between pieces of advice that are properly given by two proponents of the same profession.

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is right, and in the end we have to make a judgment and try to prepare in a proportionate way based on the best evidence available, while acknowledging that that evidence will not always be conclusive. The process set in place through SAGE will try to distil the best view, which is important.

A number of Members have raised points about the communication of risk, which is an important issue and difficult to get right. When communicating risk to the public, it is important not to scaremonger, make people agitated or cause them to behave in a way that is not reasonable. Nor should we devote resources to something in a way that cannot be justified. At the same time, we must never be complacent.

I have thought about the concerns raised in the report and by hon. Members during the debate about the concept of the reasonable worst case. It is difficult to get the form of words right. If the word “reasonable” is inserted, it sounds as if it is a situation that we think will happen. In fact, “reasonable worst case” is not what we believe likely to happen; it is the worst case possible if we remove situations that are absurdly improbable. Pitching that statement correctly is quite difficult.

A number of hon. Members mentioned the Blackett review that will be published in the next few weeks, which we will obviously consider. The Blackett panel looked at the concept of reasonable worst case, which it believes—as do the Government—that it is essential to consider when planning and building capability. It believes, however, that we must think about the use of that concept in communicating risk because it may be that the concept of the most likely case is more useful.

Governments will always be anxious about having a figure in their possession that they have not shared. That was the case with swine flu, and I understand the concern of the Health Secretary at that time. The Government did not want to suppress a figure that might have been arrived at properly, even though it proved to be way off beam. These difficult issues need to be tackled in a serious and measured way and it would be useful to have further discussion and debate once the Blackett panel has completed its review. We must get this issue right because, when emergencies happen—as they will—it is important to have some kind of shared understanding across the political spectrum, and between the Government, Parliament and the media, about the way the concepts in question have been used and the need for responsibility when dealing with facts and estimations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), who could not stay for the end of the debate because he had to be elsewhere, talked about the figures changing in the course of the swine flu epidemic. The truth is that in an emerging epidemic, there are very few cases on which scientists can make assessments; there is very little epidemiology to go on. Arguably, it is better to be honest about the possible worst case and plan for the worst; and then if events turn out very differently, at least that is better than their turning out much worse than predicted. I was asked whether we had used the reasonable worst case approach for the Fukushima event. The answer is yes, that did happen.

On the difficult issues about trying to get right the communication of risk, I am grateful for the Select Committee’s insights. The Blackett panel will produce its conclusions in due course, and we will share them and continue to have discussions and debates.

I was asked what progress had been made in response to the concerns that the Select Committee raised, which I understand, about the role of the Government chief scientific adviser in national risk assessment. Work is under way to set up an independent scientific advice group for the NRA, which will be in place in time for the 2012 NRA. The draft 2011 NRA has been sent to the Government chief scientific adviser, and he will respond to me and my officials in due course. Obviously, it is important that that assessment has the benefit of his detailed scrutiny. We are taking the conclusions and recommendations in the Committee’s report seriously and acting on them.

The Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), asked when SAGE guidance would be published. We are aiming for later this year. We are building in steps that are being taken in the light of the inquiry and the reflections in this debate.

I was asked about transparency. We agree that SAGE should operate on the principle of openness and transparency. The membership, minutes and key scientific advice papers for all three recent SAGE activations, which were in relation to the Japanese nuclear event in and around Fukushima, the volcanic ash eruption and the swine flu epidemic, have all now been published online. Everything is being taken forward, I hope, in the right spirit.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) asked about international collaboration. We work closely with international organisations—the European Union, the UN and so on—and with global leaders in this field. For example, the Singapore Government are a serious leader in this area, and we work with them. We also work with other countries with which we share risks. For example, we work closely with the Netherlands on the risks associated with North sea flooding. There is also ad hoc joint work and research on community resilience and behavioural issues. We work on that with the United States, Canada and the Australians. International collaboration is therefore very important. There is a huge amount of expertise, and it is in the interests of all countries that we benefit from one another’s knowledge, expertise and assessments.

I was asked about volcanic eruption as a risk. I assure hon. Members that the possibility of volcanic eruption is certainly not being omitted from the 2011 NRA. There are two risks in the risk assessment, one of which is a severe, gas-rich volcanic eruption that could reach toxic levels at both ground level and flight altitude. Obviously, that is less likely to occur but would have very significant impacts. We acknowledge that the volcanologists are saying that the likelihood of further volcanic eruptions is higher. We are obviously taking that into account. There is a higher likelihood of a much less severe volcanic ash-rich eruption. A great deal of knowledge was gained from the experience of the eruption last year, and a lot of action has been taken on the back of that.

[Andrew Miller]

Before the Minister moves on, I am curious to know how information held in other Departments is brought in. Obviously, there is a significant role in some Departments through the Civil Aviation Authority and so on, but the Ministry of Defence also has enormous expertise. Years ago, I was in the Caribbean with the Royal Navy when the volcano on Montserrat blew. The helicopter pilot at that time said to me, “Mr Miller, you can’t get any closer to take photographs because these things fall out of the sky if they get the slightest bit of dust in their engines.” There is a huge amount of information that is very old, but that we have failed to centralise. What is the right hon. Gentleman doing to shake up other parts of the machinery to get all that information together?

[Mr Maude]

That is a very good question. Are Government always perfect at ensuring that all the information and knowledge is harvested and garnered from all parts of Whitehall and well beyond, including all the agencies and organisations? No, not by any means. A big part of the role of my officials in the civil contingencies secretariat is to try to ensure that we bring that body of knowledge together as best we can. One would hope that in an event like the volcanic ash eruption, the Ministry of Defence would be intimately involved—I am sure that it was—in assessments and decision making. However, it is a perfectly good question. It will not always be perfectly answered, but we are conscious of the need to maximise the bringing together of all the knowledge on this front.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock and others talked about space weather. That is potentially a big hazard with really serious impacts. We need to deal with it in a thorough way. The truth is that more work is needed to understand what the wide range of impacts would be from a serious event. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is engaged with National Grid, the energy emergencies executive committee and the British Geological Survey to consider the implications of a severe space weather event for the electricity system as a whole, including the potential impacts on generator transformers and further consideration of the transmission network. We in the Cabinet Office will continue to work with other sectors that could be impacted to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the vulnerability. Work on that issue continues.

The only other time when there was a major event was in 1859—the Carrington event, which has been mentioned. That was a very different world. There have been other events, but they tend to be localised. The likelihood of such an event is therefore not high, but it is real and we need to address it in the best way we can.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock asked whether we were participating in the European Space Agency’s space situational awareness programme, which runs until 2012. We have subscribed to it. It defines the steps that need to be taken on space surveillance and space weather. The UK Space Agency will engage with the potential space weather user community and data service providers to assess the relative priority of funding space weather activities within the ESA space situational awareness programme. That will obviously need to be reconciled with competing demands for other programme opportunities and existing financial commitments, but no clear conclusion has yet been reached. However, we are very aware of the risk, and a great deal of work is going on in relation to it.

I turn to the question of cyber security, which is obviously a serious matter. It was identified in the strategic defence and security review as a high risk, and a significant budget has been attached to the national cyber security programme; as Minister responsible for the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance, I have oversight of that programme. Our approach is to ensure that we invest in building capability, as capability is relatively scarce. We have an affordable centre of excellence and expertise at GCHQ.

This is a question not only for the Government but for the whole economy. We discern a marked range in the degree of preparedness of private sector companies on cyber security. Some are highly developed, but it is not only companies focused on internet activities that are vulnerable; it goes much more widely than that. Some companies that ought to be concerned about cyber security do not take it as seriously as they should. Over the coming months, we will be encouraging them to address it seriously. It should be on the agenda of every risk and audit committee, to ensure that it is properly understood and dealt with.

In a few weeks’ time, I shall be publishing the Government’s cyber-security strategy and I hope that it will receive attention and be debated by the House. These are most important matters, and we must do our best to get them right.

[Andrew Miller]

I am fairly confident, following Sir Edmund Burton’s report on the missing Royal Navy laptop, that part of the Government’s response will be about awareness and the training of personnel. Will the Minister confirm that that will happen throughout the civil service machinery? It is no good saying that it belongs only to permanent secretaries or techies in the back room, because it affects us all. There has to be a serious campaign in the public sector to ensure that people understand how serious these challenges are.

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I do not dissent for a second. Most of it is about being reasonably alert and aware, and taking common sense steps, but higher levels of vulnerability to cyber attack and cyber crime require a highly sophisticated response coupled with great awareness and agility. Information assurance and not allowing data to go amiss are mostly to do with basic standards of care and alertness.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to respond to the Committee’s thoughtful and serious report. It has been good to ventilate these matters. I assure the House and the Committee that we continue to take these matters seriously. We will continue to engage and interact with the Committee as we take these matters forward.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

We have had a full and frank debate. I am informed that it can continue for another five minutes if the Committee Chairman wishes to raise any other matters.

[Andrew Miller]

I am grateful to all who contributed to the debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), the Opposition spokesperson, and the Minister.

To a great extent, this area transcends party politics. Frankly, given some of the surveys published today on the public’s perception of Members of Parliament, people might reflect on the fact that, just occasionally, we work in a collegiate manner towards a common goal. In this case, the common goal is improving safety and security for our citizens. It engages the best scientific brains, both here and further afield, and all political parties are committed to it as a serious priority. I hope that we can continue to work in this positive manner, and address some of the big questions and “what happens if” challenges thrown up by the national risk assessment.

A few detailed questions remain. Once the Minister has seen the transcript of our proceedings, I hope that he will do us the honour of providing a more detailed reply—something that is a little challenging in this environment. I hope that his reply will form the basis of a continued dialogue between the Committee and the Cabinet Office on this important work.

Question put and agreed to.

16:07

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

Thursday 15 September 2011

National Minimum Wage

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

I am pleased to announce that the Government have written to the Low Pay Commission setting out what we would like the Commission to consider on the national minimum wage. The document contains evidence on economic and non-economic issues, including the minimum wage rates, the youth labour market, apprenticeships, work experience, and compliance and enforcement.

In addition, we have today published guidance on Business Link and Direct.gov to clarify when individuals performing work experience, including interns, are entitled to the minimum wage.

A copy of the evidence will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will be available from the BIS website at: www.bis.gov.uk.

Anti-avoidance

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

I am today announcing that legislation will be introduced in the next Finance Bill to clarify the corporation tax treatment of manufactured overseas dividends (MODs) received by companies. The amendment will ensure that MODs cannot be used to obtain repayment or set-off of income tax that the UK Exchequer does not receive.

The clarification follows disclosure of a new avoidance scheme in which the recipient of a MOD claims to have received it under deduction of UK income tax, which it then seeks to set off against its corporation tax liability, or to have repaid, although no actual UK income tax has been paid.

This measure protects significant amounts of revenue. Any yield from this measure will be reflected in the OBR’s next forecast.

The Government are determined to reduce tax avoidance in order to protect the Exchequer, which provides funding for public services, and maintain fairness for the taxpayer. Accordingly, draft legislation will be published by HMRC later today, putting it beyond doubt that no set-off or repayment of income tax can be made in such cases. The legislation will have immediate effect from today.

Because of repeated avoidance in this area, the Government also intend to issue a consultation document after Budget 2012 on proposals to make wider changes to the tax rules on MODs. This review will form part of the rolling review of high risk areas of the tax code, announced in the Budget 2011 document “Tackling Tax Avoidance”. Its aim will be to reduce the need for this area of the tax code to be revisited in response to new schemes and to simplify the relevant legislation.

The Government recognise that changes to these arrangements could affect financial markets and they are committed to full consultation on any changes, which would have an appropriate lead-in period. Any changes made following the consultation would not come into effect before 1 April 2013.

European Regulation of Financial Services

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The UK Government strongly support international efforts to reform derivatives markets, including increased clearing of derivatives through central counterparties. G20 leaders, Finance Ministers and central bank governors have agreed that reforms to derivatives markets should be implemented in an “internationally consistent and non-discriminatory” way.

On 5 July 2011, the European Central Bank (ECB) published a Eurosystem Oversight Framework¹. This includes a policy that central counterparties that clear euro-denominated credit derivatives above certain thresholds (€5 billion average daily net credit exposure or 5% of certain product categories) must

“be legally incorporated in the euro area with full managerial and operational control and responsibility over all core functions, exercised from within the euro area.”

The UK considers that this policy is contrary to fundamental single market principles and fundamental principles of EU law. It is also discriminatory on the grounds of nationality and runs counter to the EU general principle of equality.

The policy, if implemented, would affect a number of central counterparties that have located their businesses in the UK to provide services in a range of currencies, EU and non-EU; and would lead to a fragmentation of financial markets by currency zone with profoundly negative consequences for the single market, international capital flows and significant costs for the European and global economies.

Accordingly, the UK Government have chosen to challenge the ECB’s Eurosystem Oversight Framework policy, which it considers to have legal effect and therefore can be challenged under the treaty.

¹ The Policy Framework was not published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It was made publicly available through publication on the ECB’s website on 5 July 2011.

Commander Joint Forces Command

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

The creation of a Joint Forces Command (JFC) was recommended by Lord Levene in his defence reform report as part of the radical reform of the Department that I announced on 27 June 2011 [Official Report, columns 634-636]. I welcomed that recommendation and directed that it should be put into effect as soon as possible.

The new organisation will bring together and deliver joint enabling capabilities to ensure their appropriate prioritisation and deliver synergies between them.

I am announcing today the appointment of Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, currently the chief of joint operations and a previous chief of defence intelligence, as the first commander JFC. His exceptionally strong joint credentials make him the ideal selection for the post, which he will take up in December 2011 on promotion to Air Chief Marshal.

Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach’s appointment is an important milestone in preparing JFC for initial operating capability in April 2012. It will achieve its full operating capability a year later.

Nuclear Liabilities Management Strategy

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has today published the first issue of the MOD nuclear liabilities management strategy. A copy of the strategy has been placed in the Library of the House.

The MOD’s nuclear liabilities have arisen from building and operating nuclear submarines, and from the manufacture and management of nuclear weapons. They include nuclear materials that are no longer required for defence purposes; the irradiated fuel that has fulfilled its purpose; the sites, facilities, and submarines that support the defence nuclear programme; and, the resultant radioactive wastes.

Although the MOD’s liabilities are substantial they are significantly smaller than the civil nuclear liabilities: the MOD’s radioactive wastes account for less than 1.5% by volume of the UK total. We have, therefore, worked with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and the Scottish Government to develop a strategy that will deliver the best value for money solutions for the UK.

Managing our nuclear liabilities is a long-term challenge, and the strategy will evolve over time, as specific solutions are developed for dealing with particular liabilities. As a consequence, it is our intention to publish a revised strategy every five years, to reflect the progress being made and to ensure it remains up to date. The strategy being published today sets out the high-level approaches for managing our nuclear liabilities: it provides a common management, decommissioning and disposal framework to ensure a coherent approach across the defence nuclear programme.

The safe and secure management of the MOD’s current and future nuclear liabilities is of paramount importance, and underpins all aspects of the strategy. Its publication reflects the MOD’s commitment to being a responsible nuclear operator and to delivering safe and effective solutions for dealing with those liabilities.

Central Advisory Committee on Pensions and Compensation

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

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

In accordance with the Cabinet Office’s recent guidance on public bodies, which took effect from 1 April 2011, I have launched a review of the Central Advisory Committee on Pensions and Compensation (CAC). This review will examine the Committee’s functions, as well as its corporate governance procedures. The review is due to be completed later this year and I shall inform the House of its outcome.

UK-Norway Initiative Workshop

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

The UK has long been committed to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. As part of the coalition agreement the Government agreed that we would maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent and press for continued progress on multilateral disarmament. The Prime Minister announced a number of disarmament measures as a part of the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) on 19 October 2010. On 29 June 2011 [Official Report, columns 50-51WS] the Secretary of State for Defence announced the early commencement of the programme for implementing the SDSR warhead reductions: at least one of the Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) now carries a maximum of 40 nuclear warheads.

As part of our efforts to make progress on multilateral disarmament, we undertook to build trust and confidence between nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states, and committed to take tangible steps towards a safer and more stable world where countries with nuclear weapons feel able to relinquish them. Over a decade ago the Ministry of Defence, together with the atomic weapons establishment, established a disarmament and arms control verification research programme. This work is ongoing and since 2007 we have also been working with Norway to develop some of the techniques that may be required to ensure compliance with any future nuclear disarmament process. This is the first time a nuclear weapon state and a non-nuclear weapon state have worked together in this way. Our work with Norway has demonstrated that nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states alike are able to make an active contribution to disarmament through verification research, while still complying with their non-proliferation obligations. Furthermore, the co-operation of non-nuclear weapon states in nuclear disarmament verification research is necessary in order to achieve effective and mutually trusted verification solutions.

As announced at the P5 conference (30 June-1 July 2011), the UK will host a confidential expert-level meeting of the P5 in early 2012 to discuss lessons learned from the UK’s work with Norway on the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement. I wish to inform the House that we now intend to share these important lessons with additional non-nuclear weapon states. To this end, the Ministry of Defence, in partnership with Norway, will host a workshop in London in early December 2011. This will enable us to share our progress with technical experts from non-nuclear weapon states that have expressed an interest in the research conducted so far.

This verification research advances progress towards our long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and further demonstrates the Government’s commitment to fulfilling the UK’s disarmament obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The Government remain committed to maintaining the minimum credible deterrent necessary to achieve our deterrence objectives of guaranteeing national security.

Management of Unsolicited Mail at Christmas

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

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

I wish to inform the House about the annual unsolicited mail campaign the Ministry of Defence (MOD) will be running in the lead-up to Christmas, which is 100 days from tomorrow.

This Government are dedicated to the care and welfare of the men and women of our armed forces, particularly those deployed on operations. This is reflected in the comprehensive Deployed Welfare Package which is constantly reviewed to ensure we give appropriate support to our deployed service personnel. A key part of that package is ensuring the safe and timely delivery of free personal mail from family and friends. In the past this mechanism has also been used by the general public to show their support by sending unsolicited goodwill parcels through the mail system.

Previously, this has resulted in huge volumes of unsolicited goodwill parcels which have overwhelmed the in-theatre postal and logistic capacity, resulting in a considerable delay to personal mail from family and friends. British Forces’ Post Office (BFPO) estimates it will handle approximately 22,500 parcels per week over Christmas this year (the eight-week period between mid-October and mid-December) as opposed to 10,000 over a “normal” eight-week period. In 2009, unsolicited mail added 64 tonnes to BFPO’s logistical effort. In addition to the impact on personal mail, which can be severely delayed as a result, delivering unsolicited packages over the “final mile” to forward operating bases and patrol bases puts increased pressure on essential in-theatre resources. Additional helicopter journeys and road convoys are required, both of which take essential transport assets away from their primary task and place our personnel at increased personal danger.

It is for these reasons that the MOD will, for the fourth consecutive year, be repeating its unsolicited mail campaign. The campaign was so successful last year it reduced the volume of unsolicited mail by 90%. Key to the success of the campaign is to encourage the British public to show their support through one of the recognised MOD service charities rather then sending unsolicited goodwill parcels.

All service personnel on operations over Christmas will receive a seasonal gift box from the MOD-endorsed charity, “uk4u Thanks!”. The charity continues to work closely with the MOD, using free space in the existing supply chain to deliver the boxes well before Christmas, without impacting on the normal mail system. Other charities which help to support deployed troops with welfare items include SSAFA, Afghan Heroes, Support our Soldiers and Thank the Forces.

I recognise that it might seem counter-intuitive to ask the British public not to send parcels to troops at Christmas, but due to the impact of unsolicited mail I ask for your full support in directing the public towards MOD-recognised charities.

Standards and Testing Agency

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I am today announcing that the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), a new Executive agency of the Department for Education, will commence operating on Monday 3 October. The STA will be responsible for the development and delivery of all statutory assessments from early years to the end of key stage 3.

This work was previously carried out by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, which—subject to the will of Parliament—will cease its final remaining functions in March 2012.

World Conference Against Racism (10th Anniversary)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

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

The Government will not attend the high-level meeting to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 2001 World Conference against Racism on 22 September at the United Nations in New York.

The Government remain fully committed to the international fight against racism. The recent examination of the UK by the UN Committee for Elimination of Racial Discrimination demonstrated that we remain committed to tackling racism at home and abroad. The committee welcomed the notable efforts the UK has taken to tackle racial discrimination and inequality and the important progress we have made.

However the Government do not want to be associated with the commemoration of an event which was tainted by anti-Semitism and intolerance. We join a number of other countries in not participating in the September meeting, including the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia and Germany.

General Affairs Council (12 September 2011)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

The General Affairs Council was held on 12 September in Brussels. I represented the UK.

The agenda items covered were as follows:

General Affairs Council (GAC)

The GAC was chaired by the Polish EU presidency (Mr Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, State Secretary for European Affairs of Poland). A draft record of the meeting can be found at:

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/genaff/124579.pdf

Multiannual Financial Framework

Before the General Affairs Council I met with a group of member states that, like the UK, believe in a budget-disciplined approach to the multiannual financial framework, hosted by Sweden. Together we agreed a joint statement calling for budgetary restraint; this was reflected in a press statement released following the Council meeting, this can be found at the following internet address:

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=PressS&id=654555082.

Ministers were informed of the progress of discussions at the Friends of Presidency Group. This is a Committee of officials from the member states, with attendance from the Commission, to prepare and discuss aspects of the next multiannual financial framework. The Commission proposals, which can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/budget/reform/, were published in June 2011 and are unacceptable to the UK. Discussion was guided by the document linked below, which set the framework for the discussion.

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st13/st13127.en11.pdf

During the formal, public, session of the General Affairs Council and the informal lunch following the Council meeting I took the opportunity, along with partners, to reiterate the UK demand for a smaller EU budget in the next financial framework. I also argued for greater transparency. This means bringing the budget items that the Commission has sought to move “off budget” back on to the balance sheet (an estimated €18 billion worth of measures). On flexibility (moving monies between budget envelopes after they had been agreed) I argued that this would only make sense in the context of a smaller, more tightly focused, overall budget.

October European Council

The presidency presented the draft annotated agenda of the October European Council on behalf of the President of the EU. The conclusions would cover economic policy and preparation of the EU’s position for the G20 summit and for the Durban conference on climate change. The main focus would be on economic policy and in particular external aspects of the Union’s economic policy and internal initiatives on growth and the single market.

All Ministers welcomed the draft annotated agenda and recognised that it may need to evolve in the lead up to the European Council in the middle of October. I welcomed the emphasis on economic policy but stressed the need for substantive discussion on promoting growth and jobs. I also pressed for the European Council to discuss the events in north Africa and the middle east and to discuss the evolving European neighbourhood policy. Heads of State must discuss the pressing international issues of the day.

I will deposit copies of this note in the Libraries of both Houses, and I will continue to update Parliament on the General Affairs Councils as and when future meetings are held.

Ministerial Correction

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

Further to parliamentary question 68626 [7 September 2011, Official Report, vol.532, c. 449W], regarding the costs of the Council of Europe, part of my written answer to the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) was not published. The correct answer is as follows:

[Mr Lidington]

: The following table shows the totals of the Council of Europe (CoE) Ordinary Budget between 2003 and 2010, the contribution made by the UK, and the proportion of the total paid by the UK.

Care and Support (Stakeholder Engagement)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

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

Today, the Government launched “Caring for our future: shared ambitions for care and support” an engagement with people who use care and support services, carers, local councils, care providers, and the voluntary sector about the priorities for improving care and support. The engagement will last until early December, and we are requesting written comments by 2 December to help inform discussions.

In recent months, two independent commissions have reported to Government on two different aspects of care and support. In May, the Law Commission published recommendations for modernising and simplifying the social care legal framework (available at www.justice.gov. uk/lawcommission/docs/lc326_adult_social_care.pdf), and in July the Commission on Funding of Care and Support published recommendations for reforming the way that people pay for care and support (available at: https://www.wp.dh.gov.uk/carecommission/files/2011/07/Fairer-Care-Funding-Report.pdf). These recommendations will form the basis for our discussions.

We have also received a report from the “Palliative Care Funding Review”, which sets out how we could create a fair and transparent funding system which ensures integrated, responsive, high-quality health and care services for those at the end of life. This report has been placed in the Library.

All these reports contain important and valuable proposals to help us decide our approach to changing the care and support system. However, the Government have a broad agenda for reform of care and support. These reports were never intended to look at all our priorities. For the White Paper on social care reform and the progress report on funding reform, which we will publish next spring, we have an opportunity to get reform right so we want to have a wider discussion about every aspect of the system to inform Government decisions.

We have already said, in our “Vision for Adult Social Care”, that we want to see a care and support system where care is personalised, people have choice in how their needs and ambitions are met, and carers are supported. We want high-quality care to be delivered by a diverse range of providers and a skilled work force that can provide care and support with compassion and imagination. People must be confident that they are protected against poor standards and abuse.

Making changes to the care and support system is not simple. The challenges of an ageing society are being faced by most developed countries. There are no easy answers, and we can not make all the changes at once. We know that, as a country, we will need to spend more on care and support as our society ages. In this challenging economic environment, we need to weigh up what the priorities for reform are and produce a realistic road map for change.

So, over the next three months, we will be engaging with a range of people and organisations involved with care and support about their priorities for reform.

“Caring for our future” will consist of six themes:

Quality: what are the priorities for improving quality and developing the future work force?

Personalisation: what are the priorities for promoting increased personalisation and choice?

Shaping local care services: what are the priorities for creating a more diverse and responsive care market?

Prevention: what are the priorities for supporting greater prevention and early intervention?

Integration (in partnership with the NHS Future Forum): how can we take advantage of the health and social care modernisation programme to ensure services are better integrated around people’s needs?

The role of financial services: what role could the financial services sector play in supporting care users, carers and their families?

Making changes to the funding system for care and support, as discussed in the Commission on Funding of Care and Support’s report, would impact on all aspects of the care and support system. So we also want to consider the implications of the Commission’s recommendations as part of these discussions.

We have asked a key leader from the care and support community to help the Government to lead the discussions for each of these six areas. We want to work collaboratively, drawing upon the networks of expertise and experience that have developed over many years. So, together, we will be attending events, holding meetings, listening to the views of user organisations, carers’ representatives, care providers, and local councils on what the priorities for improving care and support should be.

The leaders for each of the discussion strands are:

Quality: Imelda Redmond (Chief Executive, Carers UK);

Personalisation: Jeremy Hughes (Chief Executive, Alzheimer’s Society);

Shaping local care services: Peter Hay (President, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services);

Prevention: Alex Fox (Chief Executive, NAAPS);

Integration (in partnership with the NHS Future Forum): Geoff Alltimes (Chief Executive, Hammersmith and Fulham Council) and Dr Robert Varnam (Practising GP, Manchester); and

The role of financial services: Nick Kirwan (Assistant Director of Health and Protection, Association of British Insurers).

As part of “Caring for our future”, we also want to hear people’s views on the recommendations made by the Commission on Funding of Care and Support and how we should assess these proposals, including in relation to other potential priorities for improvement. The Commission’s recommendations present a range of options, including on the level of a cap and the contribution that people make to living costs in residential care, which could help us to manage the system and its costs. We want to hear people’s views on these different options, and the trade-offs involved. Later in the autumn, as part of the engagement process, we will ask the six discussion leaders to bring together the views they have gathered on support for the Commission’s proposals, and the wider priorities for change.

As we said in our response to the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, we face difficult economic times. Given this, the Government will have to weigh up different funding priorities and calls on their constrained resources carefully before deciding how to act.

A copy of the public discussion document has been placed in the Library. Copies are available to hon. members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office. This contains more details on how people can feed their views into the discussion.

The Government have said that they will engage with the official Opposition, as part of this process.

“Caring for our future” will run until early December. At the end of the engagement, the discussion leaders will bring together views about the priorities for change and will discuss these with the Government. We have committed to publishing a White Paper in spring 2012, alongside a progress report on funding reform, and to legislating at the earliest opportunity. The White Paper and progress report will include a response to the Law Commission and Commission on Funding of Care and Support and will set out our approach to reform, to start the process of transforming our care and support system.

Report on Complaints and Litigation (Government Response)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

We have today laid before Parliament “Government Response to the House of Commons Health Committee Sixth Report of the Session 2010-12: Complaints and Litigation” (Cm 8120).

The starting point for this Committee’s inquiry has been that sometimes patient experience of the NHS falls below the high standards expected, and when this happens patients should have access to a responsive and effective complaints and if necessary litigation systems.



The majority of people using health and social care services in England are satisfied with the care and treatment received. However, there are times where things go wrong. In these circumstances, it is important that people are able to make a complaint and to have it investigated and dealt with effectively.

Complaints are important and need to be taken seriously. When something has gone wrong it needs to be put right quickly, and organisations need to work closely with people to find the most appropriate resolution to a complaint. Organisations also need to make sure they learn from every aspect of a complaint so that the same thing does not happen again. The more successful organisations take the views of their customers, including views expressed in complaints, seriously.

A small proportion of complaints made about care relate to negligent harm. In these circumstances, it is correct that complainants are able to obtain proportionate compensation in a timely manner for the harm they have suffered.

The Government’s civil justice reforms will develop a system that is proportionate, encourages personal responsibility in resolving disputes, and with streamlined procedures to provide timely access to justice. This will improve outcomes for patients seeking compensation, and allow limited NHS resources to be diverted away from legal expenses and back to patient care.

The Government welcome the Committee’s acceptance that the current complaints arrangements provide the potential for delivering better outcomes for complainants and improvements in service delivery. However, the Government accept that there is more to do, and we will work with the NHS better to ensure lessons learned from the local investigations of complaints feed into service improvements. Good practice does exist in the NHS, and it needs to be shared more widely.

The NHS reforms the Government have proposed, offer an opportunity to drive improvement, and to improve patients’ experiences of the NHS, and they will put patients, carers and local communities at the heart of the NHS. In addition the Government’s transparency agenda, along with the wider information sharing agenda instigated by the health service ombudsman, the Department of Health and regulatory bodies should help to ensure that in future, information in respect of complaints will be more widely available to the public to inform choice and to highlight areas of healthcare provision that need improvement.

Report on Phone Hacking (Government Response)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

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

Today I am publishing the Government’s response to the 13th report of the Home Affairs Committee into the “Unauthorised tapping into or hacking of mobile communications”.

The Committee’s report highlights a number of issues arising from the activities of journalists at News International and their associates, as well as the failings of the police investigations into those activities.

The Committee is to be commended for producing such a thorough report and for producing it so quickly after the final evidence sessions, so that it could inform the parliamentary debate in July and also sit usefully alongside other work that the Government have commissioned in this area, including:

the inquiry being led by Lord Justice Leveson, commissioned by the Prime Minister;

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s report considering instances of undue influence, inappropriate contractual arrangements and other abuses of power in police relationships with the media and other parties, which I have commissioned; and

the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s report into their experience of investigating police corruption and any lessons that can be learned for the police service, which I have also commissioned.

Many of the issues highlighted by the report are for the police service and the Government believe that the report is a valuable contribution to the debate around changes needed to police culture.

Alongside the Government’s response to the Home Affairs Committee’s report, we are also publishing the first report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission on their experience of police corruption. Both documents will be available on the Home Office website and copies will be available from the Vote Office.

Revised Framework Document (Information Commissioner's Office and the Ministry of Justice)

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, Lord McNally, has made the following written ministerial statement:

Today I am publishing the revised framework document that governs the day-to-day relationship between the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Ministry of Justice. Agreed by both the Information Commissioner and the Ministry of Justice, the revised document enhances significantly the independence of the ICO.

The Government firmly support an independent and influential ICO and this revised framework complements the legislative clauses the Government introduced in the Protection of Freedoms Bill.

Under the new framework, mechanisms are put in place to enable the ICO to retain certain types of income, subject to the outcome of the Protection of Freedoms Bill, and the reporting requirements on the ICO are significantly reduced. In addition to this, a number of changes have been introduced to allow the ICO greater freedom to make certain financial and administrative decisions.

However, while furthering the ICO’s financial and administrative independence, the framework document ensures this is balanced with appropriate reporting arrangements to enable the Ministry of Justice to maintain and ensure the proper expenditure of public money allocated to the ICO.

Copies of the consultation revised framework document will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Department’s website at: www.justice.gov.uk.

Mutual Recognition of Protection Measures in Civil Matters

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

The Government have decided to opt in to the regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters. The regulation meets the criteria set out in the coalition agreement with regard to EU justice and home affairs measures.

In accordance with the coalition agreement, the Government have said they will approach forthcoming legislation in the area of criminal justice on a case-by-case basis, with a view to maximising our country’s security, protecting Britain’s civil liberties and preserving the integrity of our criminal justice system

The draft regulation will benefit vulnerable people in Britain who may now feel more confident to travel within the EU due to greater protection. The draft regulation provides a quick and efficient mechanism. It aims to avoid those needing protection having to go through time-consuming court procedures and giving evidence on the same matters in another member state in order to get the protection they need.

The draft regulation covers “civil matters” and follows on from the draft directive on the European protection order which covers “criminal matters” which the UK has also opted into. The two separate instruments are intended to complement each other so that as many protection orders as possible are covered despite the differences in member states’ systems.

Informal EU Transport Council

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The Polish presidency of the EU held an informal meeting of EU Transport Ministers in Gdansk and Sopot on 5 and 6 September. The UK was represented by officials. The theme was: “Mobilizing private financing for transport infrastructure”. The debate was based on a number of questions put by the presidency, which were principally about the use of public-private partnerships.

The key points conveyed by the UK are as follows:

For the UK, the primary factor determining PPP use is whether it offers the best value for money compared to alternative delivery options. The features that impact on the value for money decision include: public sector access to private sector capital and expertise and the transfer of financial risk from the public to the private sector.

A key feature of the UK public sector comparator process is that it is not entirely based on a quantitative calculation of the respective delivery outcomes. The calculation is supported by a qualitative assessment of the respective delivery routes in terms of their viability, desirability and achievability.

The UK set out several examples of the use of PPP in the transport sector, which included contracts for street lighting, highway maintenance and London Underground. We reported that the experience of PPP in this sector has been mixed. While PPP programmes have helped secure significant infrastructure investment and, in a number of cases, achieved an improved record on the delivery of projects to time and budget, this has only been achieved by repeated interventions.

Work has recently been undertaken to achieve a stronger focus on flexibility. Project reviews are being undertaken to improve the delivery of cost reductions and value for money. New PPP projects are subject to tougher approval and assurance processes. The UK no longer uses the PPP format to source projects for which there is an insufficient capital requirement or continuing lifecycle maintenance/service obligation, or for lower value projects.

The UK emphasised that while PPP remains a useful procurement option, it is not suitable for every project and should only be selected when it can demonstrate that it provides a better value for money outcome than conventional procurement processes.

The UK noted that a fundamental feature of PPP structures is that they provide for availability payments over the life of a long-term service contract. However, EU regulations only provide for availability payments that are linked to development and construction pre-payments. If operational availability payments are not permitted, this could distort the decision-making process on the type of PPP structure that is adopted and unnecessarily constrain the options available to member states.

Maritime Incident Response Group

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

As part of the comprehensive spending review that the Government set out last October, we announced the intention to consult interested parties about a review of the maritime incident response group (MIRG) funded by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).

Since it was established in 2006, the MIRG has responded to just six fire incidents and has not had a significant impact on the outcome of any of those. Since February the MCA has consulted those fire and rescue services providing the current MIRG capability.

Feedback from the shipping industry suggests that the most valued service provided by the MIRG is their initial fire assessment advice. The MCA had therefore initially hoped that the fire and rescue services providing the current MIRG capability would be able to provide such a service, but agreement on this has not been possible. The Government therefore intend to establish alternative arrangements for such a fire assessment and advice service using commercial salvors.

Under the new arrangements professional personnel will be deployed to an incident to make an assessment of the status of a fire and to provide advice on the best course of action and—as in many cases today—reassure port authorities that a ship can be safely accepted into a port so that shore based fire fighters can attend to the fire. This approach recognises that international legislation already requires that all ships’ crews are trained and equipped to fight fires on ships.

The new service will not require funding from the public purse as costs will be recoverable. A 90-day notice period will begin today and the existing MIRG arrangement will end on 14 December 2011.

Sale of Trust Ports

Thursday 15th September 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

On 3 August 2011 I announced the criteria that the Government will consider particularly relevant to the appropriateness of the sale of a major trust port in England or Wales under the Ports Act 1991. This followed the consultation that I announced on 16 May 2011, Official Report, column 4WS, and which closed on 27 June. I regret that it was not possible to announce this first by written ministerial statement to the House, but I did not wish to delay consideration of the application by Dover Harbour Board for a transfer scheme.

I am aware that Dover Harbour Board has now considered the criteria, intends to proceed with its application for a transfer scheme under the Ports Act 1991, and proposes to submit a new set of documents containing a further elaboration of its scheme for decision by the Minister of State under the new criteria. If interested parties would find it useful and seek my Department’s assistance, we would be happy to consider ways in which properly to facilitate discussions on all the options before the Dover Harbour Board submits its elaborated proposal. I should make clear that the decision Minister would take no part in such discussions and would continue to perform her statutory functions in an objective, impartial manner whatever the outcome of any such discussions.

The following paragraphs set out the revised policy which the Secretary of State expects to follow when considering an application under the Ports Act 1991 for the sale of a major trust port in England or Wales. This covers the consideration of any proposal for a transfer scheme submitted under section 9 or 10 of the 1991 Act, together with the exercise of the Secretary of State’s functions in respect of the subsequent sale of the port to which the scheme relates. The Secretary of State also intends to have particular regard to the policy considerations set out below before making a transfer scheme himself under section 12 of the 1991 Act or subsequently approving the sale of a port to which such a scheme relates.

Essential criteria

Community participation

The Secretary of State will not approve an application for the sale of a trust port under the 1991 Act unless the sale is considered likely to deliver an enduring and significant level of community participation in the port. Such participation could take a variety of forms, but must include the ability to influence the port’s long-term development and may include the right to receive a share in the profits of the port, or the future increase in its value. It does not necessarily require a community role in the operation of the port.

Future investment in, and development of, the port

The Secretary of State will not approve an application unless the sale is considered likely to deliver an ownership model with the capability and access to capital to meet future investment needs and to exploit development potential of the port.

Fair price

The Secretary of State will not approve an application unless the sale is considered likely to represent good value for money, having regard not only to Exchequer proceeds and market conditions, but also to other benefits including those to the community and the wider economy.

Fair competition

The Secretary of State will not approve an application that is likely to deliver an ownership model which results in unsatisfactory levels of competition in the relevant sector.

Highly Desirable criteria

Transport networks

It is highly desirable for an application to be likely to deliver an ownership model which will cause the port to be operated so as to contribute to reliable, resilient and efficient transport networks.

Sale process

It is highly desirable that the sale should be conducted in such a way as to give all bona fide prospective purchasers a fair and equitable opportunity to participate.

Desirable criteria

Employee involvement

It is desirable for an application to be likely to deliver port employee participation in the ownership of the port, such as the right to receive equity shares or a share in its future success.<sup>1

1</sup>This is without prejudice to the Ports Act 1991 section 5(3) requirement to have particular regard to the desirability of encouraging the disposal of the whole or a substantial part of the equity share capital of the successor company to managers or other persons employed by the port company etc.

House of Lords

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Thursday, 15 September 2011.

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Hereford.

Police Federation

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:06

Asked By

[Lord Morris of Manchester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consultations they have had with the Police Federation about current issues of importance to its members.

[Lord Morris of Manchester]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest a former parliamentary adviser of long-standing to the Police Federation.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)]

There is a programme of regular ministerial meetings with the Police Federation at which it can raise matters of importance to its members. Recently, on 11 August, my colleague the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Crime and Security met the Police Federation leadership on the Home Secretary’s behalf.

[Lord Morris of Manchester]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply, but is she aware that the Police Federation was at no time consulted on what the effects would be of cuts in spending on front-line services—which of course its members provide—and that the Chief Inspector of Constabulary warned that cuts in the policing budget could not be achieved without damaging them? Is the Minister further aware that in the past year the number of police officers has been depleted by over 4,000 and that, in the words of their own journal, “morale in the service is at an all-time low”? Yet the Home Secretary gave police officers the pledge,

“I will always back you … and fight for you”.

My Lords, was performance ever more remote from promise?

[Baroness Browning]

The Home Secretary has consistently been clear that she has the utmost respect and admiration for the bravery and dedication of the men and women of our police forces, but that does not mean unquestioning agreement at all times. The Home Secretary has a responsibility to the taxpayer to tackle the deficit and improve the service to the public. The police cannot be exempt from their share of cuts but, as I have already informed the House, there are regular meetings at which members of the federation can raise any issue they like with Ministers. I understand that, apart from the regular series of meetings that are held, additional meetings are held at certain times, such as the one with my honourable friend Mr Brokenshire following the riots.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, we are all grateful for the commitment shown by members of the Police Federation across the country, not least for sometimes working 20 hours a day to assist in tackling the riots and in bringing those involved to justice. However, that all costs money in extra policing at a time when police budgets are being squeezed. Bearing in mind that the Home Secretary has recently said that applications from police forces for a special grant to cover the additional costs will only be “considered”, could the Minister say whether the Prime Minister’s Statement in the other place on 11 August that:

“The Treasury is standing ready to assist police forces. Clearly, the bill for the Metropolitan police force for the past few days will be large and, if they continue to deploy in those numbers, it will get larger and the Treasury will stand behind that”,—[Official Report, Commons, 11/8/11; col. 1065.]

still represents government policy in the light of the Home Secretary’s statement?

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, we have yet to receive from any police force its Bill in respect of the riots. We have had some indication in one or two forces—for example, I think that some evidence given to the Home Affairs Select Committee earlier in the week would have indicated the nature of the bill—but we cannot at this stage give an open assurance that every bill as presented will be paid. As we understand it, some of these bills are likely to contain quite significant sums relating to opportunity costs. I think that the House will understand that, when I stand at the Dispatch Box and say that we will honour every bill as presented, we will honour our pledge but that we will want to examine those bills very carefully.

[Lord Richard]

The Minister failed to answer the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Morris, so perhaps I could pose it again. Is it true that the Police Federation was not consulted about the effect on frontline policing of the proposed cuts?

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, the nature of those proposals are such that, in order to give a definitive answer to the noble Lord, I will have to write to him. I will want to take careful advice as to what opportunities were given for discussion or written consultation. The noble Lord is shaking his head. I think that he would prefer a definitive answer in writing than for me to wing something at the Dispatch Box.

[Baroness Hamwee]

The topic of pensions for the police must obviously be on the mind of the Police Federation as well as on all our minds. Does the Minister have any news on tackling that issue? But thinking about retirement on a more personal basis and satisfaction for people who want to extend their working lives, is there anything that she can say about the retirement age of police officers and about making use of their experience and the investment that has been made in them for the good of the forces and of society, not losing them at a relatively early age?

[Baroness Browning]

I can tell my noble friend that public service pension schemes are consulting formally on the proposal, for example, to increase employee contribution rates. The consultation for the police pension scheme is happening within the Police Negotiating Board. The Home Secretary wrote to the Police Negotiating Board on 29 July and has asked for views on its proposal by the end of September.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

In the light of the response that the noble Baroness gave to my noble friend Lord Richard, will she copy the letter that she is sending to him to the rest of the House? That is precisely what the Question is about.

[Baroness Browning]

When I reply to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I would be very happy to place a copy in the Library of the House.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

Will the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard, have a word with her private office and her advisers? The questions posed by my noble friends Lord Morris and Lord Richard clearly should have been anticipated. She has been badly advised and put in a difficult position. She should sort her private office out.

[Baroness Browning]

I hesitate to criticise my civil servants. It is not something that I would wish to do. In terms of the issues around police federations, the substance of the Question was not specifically about that consultation. It was about how much contact Ministers had had with the Police Federation, which I answered in terms. As I have explained, I am very happy to write to the noble Lord because I do not know off the top of my head what opportunities or attempts there were for any consultation specifically on that issue. But I will inform the House in writing and it will be a substantive reply.

[Lord Grocott]

I would ask the Minister to give a reminder to her colleagues, who can sometimes be careless with statistics when they talk about the proportion of police officers who are on the beat at any given time and complain about it being a low figure. The simple arithmetic, which I know she is aware of, shows that on a three-shift system, the maximum number of people available to be on the beat, even with no holidays, sickness or days off, would be 33.3 per cent of the available force. Very misleading statistics are being given out when Ministers complain about what they describe as being the low proportion of officers on the beat. I am sure they understand that in a 24-hour system of cover, that is bound to be the case.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, we understand the shift patterns, but other reasons can affect the number of police officers on the front line at any given point. As I have said many times in this House, we leave matters regarding individual policing and independent decision-making on force deployment to chief constables, and rightly so. None the less, we are aware that we are asking the police to take some tough decisions, and chief officers are responding well to that. In turn, they have to make difficult decisions about back office, middle office and front-line police officers. We also rely on Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary which, in several reports including its most recent one, has indicated some trends which I think will be helpful to chief officers and to inform the rest of us.

Public Disorder: Eviction from Social Housing

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:16

Asked By

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with local authorities about the eviction from social housing of families with members involved in rioting or looting.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, during and since the riots, a number of discussions have taken place between Ministers and local authorities, and eviction was one of many issues discussed. The Department for Communities and Local Government is currently consulting on proposals to extend the existing discretionary ground for possession for anti-social behaviour to include tenants or family members who have been convicted of the sort of criminality witnessed during the recent riots, wherever that criminality took place.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that many people will find it shocking that innocent members of a family could be evicted because one member has committed a criminal offence? Are we to stand by and watch families and innocent children being turned out on the streets?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I think there would be a general view among the public that those who abuse social tenancies by whatever they do should not expect to continue to enjoy the privilege of those tenancies. It is already the case that those who are subject to anti-social behaviour orders and commit crimes within their locality are subject to eviction. The consultation on this will be a discussion of whether to extend the current powers. The noble Lord asked about the circumstances of families and children. The people who do this will be intentionally homeless, but local authorities will have the same responsibilities as they have currently.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

Is my noble friend aware that only 8 per cent of people in England are council tenants? Does she think it is fair or just that council tenants accused—some have just been accused and not even convicted—of riot-related offences should be selectively punished? Is she also aware that if and when these families are evicted, they will have to live somewhere? Councils will have a duty to house them, which may cost more public money?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I think there is probably a difference between people who are paying for their own accommodation and those who are being cared for or given accommodation by local authorities at a subsidised rent. As I said in my previous answer, this is not a matter that can be dealt with at the moment because the law would have to be changed to enable people convicted of anti-social behaviour or a crime committed not within their local area to be evicted. We have seen some spectacularly dreadful sights in our country recently and it is only right that we should be able to consider whether there are other ways of dealing with this. That is what is being done.

[Lord Kinnock]

My Lords, we are having difficulty getting answers from Ministers to the very specific Questions set out on the Order Paper, whether about consultations with the biggest of the trade unions in the British police service or on the question of families. As a compassionate woman herself, will the Minister tell us whether she believes that there should be a change in the law that would enable the families of people involved in and convicted of rioting offences to be evicted from their homes—yes or no?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I cannot possibly pre-empt consultation.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Hanham]

Noble Lords may not like my answers, but I shall give my answers. It is not up to me to decide this matter at present. There is a consultation on whether the law around anti-social behaviour and criminality in social housing, and when people can be evicted, can or should be extended in the circumstances that we have seen in this country. I do not understand how much clearer I can be. That is the third time I have said it.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, surely we are talking here about parental responsibility. I do not think that anybody in this House can feel that parents should not be responsible for their children, particularly when they are involved in riots.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, clearly, the answer to that is yes. It is also clear that a number of the parents of those who were involved in the riots did not know where their children were at the time.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, if a member of a family has allegedly committed some rioting offence and the remaining members of that family are completely uninvolved in their activities, and if they are evicted from their home and thereby lose what may be the only security they have, is it not possible that other members of the family may be driven into worse conditions and ultimately into crime?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, there are always outcomes when people behave badly. There is also a responsibility within families. We have seen awful riots. People were made homeless as a result of them. There is a responsibility within families to know what their members are doing on the basis that what they do may have an impact on their family.

Arab Partnership Initiative

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:22

Asked By

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they hope to achieve through the Arab Partnership Initiative in the wake of the Arab Spring.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, the Arab Partnership supports the building blocks of democratic societies—that is, effective institutions, political pluralism, free media and economic fairness—across the Middle East and north Africa. Working with a wide range of regional partners, including Governments, Parliaments, the judiciary and the media, we are supporting long-term economic and political reform. As the Arab spring has demonstrated, this is the only route to a more stable and prosperous Middle East/north Africa region. Supporting this goal reflects not only the United Kingdom’s values but also our direct national interests.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply. I congratulate him and his colleagues on the British Government’s robust response to and support for the Arab spring. Will the Arab Partnership Initiative incorporate some support for the public good in Iraq, where democracy is now well established with, for example, its Government’s attempts to provide health services, education, energy and a free market? Can the Arab Partnership move ahead on those fronts in all the Arab spring countries?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, it most certainly can. There are Arab Partnership funds for Iraq but they are on quite a modest scale because—as I know my noble friend is well aware—Iraq is potentially a rich country with gigantic resources of oil, phosphates and so on. Money is not the main problem; the problem lies in technical and administrative support. The Arab Partnership is involved, for example, in the development of broadcasting and accountable institutions and upholding human rights. We are working with the Government of Iraq across the whole field of energy, education and health. There is active engagement in ensuring that this potentially brilliant country comes back to the full comity of nations.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, British Arabs are not unaware of the meaning of the Arab spring, yet there are none of them in this House to give us the benefit of their advice. That is despite the fact that there are 200,000 or 300,000 British Arabs—the census will give the exact figure in due course. Does the Minister agree with me that rectification of this anomaly—it is rather an invidious position—is long overdue, not only on its own merits but in terms of the perception of Britain in the Arab world?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is not actually a matter for me. However, it gives me the opportunity to say that your Lordships' House is already much more representative of this various and variegated nation of ours than people often give us credit for, and it could certainly become more so. I agree with the noble Lord that it is a valid point.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, my question concerns Tunisia. Will the funds that have already been agreed be released immediately so as to reduce unemployment and give hope to young Tunisians? Will the Government also encourage the resumption of normal tourism right away?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I agree with the noble Lord that the tourism aspect is very important not only in this case but obviously for Egypt and neighbouring countries. It is a vast part of their economies. On the noble Lord’s specific question, the Arab Partnership is supporting democratic transition in Tunisia, providing technical assistance and political and economic reform—although, obviously, the Tunisians are taking the lead in all those things. We have an Arab Partnership programme worth about £1 million which is deliberately covering a whole range of assistance and support. That includes the matters to which the noble Lord referred.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on the Government’s extension of the scheme to up to £110 million. As the scheme was meant to be multilateral, what other countries have contributed generously to it, particularly those in the rich Arab world which have a special obligation to help their brothers?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

A number of countries have contributed but the partnership funds are mostly administered through the so-called G8 Deauville partnership and the European Neighbourhood Policy. The countries co-operating in this include Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. So there is a good support cadre working alongside us and our colleagues in promoting these aims.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, the programme is certainly to be welcomed and we share the Minister’s ambition that it should help strengthen the rule of law, democratic practice, institution building and the development of think tanks. We welcome all of that. However, can the Minister tell the House what specific targets the Government are setting and how they will measure the outcomes that will result from the expenditure of these significant sums? I suspect that the House would regard this programme as sufficiently important to wish to see a timely—not necessarily frequent, but periodic—report on progress on those specifics.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We will certainly try. It is not all that easy to pin down and specify the outcomes as time goes by. I know that the noble Lord will be the first to appreciate that these developments, particularly in the field of democracy, are owned by the countries themselves. We are not in a position to score specific targets and to tell them to get to this point or that point. That is not at all the language in which we conduct our affairs. Our respect is for these countries and for their efforts to struggle forward to better and more settled democratic structures. It will not be easy for any of them, but we will give our support and try to score the outcomes and results that we want.

[Lord Dykes]

Does the Minister accept that the Palestinians also deserve their Arab spring after 43 years? Will he and the Government work very hard to persuade the United States Government not to exercise a veto—well over the 30th since 1967—stopping Israel behaving according to international law?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As we discussed in this House earlier in the week, it would be desirable to avoid any confrontation and any vetoing. It would also be desirable for as many nations of the world as possible to carry forward their recognition of Palestine, and to move to nationhood and establish some negotiation with Israel which will point them in that direction.

[Lord Avebury]

Is it consistent with the objectives that the Minister outlined in his first Answer to my noble friend for the Government to invite Bahrain to the arms fair, which is currently being held in London, when the Bahraini security forces are gunning down peaceful demonstrators on the streets of their country?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

On the general principle of arms sales, I am sure that my noble friend would not disagree with the proposition that nations should have the right to defend themselves and that our industry and aid for that should be carefully calibrated to do so. We control the export of arms and export licences very carefully indeed. There is no evidence that our weapons or supplies have been used in Bahrain for riot control. In fact, we withdrew 18 licences for exports just to make sure that that would be so. So I do not think that there is any inconsistency. We work with Bahrain for a more positive result and an end to the violence there, which has been deplorable.

Armed Forces: Accommodation

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

11:30

Asked By

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the implications for defence service accommodation of ending the £1.5 billion programme to upgrade decaying barracks and married quarters.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are no plans to end the upgrade programme for service accommodation. However, from 2013, defence budget projections foresee a three-year pause in the upgrade of some 800 service family accommodation properties—SFA, in defence jargon—and some single living accommodation bed spaces, or SLA, each year. A further 3,000 upgraded bed spaces will be developed by 2014 and routine maintenance will continue to be fully funded. This decision reflects the substantial financial challenges we inherited from the MoD budget and our determination to protect front-line operations.

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

Is my noble friend not embarrassed that while the Government pledge support for the military covenant, of which a key element is housing, and while the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday pledged fast-tracking for 40 major infrastructure projects to help the construction industry, the MoD makes its unique contribution to joined-up government by going in totally the opposite direction and deferring essential maintenance expenditure? Apart from the obvious disadvantage to service personnel and their families, have we not learnt by now that deferring this sort of expenditure always costs a lot more in the long term?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has read the excellent speech that the Deputy Prime Minister gave yesterday morning, which I commend to the House. I am sure that many others will want to read it. We are continuing to work within the MoD budget to see whether we can generate additional funds for purposes such as these. We are being deliberately cautious in making forward projections, in contrast to the overoptimistic, even reckless, forward projections of the previous Administration in defence budgeting.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, when the Secretary of State for Defence made announcements in July and September on the welcome procurement of 14 Chinook helicopters, he did not give details of how they were being financed. Maybe we are now beginning to find out, as it now emerges that the housing improvement programme for military personnel, which was put in place by the previous Government, is being halted for three years. When did the Secretary of State publicly announce these specific cuts in the housing improvement programme, and through which channels? Also, what other cuts directly affecting the welfare of Armed Forces personnel are being made that have not been or will not be announced with quite the same vigour as, for example, the Chinook helicopter programme?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I should pay tribute to the previous Administration for their efforts to improve service accommodation. The current situation is that 96 per cent of service accommodation has now been upgraded. We are talking about some 2,000 service family houses and about the projection that, in two years’ time, there will be a pause in further upgrades. I am told by officials that the majority of the 2,000 houses that have not yet been upgraded will either have been disposed of or will have been upgraded by 2013.

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, does the Minister recall this quotation:

“Poor accommodation is an issue which is creating difficulties in retaining personnel in the armed forces”?

That was Dr Liam Fox as shadow Defence Secretary in 2007. Has the Defence Secretary changed his mind?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I assure the House that the Defence Secretary has not changed his mind, and I repeat: we should pay tribute to the previous Administration’s considerable efforts in recent years to upgrade service accommodation, which are continuing. A further 900 houses have already been upgraded since this Administration took office. We are very conscious of the importance of this programme. Perhaps I should also mention that alongside it, a substantial programme is to be undertaken in the next five years of service accommodation adjustment to accommodate troops who will be returning from Germany. That is not part of this pause.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, at every stage of the Armed Forces Bill I have raised the dire state of houses for service personnel. I asked whether the Government could look at the use of housing associations in garrison towns to improve housing earlier than he has indicated. Will he confirm that they will urgently look at this in the light of recent revelations?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As I have indicated, the MoD recognises the importance of this to service welfare and is doing everything it can to ensure that the programme continues.

[Lord Barnett]

The Minister referred to what the Deputy Prime Minister said about increased expenditure, capital matters and infrastructure. Did the Deputy Prime Minister have the agreement of the Chancellor?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The DPM, as others do, speaks for the coalition Government as a whole.

[Lord Dannatt]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, whereas one can count what constitutes as savings in the reduction in the housing expenditure programme, you cannot calculate in the same way the cost of the impact on morale? Is he able to tell the House, either now or later, what steps are being taken by the Ministry of Defence to engage with the service families associations to inform them about the changes to the upgrade of their accommodation, bearing in mind that many of the occupants of those houses will probably now be undergoing their second or third tour of duty in Afghanistan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have asked that question of officials and I am assured that the service welfare charities and other bodies have been fully consulted on this.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, the defence estate represents 1 per cent of the land mass of Britain and is worth over £15 billion. Have the Government looked at disposing of some defence estate assets, a policy that I pursued when I was a Defence Minister? There is a lot of money there that could be used to improve the quality of accommodation for our service men and women.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I assure the noble Lord that the Government have looked at that, although I suspect that we will not follow the example of the Icelandic Government in considering selling large chunks of the defence estate to Chinese investors.

Business of the House

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Timing of Debates

11:37

Moved by

[Lord Strathclyde]

That the debate on the Motion in the name of Baroness Wheeler set down for today shall be limited to two hours and that in the name of Lord Myners to three hours.

Motion agreed.

Armed Forces Bill

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

11:37

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 14, Schedule 1, Clauses 15 to 26, Schedule 2, Clauses 27 to 29, Schedule 3, Clause 30, Schedules 4 and 5, Clauses 31 to 34.

Motion agreed.

Welfare Reform Bill

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

11:37

Moved by

[Lord Freud]

That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Welfare Reform Bill has been committed that it considers the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 31, Schedule 1 , Clause 32, Schedule 2, Clauses 33 and 34, Schedule 3, Clause 35, Schedule 4, Clause 36, Schedule 5, Clause 37, Schedule 6, Clauses 38 to 48, Schedule 7, Clauses 49 to 69, Schedule 8, Clauses 70 to 88, Schedule 9, Clauses 89 and 90, Schedule 10, Clauses 91 to 99, Schedule 11, Clause 100, Schedule 12, Clauses 101 to 136, Schedule 13, Clause 137, Schedule 14, Clauses 138 to 141.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, in the debate on this yesterday, the government Chief Whip said:

“I hope that it is noticed that I am stressing Grand Committee, not the Moses Room … I fully recognise that a number of noble Lords who use wheelchairs and have other mobility restrictions would find the Moses Room difficult, and I therefore discarded that as an option”.—[Official Report, 14/9/11; col. 753.]

She went on to describe the options that were being considered by the Director of Facilities. I know that a number of Members, particularly on the Cross Benches, supported the Government on the basis of that assurance. Just before I came into the Chamber, I was told that this information was wrong and in fact the Moses Room is going to have to be used. On the basis that the House made its decision on misinformation, I hope that this matter can now be reconsidered. I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will give an assurance to the House that since we made that decision on the basis of totally incorrect information, it is now right for the House to consider the matter again.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did not seek to alert me to the information that he had, nor has he given any information to justify what he has just said. No doubt whoever said this to him did so in good faith, but they are wrong. The basis upon which the House made its decision yesterday stands.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, I apologise for this intervention, which is, I confess, rather opportunistic. However, I have been given a copy of our forward business. I hate to say this but it lists Grand Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill as being held in the Moses Room. I assume and hope that this is a typographical hangover from an earlier iteration of the forward business. However, the House deserves to know, on the record, that we will not be using the Moses Room for Grand Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill. That seemed to be a clear undertaking that was given to the House yesterday.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for pointing out what is clearly a typographical error. If that is the source of information to which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred, it is a pity that he did not make that clear. He may have other sources of information. The assurance that I gave stands. I am not accustomed to having the veracity of my statements challenged, which is clearly what is happening. This is opportunistic. May we please proceed to the business in hand?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To be absolutely clear, I am not going to say who it was, but there is no more reliable person in this Chamber than the person who told me.

Motion agreed.

NHS Future Forum

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Debate

11:41

Moved By

[Baroness Wheeler]

To call attention to the extent of the implementation of the recommendations of the NHS Future Forum in the Health and Social Care Bill; and to move for papers.

[Baroness Wheeler]

My Lords, this is an important debate. It is the first opportunity for the House to discuss the NHS following the First Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill last week. It takes place in the context of the continuing debate, controversy and deep unease over key aspects of the Bill, its incoherence and complexity even in this, its fourth iteration.

When the Future Forum report was published in June, hope sprang eternal among the many critics of the original Bill—patient groups, specialist groups for patients with long-term conditions, medical and other staff, trade unions, carers and Members across both Houses—that the report and the Government’s response to its core recommendations signified a major change of approach and strategy. My noble friend Lord Darzi was among those who recognised this change in the language and approach of the Future Forum and the Government’s response, welcoming the stated main thrust that the quality of service and care should remain the organising principle of the NHS.

We on these Benches welcomed the Future Forum report in the context that it had not covered all aspects of the Bill. We pay tribute to the work that the forum undertook in the eight weeks that it had to consult, deliberate and produce its report. My noble friend Lady Thornton, in response to the Minister’s Statement on the forum on 14 June, recognised that the Government’s proposed changes in response to the forum were indeed significant. Crucially, however, she urged Members across the House not to suspend their critical faculties but to wait for the publication of the revised Bill to ensure that the rhetoric was matched by the reality. We now have the reality before us. Three months on from the Future Forum report, fundamental questions remain about the post-pause Bill. Even after the Committee stage and Third Reading in the House of Commons, we are still no clearer about why this massive upheaval is needed. What is the Government’s future vision for the NHS? Who will be responsible and accountable for making decisions that will benefit patients and improve the NHS?

At the heart of the continuing problems are two issues that are fundamental to the ethos of an NHS that is free at point of need and provides a national public service. First, there is the importance of the Secretary of State having a continuing duty to ensure that we have a comprehensive NHS. Secondly, we must address the real concerns over Part 3 of the Bill, which places competition at the heart of the NHS and sets up an economic regulator that still has substantial powers to promote competition in the NHS. The Future Forum was clear on these issues and the recommendations are welcome and straightforward. However, the amendments to the Bill do not reflect that or translate the Future Forum’s intentions into legislation.

The Commons deliberations have failed to resolve the issue of the Secretary of State’s duty and role in relation to the NHS. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said in her recent Observer article, “confusion thickens”. My honourable friends in the other place, supported by authoritative legal opinion, have underlined that if the Bill becomes law then the duty to provide a National Health Service would be diluted and lost. The Government argue strongly for greater freedom for clinical commissioners from political interference. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has said,

“to throw out accountability in order to tackle petty interference is to undermine democracy itself”.

The health professionals remain deeply concerned, as seen in the letter in last week’s Times from the BMA, the royal colleges of nursing, GPs, midwives and psychiatrists, and the governing bodies for the physiotherapists and occupational therapists. They warn that the new Bill will destabilise the NHS and requires further significant amendments. They say:

“Though the language may have changed, the Government remains committed to opening up the NHS further to market forces as a priority”.

The Patients Association sums up the ever increasing complexity of the Bill and the NHS structure when it says:

“It is unclear how the original commitment from the Government to streamline the NHS and remove bureaucracy will be met by current changes—one layer of bureaucracy being replaced by another”.

How does a Bill which adds more layers and bodies—increasing the number of statutory bodies from 163 to 521—substantially increases costs and fails to provide a clear rationale why it is all necessary succeed in improving quality of care and promoting integration?

At one of the many excellent seminars that noble Lords have had on the Bill at its various stages, we were promised by the Under-Secretary at the Department of Health an organigram of the proposed new NHS. That was perhaps a rash promise in view of the sheer number of organisations it has to include, but its production would at least help us to try to understand how the reforms will work as a whole and how they stand some chance of improving the quality of patient care. We know that there is a very real risk that the increased complexity added to the NHS structure will slow down or prevent decision-making, either through more bodies becoming involved in decisions or where it is not clear which organisation is ultimately in charge. How do these reforms support effective and speedy decision-making?

After the forum report publication, David Cameron said, “We have listened, we have learned and we are improving our plans for the NHS”. Nick Clegg was beside himself with joy when he declared a great victory for his party, with 11 out of 13 demands for change laid down by the Liberal Democrat conference being achieved. However, the reality is that the scorecard result is far more modest, as a number of prominent Liberal Democrats have recognised. The Future Forum made important recommendations which have not been dealt with by government amendments to the Bill, and which the Government have consistently blocked Labour, and a few Lib Dems, from amending.

In passing, as a former chair of the Labour Party conference committee in charge of the conference’s agenda programme, I have been following with interest the attempts to block debates and votes on the NHS at next week’s Lib Dem conference. For what it is worth, in my experience, keeping issues off the agenda usually results in the people affected going straight to the media and getting even more coverage than they would have had anyway, so I shall watch developments with interest and be very thankful that I am not the one defending that position on the conference platform.

In respect of the Future Forum report, I place on record for the avoidance of doubt that, of course, we recognise that the Government have acted positively on a number of its recommendations, including the change to clinically led commissioning and clarity on the wider input from health professionals. They have also clarified some of the accountability issues of clinical commissioning groups and have recognised that the timetable for reform could not be achieved. However, many concerns and issues remain in these areas and we will pursue them as we deal with the Bill clause by clause in the coming weeks.

I return to the second major area of concern: competition and the role of Monitor. The forum raised strong concerns about promoting competition as an end in itself. Recognising the problems with the original Bill, the report recommended that it should be changed to make it very clear that Monitor’s primary duty is not to promote competition but to ensure the best care for patients. Specifically, it recommended that Monitor’s powers should,

“promote choice, collaboration and integration”.

This is still missing from the Bill. The Government have also ignored the spirit of the Future Forum recommendations that sought a greater balance between competition, and co-operation, collaboration or integration. Compare and contrast the 90-odd clauses of the Bill on the regulatory regime for competition with the woolly references to organisations having to,

“act in an integrated way”,

with no definition of integration.

The Bill remains as lopsided as ever and, for a Health and Social Care Bill, there is actually precious little about social care. However, that is a whole debate in itself.

The Future Forum further recommended that the Bill be changed to clarify that Monitor be a sector regulator for health, not an economic regulator. While the duty to “promote competition” has been removed, it has been replaced with a new duty of “preventing anti-competitive behaviour”. This flipping of the language does not substantially affect how Monitor carries out its duties, its cost and its reach across the whole NHS.

Moreover, although the Bill moves away from referring to economic regulation, Monitor is still to be given sweeping pro-competition powers, including concurrent powers with the Office of Fair Trading under the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002. These powers, alongside the power to license every provider to the NHS, have not been changed by the amendments. Monitor therefore remains an economic regulator in all but name. How will the Government address these concerns and issues? How will the issue of the role of the Secretary of State and the role of Monitor be resolved so that the service does not face constant legal challenges in the future about who is ultimately responsible and accountable for decisions, or about how commissioning has been undertaken and contracts awarded?

There are other issues. On transparency, the Future Forum recommended that all providers of NHS-funded services should hold their board meetings in public. The Government rejected this recommendation in their response to the Future Forum. This means that decisions about NHS services will be made in private, and could be marked “commercial in confidence”. The Government have similarly failed to bring greater transparency to clinical commissioning groups and foundation trusts by allowing substantial loopholes and leeway. There is a get-out clause for CCGs that want to avoid meeting in public. The wording of the Bill states,

“except where the consortium considers that it would not be in the public interest to permit members of the public to attend a meeting or part of a meeting”.

Foundation trusts can exclude members of the public from a meeting for special reasons with no explanation about what these are. This leaves this clause open to abuse.

There is also the important issue of the private patient cap and cherry picking by private providers. Professor Field, the Future Forum chair, admitted that the issue of the private patient income cap was not looked at by the forum and stated that,

“the feeling was that the private patient cap should actually stay”.

The Government have tabled no amendments to the clause abolishing the private patient cap. The implications of the abolition of the cap and increasing financial constraints that the service is operating under are already beginning to be seen. The Government’s amendments on cherry picking in the Bill only require that a provider be transparent in how it chooses its patients, and do not deal with preventing providers from picking the easiest and most profitable patients. All in all there is a very mixed and confused picture of implementation and translation into the Bill of the forum’s recommendations.

Finally, I come back to the Future Forum itself, as we now learn that its work is to continue with listening exercise mark 2—this time on education and training, integrated services, public health and information. Can the Minister give us more details of this? How does he envisage that this work will be fed into the Bill and what impact it will have on its parliamentary passage? Are we to have further amendments to, for example, the integration and information clauses? How long do the Government envisage the role of Future Forum continuing? Is it to be a permanent listening body—another body to be placed on the much awaited organigram? If so, when will the normal rules of public appointments and declaration start to apply to its membership? Are we to have further “pauses”?

Noble Lords will recognise that I set great store by getting the promised organigram. I am really looking forward to receiving it. When it comes, I will be asking myself three key questions. First, is this the structure to take the NHS forward into the future and provide the integrated care pathways that people with long-term conditions must have? Secondly, how will this help the NHS to deal with the Nicholson challenge of £20 billion savings over five years? Thirdly, will it now be easier for patients to find their way through the system and be clear who has responsibility for making decisions about their care? I think I already know the answers.

11:55

[Lord Ribeiro]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for introducing the debate. The Future Forum addressed four core themes, many of which she has covered: choice and competition, patient involvement and public accountability, clinical advice and leadership, and education and training. The latter, as she correctly described, is still work in process under Julie Moore, who led the forum’s work on education and training. The Government have accepted that deaneries will oversee the training of junior doctors and dentists, and that that will be under the umbrella of Health Education England. That should give some reassurance to the profession, but it remains unclear who should be responsible for quality assurance of training. I do not believe that a “one size fits all” approach works, particularly with respect to the craft specialties. In this, I include surgery—here I must declare an interest as a past president of the Royal College of Surgeons. Prior to the introduction of the postgraduate medical education and training board, known as PMETB, currently responsible for quality assurance, colleges had the responsibility for accrediting training. I believe that the craft colleges are ideally placed to undertake the quality assurance of training, ensuring professional clinical input under the auspices of Health Education England.

Turning to clinical advice and leadership, the forum called for multiprofessional involvement and leadership at all levels of the system. The NHS commissioning board is a good place to start. I welcome the Government’s statement that the NHSCB will establish close links with the royal colleges and other professional bodies to entrench partnership-working at the national level. The board will have a medical director and a chief nursing officer—rather reminiscent of the old days of matron, senior medical officer and administrator, who used to run hospitals before the 1974 reforms. The board needs to be independent and free of political interference.

The role of the Secretary of State has been clarified in the Bill. I know, after following the debates in the other House and the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, that there is still concern about the role, but I believe that it is clearly expressed in the newly amended Bill. The Secretary of State will have a mandate to provide clear direction to the board, and the board will then be accountable to the Secretary of State.

One of the biggest problems that any Secretary of State faces is the reconfiguration of services—in particular, hospital services. The King's Fund this month produced a report, Reconfiguring Hospital Services. The report highlights the urgent need for clinical reconfiguration of hospital services in some locations to improve the quality and safety of patient care. The ability of politicians to interfere with the process of reconfiguration is well known, and the sight of MPs of all political persuasions on the picket line outside hospitals threatened with closure is not uncommon. The evidence presented by Chris Ham of the King's Fund of the Ontario experience in Canada suggests that an independent body can make hard decisions. The health service’s restructuring commission set up in Ontario in 1996 to restructure hospital services not only achieved its mandate but saved $1.1 billion in a total spend of $17 billion. This amount was then reinvested in other services.

The commission drove the establishment of clinical networks, a recommendation made by the Future Forum, and invested in home care and long-term care to facilitate hospital closures where required. Chris Ham also noted that the process used was not dissimilar to that used in this country to support the closure of mental and learning disability hospitals in the 1990s. The Government then transferred funding ahead of hospital closure to develop community services.

We must learn from these lessons. The Secretary of State should not be concerned with operational matters, but should be focused on strategy. Liberating the NHS implies liberating the service to rely more on professional clinical leaders. Armed with evidence, backed by research—another new responsibility for the Secretary of State—evidence-based practice can be used to reform the health service.

I believe that delay is not an option. The impact of specialisation, and in particular the European working time directive, of which we have heard much in this House over the past few years, will make it impossible to provide emergency surgical cover in all hospitals with accident and emergency departments in England. The development of trauma centres in London will create a new paradigm shift in acute care management. Reconfiguration of emergency services will be an inevitable consequence of this change, which will ultimately affect all hospitals in England. The Darzi principles, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, are important. They introduced quality outcomes based on the effectiveness and safety of the services delivered, and the quality of the patients’ experience remains a fundamental principle on which, I believe, the Health and Social Care Bill can build.

12:02

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for securing this timely debate and for her thought-provoking speech and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, for his speech. I believe I speak for all my colleagues on these Benches when I say that we welcomed both the listening exercise, a process to which we contributed enthusiastically, and the report of the NHS Future Forum. We also welcome the Government’s commitments to implementing the bulk of the Future Forum’s recommendations. However, there are three broad areas—I think we shall revisit these three areas throughout the debate—on which I would appreciate further clarification from the Minister, in particular on accountability, local government involvement, health education and workforce planning.

First, it is important for the functioning of the NHS as a whole to get the Secretary of State's duties and powers absolutely right. We on these Benches have long advocated the devolution of power away from Whitehall wherever possible; and the Secretary of State should not be able to micromanage the health service. But there is a balance to be struck. The Health Secretary must remain ultimately accountable to the electorate, through Parliament, for the system as a whole; and, on the other side of the coin, he or she must have appropriate powers to intervene where the system has broken down.

Therefore, I am pleased that the Secretary of State will now have an express duty,

“to secure that services are provided in accordance with this Act”,

rather than, as hitherto, merely to,

“act with a view to securing”,

their provision. This wording ought to ensure that the Secretary of State will continue to be accountable to Parliament for what goes on in the NHS, while also recognising that day-to-day operational control rests with clinicians and managers.

I welcome, also, the clarification of the Secretary of State's powers of intervention in cases of substantial failure, and in particular the requirement that he or she be transparent in publishing the reasons for any such intervention. Set against these powers, the Secretary of State also has an express duty to promote the autonomy of other actors and players in the health service. This is a laudable duty, because it militates against political meddling. However, can my noble friend reassure me that this duty will not hamper the Secretary of State’s power to intervene when necessary in cases of failure? If there is a chance that it might have that effect, will he consider appropriate amendments to ensure that the right balance is struck?

Secondly, I am delighted to see local government attracting a greater role in the health service under the Bill. Assuming that the provisions are properly fleshed out and implemented, there is another opportunity here to press the localism agenda that is common to both parties in the coalition. The new health and well-being boards represent an opportunity to put more power in the hands of elected local representatives and their communities and so bring health and social care together in a meaningful way, but even after the Government’s amendments, the Bill leaves almost all the detail of this to regulations. Will this House have sight of the draft regulations before the end of Committee in your Lordships’ House? Will the regulations, in particular, detail appropriate outcomes, incentives and levers so that health and well-being boards are able to ensure that the integration of health and social care services actually takes place in their communities? What will happen, for example, where a clinical commissioning group and its health and well-being board cannot agree on the contents of the joint strategic needs assessment or health and well-being strategy? What recourse will there be where a clinical commissioning group strays significantly outside the provisions of the relevant local assessment or strategy? The duties of consultation and co-operation set out by the Government’s amendments are welcome, but I am concerned that they do not go far enough. There will be some situations where the health and well-being boards will need to have real teeth in order to get the job done.

Bringing public health back into the purview of local authorities is a hugely welcome development. I am glad to see that local authorities will be required under the Bill to appoint a director of public health, but can my friend reassure the House that directors of public health will be sufficiently senior and independent? They will need to have sufficient tools and resources at their disposal, financial and otherwise, to hold local authorities to account and make sure that they take their public health responsibilities seriously. In particular, will the department require each local authority to establish the post of DPH at an appropriate level of seniority, reporting directly to the chief executive? Can the public be confident that they will be adequately qualified? Will the Minister consider including this in the Bill, or at least setting it out in regulation or guidance?

Finally, education and training formed one of the four headline areas tackled by the Future Forum in its report, but is more or less absent from the Bill. While we welcome the retention of the functions of postgraduate deaneries within the NHS, the current system of medical education and training is overly complicated and was in need of reform well before the Bill appeared. However, given the impending demise of strategic health authorities, there is a danger that the existing system may disintegrate before anything can be set up to replace it. The Future Forum recommended, and the Government accepted, that Health Education England ought to be established as soon as possible with a clear mandate. I would be grateful if the Minister would update the House on progress so far on setting up the new system and the likely timetable for completing this work.

The Future Forum also recommended that education and training should be confirmed as a vital part of the core NHS, rather than established as a separate system. In the Government’s response to the Future Forum report, we were promised,

“an explicit duty for the Secretary of State to maintain a system for professional education and training as part of the comprehensive health service”.

This does not appear to have been implemented in the Bill as it stands. Will the Government bring forward an amendment in Committee to make good on this commitment?

We also understand that employer training networks—which, thanks to Future Forum, will now be known as local education and training boards, LETBs—are in the process of being set up. We welcome the move to bring healthcare providers more into the process of education and training. Will the Minister reassure the House that these organisations will be required to operate transparently and will be properly scrutinised by Health Education England?

As a result of the Government’s response to the Future Forum report, we now know in broad terms what the arrangements will be at local provider and national level, but can the Minister tell the House how strategic regional workforce development, hitherto carried out by strategic health authorities, will be carried out under the new system?

This has been a timely debate that has given us all plenty to think about at our party conferences. I will take the opportunity to update the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, on what will happen at the Lib Dem conference next week. There will be a debate on Wednesday in prime time, immediately before the leader's speech. In addition to that, our Minister will hold an open surgery. There will also be a Q&A session in the conference centre. There is no secrecy here. In addition, all parliamentarians involved in health will be available at a plethora of fringe meetings. I am more than confident that our membership will take every opportunity to engage us in debate.

I return to this one. I am sure that the House will agree that the issues of accountability, integration and education are critical to the smooth running of the NHS. We look forward to working with the Minister on these issues when we finally go into Committee later this month.

12:11

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, like many noble Lords I have very personal feelings about any health Bill and have taken part in debates on many since I have been in your Lordships' House. Let us remember that the Bill that will shortly be considered by this House is the Health and Social Care Bill. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Wheeler not only for securing this debate but for reminding us that at the moment there is precious little about social care in the Bill.

Social care has been one of the great commitments of my working life. The other has been about enabling disadvantaged individuals—clients, carers and patients—to speak up for themselves and to contribute to policy formation. How I judge proposals for change to health and social care services is therefore simple: will the new arrangements lead to services that are more organised around individuals and more integrated among all the providers of care, such as health services, carer services or voluntary and privately provided services? Therefore, I am delighted by the emphasis placed on integration and collaboration by the Future Forum report. I am not surprised, because calls for better integration always result from consultation with users, carers and the third sector, and the forum made excellent use of the networks of members from patient and user organisations.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to page 20 of the Future Forum report, which reminds us that the provision of integrated services is rarely dependent on structural change. It states:

“The reality is that the provision of integrated services around the needs of patients occurs when the right values and behaviours are allowed to prevail and there is the will to do something different”.

I will illustrate how we can do something different by telling noble Lords about Trevor. He is an Afro-Caribbean man in his 30s and a severely ill bipolar patient. He is treated by both health and social care services. He is an in-patient on many occasions. Staff try to get him to attend daycare when he is not in hospital so that his medication and behaviour can be monitored. Noble Lords will know that the average day care centre is not very suitable for a man like Trevor and he rarely attended, resulting in frequent breakdowns and hospital admissions. Last year staff decided to try a personal budget for Trevor. They worked with him to decide how it should be spent. He decided that he wanted karate lessons. For nine months he has been going to karate lessons almost every day in his local gym. He has become very good at karate, he is fit and stable and he has had no hospital admissions in that time. Moreover, when he is asked what benefit he has gained, Trevor says that he feels good and is a better father to his children.

Now this took place in one of the commissioning consortia pathfinder areas, but it is rare. We have not yet dealt with the problems caused by the mismatch in timing in the development of personal healthcare budgets and social care budgets. I fear that there will not be as many examples of such innovative practice as we need to see going forward.

Harry Cayton, writing in 2006 about patients as entrepreneurs, said that we got very near to enabling patients to have some real autonomy with personal budgets, but we stepped back from the brink as we were afraid of losing control and of what they might do with it. He said that we must not be afraid in the future. I am sure that that is absolutely right, but I fear that we are still afraid.

We still have the problem that commissioners may be focusing on the wrong problems. If you talk to a group of GPs, you will find that they are very clued up about the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease and even about its prevention. That was entirely appropriate when we had the worst record in Europe on cardiovascular disease, but the problems that face us now are not like that. They are about chronic illness and long-term care, and we still have a long way to go before we are innovative in that area.

The new amendments place a duty on local commissioning groups to consult health and well-being boards and HealthWatch is to ensure the involvement of patients and the public in policy and commissioning decisions. I worry that the plans for local healthwatch bodies have the potential to create conflicts of interest, as they are accountable to local authorities, the very bodies that commission and provide the services that HealthWatch is to monitor. Moreover, the consortia, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, has reminded us, are under no obligation to abide by the views of the health and well-being boards, so I think there are some real questions about how much influence those boards can have. I very much endorse her call for them to have sharper teeth.

In addition, although some progress has been made toward coterminosity—that awful word—between consortia and local authorities, the populations for which consortia will be responsible will in fact be based on the practice lists, not on geographical boundaries, so there may be the sort of problems that those of us who have been around a long time have seen many times before of health and social care professionals trying to work across geographical and administrative boundaries.

My principal worry about the patient and public involvement issue is that all my experience shows that structural change does not bring about integration and collaboration, either within a service or across services; it is people and proper communication about the assessments of need and the point of view of the patient that bring that about. That was the example that I gave about Trevor.

However well intentioned the changes—and I am sure that they are well intentioned—that have been made as a result of the Future Forum’s work, have they really led to systems and structures that are in fact more complex and more difficult to find your way around, even for the professionals who work in them, let alone consumers when they are concerned and anxious? If you can ever find a flow chart about the new system—and they are pretty hard to find—they make your hair curl, as they look like one of those very elaborate electrical wiring diagrams. That is pretty difficult for any user, carer or patient to follow. I am concerned about the staff who are trying to administer such complex structures, anxious as they often are about their local position and jobs. They are anxious about the different paces at which different things are happening at local and national level, and I think that the complexity of the system will make that even worse.

I am also concerned about the mismatch that we now have in timing between a very major reorganisation of the NHS, in spite of promises that were once given about there being no such thing, and the very major reorganisation of the social care system as a result of the Dilnot commission, about which we still await government proposals. Will the NHS changes be set in stone by the time any decisions can be reached about social care?

I want to say a word about prevention. It is always a balancing act between quality and affordability. Services which prevent crises rather than intervene once crises have occurred are always vulnerable at times of financial restraint. How are commissioning boards going to see services that are not at present urgently needed but which are a good investment because they prevent crises developing? For example, I believe that some research about telecare shows that if you spend £1 now, it saves you £4 down the line. Will such investment be made?

I hope that the Minister will reiterate the Government’s commitment to prevention in heath and social care and will assure the House of their commitment to ensuring that social care is given equal status and importance with healthcare and that the reconvened Future Forum will have a clear programme of work and a timetable with regard to the integration of services. The temptation to focus social care on those with high needs and no means is very great. One of the ways of countering this short-sighted view is to remind ourselves that social care must achieve the same status as healthcare in future. In other words, it is not the province of the poor and feckless. It is in all our interests, and especially in the interests of commissioners, to ensure that it is understandable, which means that the current proposals are far too complicated. It must also be free from fear about affordability and provide dignity, safety and peace of mind. I remain to be convinced that the Bill that will shortly be before us will bring that vision closer.

12:22

[Lord Rea]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Wheeler for providing us with an overture, if you like, to our forthcoming debates on the Health and Social Care Bill and for her excellent speech. I apologise for missing part of it. There was an unexpected closure of the Jubilee line, which I am afraid is not uncommon.

Despite the listening exercise and the Future Forum report and a huge raft of government amendments for Report state in the other place—there were 700 amendments just for changing commissioning consortia into clinical commissioning groups—the Bill remains largely intact, not altering its unstated aim of opening up the NHS to a wider range of providers, including, not exclusively, the profit-making private sector.

There have been some improvements arising from the Future Forum report. I welcome the inclusion of hospital doctors, public health specialists, nurses and lay members in the clinical commissioning groups. Will the Minister confirm that they will have among their members or closely advising them an expert healthcare public health specialist, whether clinical or non-clinical? It is vital in helping them to plan.

I think there are too many loose ends in Schedule 2, which describes the membership and structure of the clinical commissioning groups. Too much has been left to regulations. Surely the composition of the groups should be stated in the Bill or in a schedule and some indication of the number of CCGs should be given. Are there going to be 100, 150 or 300? There should also be some indication of their catchment populations. As my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley has just said, it is going to be very difficult to arrange for coterminosity with CCGs being based on practice populations. Many feel that the population of 300,000 covered at present by the average PCT is too small for proper planning purposes, and some are already merging. Doubtless these issues will be covered in much more detail during the passage of the Bill.

A further change, which has been welcomed, is in the wording of the duties of Monitor. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, has said, “duty to promote” competition has been converted to “prevent uncompetitive behaviour” in contracting. In practice, I think the changed wording may not be very different. Uncompetitive tendering or contracting surely means that before a contract is made with an NHS body, the independent and third sectors must be asked to make a bid. There are now a large number of British, European and American for-profit healthcare corporations ready and waiting to put in such bids. As we all know, many are already working inside the NHS. I do not think the change of wording is very meaningful. It enshrines in law what has been going on at an increasing rate since the Government of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, first introduced compulsory tendering in the mid-1980s.

Private corporations have an advantage over third sector or in-house NHS bids because the complexity of public contract regulation and case law is now quite formidable and developing further. There are quite draconian remedies and penalties for breach of regulations. There is a real risk that there will be a deficit of suitable expertise within each commissioning group. They will probably have to bring this expertise in from outside, although I understand there are words in the Bill that seek to prevent this. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that. Like clinical commissioning groups, third sector or NHS bodies are also unlikely to have enough in-house expertise in procurement law and may not have the resources to bring it in from outside. Commercial organisations, on the other hand, need to have recourse to it in their everyday work in order to survive in the commercial world and large firms will have considerable in-house expertise. This gives them an advantage in making attractive proposals that are compliant with regulation, and of course they may also be loss leaders—the more likely the larger the firm.

I do not have time to go through every change following the Future Forum’s report. Nick Clegg, for the Lib Dems, has said that 13 of their 15 requirements for the Future Forum have been secured. Closer scrutiny of these shows his assessment to be somewhat overoptimistic. One example concerns cherry picking by private providers. The Liberal Democrats had a requirement that new private providers should be allowed,

“only where there is no risk of cherry picking, which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met”.

In fact, private providers will be able to cherry pick by choosing to take on classes of patients with fewer complications, and will remove these patients from NHS hospitals which will thus lose the tariff payment that they would otherwise get. Unfortunately, there is no time to go through the other 12 Lib Dem requirements. Suffice to say that I am happy to supply any noble Lord with a list of these.

In conclusion, this has been a useful preliminary canter for our forthcoming debates. I hope that we will get further suggestions from the Future Forum regarding what has been discussed by a number of noble Lords; that is, research and training opportunities, and regulations and changes which will solidify the role of the Government in promoting these activities.

12:30

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I, too, welcome my noble friend’s ability to secure this debate today because it gives us a chance to limber up for the marathon that now approaches in a few weeks’ time. I also endorse her view and that expressed by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley with their timely reminder that this is a health and social care Bill. I should declare my interest as a member of the Dilnot commission on the funding of social care. It is important that we do not shut the door on changes in social care in this Bill that would help the NHS to face some of its challenges for the future. I have in mind particularly some of the non-financial aspects raised in the Dilnot report, such as assessment and integrating better the assessment of people for adult social care and NHS continuing care. That is one of the great and difficult boundary issues in our modern world.

Let me be clear at the outset that I fully support the need for continuing reform of the NHS. I certainly do not view the proposed changes with the same level of horror as many of the Government’s critics do. As a former Minister responsible for NHS reform, I remain a strong supporter of more patient choice and competition among a greater diversity of providers of NHS services, with an economic regulator holding the ring. We need to finish the job of separating the commissioning function from service provision. We need to give clinicians a larger role in commissioning services and to accelerate the transfer of more care and treatment to community settings across the health and adult social care divide.

However, as I have set out in a book about my own experience of trying to reform the NHS, the forces of opposition to reforming this icon are formidable. I notice the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in his place. He has, I suspect, had a very similar experience. The Government launched this blockbuster of legislative change on an unsuspecting NHS. If you do that, it is hardly surprising, if you have such a poor narrative of why this change was necessary, if you get a rather considerable adverse response. Rebellion from the usual suspects—many of whom were my old sparring partners—was totally predictable.

The NHS is a provider-dominated service with a huge element of public monopoly provision. That is the reality of today’s NHS. It is the reality of the NHS over a long period. If you attempt to change that, you must expect vociferous opposition. It should have come as no surprise that with such a poor narrative the Prime Minister felt the need to call time out and attempt to regroup. Today, we are having a peep at the regrouping, or at least at the bits we know about because the Future Forum is still at work. I hope that the Minister can lift the veil a bit more on this and explain to us what further homework the forum has been set and how long it has been allowed to complete it.

What are we to make of the changes that the forum has proposed so far? Do they improve the coherence of the reforms and the likelihood of their success? Do they improve the prospects of the NHS meeting the formidable financial, productivity and service reconfiguration challenges that it faces over the coming years? My good friend, Professor Paul Corrigan, has today produced a new pamphlet that identifies some of these problems, and I hope that all noble Lords will avail themselves of the chance to read it. Let me make it clear that I am not paid anything by Professor Corrigan for giving his work that small plug.

The proposed changes by the Future Forum seem to have pleased the leader of the Liberal Democrats, although, from my observations, many of his foot soldiers still seem to be pretty disgruntled. Although the coalition agreement advocated making Monitor an economic regulator, the reality seems to put the wind up a number of Liberal Democrats. I have not seen many NHS interest groups putting out a lot of celebratory flags as a result of the forum’s report. The disgruntlement of the BMA and other public sector unions seems little abated. Perhaps more significantly the NHS Confederation, for which I have very high regard, hardly seems to be bowled over.

If I was still a Minister, I would also be a bit more anxious about the continuing concerns of more objective and analytical observers such as the King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust. They have drawn attention, rightly in my view, to the additional complexity and cumbersomeness that the forum’s proposals have introduced. The original enthusiasm for GPs running more of the commissioning show seems to be evaporating as the hospital specialists fight back to retrieve more ground through the modification of consortia membership and the rather ghost-like senates that will lurk there. We certainly seem to have a lot of fingers in the needs assessment and service commissioning pie—the National Commissioning Board, a rump of SHA and PCT clusters posing as outposts of the board, clinical commissioning groups and health and well-being boards.

The forum seems to have helped the Government further along a path of public confusion over who is really in charge of NHS commissioning and who is accountable when things go wrong. There is now plenty of scope for dodging accountability and laying off the blame for failure. This is particularly the case in the area of service reconfiguration which the NHS needs so badly. It is perhaps appropriate that we have just seen a Health Secretary finally take a decision on service changes in Chase Farm Hospital the best part of a decade after it should have been taken. Let me congratulate the Health Secretary on showing the courage to do this eventually.

In my view, the forum’s proposals make worse the already unsatisfactory accountability for service needs assessment and the commissioning of services, and will make the much needed reconfiguration of services even more difficult. We have to concentrate more hospital specialist services on fewer sites and provide much more care and treatment in the community on an ambulatory basis if the NHS is to live within its means. This requires us to reduce expensive, unsustainable, low-quality and unnecessary acute hospital services and to transfer service resources to new service configurations with different providers from the public and, yes, the private and, yes, the not-for-profit sectors. We have to face up to moving away from the outdated business model of the all-purpose district general hospital of the 1960s.

Modifying reform in ways that make these changes more difficult to achieve is bad news for those of us who believe in a tax-funded NHS that is free at the point of clinical need, especially given the £20 billion of efficiency improvements that the NHS has to make over the next four years. These are issues to which some of us will want to return in a lot more detail during the passage of the Bill. I very much commend the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, about some of these issues.

I conclude by saying a few words about integration and competition, which seem to have produced rather more heat than light in the recent public discourse. We are all in favour of integration, but we need to understand what we are talking about. From my point of view, I think that patients benefit from integration if it is related to the delivery of services to individual patients, but they may not benefit from the horizontal integration of service providers if it simply produces mergers that create far more monopoly provision and little improvement for patients.

It is also nonsense to suggest, as some have done, that competition inevitably means the fragmentation of service delivery and is inimical to integrated delivery. It is perfectly possible to have competition for the provision of integrated services; it just depends on the commissioner’s service specification and the payment mechanisms. In the US, Kaiser Permanente and others have shown that the integration of patients’ service delivery can flourish in a competitive healthcare market. Again, these are issues that we will need to come back to in the Bill.

Let me end by wishing the Minister well as he faces the Herculean task of taking the Bill through the House, but I cannot guarantee that it will be a totally pain-free experience.

12:41

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Wheeler for the opportunity to have this debate today. We have heard reference to the start of the political party conference season. The Future Forum exercise and the Government’s response have been presented by some as a David and Goliath battle to secure major concessions on the reorganisation of the health service—plucky Nick facing up to the giant privatiser and winning while claiming that it is not about winning. But we have the wrong bedtime story here. It is not David and Goliath but more like Little Red Riding Hood. I appreciate that the noble Earl might appear to be an unlikely wolf, but let us not forget that even the wolf dressed up in a frilly nightcap and adopted a soft voice. There are more questions than answers here, and some of the original questions remain. Why is there to be a major upheaval of the health service when all the staff are working flat out to provide a good and comprehensive service? Why are more quangos to be created rather than fewer? What will be the real role of Monitor in its revised format? And why are we giving £80 billion to the NHS Commissioning Board, the daddy of all quangos?

Since the Future Forum listening exercise, and here I must commend the diligence of its members, a revised Bill has been presented which we will debate in this House in October. But the Bill gives rise to new questions. First, in revised Clause 1, the Secretary of State’s powers and duties are closer to the current duty as set out in the NHS Act 2006, but as has been said, the phrase “to provide” has been deleted on the grounds that,

“having the premises and the staff necessary to offer health services directly does not reflect the reality of the situation in which commissioning and provision rest with the NHS bodies, not the Secretary of State”.

I think we all accept that no matter how hard they might try to distance themselves, the political reality is that Governments will always be held responsible for the state of the health service. So why should we worry about semantics, and indeed, is it about semantics? The Government’s response to the Future Forum exercise stated that the Bill would,

“make explicit that the Secretary of State remains fully accountable for the NHS”.

That sounds fine, but where is the responsibility for social care, a question also asked by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley? What will be the definition of the NHS further down the line if providers are private companies? I am not a lawyer and I have no idea what the legal implications of this change mean, but I am a graduate in English language and literature. I know what “to provide” means and I am concerned that the significance of this omission will grow and grow as the years go by.

My concern is heightened because the responsibility for defining what constitutes the health service is being transferred from the Secretary of State to clinical commissioning groups. While the Secretary of State is still responsible under the new system for the promotion of the health service and ensuring that it is free of charge, clinical commissioning groups will determine what services actually constitute the health service. Just when I tell myself that I am worrying unnecessarily, I am then reminded that in the summer, the Health Secretary instructed primary care trusts to identify three services to be put out to contract. I am supposed to be reassured that the new private providers will not be allowed to cherry-pick, but the Bill only requires transparency in how patients are chosen. It says nothing about the easiest and most profitable types of treatment to provide, which could still destabilise the National Health Service.

I turn to the role of Monitor. The language is definitely softer: its primary duty is no longer to “promote” competition, but to prevent “anti-competitive practices”, a point already raised by my noble friend Lord Rea in his contribution. The Minister in the other place has claimed that this is a fundamental change and that Monitor’s main duty would be to protect and promote the interests of people who use healthcare services not by promoting competition, but by promoting the economic, efficient and effective provision of healthcare services. Again, I would love to ask a seminar of English language undergraduates to write a critique of the difference between promoting competition and preventing anti-competitive practices; drinks on the Terrace for the best essay. The Bill gives Monitor powers to fine hospitals up to 10 per cent of their turnover for anti-competitive behaviour and a new duty to promote integration. What exactly will that mean in practice? Could we see a situation where a hospital which is struggling financially is forced into the arms of a foundation trust in the name of integration? Who will pick up the overdraft? Beware the big bad wolf.

Finally, we come to the issue of what happens if Monitor declares a commissioner’s arrangements for the provision of health services to be ineffective, perhaps where it has failed to comply with procurement regulations. Indeed, what will happen if a service runs out of money? The Government have not yet presented their revised plans for a failure regime. The Minister’s explanation was that they would not rush their proposals for such a regime as it is a complex issue and they want to “get it right”. That is the second time this week that I have come across the “get it right” reason for having no information on a vitally important topic. The first time concerned regulations on the way in which the self-employed would be treated under the Welfare Reform Bill. At some stage we really need an organigram, also called for by my noble friend Lady Wheeler, setting out what the new structure will look like, who is in charge and how social care fits into it all. Without it, I hope that Little Red Riding Hood will stay on her guard.

12:48

[Lord Sawyer]

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Wheeler for initiating this debate. It is very clear that the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill has been troubled and that deep-seated concerns have been expressed by stakeholders across the health sector over the past few months. The Government have made some changes to their NHS reform proposals following the legislative pause and listening exercise, overseen by the NHS Future Forum. What was put forward by the forum was seen by many as a workable set of recommendations, and in fact 16 were made in all. However, the Government’s efforts to take forward revisions to the Bill based on those recommendations have led to further serious questions from all sides. In some areas the recommended changes have not gone far enough or have been missed altogether, and even where there have been improvements, there are serious worries that they have been made at the cost of introducing new complexity and bureaucracy into the National Health Service. An already multifarious piece of legislation is sadly becoming even more complicated.

The Government have made some effort to listen to and address some of the concerns that have been expressed about the Bill to date. Despite some improvements over the summer and despite there being some positive aspects to the reforms, it is apparent that real, deep-seated problems remain.

An unbelievably wide range of voices in the health sector, such as the NHS Confederation, the King’s Fund, patient bodies as well as trade unions including the British Medical Association and Unison, have expressed concern about the unacceptably high risk posed to the health service in England as a result of the Bill. That is why those organisations are calling for the Bill to be withdrawn, or at least to be substantially amended, before matters proceed.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Rea that the Bill continues to place inappropriate and misguided reliance on market forces to shape services, which is lamentable. It is very clear that the general direction of policy travel, such as widening patient choice to any qualified provider across a much larger range of services, has the potential to destabilise local health economies. That is also implicit in the Bill, which embeds a more central role for choice without full consideration of the consequences and creates ambiguity about how the trade-offs between increasing patient choice and ensuring fair access, integrated care and improved efficiency should all be managed.

In addition, insufficient thought has been applied to the unintended knock-on effects and long-term consequences of proposals in the Bill, including for medical education and training, public health and the patient-doctor relationship. Excessive complexity and bureaucracy are associated with the changes made to the Bill to counter the lack of proper checks and balances in the original proposals. Furthermore, much detail is still lacking, being left to subsequent regulations and guidance.

The focus on the changes flowing from the reforms is already creating a noticeable distraction from efforts to ensure and improve the quality of patient care today. Anybody who works in the health service, as I do from time to time, must be distraught at the time-consuming issues that employees have to tolerate and the uncertainty that arises from the proposed legislation. This is at a time when the NHS is expected to find an unprecedented £20 billion in efficiency savings over four years. What is happening is quite remarkable.

There are still many areas that need to be addressed. The Bill seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State retains overall responsibility,

“to secure that services are provided”,

while giving operational independence for the delivery of healthcare to numerous bodies, most notably the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups. This has been the subject of much debate and will no doubt continue to be so, but most outside organisations believe that insufficient assurance has yet to be given that the Secretary of State will have ultimate responsibility for the provision of a comprehensive health service while allowing other bodies such as the commissioning board day-to-day operational independence. There are still big questions to be answered in that area.

The Bill establishes a new system of economic regulation of health and social care. However, there should not be a reliance on market-based policies that risk further fragmentation and destabilisation of the National Health Service. Increasing patient choice should not be a higher priority than tackling fair access and health inequalities, meeting need, promoting integrated care and optimising resources. Those are the things that should be properly reflected, underlined and given priority in any legislation.

The proposals relating to public health still require further changes. Public Health England should be established as a special health authority of the National Health Service and all specialist public health staff should be employed on national NHS terms and conditions of service. It is also important for directors of public health to be made accountable jointly to the chief executive of the local authority which they serve and to Public Health England.

It has already been said by other noble Lords that an effective education and training system is fundamental to preparing a suitably trained workforce for the future. To achieve this, oversight of education and training must occur simultaneously at both national and regional levels. The structural reforms proposed by the Bill must not undermine this. The Government say that they will bring forward amendments to safeguard education and training. I look forward to seeing the detail of those proposals.

There must be a robust and transparent process which has the full confidence of the NHS when it comes to how failing trusts are dealt with, in order to protect the interests of patients and the public. The Government have reversed proposals to use private sector insolvency processes to manage NHS provider “failure” and introduced amendments in the other place outlining new proposals. However, it is important to ensure that these proposals are sufficiently robust to do the job. Questions about this will need to be asked when the Bill reaches this House.

Despite the numerous changes made to the Bill and movements in policy following recommendations from the Future Forum, more work needs to be done to ensure that the Bill does not pose significant risks to the future of the National Health Service. If the forum makes further recommendations, they should be listened to and acted upon.

12:56

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am very pleased that my noble friend Lady Wheeler has put this Motion before the House today. The timing is perfect: we are within a few weeks of the long awaited Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill; and we are within a few days of the party conferences, at at least two of which, my own and that of the Liberal Democrats, the threats to and future of the NHS will be near the top of the agenda for our members. What happens at the Conservative Party conference is probably as much of a mystery to the Minister as to the rest of us. However, we do know from announcements made by the Prime Minister from one of his holidays this summer that he thinks that it is “job done” as a result of the work of the Future Forum, and that the Government's proposals now have widespread support from staff and patients. I could not help but wonder at what point the Prime Minister made this announcement and what particular beverage he might have been enjoying at the time.

However, as I said in your Lordships' House when the Future Forum was established, as well as when it reported, it is a political fix by the Prime Minister and his Liberal Democrat deputy. One of them had realised that his Secretary of State was not a safe pair of hands and had succeeded in uniting the whole medical profession—patients and patient groups—against his proposals; the other had just had a disastrous set of election results, lost a referendum and received a good kicking from his members at the Liberal Democrat spring conference in March. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, described the reforms at that time as privatisation by stealth and said that they amounted to a plan to dismantle one of the most efficient public services of any in Europe.

Of course, I do not hold the Future Forum responsible for its genesis. I accept that all its members have acted in good faith and worked hard in the service of the public. I also accept that they did broadly a good job within their remit. However, it has to be said that the whole of this Bill is topsy-turvy. Instead of consultation, pre-legislative scrutiny and a draft Bill, and a legislative process followed by implementation, we have implementation speeding ahead and an initial consultation on a White Paper whose responses, it has to be said, were largely ignored by the Secretary of State when they did not accord with his plans. Indeed, that evidence included a large number of “buts” and raised many issues. Many organisations thought that the White Paper contained some very risky proposals.

Then a Bill arrived without the evidence base that the noble Earl has always said should be present before legislating. There has been no pre-legislative scrutiny. Frankly, if ever a Bill would have benefited from a Joint Committee of both Houses, this is it.

Then, halfway through its Commons stages, there was an unprecedented pause and a listening exercise, which should have taken place at the outset. We have the Future Forum. This body, which has made many recommendations about amendments to the Bill, has no authority other than being appointed by the Prime Minister. The people making recommendations and active in public life on a much smaller scale than this, with much less responsibility than the Future Forum, are subject, as are all of who have been governors of schools, to completing a register of interests. None of the Future Forum has done so. That is not a satisfactory or businesslike way to proceed with creating public policy and taking it forward into legislation.

Yesterday, I wrote to the noble Earl about Future Forum mark 2 and what influence its deliberations might have on the progress of the Health and Social Care Bill in your Lordships' House. I look forward to an answer to that. I have asked whether we will have a pause and whether we will be seeing amendments resulting from the Future Forum's deliberations.

I now turn to what the Future Forum has already said and I will use the Liberal Democrat’s aspirations for the Future Forum and what it should bring into the Bill as my guide. We know that the Prime Minister thinks that the Future Forum has done the trick, but what of his deputy, Mr Clegg? Mr Clegg had 13 red lines. On this side of the House, we believe that seven of those have failed and six have fallen short, as my noble friend Lady Wheeler has said. I think that his score card stands at C plus, but my noble friends behind me think that that is probably too generous.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Wheeler for reminding the House that our duty in this House is to the NHS and the nation. It is our duty not to suspend our critical faculties when we look at the Bill. We believed that this was a deeply flawed Bill from the outset, but at least it was coherent. We now think that it is immensely more complex and bureaucratic. Ultimately, it will be more expensive for the taxpayer. That was mentioned by my noble friends in different ways.

Much has been said already about the Secretary of State’s powers in the Bill. I suspect that that issue will test the House’s powers of understanding and literacy, as my noble friend said. I also suspect that some of our lawyers will probably engage with it as well, so I will not refer to that in my remarks today. I want to look at some of the other issues that the Future Forum has tackled.

On more democratically accountable commissioning, we have to say that that has failed. The relevant clauses of the Bill do not yet contain elected members or councillors on commissioning consortia, while health and well-being boards are able only to give their opinions to consortia. Consortia are under no obligation to abide by that opinion. The call for a much greater degree of coterminosity between local authorities and commissioning areas was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley. Practice lists do not bear any relation to local authority boundaries, by and large, so they are not a reliable solution to this problem.

A call for no decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed consortia, has failed. As my noble friends have said, consortia will not be as transparent as PCTs currently are because they do not have to abide by the Nolan principles on public life and the public meetings legislation. It is left up to them to decide what business to conduct in private and not in public. That is unsatisfactory and we are talking about billions of pounds of public spending. We have failed there.

Then there was the call for the complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers undercutting NHS tariffs and to ensure that healthcare providers compete on the quality of care. There is no doubt that something has been achieved here. However, there will continue to be a number of NHS services not covered by the tariff with greater competition from private providers. That means that price competition for those services has not been ruled out. So that has failed.

We need to turn to cherry picking, which could destabilise and undermine existing NHS services relied on for emergencies and complex cases. We have failed completely on that point. The Government’s amendments addressing cherry picking require only that a provider be transparent in how it chooses its patients. It says nothing about preventing providers picking the easiest and most profitable patients. Furthermore, picking patents is only one part of cherry picking. Private providers will also be able to pick the easiest and most profitable types of treatment to provide—elective surgery, for example—while leaving the NHS to do the expensive loss-making treatments such as emergency inpatient care. Nothing in the government amendments prevents that and therefore risks destabilising those NHS services.

There was a call for government commissioning to be in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and freedom of information laws. The Liberal Democrats were particularly concerned that freedom of information should be extended throughout the Bill. That has not happened. It is an important priority for our discussions when we look at the Bill. Billions of pounds’ worth of public money and millions of people's treatment are at stake.

We also had a call for ensuring that health and well-being boards are a strong voice for accountable local people in setting the strategic direction for co-ordinating the provision of health and social care services. There is a failure there. Consortia are under absolutely no obligation to abide by the views of health and well-being boards. So we go on. I will leave the failure regime, which was introduced at such a late stage, for our attention in a few weeks’ time.

I am so pleased that there are Members in both Houses of all parties and across this House who are turning their attention to the actuality of the Bill and its applicability. I highly commend the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and other Liberal Democrat Members—noble, honourable and plain activist—who have not swallowed the line that now all is well with the Health and Social Care Bill. I know how difficult it can be to find yourself at odds with your leadership, your party and your own Government. I have been there many times over the past 30 years. But in this case, our first duty is to the NHS, its patients and those who work in the NHS. We must proceed by not looking at theoretical structures and esoteric arguments. We must look outside the Chamber and hear the clinicians and patient groups and let them be the guide to what happens to the NHS in the future.

13:07

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that this has been a timely debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for calling it and all noble Lords who have spoken and contributed so eloquently. To pick up the baton handed to me by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, who remarked what big plans my colleagues and I have in the Government's programme of modernisation of the NHS, the debate has indeed covered a great deal of ground. I will do my best to cover most of the key issues in my speech. To the extent that I do not, I will of course follow up those points in writing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, asked why we needed to legislate at all. The Health and Social Care Bill seeks to create a stronger, more responsive and more innovative NHS—an NHS led by clinicians, with patients in control of their own care and with a resolute and unflinching focus on results. We must streamline the architecture of the health service to improve its efficiency.

My noble friend Lord Ribeiro directed us towards exactly the right starting point by referring to the core principles underpinning the Bill. Despite widespread support for these principles—and there has been such support—some thought that the detail of the Bill could be improved to better support those principles. So we took the unprecedented step of asking a group of independent health experts, the Future Forum, to recommend changes to the Bill. I would like once again to thank Professor Steve Field, the members of the NHS Future Forum, the hundreds of organisations and thousands of people who contributed to the listening exercise. We accepted all of the forum’s core recommendations and we have since made significant changes during the Bill’s Second Committee stage. I cannot accept the criticism of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, of the process. Stakeholders have in fact welcomed how the forum conducted itself—for example, Mike Farrar of the NHS Confederation and Hamish Meldrum of the BMA. I believe that the process has been hugely positive and has helped us to improve a number of our plans in different ways.

First, I would like to run briefly through some of the key changes that the Government are making. My noble friend Lord Ribeiro, as might have been expected of him, referred to clinical leadership. Some were concerned that too narrow a group of clinicians would be charged with designing services, so we have amended the Bill to place stronger duties on commissioners to ensure that all relevant health professionals are involved in the design and commissioning of services at every level—including clinical networks in relation to specific conditions and new clinical senates for broader areas. The governing bodies of clinical commissioning groups will need to appoint at least one registered nurse and one secondary care specialist.

The noble Lord, Lord Rea, questioned whether there would be public health input into the commissioning process. The Bill should require commissioning consortia or groups to obtain all relevant multiprofessional advice to inform their commissioning decisions, including public health but also other types of advice. The authorisation and annual assessment process should be used to assure this. We will make sure that a range of professionals plays an integral part in clinical commissioning of patient care and we have amended the Bill to place stronger duties on commissioners to obtain that advice.

We are committed to harnessing the benefits that competition and choice bring for patient care but let me make it clear, particularly to the noble Lords, Lord Rea and Lord Sawyer, that competition will never be about serving the interests of corporations. It will be about serving only the interests of patients and we have made changes to the Bill to reflect this. We have removed Monitor’s duty to promote competition as though it were an end in itself. Instead, it will be under a duty to support services integrated around the needs of patients and the continuous improvement of quality. The choice of “any qualified provider” will be limited to those areas where there is a national or local tariff, ensuring that competition is only ever based on quality, not price. That will also ensure that there can be no cherry picking. I will come back to that point in a moment. There will be and can be no privatisation of the NHS. In fact, it will be illegal for current or future Ministers, the NHS Commissioning Board or Monitor to favour the private sector over the public sector, or indeed vice versa. While some will undoubtedly disagree, what matters is the outcome of care provided and the end results for patients, not the nature of the provider—public, private or otherwise.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, suggested that we had not implemented the Future Forum’s recommendations on board meetings being held in public. It is not correct to say that we have not amended the Bill in regard to that, as we have made it a requirement for every clinical commissioning group to have a governing body with decision-making powers. To enhance transparency and accountability, governing bodies will be required to meet in public and publish their minutes, while clinical commissioning groups will have to publish details of contracts with health services. Openness and transparency will be the bedrock of a new, more patient-centred, outcome-focused and accountable NHS. We have amended the Bill in the way that I have described but, in addition, we have said that the governing bodies of commissioning groups must have at least two lay members: one to champion patient and public involvement, the other focused on overseeing key elements of governance such as audit, remuneration and managing conflicts of interest. Foundation trust governing boards will also need to meet in public.

The theme of integration loomed quite large in a number of noble Lords’ contributions. Excellent care often means integrated care. We have strengthened the NHS Commissioning Board’s duty to integrate services and introduced an equivalent duty for clinical commissioning groups. Health and well-being boards will be required to involve the public when identifying local needs and developing the joint health and well-being strategy. In future, I think there will be far more effective arrangements than exist currently for ensuring joined-up working across the NHS, public health and social care—a theme picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley. We will have an NHS Commissioning Board setting common frameworks in which clinical commissioning groups commission services, a regulator to ensure that standards in care are met and greater transparency of outcomes, which will drive up efficiency and quality. I add that we have asked the NHS Future Forum to look at integration as part of its continued conversations with patients, service users and professionals. The forum will report back to Ministers later this year on what it has heard.

The pace of change has also caused concern for some people, so in a number of areas we have made the timetable for change more flexible. No one will be forced to take on new responsibilities before they are ready to do so. However, those who wish to progress more quickly will not be prevented from doing so.

Let me now turn to some of the specific concerns which have been raised during the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and my noble friend Lady Jolly referred to the Secretary of State’s duties—concerns that were echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer. At present, the Secretary of State has a duty to provide or secure services himself but delegates that responsibility to strategic health authorities or primary care trusts by directions. Generally, he delegates nearly all his commissioning responsibilities to SHAs or PCTs, but he has the powers to alter that and vary the extent of delegations. Under the new system, the function of arranging the provision of services—that is to say, commissioning—will be conferred directly on the board and clinical commissioning groups by Parliament, providing stability for the system and removing the Secretary of State’s ability to intervene arbitrarily in the day-to-day management of the commissioning process. That will free up those with the relevant expertise to focus on commissioning the best possible services for patients, free from political micromanagement.

Ministers are accountable for the NHS and will remain so. The Bill does not change the Secretary of State's overarching duty to promote a comprehensive health service, which has underpinned the NHS since it was founded. The Bill simply makes it clear that it should not be the responsibility of Ministers to provide or commission services directly. That should be the job of front-line organisations, free from interference. We are putting patients and professionals in the driving seat in order to create better quality care and better value for taxpayers.

The noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, said that there was not enough in the Bill to provide clarity. I understand why he makes that point. Every Bill that we scrutinise in this House needs to get the balance right between what is on its face and what is in regulations. We have republished our delegated powers memorandum, which sets out our justification for taking the delegated powers that the Bill proposes, and I hope that memorandum is well read and scrutinised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and others including the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Sawyer, suggested that we were adding layers of bureaucracy. I think the noble Baroness said that the number of bodies would be increasing from 163 to 521, if I did not mishear her. I simply cannot accept that; it is not true that we are creating additional bureaucracy. The changes we made to the Bill as a result of the listening exercise do not create any extra statutory organisations at all and I do not recognise the figure that she cited. We remain absolutely committed to our promise to cut bureaucracy. We are removing layers of management by abolishing 151 PCTs, 10 strategic health authorities and half of the national health quangos. Administration costs across the health system will be cut by a third in real terms by 2014-15.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, spoke generally about the Future Forum recommendations, particularly about some that in her eyes the Government did not accept. We accept all the core recommendations of the Future Forum report but there are some areas that need further work before the final decision is taken. Those include further work on the feasibility of a citizens’ right to challenge poor quality services and lack of choice, and work to improve how continuing professional development is provided.

Some but not all of the forum’s core recommendations to the Bill require amendments to the Bill. For example, clinical networks and clinical senates will be hosted by the commissioning board, and will not need to be provided for by amendments to the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, asked about phase 2 of the Future Forum’s activities. We announced in August that the forum will provide further independent advice on four themes: information, education and training, integrated care and public health. While the first phase of the forum’s work focused largely on the Bill, the second is focusing on non-legislative aspects of the reforms. It will report back to the Government later this year and publish its advice, as I indicated earlier, and we will draw on that advice as we work to implement the reforms across the piece.

My noble friend Lady Jolly took up the subject of education and training, which was also the theme of a number of other noble Lords’ contributions. It is vital that any changes to the funding of education and training have to be introduced in a careful phased way that does not create instability. We are therefore going to take our time to develop the proposals, working with our health and social care partners, and through further consultation. We will be publishing more details about that in the autumn and will bring forward an amendment in due course.

We think that individual employers with appropriate professional input and leadership are best placed to plan and develop their own workforce and assess what workforce and skills are needed on the front line to provide affordable, safe and high-quality care. Health Education England is being established to support healthcare providers and provide national oversight of workforce planning, education and training. It will be a lean and expert organisation and will provide leadership for effective workforce planning and the provision of high-quality education and training that supports innovation, value for money and better skills. We have also been working closely with strategic health authorities, which are managing the transition to the new system.

I turn to specific questions about the subject of competition, an issue raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheeler and Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord Rea, among others. “Promoting competition”, which was the original wording in the Bill, could have been interpreted in a number of ways. It could have been interpreted as proactively encouraging new providers of NHS-funded services to come forward or existing suppliers to compete for more services, irrespective of what was in the best interests of patients. Addressing anti-competitive behaviour is about preventing potential abuses by providers and commissioners to ensure that the system works in the best interests of patients. “Promoting competition” might also have been interpreted as requiring action where Monitor felt that there was insufficient competition in place, such as where there was a single dominant supplier of a particular service. The Bill now provides that Monitor should consider acting in such cases only if the provision of services is not economic, efficient or effective, or if a provider is abusing its market position to the detriment of patients.

A number of noble Lords were worried about cherry picking, especially the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. Those two noble Lords in particular were mistaken in their analysis of the position. We have consistently said that we would prevent private companies from cherry picking easy, profitable NHS services. We fully agree with the Future Forum’s call for additional safeguards against private providers being able to cherry pick profitable NHS business. We have made changes to the Bill to ensure that competition is about quality, not price; for example, there will now be a specific duty on Monitor to ensure that providers are paid in line with the complexity of the cases that they treat. Providers will have to set and apply transparent eligibility and selection criteria.

In her wide-ranging speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, also covered the subject of the private patient income cap. Professor Field told the Commons committee in June that the Future Forum heard a wide range of views on that subject. He expressed the personal view that, because of the mixed views on this area, the forum could not make a strong recommendation as a body. In the eyes of many, the current cap is arbitrary and unfair. Foundation trusts tell us that the private income cap is unnecessary and restricts their ability to innovate and maximise income to deliver improved NHS services. We are confident that, as and when the cap is lifted, private income will benefit NHS patients. We are determined that that should be seen to happen. However, we will explore whether and how to amend the Bill to ensure that foundation trusts explain how their non-NHS income is benefiting NHS patients.

My noble friends Lady Jolly and Lord Ribeiro and the noble Lord, Lord Warner, spoke about reconfiguration. Although I have extensive notes on that important subject, I suspect that there is not time to cover it now. However, we will no doubt return to it, as we will to the many questions asked of me by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley.

I shall cover a couple of smaller issues. My noble friend Lady Jolly asked whether directors of public health would report directly to the chief executive of a local authority. We expect directors of public health to be of chief officer status and to report directly to the chief executives of local authorities. We are engaging with local government and public health stakeholders about how best to ensure that they have appropriate status.

Now that the Bill has passed to this House, I look forward to the debates that we will have in the weeks and months ahead. In preparation for those, my office will be in touch with interested Peers to arrange briefings with the Bill team and Library officials about any of the issues that we have been debating today and indeed any others that are troubling noble Lords. Those are likely to take place between Second Reading and Committee.

On the question of organigrams, I refer the noble Baroness to the original White Paper that we published, which contains a rather good one. We will also shortly be publishing a statement of accountabilities in the NHS, which will set out the roles and responsibilities of each organisation in the system.

Thanks to the excellent work of members of the Future Forum, the Bill has the potential to free clinicians to lead, to enable patients to take control and to focus the NHS on improving the quality of outcomes—principles that I hope we can all agree upon as we move forward to the next very interesting stage of the parliamentary process.

13:28

[Baroness Wheeler]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, particularly the update from the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on the Liberal Democrat conference programme. As noble Lords have said, this is a timely debate; it is a precursor, an overture or a limbering-up for the debates that we are about to have. I am sure that we are all looking forward to that in the coming weeks. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Royal Assent

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

13:28

The following Acts were given Royal Assent:

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act,

Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

Independent Commission on Banking

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Debate

13:29

Moved By

[Lord Myners]

To call attention to the report of the Independent Commission on Banking; and to move for Papers.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, in the words of Hunter S Thompson, banking is a,

“shallow money trench … where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs”.

As he is claimed to have said, it also has a negative side.

I propose to avoid politics in my contribution today. I am mindful of Bill Shankly’s observations about the importance of life, death and football, and the matter of banking security, probity and safety is too important to fall back into cheap political point-scoring. However, I shall ask several questions and I am delighted to see the Box filling so that the Minister has no excuses for not answering questions, either in the House or in writing afterwards.

The purpose of the Motion is to discuss the Vickers report of the Independent Commission on Banking. To me it has been rather like a Chinese dinner: I felt quite full after I had first read it but within a short period I became hungry again. It simply fails to address some of the most critical issues currently confronting us in establishing a safer and more economically effective banking system. The Chancellor of the Exchequer sent the ball into the long grass a year ago when he established the Independent Commission on Banking. This dog has come back with the wrong ball.

Let us start with a little context, particularly in the circumstances of the horrendous loss announced by UBS this morning, here in London—a loss of $2 billion, apparently as a consequence of trading by a single person in exchange-traded funds. The current situation in continental Europe feels very similar to the one that we experienced in the UK in the summer of 2008, in the months before I joined the Government. In particular, French banks appear to have lost the confidence of professional depositors, particularly dollar depositors. Major banks are now selling at less than half their price to book value. Senior credit default swaps are trading at a premium of 350 basis points. Funding is taking place at 130 to 150 basis points over LIBOR. These are exactly the conditions that we saw afflicting Royal Bank of Scotland in the early autumn of 2008. France is not alone in these problems. It simply is not a sustainable situation. An early and massive recapitalisation of the European banking system along the lines of the action that we took in 2008 is now absolutely imperative.

Turning to Vickers, there is a massive lacuna in the report. Vickers spends no time at all examining the causes of the collapse of the banking system. He learns no lessons as a result of it. He appears to have completely overlooked a number of the issues in his terms of reference. He says nothing about moral issues, which he was asked to address. Nor does he say much that might inform the UK Government’s negotiations with other countries and multilateral agencies—an explicit requirement in his terms of reference. He does not examine radical solutions; size-capping is not on the list. He does not look at the case for proposing a new enterprise bank along the lines of KfW. He is strong in assertion but weak in evidence in many cases, and frankly lazy in one particularly important piece of evidence. That said, it is better than doing nothing. On that basis, most critically, we should get on with it, rather than delay implementation as has been suggested.

Vickers does not ask core questions about the role of banks. As I said, he fails to opine on the causes of failure; rather, he falls back on the assumption that there will be future failures, so we should find the best way of mitigating and managing them. Ring-fencing and increased capital will help in some way but they will not address the core failures of management and governance, which were at the heart of the banking failure. Put simply, bad management can burn through capital very rapidly. This is not addressed at all by the Independent Commission on Banking, which says nothing about the governance of banks, the competence of their boards of directors or, indeed, the role of the owners—the shareholders—who have been strangely silent. The most critical thing that shareholders can do is to appoint people to boards of directors, yet they stand somewhat distant from that. Over the next year or so I shall strongly urge, through the Kay review, that we change our approach to the appointment process for directors of public companies to put this very much in the hands of institutional investors as members of nomination committees.

The ICB does not reflect on the role and responsibilities of banks in our society and economy. Let us look at it in context. For more than 180 years until the mid-1980s, bank assets in the UK very rarely stretched either side of 50 per cent of GDP. Over the past 25 years, that figure has risen to 600 per cent. I see no evidence that there has been a concomitant increase in economic or social benefit. It has been achieved, on the whole, by leveraging up the impact of a declining return on assets to manufacture a continued, sustainable—or, as it emerged, unsustainable—level of return on equity by putting more and more risk into the banking system. The regulators failed to spot it; they failed to take any action. In many respects, the Independent Commission on Banking has simply swallowed hook, line and sinker the lines produced by the bank lobby on the importance of credit and the banks in supporting the economy.

Let us look at some facts. British banks have assets and liabilities of more than £6,000 billion. Is that significant to UK industry? Loans to UK industry and business—big, medium and small—are approximately £200 billion. Less than 3 per cent of the total assets of our banks are accounted for by loans to business. A further £1,000 billion represents loans in support of home purchases. The remaining £4,500 billion or so is used simply for speculation. If jobs are at risk as a consequence of changes in the banking system, they are not, on the whole, the jobs of ordinary folk. The jobs that would potentially be at risk from Vickers if he had come up with radical solutions are those of international bankers and speculators.

Vickers had to meet some simple tests: to foster a more stable and competitive banking system; to promote resilience; to facilitate resolution; to remove risks to public finances; and, finally, to promote responsible competition. My judgment is that Sir John and his commission have proposed several measures that will reduce risk and be good for the economy in promoting stability. However, in many places the logic of his thinking is poor and there is an absence of strong supporting data. On the issue of competition, Vickers has completely failed to come up with appropriate solutions. Most importantly, the proposed timetable is unnecessarily generous to banks and bankers, creating continued uncertainty and posing numerous risks of moral hazard in the interim—hazard that past experience suggests may be abused by banks.

I turn now to the detail. First, regarding ring-fencing, the key words are “strong” and “flexible”. The proposal is sensible but will the ring-fence hold? The intention is clear. Flexibility in what is inside and outside the ring-fence is preferable to prescription. However, it is difficult not to conclude, on reading the ICB report, that it believes that separation is inevitable. The arguments for rejecting separation but proposing segregation are among the weakest in the ICB’s report. The ICB clearly intends the split to be real. It talks about strict limits on cross-funding, the need for separate boards of directors and independent chairmen, and disclosure by both banks of a standard appropriate for the Stock Exchange. In saying that this is better than full separation, the ICB advances some frankly naive arguments. It says that,

“benefits from the diversification of earnings would be retained”.

This is nonsense. Investors diversify their portfolios and risks through portfolio construction.

The document says that the supply of capital might be available if required. Again, one would be wrong to assume that a cheap supply of capital should come from a related party. If a bank needs more capital, it should turn to its external shareholders. It goes on to say that agency relationships for one-stop shopping might be attractive. I cannot believe that the Vickers commission really believes that nonsense. It talks about shared expertise and states:

“Some operational infrastructure and branding could continue to be shared”.

It is very clear in my mind that Vickers believes that the banks will be forced by their shareholders to split, so I do not know why he did not recommend that. I simply do not understand why the ICB stopped at a halfway point, save under the pressure of lobbying from the banking industry. Who in the mean time will monitor this ring-fence—the Bank of England, which failed on the whole to see the emergence of the crisis? I think not.

On capital, UK retail banks should have 10 per cent core equity capital plus loss-absorbing capital—bail-in bonds or cocos—of a further 7 to 10 per cent. Banks were clearly inadequately capitalised before the crisis and were overleveraged. However, as I said, no amount of capital can make up for bad management or poor stewardship. Vickers’s proposals are actually not significantly higher than those in Basel III. He does not reflect at all on the availability of supply of non-equity loss absorbing capital. He makes an assumption that this capital is available, which I find very questionable. Radical solutions, such as addressing the offsetability of interest against debt in bank capital structures, are simply not considered by Vickers. He has adopted a very conservative, central line approach. Nor has he given any serious consideration to the emergence of “shadow” banks or the passporting of activities by EU-based banks into the United Kingdom to come under the ring-fence.

On the issue of capital, the UK’s four largest lenders have risk-weighted assets of about £2 trillion, implying a need to raise at least £140 billion of as yet untested, and therefore expensive, securities. Vickers expresses no view and seeks no evidence to test whether that type of capital is available. What are we going to see? We are going to see liability management in which some forms of debt will be forced into loss-absorbing debt. We are going to see bankers charging higher margins for their loans, lower margins on deposits and almost certainly paying no dividends. The only dividends that we can expect from UK banks in the foreseeable future will be distributions of debt instruments.

I wish to ask the Minister about some practical issues in this respect. Will the continuing uncertainty about the treatment of senior debt lead to a buyers’ strike? Both Lloyds Banking Group and RBS plan to issue £10 billion to £15 billion of such debt instruments next year. There will be serious consequences for the funding of those banks if this uncertainty is not addressed. What will the Government do to mitigate this? Has HMT received assurances that the ICB’s proposals will be compatible with the European Commission’s CRD4? Mr Banier has said that he broadly supports this but I wonder whether he had actually seen the Vickers report when he was in Marseille last Friday. Perhaps the Minister can tell us that. Perhaps the Minister can also tell us, if the banking system is going to be made secure and safe, whether the bank levy will be dropped because surely we do not need the bank levy if the banking system is secure as a result of the Vickers proposals.

On competition, Vickers gives no serious consideration at all to the size of banks. No serious proposals are examined to encourage new entrants. No proposals are made to establish a national investment bank along the lines of Germany’s KfW. There is no obvious reason why a challenger bank will emerge, yet he almost forces Lloyds into the arms of National Australia Bank—a bank which has been active in the UK since 1987 and has done nothing which seems to me to represent innovation, customer service and challenge. Frankly, he has dropped the ball on competition completely and yet ducks the issue of putting banking to the Competition Commission for a period of time rather than at least starting a slow burn review. Where I say that Vickers has been lazy is over the economic impact. There is an assessment that the cost of the ICB’s proposals will be £4 billion to £7 billion per annum for UK banks. Where did Sir John get this figure from? Amazingly, he got it from investment bank analysts. He simply averaged the number produced by investment bank analysts, which were guesses not forecasts—teenage scribblers, as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, once described them—based on trying to anticipate what Vickers was going to propose. It is quite extraordinary that a senior economist could put forward such a number as viable.

On the timetable, quite frankly—I am aware that I am at my time limit—Mr Bob Diamond will not be here until 2019. The other leaders of our banks will not be in office until 2019. It is just an extraordinary risk to allow this situation to continue. There is no reason given—we recapitalised the banking system over a weekend in 2008—why something much more radical could not be done in the interim. In the mean time we live in a world in which the sort of extraordinary events announced by UBS this morning can take place. Does the Minister accept that if that $2 billion loss had been incurred by Royal Bank of Scotland or Barclays, the Treasury would potentially stand behind those banks? Does the Minister accept that we underwrite that gambling casino spirit until 2019? If Royal Bank of Scotland comes to the Treasury and says, “In the light of Vickers we want to split our bank into two, and by the way, Minister, we now think you could sell the retail bank but the taxpayer will be left with the casino bank”, will that be acceptable to Her Majesty’s Government?

I would like to ask many other questions but I realise that I am time-limited. I look forward to the response from the Minister, an ex-banker. I am only sadly disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, the Treasury Minister, is not responding to this debate on behalf of the Government. I beg to move for Papers.

13:46

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, the whole House is greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for enabling us to debate the important subject of the report of the Independent Commission on Banking in the week in which it came out. He said that he did not want to engage in party politics. None of us here does; that goes without saying. In the spirit of agreement, I point out one particular area where I agree with him. As far as I am aware, this is not something which has been raised before he raised it today, but I hope the Government will agree to it—that once the proposals recommended in the Vickers report are implemented, the bank levy should be abandoned. That makes excellent sense and I hope that the Government will respond positively to it.

However, it is remarkably quixotic of the noble Lord to have raised this subject—although I and the whole House are delighted that he did—because, of course, the Government of whom he was a member produced the most disastrous and dysfunctional system of bank regulation imaginable—I absolve him completely from it; it was in place before he took Gordon Brown’s shilling—and are therefore highly culpable. They are not uniquely culpable. I agree with the noble Lord’s comments about causes. The root cause is the greed and folly of all too many bankers. Most of us are subject to greed and folly. The problem with bankers is that the temptations are greater and the consequences are graver. However, that is all the more reason to put in place a really effective system of bank supervision and bank regulation. I deeply regret that the previous Government tore up the greatly improved system of bank supervision and bank regulation which I put in place in the Banking Act 1987, and, as I say, put in place something which was completely dysfunctional.

Incidentally, I hope that we can have an assurance that the legislation will be separate and discrete and not something tacked on to some other piece of financial legislation.

What is important, however, is that the Vickers report, although not perfect, is actually rather better than the noble Lord, Lord Myners, indicated. There are some omissions. I have not read every word of the report but I regret, for example, that there is, as far as I can see, no discussion of the Board of Banking Supervision which I created under the 1987 Act and played an important role in by, in short, enabling some poachers to become gamekeepers—some recently retired investment bankers and commercial bankers who would give extremely good advice to the Bank of England, which had responsibility for this area. They had a duty to give that advice. That arrangement was destroyed by Mr Brown and it should be resuscitated. I do not see anything about that in Vickers.

Nor do I see anything about the role of bank auditors, which is very important. Again, one of the things that I introduced in the 1987 Act was a regular and important dialogue between the bank auditors and the bank supervisors, whereby each could inform each other, to create a more effective system and be more aware of when things were going wrong. Again I say to the Government, a recommendation on this front came unanimously from the most recent report of the Economic Affairs Committee of this House. I hope that we will have an opportunity to debate it in, I stress, this Chamber at a reasonably early date.

What Vickers did was be extremely tough on capital requirements and loss-absorbency requirements. It is right to be as tough as that. However, the timing is important and, bearing in mind the state of the economy, it should be phased in gradually, although the Government must commit clearly to doing it and not let the banks erode it at the edges or anywhere else.

However, the most important issue to which I should like to address most of my remarks is the structural separation proposal in the Vickers report—the separation between what it calls retail banking and investment banking. Retail banking is a bit more than retail banking, but nevertheless that is the jargon. I have to admit that I did not do that in the 1987 Act, but the reason I did not is that, at that time, there was a de facto separation which had been there for ever. All of us can remember that we had the so-called joint stock banks and investment banks which in those days were known as merchant banks. They were completely separate organisations with separate cultures. Very often the merchant banks operated on a partnership basis, which is an important difference. There were two different sorts of institutions and cultures, and that worked extremely well. We now have to introduce that by law.

I return to the noble Lord, and what happened when he was a Minister. It is now two and a half years since I first wrote a piece in the Financial Times calling for this separation. The noble Lord was the Minister responsible. Did he respond to that? Not at all. He is now keen on separation, as far as I can make out, but he was totally uninterested when I proposed it in March 2009.

Although I do not have time to go into them, the important points are laid out in Vickers, which states quite clearly why this is necessary. The question is whether the ring-fence will be adequate or whether complete structural separation is needed. I fear that the ring-fence will not prove adequate. You will not get the two different cultures, which is absolutely vital. There is the idea that different boards will make all the difference. For a time in the early 1990s, I was on the board of Barclays Bank. It is not the boards that can ensure that this happens; it is the management that are important, not least because it is they who get the bonuses. If you have one top management, you will effectively have one culture. There is also only one group of shareholders if there is not complete separation. Therefore you will not get the benefits we seek.

Complete separation may well be seen to be necessary. I therefore hope that the Government, while implementing ring-fencing and doing it without delay, will monitor it very carefully. If there is any sign that the measures are inadequate they should seize the opportunity to go further, and make it clear in advance that they will do so. The arguments against it are weak in the extreme, as the noble Lord said. Why is the idea of the one-stop shop so important? One thing that it does is reduce competition; but the Vickers report was meant to promote competition. It is completely absurd. The report says something very darkly about there being legal impediments to complete separation. I assume that it must be referring to EU law, but that is an avenue and whole new dimension that I do not have time to address.

In conclusion, I should like to make to the Government one practical suggestion that relates to the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Myners. This was the biggest disaster area of all the disaster areas in British banking, as a result of which the Government on behalf of the taxpayer have the largest stake. As the proprietor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Government now have a great opportunity, which does not need legislation, to separate out the retail banking from the investment banking within the group and to have two separate companies. I am not talking about privatisation; that will come later. At this stage there should be two separate entities with a separate board and management on the retail and small business side—the old joint stock banking side—that will provide the money that small and medium-sized enterprises need at present. You will then have an entity that has no other raison d’être but that.

13:57

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Myners, on initiating such a timely debate. Indeed, it is so timely that some of us have been struggling to read every last word of the Vickers report before we drafted our speeches. Indeed, some may have failed to do so.

It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who, at Second Reading of the Banking Bill last year made the most powerful case I have yet heard for splitting retail banking from wholesale and investment banking. When he did so—and I supported him—the mood was very different from that of today. Those who argued for a complete split or for a firewall were in a small minority. There were some noble exceptions, including the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ford. Indeed, the mood of the time was admirably captured by the noble Lord, Lord Myners, who said:

“I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that the separation was not something that I and the Government reject because we believe that it cannot be done. We believe that it can be done but do not believe that it is necessary that it should be done”.—[Official Report, 10/3/10; col. 282.]

In the same debate the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said:

“My own party does not have a definitive view on the right way forward in terms of structure”, [Official Report, 10/3/10; col. 279.]

of the banks. I am very pleased that the Conservative Party now has a definitive view.

Why then has this mood changed whereby we now have a near consensus for at least what Vickers is proposing? It is partly because over the past 18 months there has been a growing realisation of the advantages of making such a change. For example, I have been struck by the comments of Sajid Javid, a Conservative MP in another place, who was an investment banker on Wall Street when Glass–Steagall was in place and remained an investor as it came off. He described in words of one syllable how the banking in which he worked started to behave much more riskily with the funds available. It is a very compelling argument.

It has also become even clearer that if anyone had hopes that the banks would mend their ways, those hopes were forlorn. There have been a number of examples of that, including the continuing unwillingness to lend to many small firms on reasonable terms, and the continuing payment of huge salaries and even bigger bonuses. Like the heart attack patient who continues to have a daily full English breakfast, the banks have gone back to business as usual.

If there is now almost total agreement on the desirability of separation, what are the concerns and pitfalls? Clearly, cost is not an issue. Although it is easy to mock the cost estimates that have been produced, nobody is mocking their order of magnitude. If the order of magnitude of cost is £4 billion to £7 billion, the fact that broadly speaking that equates to the bonuses that bankers pay themselves each year gives some sense of how difficult that is likely to be, particularly against the estimated annual cost of another banking crisis of £40 billion. I suspect that we will hear no more, even from the BBA, about the cost of the proposals.

The next question is: how can we be sure that it works? The noble Lords, Lord Myners and Lord Lawson, expressed concerns about the efficacy of the proposals. How do we know that we will get what we want? Some people were particularly concerned to read in the papers yesterday that Bob Diamond says that Barclays can live with the proposals. I must say that that was not a reassuring comment.

However, a number of aspects of the proposals, if implemented, should give us at least some confidence that they may be effective. No doubt other noble Lords, like me, will have had a wry smile when it was suggested that the basis on which many of the risk principles should be applied should be that currently used under building society legislation, given that it is the demutualisation of the building societies that has led to some of the problems with which we now find ourselves. However, that legislation, that framework, is tough and it would be very sensible to use it.

I take the point that independent boards have their limits, but they are better than nothing. The principle that the ring-fenced bank and the other entities in the same group should operate no more favourably than third-party relationships is sensible. It is also sensible that the ring-fenced bank should meet its regulatory requirements on a stand-alone basis.

The other factor that will be crucial in implementing the proposals effectively is the way in which the new PRA operates. Surely, if that new organisation is to be worried about anything in its reputation, it will be that it manages to regulate the newly divided banks effectively.

What about the timetable for implementation? Vickers said that:

“Early resolution of policy uncertainty would be best”.

Despite the Government’s support of the principles of Vickers, the only way we get the ending of uncertainty is by early legislation. Here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. We will shortly have before Parliament the financial services Bill. It is fit for purpose in implementing Vickers. That should be possible because, I suspect, much of the detail of implementing Vickers will be not for primary legislation but for secondary legislation, and even more for the rulebook which the PRA will draw up. My very strong preference is to use that Bill as an enabling Bill for the legislation that is required to implement the principal proposals in Vickers. I very much hope that that will be the Government’s working assumption in the advice and guidance that they give to parliamentary counsel. I see no reason in principle or practice why a separate Bill would be more desirable.

How quickly should this be implemented? Vickers says by 2019 at the latest—not, incidentally, before 2019. Like other noble Lords, I think that that is too long. I cannot believe that it is necessary, given the work that is needed in the banks to do it. I think they would probably prefer to get on with it now that the die is cast.

Secondly, we must remember why we are doing this. We are doing this to protect the country against another banking crisis. Although I am an optimist by nature, I am not 100 per cent certain that we will not have another banking crisis before 2019.

Vickers talks about other aspects of banking which I do not have time to deal with today. In my view, the Vickers proposals are a necessary part of making the banks the servants of their customers and the country rather than their masters.

14:05

[Lord May of Oxford]

My Lords, I join others in my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for giving us this debate. I also express my gratitude for the privilege of hearing the incisive analysis of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. Perhaps I should also explain why a theoretical physicist who had a mid-career transmogrification into an ecologist and epidemiologist is having the cheek to speak in a debate about banking.

In 2006, in a very prescient way, the US National Academy of Sciences and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York put together a study on the premise that in the increasingly elaborate things happening within financial systems with the aim of maximising profit for minimum risk for individual institutions—allegedly— nobody was thinking about the system as a whole. The NAS and the Fed put together a study that was going to focus on systemic risk. In doing so, they drew in people from cognate disciplines where there might be some read-across—ecology, epidemiology and the electricity grid. It turns out that the electricity grid is not so interesting because we really understand how it works and how switches can control it.

As a result, when the crisis manifested itself a couple of years later, I spoke with friends at the Bank of England. I have been working with Andrew Haldane, the executive director of systemic risk at the Bank of England and some of his very able younger people, following through those ideas about what might be called systemic risk in banking ecosystems. The first conclusion, which I cannot emphasise too strongly, is that there is a huge gulf of difference between natural ecosystems and complex banking systems—not least in that ecosystems, for all their complexity, are simpler. If you think of them as networks, nodes in the network—to be technical for a minute—are species and the connections are that they eat something or something eats them, and the like. In a banking network, the nodes are banks, which have all sorts of things coming in from outside and inside the system, and all sorts of things getting out from inside and outside the system—networks of networks.

I wrote a turgid paragraph in the paper which Andrew and I published emphasising that difference. Andy captured it rather better by saying:

“In financial ecosystems, evolutionary forces have often been survival of the fattest rather than the fittest”.

That caveat having been issued and emphasised, the simple fact is that the recommendations which emerged from the work of the National Academy of Sciences/Federal Reserve Bank are strongly in support of the major recommendations in John Vickers’s independent banking commission report. Specifically, if very telegraphically, first, perhaps I may read from an op-ed that Andy Haldane and I wrote in the FT:

“Are big banks less prone to failure? The traditional economics of diversification suggest so. By scaling up balance sheets across different classes of asset, risks to portfolios will tend, on average, to cancel each other out”.

In general, that seems like a good idea. It is a good idea for individual banks, one by one, reinforced by Basel I and II.

If you look at complex systems in the round in nature, you find that they tell a different tale. Very often, scaling up risks in that way causes them to cascade rather than to cancel out. The conclusion from that is that the present situation in banking is, in many respects, perverse. All banks becoming diversified—spreading risks—means that they become more homogenous, whereas if they were all different and one failed that would be it. The homogeneity and the linkage refer to the system as a whole, and there is genuine tension between the interest of the individual and the interest of the whole, between diversification of individual banks and diversity of the system.

Some of the morals of that translate into the simple fact that, over the past decade or more, if you look at systems of that kind, if you think of the spread of infectious disease within networks, we have learnt to focus our attention on the superspreaders—HIV among people with many partners. The analogue here is the big banks. By virtue of their size, the big banks have argued that they may hold relatively smaller capital reserves and that has been the habit. All the messages of a general kind suggest that in a system like that, the superspreaders, the big banks, should hold relatively larger capital reserves and liquidity, and that is one of the firm recommendations of the Vickers report.

More interestingly, going back to ecosystems, there used to be a naïve notion that there was a balance in nature and that complex systems would be stable by virtue of their complexity, which turns out to be rubbish in ecology. Redefine the research agenda to ask what are the specific structures that real ecosystems have: as observed, that reconcile the complexity that we see with persistence and stability? One of the most important of those is modular organisation. So there are chunks that loosely connect them and there is a clear echo of that in the Glass-Steagall Act and in the desire to produce greater, if not complete, separation between retail and investment banking.

I will not inflict any more of this seminar on the House but I want to conclude by touching on two other topics which have already been broached with more authority and more force, I suspect, by previous speakers. All of what I have been talking about, much of what the analysis has been about, and much of what the banking commission report is about, is systemic risk. If I were a supreme dictator and could do one thing, I would try to forbid the trading in instruments that are so complicated that they cannot be reliably priced. It does not require much sophistication to recognise that if you have a bunch of triple B house mortgages, even though you conceal the assumption in a lot of jargon, and you are going to assume all fluctuations in individual houses are totally uncorrelated, you will have a sort of quadruple B—they will certainly not be triple A. There are more sophisticated examples of that and I would like to see us taking more steps against the inherent problem in credit rating agencies going out of business if they are too diligent.

Finally, I turn to a point raised by the other Friedman, Benjamin Friedman, distinguished professor at Harvard, who, in the spring issue of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, asked: what is the essential purpose of the financial markets? He said that it is to allocate capital efficiently in that best of systems, free markets, but that the time had come for a serious evaluation of the costs and benefits. He offers the following remarkable statistics: 30 years ago, the cost of running the financial system in the United States was 10 per cent of all profits earned in the United States; 15 years ago, the figure had grown to 20 to 25 per cent; and just before the crash the estimate was one third.

The time is more than right to go beyond the Independent Banking Commission, sound though I believe its recommendations are, to a more fundamental examination of the effective running of the financial system.

14:14

[Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach]

My Lords, in taking part in this debate I declare my interest as a vice-chairman of an investment bank based in London, not a universal bank—we do not take regular deposits so it is less relevant in that sense to this debate—and a subsidiary of a bank based in New York. I, too, appreciate the noble Lord, Lord Myners, initiating this debate, not simply because of the publication of the Vickers report but because that report has to be seen in the context of what will happen in the coming days, weeks and months in continental Europe and in the eurozone, which is very relevant to what Vickers is talking about.

Contrary to some, I think the report is a first-class piece of work. It shows a very good mind, it is tightly argued, well written and very thorough. I would have thought that there could be complete agreement on its objectives; namely, to protect taxpayers from the consequences of mismanagement by banks and at the same time to create a competitive banking system. I strongly support the objectives of Vickers. Our regulatory system was clearly not fit for purpose when the financial crisis came and it needed to be changed.

However, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Myners, was a little hard on what it said about competition. I first wrote on the subject and specialised in it when teaching at the LSE in December 1970 and, calling for an end to the banking cartel. As I look at the diagnosis of what is wrong in terms of insufficient and misdirected competition, concentration of barriers to entry, lack of transparency and, problems of switching, I think that it has gone about as far as it could. The commission tried to make recommendations to deal with that and, short of saying that you should break up the banks into smaller entities, I am not sure that it could do much more. Ever since we had a more competitive banking system, starting in the early 1970s, I do not think that, as a country, we have had a great record of competitive banking. The authorities could take more action and I think what they propose, especially in terms of the potential recommendations of the Office of Fair Trading inquiry into personal current accounts, is on the right lines.

A more difficult problem relates to creating greater financial stability through ring fencing retail banking, increasing equity in the system and strengthening the ability of banks to absorb losses. As I read the report, which I found quite tough going as it is very densely argued, I found myself asking more questions than were being answered. I suddenly realised that that was because I was making two assumptions. The first is that the reforms being proposed are a major reconstruction of the UK banking system of a kind not seen in living memory. I cannot think of any changes as major as this since Lloyd George required the banks to finance the First World War and said that in exchange they could have a banking cartel. You almost have to go back that far to see something as significant as this because it is creating new institutions, new rules, new governance and so on and doing so at the same time as we are creating two new regulatory agencies. We are really facing enormous uncertainty. In addition, the commission very honestly says that the cost is considerable, being up to £7 billion a year. The second assumption that I realised I was making was about unintended consequences. In the past 50 years, we know that international banking has been highly competitive and highly innovative, and when you have regulatory changes you have unintended consequences. In the 1950s, when the Federal Reserve introduced regulation Q in the US, we had the growth of the euro dollar market offshore in Europe. When the UK Government placed restrictions in the late 1960s and early 1970s on bank lending, we had the growth of the secondary banking system. In the years immediately preceding the financial crisis, when there was a glut of global saving and very low interest rates—very low margins in banking—we had the growth of the shadow banking market. So change creates uncertainty

Reading the report, It was quite easy—if we want more equity and we want separation, the authorities could simply say, “we need more equity and we will totally separate the activities of banks”. That is one possibility, Vickers produces another and a third would be to remain as we are. I found that the following problems were posed by Vickers. First, are we really sure that if we have a ring-fence and we have another financial panic that, if a number of banks really look as if they are going under, they will be allowed to fail if they are outside the ring-fence? Secondly, this becomes very detailed and complex, but what activities do we put in the ring-fence and what do you keep outside? That seems to me to be an issue which will create enormous controversy. Thirdly, there is the very important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Myners, to do with the loss absorbers; namely, long-term unsecured debt and so on, contingent capital and bail-in bonds. We do not have markets of any depth in these at present and yet these are critical to the recommendations of Vickers.

There is also uncertainty as to whether UK banks will redomicile, either entirely or in part, and there is also the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, that European banks could get under the wire at present and we could have a very curious structure there. Finally, there is the question of how the proposals of Vickers relate to what is happening at present in Europe, which I think is very important, because the stress tests of the EBA found that British banks are much more interconnected with continental European banks than we imagine. Altogether, I feel that there are great uncertainties in these proposals and that to rush things and go straight into legislation would be a great mistake. We need to probe and stress-test Vickers much more. It would be a great mistake to legislate too soon, because we would have the problem that they have in America with the Dodd-Frank legislation; namely, that they have general legislation with all the detail having to be worked out and nobody really knowing what the terms of doing banking are.

I welcome the fact that we have eight years before this huge potential change to the UK banking system takes place. It would be far better to take time to get it right than to rush it, threaten one of the key sectors of our economy and attempt to pick up the pieces later.

14:23

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for this debate, which is unusually timely for your Lordships’ House. This is a vital subject and the debate has already taken on a rather academic air. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, appears to give the Vickers report a beta plus query plus, the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, definitely has it in the alpha category—alpha alpha minus. I am somewhere in-between; I am a beta-alpha man on Vickers in that I think that it is an excellently argued case, but I do not think that it is a full answer to the problems that the British Government have been grappling with since 2007-08 of what on earth to do about the banks.

I had a little personal knowledge of this when I was helping as an adviser to the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, when he came back into the Government in the middle of the crisis in 2008. In that crisis, the Government had very clear objectives: to save the banking system from collapse and to save the world from falling over the precipice into another worldwide great depression. Over the succeeding six months the Labour Government—the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, ably advised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Abersoch, and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, with their great banking experience—handled this task very well, with the policies of recapitalisation and economic and international co-ordination. For all the froth of memoirs that one reads—on the whole, I am in favour of people telling the truth in their memoirs—I think that this will go down as a proud historical legacy for that Government. Indeed, if I can engage in one note of party politics, I only wish the present Government would show the same urgency and commitment to international leadership in the present parlous situation—they are clearly not doing that at the moment.

The Labour Government faced the conflict immediately after the crisis of, on the one hand, wanting to sustain lending to business when the banks wanted to strengthen their balance sheets, and, on the other, wanting to restore the banks’ profitability so that the taxpayer could get a return on the vast billions that had had to be injected into them to shore up their finances. An attempt was made to resolve that unresolved tension through the lending agreements, and under the present Government we have had Project Merlin. I am not satisfied that that has worked and I do not know that there is any answer to those problems in the Vickers report. However, the clear problem that happened after 2008 which was not resolved under the Labour Government was that, having rescued the banks, we had created a moral hazard for the future, which, I suppose, is why Mervyn King was so reluctant to get involved in the first place.

“Too big to fail”, once we accept the argument, results in an implicit taxpayer guarantee and taxpayer subsidy. This is a very real issue: I got very frightened by the substance of this issue when I read an excellent paper—Banking on the State—a couple of years ago by Andrew Haldane, who collaborates with the noble Lord, Lord May. It really frightened me and I think, as a social democrat, that the British welfare state would find it very difficult to withstand another major banking crisis on the kind of scale we have seen. We have to find some effective solution to this problem and I think Vickers, with his proposals for separation, goes in the right direction. My doubts about it are over the effectiveness of the ring-fence and the obvious fact that structural reform is not, in itself, a complete answer to the problem. After all, the Labour Government ended up having to nationalise Northern Rock, which was not a universal bank, and Lehman Brothers, which was not a universal bank either, collapsed yet everyone now thinks that it was a great mistake not to rescue it. The problems are complex and Vickers goes some way towards resolving them.

What it does not resolve, to my mind, is the key problem of access to finance for industry. I think we are going to need much more public intervention in banking in future and that this is bound to happen as a result of the higher capital adequacy ratios that we are inevitably going to impose on the banks as an insurance policy. This is a crucial issue for access to finance for innovative SMEs, which are our future if we are to rebalance our economy. It is also a crucial issue for mortgage lending and will lead to great social inequality and stress if the current rules on mortgage lending stay in place. We are going to have to have public/private interventions to try to deal with these problems—possibly a national investment bank, along the lines of what Roosevelt did in the housing market in the 1930s with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States. We should not address these problems simply by structural change.

The other point that I will make in conclusion is that these are long-term reforms. I am in favour of getting on with them: I am not in favour of a long and protracted process. They are long-term reforms, but we face a very immediate crisis. There is a real possibility of a second banking crisis as a result of what is happening in the eurozone. The British Government ought to be showing more leadership on this issue. It seems that all our Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing, while throwing out interesting ideas about the need for fiscal union, is using the eurozone as a distraction from Britain's problems, and at the same time dangling before Eurosceptics on the Conservative Benches the possibility of fundamental change in our relationship with the European Union. This is far too serious for that kind of playing about. As my noble friend Lord Myners said, we need, urgently, a plan for the recapitalisation of European banks. As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said, we are affected by this because of cross-border impacts. We cannot say that because we are not in the eurozone it does not affect us. We are deeply affected and I would like the Government to urge that on our partners. So yes, let us move ahead with Vickers—but let us also address other fundamental issues that are important to our future.

14:31

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a pension fund investment manager for the past 35 years. Noble Lords may be surprised to hear that for half of that time I have worked in banks. I am also a friend and former colleague of Martin Wolf and Martin Taylor. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, handed out marks to John Vickers. As one who sat at his feet at an Oxford college and did not learn nearly as much hard economics as I should have done, I am happy to give him a pure alpha, although he never gave me one.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, certainly knows how to damn with faint praise. He is too grudging. This is an excellent piece of work by Sir John and his colleagues. I believe that it is also an example of the old adage that politics is the art of the possible. Certainly, I and many others would have preferred a complete separation, but we are in a coalition rather than a Liberal Democrat Government, so we must be realistic about what we can get through. Sir John has judged it very well. I say in particular, to those who have waded through to the last 100 pages of the annexe, that he has shown brilliant tactical sense by smoking out all the banks' objections in his interim report and then shooting them down in flames in his final report. That is why, like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and others, I believe that it is essential that we get on with reform now. The banks have had ample time for special pleading and talking to No. 10 and No. 11. Parliament is now the right forum to progress reform, and in particular the expert Joint Committee that is starting pre-legislative scrutiny on the financial services Bill.

I see the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, looking expectantly at me. She sent me a text just before I started, saying that she was looking forward to lots of fire and brimstone. I am sorry that I have to disappoint her. We have had plenty of that already the past few weeks, not least from me, so I will focus on two key points. I have touched already on one: timing. On radical bank reform, we have won the argument about “whether”: we are now on to “when”. We should look at what the Vickers report said. There was a lot of shorthand this week about 2019, and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, repeated it. The report stated:

“The Commission naturally hopes that Government and Parliament will respond positively to its recommendations by enacting reform measures soon. Early resolution of policy uncertainty would be best”.

I will say from very long experience of turbulent markets like these that markets can live with almost anything except uncertainty. Given that the Government have clearly taken the decision, there is every case for getting on with it.

The commission also said that the Government should,

“provide clarity about its view of the Commission’s recommendations as soon as possible”,

and,

“move rapidly to put in place the necessary legislation and rules”.

It also made it very clear that 2019 was a longstop date for final completion of all the details. That is perfectly logical for getting up to the final capital requirements, but it is no argument for delay on crucial structural points.

Finally, the commission points out that,

“the economic conjuncture certainly does not reduce the need for financial reform”.

You can say that again. It states:

“On the contrary, it reinforces the need to make the UK's banking system more robust”.

Today's horrific news that a so-called rogue trader has struck again, this time at UBS, reminds us how much toxic banking risk remains in the system, and how urgent radical reform is. The problem is that big investment banks are full of rogue traders: it is what they do.

Secondly, I will say a word about culture and governance. Again, the Vickers report is right when it points out that it is difficult for regulations to work effectively when they operate against the grain of corporate culture.

[Lord Marlesford]

Perhaps I may say that I just do not think we can let the noble Lord say that this is what rogue traders do. Traders work on behalf of their bank. Rogue traders exploit their position to do things that are not on behalf of their bank. There is a total distinction between traders and rogue traders. For the noble Lord to put them together is absurd.

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

If I may say so, the noble Lord has put his finger on it; the trouble is that all these traders are working on behalf of their banks and it is about time they started working on behalf of their clients. There is a real problem of control when there is such a bonus culture and so much risk in the system.

I will move on to how we implement the separate culture of the ring-fenced retail banks, as the Vickers report recommends. The report makes another excellent and important point when it states that there is already a model in the utilities sector, where,

“independent boards are a standard requirement”,

and that,

“board independence was crucial to the survival of Wessex Water despite the collapse of its parent, Enron”.

The report recommends that on the board of the ring-fenced bank there should be a majority of directors who are independent non-executives, with a minimal crossover between these directors and members of the group. That is vital.

I see in her place the distinguished former business editor and national newspaper editor, my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, who incidentally is on the Joint Committee. I hope this does not put the mockers on her chances, but I think that she would be an ideal chairman for a ring-fenced retail bank, particularly with her recent experience on the board of Barclays. Sorry, Patience.

The Vickers report concludes:

“While corporate culture cannot be directly regulated, these measures should assist in building a separate, consumer-focused culture in UK retail banking”.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, I remember the banking set-up in London in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was at Warburg. We can recreate that within the safe part of banks. I share the worry of my noble friend Lord Newby about Bob Diamond saying that he can live with it. I very much hope that that is because he does not think that it will be implemented. Let us prove him wrong. People like him are light years away from the objectives and culture of, for example, Barclays' Quaker founders. They did not gamble or avoid tax. They saw themselves as stewards of people's savings, which they lent prudently for productive purposes so that their fellow citizens could work and prosper. That is the spirit we must recreate in our ring-fenced retail banks to make them safe. Let us get on with it now.

14:39

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, I am delighted to participate in this debate and would like to thank my noble friend Lord Myners for securing it. I draw attention to my registered interest. I am a director of NBNK Investments, which is one of the companies looking to acquire banks.

One of the South Sea bubble stocks was entitled “A company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. The evidence that I heard as chairman of the Treasury Select Committee over the years convinced me that, 400 years on from 1620, quite a lot of banking philosophy and practice was characterised by that. Essentially, privatisation of profits and socialisation of losses must give way to a more democratically functioning market system, which is more aware of its wider social responsibilities.

I am aware that we will never be able to eliminate risk in future financial crises, but taxpayers should not be required to come to the rescue again. Vickers is very clear:

“The risks … associated with banking have to sit somewhere, and it should not be with taxpayers”.

That is why structural change is essential to make UK banking more resilient. In that vein, I welcome Vickers, but I am very much aware that there are issues that the report will not tackle. For example, it will not tackle the issue of too big to fail or the issue of cross-border resolution, particularly in Europe at the moment, but it has taken a stab at it.

The characteristics of the financial crisis were, quite simply, complexity, extreme risk-taking and lack of corporate governance. Those characterised quite large parts of the industry. Vickers provides a blueprint not only for a national debate but for an international debate. I have described it as a game changer. But what is the game? There is still a lot to fill in. Is it, as Philip Stephens said in the Financial Times this week, a victory to the “bankers’ shop steward” Bob Diamond, whom he compared with Bob Crow in his appreciation of fine wine and food, or is it a real game changer? The core issue is the ring-fence. Is the ring-fence an impervious wall, or is it one with multiple gateways that are easily passable? That is the issue for us as politicians and policy-makers.

As my noble friend Lord Myners said, 2019 is an awfully long time away, and if we park this even for a year or two in Parliament, it will lose its potency. We currently have a Draft Financial Services Bill before us, and I would suggest that, after talking informally to regulators such as the Bank of England, the issues are so complex that we need to get on with it and put some of the elements into that draft Bill. If we are to have a Bill on its own, there has to be a commitment from the Front Bench that, in the next Queen’s Speech, there will be a financial Bill taking this on. We need clarity on that point for politicians and for the industry.

On the issue of the objectives of the new bodies, which we are discussing upstairs in respect of that Bill at the moment, such as whether competition should be the primary objective of the financial conduct authority, I think that those issues can all be reduced. I think the primary objective of all these bodies should be to have a fair and transparent market for financial services, which will lead to confidence. Do not say that you have to establish confidence without the ingredients for confidence. The transparency of the market is very important. To change that, we need to tackle the culture of the market. I think that if Vickers missed anything, it was looking at the issue of culture and governance.

I happen to be a member of the Future of Banking Commission, which I established along with David Davis, a former shadow Home Secretary, Vince Cable, who is now Business Secretary, Clare Spottiswoode, Roger Bootle and others. Surprisingly, one of our advisers was Father Christopher Jamison, the former abbot of Worth, because we wanted a wider concept of society in terms of the culture and philosophy of banking, and that proved to be very important. One of our witnesses was the noble Lord, Lord Green, when he was chairman of HSBC. He said:

“It is as if, too often, people had given up asking whether something was the right thing to do, and focused only on whether it was legal and complied with the rules”.

In that report, which we did pro bono, we suggested a code of conduct for the banking industry and a new professional industrial body along the lines of the General Medical Council or the Legal Services Board. If individuals in banking engage in misconduct, they would be struck off. I think that if banking wants to be seen as professional, it has to step up to the plate on that issue.

During our inquiry, we looked at the issue of culture and ethics, culture being behaviour and ethics being how to negotiate conflicts of interest. We got a very interesting contribution from Goldman Sachs, whose ethics code states:

“Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business. We expect our people to maintain high ethical standards in everything they do, both in their work for the firm and in their personal lives”.

Hear, hear to that; but ominously, there was a rider, which said that from time to time, the firm may waive certain procedures of the code. However, we do not want an opt-out. It is for us as legislators to look at such fine words to see what they mean and to put them under a microscope and ask “What will that mean in practice?”. It is only culture and behaviour that will change the financial services industry in the long term. My plea is that companies that are presently looking at their business models as a result of Vickers should incorporate that issue of culture and ethics.

But behind Vickers, we need to ask the question of what it will do for jobs and growth. That is the shadow that is overhanging us at the moment. The prosperity of society is behind all this. I remind noble Lords that economic prosperity and social stability go hand in hand, and if we forget this, we may get one but we will damage the other and damage society at the same time. We cannot afford to do that.

14:47

[Baroness Valentine]

My Lords, I am chief executive of London First, a not-for-profit business membership organisation that includes businesses from a range of important London sectors, including banks, professional services firms and their customers.

I start by joining others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for introducing this debate, but I thank him more for his swift action back in 2008. The Independent Commission on Banking has two aims: to increase stability and to increase competition. Clearly, both objectives are important and, like other noble Lords, I pay tribute to the approach that the commissioners have taken and to the experience and judgment they have brought to this difficult and contentious task.

Recent events in the eurozone have reminded us that the battle for financial stability has not yet been won, and factors beyond our control may yet have serious economic consequences. Within these constraints, the ICB has made credible recommendations about limiting the impact on UK retail banking, and therefore on the taxpayer, of any future shocks. The commission has also proposed welcome measures to encourage more banking providers to enter the marketplace to deliver more choice to businesses and consumers, pressure for lower prices and improved service, and a spur to innovation. That will support the one thing that we all want—growth.

However, a third and vital consideration has not been given equal billing: the need for the UK to maintain its global competitive position. My concern is that both in perception and in reality, Government must create a tax and regulatory framework that ensures that the UK remains an attractive place to do business. The Basel committee notes that the increased stability from higher capital adequacy ratios comes at the price of reduced economic growth. Concern has been voiced that the unilateral creation of a ring-fence and the imposition of higher capital adequacy ratios on retail banks will disadvantage the UK economy. However, it is unacceptable for taxpayers to bear the cost of poor lending decisions by banks, and better regulation can also be a source of competitive advantage, giving a more stable and reliable environment in which to do business. Confidence and trust are intangible but essential components of a successful business environment, particularly in the current climate.

The Government now have the important and complex task of finding the right place on the yield curve between risk and reward and stability and growth, and much of this devil will be in the detail. In this context, the debate about the timing of implementation is pertinent. The challenge is to do this as quickly as practicable but also to get the implementation as right as possible, and to do so based on a thorough understanding of the law of unintended consequences and the impact on growth. Not only do policy-makers need to understand the impact on bank customers and on UK and EU-regulated banks, but the changes sit alongside wider changes in tax and regulation, nationally and internationally, and an unsettled economic backdrop.

In the UK, we have strong reason to exercise particular care. Our success as a financial services centre is a vital component of our economic recovery and an Achilles heel in our reliance on the sector and our exposure to future shocks. Finance accounted for 10 per cent of GDP in 2009, which is significantly higher than in the US, almost double that of the Japanese and French, and well over twice that of Germany.

I commend the Chancellor's Statement in the Commons explicitly welcoming London's status as the pre-eminent global centre for banking and finance as well as supporting UK-headquartered universal banks. They form a key plank of our economic infrastructure, particularly given the experience of the repatriation of liquidity at the time of the last crisis, and government policy must not be indifferent to their fate. Similarly, real commitment to maintaining the City as the premier international global financial services centre is key. Although focused in London, financial services have a nationwide presence and national importance. They account for a million jobs directly, with another million in professional services, two-thirds of which are outside London. As the world's leading supplier of financial services, UK financial services contribute a net £36 billion to reducing our trade deficit. As the biggest taxpayer, accounting for 11 per cent of revenue paid in 2010, they also fund the services we hold dear.

Other countries eye our success covetously. The Chinese Government are attempting to establish Shanghai as a leading international financial centre by 2020. During the Prime Minister's trip earlier this week, the Russians sought UK expertise in setting up an international financial centre in Moscow. Others, closer to home, have long dreamt of usurping London.

With these thoughts in mind, I commend the Independent Commission on Banking for having navigated a difficult course. It is critical that we prevent any future recourse to the taxpayer. However, we must regulate so that it is safe for the UK to host a globally dominant financial services industry and attractive for that industry to call the UK home. I urge the Government to continue their dialogue with UK and foreign banks as well as with the businesses that are their customers. We must be mindful of the overall effect of the full range of post-crisis reforms, whether at national or international level, and our objective must, of course, be better, not just more, regulation, and therefore the reinforcement of the UK's competitive position.

14:53

[Lord Plant of Highfield]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Myners for initiating this timely debate. I shall concentrate my short remarks on issues to do with accountability and responsibility in the investment banking sector. These remarks are not the result of any specific expertise in the area. I am neither a banker nor an economist; I am an academic philosopher by trade. Nevertheless, these reflections, however naive, have led me in the direction of thinking that, at the very least, ring-fencing or complete separation of investment banking is the best that we should be looking to achieve, if it is politically feasible.

The character of the present banking system in the UK embodies the development of the liberalisation of financial markets pursued by both Conservative and then Labour Governments since the early 1980s. It is also the result of the growing globalisation of the economy, particularly of financial markets. As the noble Lord, Lord May, said, world financial markets are rather like an ecosystem in which a disturbance in one place can have major and unintended consequences elsewhere.

My argument is that the processes on which economic liberalism normally depends to constrain reckless behaviour have become less operative in the banking system. One of the major instruments for constraining reckless behaviour was the prospect of bankruptcy. People would make their investment decisions and their allocation of capital decisions in the light of the possible consequences in terms of bankruptcy. However, as we have seen in the past few years, this threat has become less and less plausible. This is partly because of the too-big-to-fail problem in which the bankruptcy of a major bank could have untold consequences for domestic economies and, indeed, for economies in other countries. The case of Lehman Brothers shows how unlikely it is for a large bank now to be allowed to fail. The situation has been exacerbated by globalisation. As banks are interlinked in this kind of financial ecosystem, the failure of one bank could have massive and wide-ranging consequences on the world financial system.

In addition, it seems to me that the internal controls exercised by banks on risk-taking behaviour have been eroded. By internal controls, I mean two things: the first is the role of the board of directors and its committees, and the second is the role of shareholders, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Myners. Why do I say that they have been eroded? The reason is that the products of the commercial or, if you like, disparagingly, the casino arms of banks have become extremely complex and, indeed, in the case of securitised assets, such as bundled-together mortgages, extremely difficult to understand. Often their worth is computed on the basis of mathematical models and the judgments of rating agencies, both of which are rather dubious in my view.

The economic liberalism that has allowed such assets to be created has drifted away from its original insight; namely, that economic and financial value is a product of individual preferences in a free-market context. Individuals making mortgage decisions are in that context when they initially take up a mortgage and buy a house, but as that mortgage becomes securitised, sliced up and bundled up with other people’s mortgages, those other people are also choosing mortgages for individual properties and so forth, and you are getting further away from the idea of a market value. The only way of imputing value to these securitised assets is through a rating agency using extremely complex mathematical models. If products become more complex and understanding of them is confined to a limited number of people, it is not clear how boards can properly supervise risk-taking behaviour or, indeed, have a clear sense of the value of their securitised assets. The same point applies to shareholders. There is asymmetry of understanding and information between those who are managing the assets and those whose job it is to have oversight and to determine whether undue risks are being taken.

In addition, there is asymmetry of motivation between the traders and the board. The incentive or motive of a trader on a bonus is to preserve his or her positions and not to render them wholly accountable to supervisory inspection. That is much stronger than the motivation of the supervisor who does not have that sort of financial stake. This is a consequence of the bonus culture. There have been spectacular cases, not the least of which happened today at UBS, that show the truth of this point. The ability of a trader to evade proper scrutiny and accountability is partly the result of the bonus culture and partly the result of the complexity of the assets that are being created and traded. There is an asymmetry of information and motivation between traders and those who are supposed to be supervising them. This also applies to shareholders. I am not at all clear how this can be overcome, except by ring-fencing at the very least, or, as I would prefer, a separation of investment banking.

David Hume argued in the 18th century that when we think about public institutions like banks, we should assume that people are knaves and we should try to erect institutions that protect us from that kind of behaviour. It seems that the most appropriate way of trying to protect ourselves from the utility-maximising behaviour that we all engage in, but which can have particularly dire effects in banks, is through either ring-fencing or separation.

We should be very wary of blaming the banking crisis on a failure of regulation. The bankers caused that mess and it is the bankers’ responsibility, by and large. To say otherwise is like blaming the police for criminal behaviour. Obviously regulation has to be improved and the Financial Services Authority did not cover itself in glory, but then neither did the Bank of England. We would be extremely naive to think that a new regulatory system is going to cure all the problems. It has to be a new regulatory system, plus separation of the investment banking sector.

15:02

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for introducing this debate. It is very appropriate that we are having the debate on the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I tried to get a debate on the interim report but it was not welcome, so I am even more grateful that he has got his debate today.

The noble Lord said it was the management and governance of banks that caused our present economic crisis. I disagree with him fundamentally. It is the banking system itself that is corrupt and dishonest, as I have been saying since 1997. One actually cannot blame greedy bankers for exploiting the existing system; it is the system that is wrong. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in welcoming the Vickers report, said the commission had,

“come up with an answer to the question of how Britain can be the home of successful international banks that lend to families and businesses without exposing British taxpayers to the massive costs of those banks failing. Frankly, it is a question that should have been asked and answered a decade ago”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/11; col.757.]

I posed that question. In fact, I introduced a Bill in 2008 called the Safety Deposit Current Accounts Bill, but it was summarily dismissed in the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, will know because he spoke for the Government at the time. Therefore, I have been quite used to being in a minority of one in this House. However, today I see that I have more friends on my side than I have had for some time.

The report recommends that large retail ring-fenced banks should have equity capital of 10 per cent of risk-weighted assets and that retail and other activities of large UK banking groups should have loss-absorbing capacity of 17 per cent to 20 per cent of risk-weighted assets. Unfortunately in the report there is no definition of risk-weighted assets. Perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench will tell us what he thinks Vickers meant by risk-weighted assets. I have googled it and there are various options. That ratio means that 90 per cent of large retail ring-fenced banks’ risk-weighted assets will still be exposed, as will 80 per cent to 83 per cent of large UK banking groups’ risk-weighted assets. Herein lies the rub. If one digs a little deeper into the report one discovers that risk-weighted assets represent only 50 per cent of total bank assets. Therefore, between 90 per cent and 95 per cent of deposits will remain exposed. That is why I call the recommendation of the ICB a partly secured current account.

In his Statement, my right honourable friend the Chancellor also reminded us that we are in,

“a decade-long, debt-fuelled boom that ended in a dramatic financial crisis, a deep recession and a debt overhang that is still holding back our economy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/11; col.757.]

In the light of this observation, I find it difficult to understand both his recommendations and those of the ICB. There is no doubt that the economy needs investment stimulus and that it needs it now. We can all agree on that. From where will the money for investment come? The banks legally own all the money deposited in them. That, of course, is all the money not in circulation. Therefore, most people and businesses that need money turn to the banks to raise it. However, banks provide money through the creation of new debt. Banks lend money. Yet we propose a solution that, by definition, produces new debt. Bank lending increases the level of debt. That is totally illogical.

Now that we all seem to agree that there is an overhang of debt that is holding back our economy, surely the last thing we need is yet more debt. The economy needs investment but it needs to be equity investment, not further debt. Equity investment stays in a business and remains its life-blood. Businesses need capital. Capital is an asset, debt is a burden. Contrary to popular belief, banks do not provide capital; they provide only debt. Unfortunately, the consequences of the judicial decisions of 1811 and 1848 mean that banks own all the money deposited in them; it no longer belongs to the depositors. Indeed on the day the Statement was read, on I think Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, questioned whether that contravened the Theft Act. I wonder whether my noble friend would like to comment on that.

Therefore, access to most of the money in the economy is only through bank lending. That is what the ICB and the Chancellor should have addressed. I believe they both missed the mark by not dealing with this blockage to the flow of capital into the economy. Banks’ total ownership and control of all the money they hold allows that blockage. Ownership of the money in a bank rightfully, if not legally, belongs to those who earned that money and deposited it in the bank in the belief that it would be stored safely for them and paid out according to their instructions. Current accounts hold people’s family budgets and business budgets. It is their life-blood and should not be put at any risk. Banks often say they invest savings. That is misleading. They also use current account deposits for making loans and all loans have some risk.

The remit of the ICB was to ensure that there could not be another bailout of banks by the taxpayer, yet it recommends only a partially secured deposit system. Between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of deposits will remain at risk under the partially secured system that they propose. It is too little and it is too late. Such a system is doomed to failure. Parliament needs another option. I will retable my Bill, which I have amended slightly, and that will be an alternative for your Lordships to consider. If your Lordships think you have witnessed a banking crisis, I believe you have seen nothing yet. Under the present banking system it is bound to happen and it is not very far away.

15:08

[Lord Sawyer]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for initiating the debate. It is always a pleasure to witness him in full flight on this issue, as it is to reflect on the contributions of other noble Lords who have expertise in this field. My life experience has been elsewhere and I have a limited knowledge of the university of banks and their various ways, but my interest in banks and financial services in general stems from the fact that these organisations are extremely powerful. They work in very complex and difficult ways, often unseen and unknown by their customers, and have a dramatic effect on the lives of ordinary people. That is why I intended to intervene in this debate. I want to explore what benefits, advantages and opportunities the commission on banking might hold for customers. That is what I am particularly interested in.

What does the lay person, the customer of a bank, make of the recommendations? Certainly, the ability to switch accounts more easily should be welcomed, although we have heard little of that today. We, the customers, do not want to travel in the direction of the energy industry with the ridiculously high level of cold calling that goes on to persuade people to change their providers. We hope that the Government will look carefully at the recommendations on switching.

If the retail ring fence can make retail customers’ deposits more secure and avoid the anxiety in people’s minds, it can also be viewed in a positive light. There are lots of arguments both ways around costs, viability and stability of the ring fence, but the general impression, the general consensus, and certainly what we have heard from the Government and the Opposition is that the principles are right and that we should see a programme for implementation.

There is still widespread disillusion with banks and the banking system. If these proposals do more than put in place technical mechanisms for the management of deposits, the customers need to be taken on board in a big way. I hope that if the Government decide to take this report forward, they will engage with ordinary people and customers to say what the advantages will be. At present, it is two cheers as far as customers are concerned.

The timetable seems rather long to me but I assume that in time, inside the ring fence, customers’ deposits will be safer and free from the financial speculation and exotica that scurry around the commercial banking system. I also assume that within the ring fence there will be a dedicated board of directors and perhaps different forms of governance than we have seen before that would give confidence that the banks do not wildly speculate with their deposits. This is what I should like the Government to consider.

In this period of careful implementation, which we have heard about, I should like the Government to press upon the banking leaders the importance of re-establishing trust with their customers. That can be done basically in two ways. First, they should talk to the banks about the possibility of including customer representation on the boards of the retail banks, along with the usual FSA-approved people whom I accept absolutely are necessary. Can we really have a serious conversation about having different sorts of people on the banking boards, including those with experience outside banking and who might bring a common sense to deliberations that has been absent in the past?

Secondly, there is a huge gap between the boards of banks and their customers. No matter who is on the board, the gap between the board and the customers is enormous. Banks try to bridge this gap with customer service, focus groups and other devices that are more about marketing and not at all about customer engagement. I should like the Government to open a conversation with the banks and to ask them seriously, as a result of this report and the possibility of the ring fence, and all that might happen there, what they can seriously do to engage customers more effectively in their work. I also believe—this is a really important point—that proper customer engagement can affect the behaviour of the banks. The problem in the past has been that top bankers have never had to talk to ordinary customers. If they have to engage with such customers, they just might see the world in a different way. It is important that the Government, who are our representative in these negotiations, take those points on board.

The world’s most ethical bank is the British Co-operative Bank. The behaviour of this bank is determined and shaped by the members on the board, 50 per cent of whom are not bankers, which is not a bad achievement for a bank. There are other institutions inside the Co-operative Bank which you do not find in other high street banks. It has a customer council that engages random customers in a dialogue with a top leader of the bank in order to determine how the bank should behave. I am not saying that every bank has to be a co-op bank, and I fully understand and accept that banks have a responsibility to their shareholders, but they also have a responsibility to their stakeholders, their customers and their employees. I am saying strongly that with 10 years’ experience of chairing a customer council within a bank and building society, the Vickers report implementation provides us with a new opportunity to open up a conversation with banks. Within the ring fence, I ask my friends in the banks what they can do to gain the trust of their customers once again. Can that be a bad thing? I do not think so. What can the banks do to engage customers and employees more effectively?

I know some of the answers but the answers have to be with the banks and not with me. All of us in this House will accept that customer engagement that brings the customers and the banks more closely together is a good thing. We would all support it. Let us work out a plan of how it might be done and let us see that the Government are on the side of the voters. I wait to hear.

15:15

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Myners, on achieving this debate, perhaps I may say that as I listened to him, I indeed thought of the Chinese meal that he described. He clearly got to the end, opened the fortune cookie and found a fortune that said, “Vickers has given you all that you asked for”. Then, given his position on the Benches opposite, he felt that he had to attack it for not dealing with every financial and banking problem nationally and globally. Vickers is just part, albeit a crucial and important part, of resolving our economic banking and financial crisis. We should be welcoming this with enthusiasm.

For my sins, for 15 years I was in the banking trade, primarily in the United States and in central and eastern Europe. One of the consequences is that I am a cynic. In my time I saw banks decline on the back of at least two devastating collapses in real estate markets, following the collapse of heavy industry in the north-eastern United States. I joined the Continental Illinois bank on 5 July 1982. On that morning it was the most prestigious bank and the largest lender worldwide to businesses. By that evening it was clear that fraud and incompetence in oil and gas lending had utterly destroyed the institution. But all that could be dealt with in that period because, essentially, the failure was contained. There were rescue plans, acquisitions, mergers and restructurings, but the banking system as a whole did not tumble as a consequence.

That is the change that we face today. The crises will not end, but we now live in a world of interconnectedness. That started out as a mechanism by which banks could manage risk, but essentially, through structured finance and derivatives, and the layering of transaction upon transaction on the back of an individual initial loan, a situation has been created where, rather than just the bank that directly made a stupid or fraudulent loan finding itself at risk, the whole system can be pulled down after it. What I so appreciate about Vickers is that it takes a sword and strikes right through that interconnectedness. Surely that has to be essential in what we do. The deep structural change being proposed is also, I would suggest, very hard to erode. I said that I am a cynic, and as a consequence of that, I do not believe that regulation, supervision or even living wills can, by themselves, eliminate or enable us to deal with systemic risk in our system.

Noble Lords might think that the regulators had no way of knowing in 2008 that we were entering a financial and banking crisis. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord May, described the absence of various forms of systemic analysis that he is now hoping to introduce. But, frankly, if you ignored the top bankers and talked to the people I know—I have certainly never been a top banker or a board member—one person after another could have told you that the loan books were going wrong, there was bad stuff in them, there was a lack of transparency and a crisis was coming. The noble Lord, Lord McFall, is no longer in his place, but he was chair of the Treasury Select Committee on which I served briefly. We were in the United States in January 2006 and we talked extensively with investment bankers. Again and again they would say to us quite casually, “You understand that there are storm clouds gathering and a major crisis is coming in 18 months to two years off the back of some of the ridiculous home mortgage lending that has been happening in the United States”, and they mentioned various other problems. Trying to tell the Treasury about it was absolutely impossible. Trying even to tell the Americans via the British embassies in the United States was impossible. There was a sort of dewy-eyed belief in the investment banking system, and the regulators caught the same disease. It strikes me as something that is inherent at the top levels of the banking system. I noted when reading Alistair Darling’s memoir that the arrogance tends to come through. However, it is not the case for everybody.

Banking is an industry in which structural barriers have to be put in place. You cannot rely on regulation and supervision, not just because of the frequent absence of common sense but also because I think that we can guarantee that the leaders of our various banking institutions will, within 36 months, be back in through the door of the regulators and the Treasury trying to persuade everyone to go back to a much lighter touch. It is far harder to change structural division than it is to constantly amend regulation at the fringes. That is why it is absolutely crucial.

Many noble Lords have talked about the increased costs involved in separating the banks, and I fully accept that. However, there are some counterweights, and I again recall my own time in banking. When there was separation of companies which by culture and by customer focus essentially did not belong together, both received a new lease of life. Retail banks are suddenly free to be genuine retail banks, with different training and corporate structures, and can look at their customers in a different way. They should become far more competitive and responsive, and much more competitive in terms of price than one might think given the difference in their capital ratios and the additional costs that fall on them. Indeed, we might even see some new excitement and innovation in the investment banks when they no longer find that everything they do is masked by the pool of retail deposits. When they have to face that reality, I suspect that they will be equally innovative. That is one of the reasons why I am happy to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, that I am not afraid for London’s pre-eminent position. The artificial intermingling of two very different kinds of institution has been demonstrated in other industries to do no one any good, so I do not think that we are going to see the kind of damage which many have been afraid of.

I have two final comments. The first is that it would be interesting to have an opportunity to focus much more on the whole range of measures that are being used to deal with our financial and banking crisis. I was struck by the concerns expressed by Donald Kohn, an external member of the Financial Policy Committee, about the lack of transparency and,

“the re-emergence of complex instruments with chains of counterparty exposures that are not transparent or well understood”.

We have talked in this House about “dark pools”. There are a lot of issues that have to be dealt with alongside because we have highly fragmented financial markets. We are also seeing relatively little in terms of international co-ordination at the moment. If one thinks in terms not just of Vickers but of Basel III, the EU capital requirements directive IV, the Dodd-Frank Act in the United States, the EU insurance industry Solvency II rules, one sees myriad things happening. I should love to hear from the Government that we are seeing some co-ordination among all this, because fragmentation makes decision-making difficult.

The noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, was one of the few noble Lords who spent a lot of time talking about the change in the competitive environment for retail banks. I am going to take this chance to make one last plea: that one of the considerations for the bank that comes in and joins our high street is that it will service micro and very small businesses and economically disadvantaged individuals who are of no interest to our mainstream banks. If we could kill those two birds with one stone, I would find Vickers to be something close to a perfect report.

15:25

[Lord Davies of Abersoch]

I declare a range of conflicts, as I work with a number of companies in the financial services industry. Until I became a Minister in the Government, I had been a career banker—I should perhaps lower my voice at this stage. I love the industry, which may be an unfashionable thing to say, and found it to be an industry with huge integrity. In fact, I was going to thank my noble friend for introducing this debate until he described the bankers as either thieves or pimps operating in a shallow money trench—I shall pass over that quickly.

I was lucky enough in my career to become a chief executive of a bank and a chairman. I served more than 12 years on the board of Standard Chartered in Asia and London. So many factors affect running a bank; it is, after all, the risk business. This is a business where you need trained professionals who operate within a strong culture. Culture and values are just as important as balance sheets. If you have the wrong culture in an institution, you will go bust. It is also important to have checks and balances. We have touched on auditors. Auditors were missing in the run-up to the financial crisis. They were not mentioned in the report; they should have been.

This morning’s announcement of UBS’s losses of $200 billion highlighted yet again that this is an industry which has the capacity to shock. You cannot have an autocratic style in a bank. You need pragmatism and caution; you also need a balance between risk and reward. So much of running a bank is about the board of directors and the relationship that the executives have with the board. It is also about having individuals and the blend of experience and skills to govern a bank. In a number of the British institutions, we did not have the right mix and we paid the penalty.

Banks and financial companies are complex and operate with sophisticated products. We should never forget—I know because I was a chief executive—that the shareholders of the companies were pushing CEOs to grow faster and expand more aggressively.

Every crisis, whether it is dotcom, Russia, the Asian crisis or even the tulip crisis many moons ago, has taught us that bubbles occur, that markets collapse and that management has to scenario-plan and think through the downsides. Culture, values and skills are all key ingredients, supplemented with proper supervision. There was insufficient supervision.

It is important to highlight that is an unusual industry because you are playing with other people’s money. You are selling products that you want back, perhaps after 40 years in the case of a mortgage, in arguably better condition than when you sold them. If you get it wrong, the consequences for society generally are catastrophic. Contrary to the “casino” image that goes around, most banks facilitate trade and support their consumer and corporate customers—with foreign exchange, trade, term loans and mortgages. During the past few decades we have seen the world become a smaller place. Companies today source from Bangladesh and Shenzhen. They sell online; they sell in the high streets of all the UK. We are living in a true global economy. Banks such as Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered typically operate in more than 50 countries. They may be British, but they are multinationals, like Coca-Cola, Unilever and Vodafone. They cannot operate with 50 different regulatory approaches. The Vickers report may have some great recommendations, but we are part of a global economy.

I turn to another issue. London, through focus, through its timeline and through a clear strategy, has become a top-three world centre of excellence, particularly in insurance, foreign exchange and wholesale trading, et cetera. Now is the moment to learn from our mistakes. We have to yet operate within the global economy; we have to keep London’s top-tier position; yet we have to protect the consumer and the taxpayer, and we have to be balanced—something that so many banks got wrong. That is the nature of the dilemma that we are facing today.

The regulators, as I said earlier, missed it. Boards missed it. The shareholders and owners missed it; they were nowhere. A very large bubble burst and nations have paid a huge cost. Now, as we talk about the Vickers report, we have another European crisis to add to our worries. The one thing that the report does not mention is that all these crises have one characteristic, which is the shortage of liquidity. When you run a bank, so much of your conversation is making sure that you have the right liquidity—the right funding. Northern Rock did not have it and neither did some of the other banks, and they collapsed.

This is a global, international industry and political leaders at this moment have to be just that: leaders. We need a global standard, not a set of British, Indian, Singaporean or even American initiatives. The regulatory arbitrage that will result from the implementation of the Vickers report if the US, Hong Kong and other places go with a different model will result in a much bigger unintended consequence—lower lending and a major global slowdown.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

The noble Lord speaks with immense authority and therefore it is important to tease out one particular point that seems to be emerging. Is he actually suggesting that we do nothing in this country along the lines of the Vickers report or whatever until we have a global agreement, which might take goodness knows how many years and might never be attainable?

[Lord Davies of Abersoch]

No, not at all. This is the moment in history where we use the Vickers report and the European crisis and in the next six months we come and agree a global accord for liquidity and capital. We must not end up with a system whereby we impose the separation of retail and investment banking on an HSBC or a Barclays when Jamie Dimon—the chief executive of one of the largest banks in America, JP Morgan Chase and Co—made it very public when he said in the FT:

“I am not sure that we should achieve even Basel III regulations in America. They are too strict”.

If one of the key competitors of an HSBC, Barclays or Standard Chartered is saying in America that it is not even going to comply with Basel III, we will have a major regulatory arbitrage in the world. Long term, that is a big mistake.

If you are a chief executive or are on the board of the bank, you have to ask which centre you should have your head office in. The amounts of capital required are extraordinary. The Vickers report has huge implications. I have great sympathy with separating retail and investment banking. They are fundamentally different businesses. But let us truly understand the amounts of capital that will be required to fund the investment banks with the capital ratios that are being suggested before we rush to a law.

We need to be very aware of the political anti-banker bashing. We have had that and we need to move on. We need to move into an era where the G7, G8 and other applicable countries come together, learn the lessons and in the next six months agree a regulatory framework.

Autocratic leadership, reckless lending abroad with the wrong make-up, a disastrous acquisition coupled with shareholders who seemed to egg the bank on—that is the story of RBS. It was not actually about capital: it was so much about the culture of the board. I am concerned about a move to saying that the answer to all the banking problems is just capital. It is not.

The important thing about banking is that retail banking is all about small loans and a huge volume of customers. The other thing that the Vickers report misses is that it is increasingly difficult to fund a retail bank without wholesale deposits. That is the fundamental issue for the future of banking.

15:35

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Myners, on introducing this debate. It is certainly to be welcomed that your Lordships’ House has an opportunity to discuss the Vickers report during the week of its publication but the other side of that is that not all noble Lords have had time to read every word of the report yet. I am afraid I count myself among that number. Like other noble Lords, I congratulate Sir John Vickers and his colleagues on their hard work in addressing the very complicated task set for them by the Government.

I must declare an interest in that I am employed by Mizuho International plc, the investment banking and securities subsidiary of the Mizuho Financial Group of Japan. I have been a banker for 38 years. I joined Kleinwort Benson in 1973, at which time it was what my noble friend Lord Lawson called a merchant bank. However, it actually combined both a significant commercial banking business and an emerging securities business, which was developed further after we bought the stockbroker Grieveson Grant and bond and equity underwriting and fund management businesses, so that part of what we did was—in Vickers parlance—ring-fenced and part was not. At that time, there were not in place the ring-fencing restrictions of the kind now being proposed. Even though I am a banker, I would not wish to argue that nothing needed to be done in response to the financial crisis and the collapse of several leading banks. However, in proposing the unilateral adoption of a strict ring-fencing of retail businesses and significantly higher capital requirements than internationally agreed levels, Vickers surely underestimates the damage to London's position as the world’s principal financial centre.

I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Myners, said about governance and the need to concentrate more on it. The report is somewhat thin on that and I think it is also true that Vickers does not adequately address the reasons for the banks’ failures. They were somewhat different in each case, while the banks that failed were not like each other in any particular regard. It is absolutely not necessary or desirable to introduce these additional reforms, certainly at present given the economic background with the euro situation and other things. The effects of the already increased capital requirements, the bank levy, restrictions on remuneration and stricter regulations have already completely changed the environment in which banks operate.

It is absolutely right to set up a framework which minimises the risk that the taxpayer will again be required to bail out our banks. However, I fear that the gold-plated additional capital requirements, over those internationally agreed in the Basel III framework, together with a very cumbersome proposed regulatory system and the ring-fencing proposals mean that the greater risks which the taxpayer faces today are very different from those from which Vickers seeks to protect him. International banks’ perception of London's attractiveness has already changed for the worse. The problem with our regulation is not that we did not have enough but that the FSA did not do what it was supposed to do—and did not work effectively with the Bank of England.

Several major banks are already booking more business in other centres, and new businesses that would have been set up here are now not going to be. There are already fewer banking jobs and reduced income tax revenues from bankers, in spite of the 50 per cent tax rate. I welcome the Chancellor's decision to launch an inquiry into whether it is a net contributor. If our banks are so encumbered, with too much detailed prescriptive regulation and unnecessarily large capital buffers, they will cease to be competitive compared with their international peers. They will lend less to smaller companies and their margins will have to be higher. This will restrict growth in the economy. That will prevent the Government from restoring our former competitive tax rates, which played a part in establishing London’s leading position.

If the banks are broken up as proposed, that will have a serious adverse effect on the price and the timing of the Government’s intended sale of shares in RBS and Lloyds. Furthermore, the ring-fenced retail banks will not find it easy to issue the additional equity and debt securities that they will be required to under the proposals.

I welcome the report’s recommendations to make account-switching easier, but I rather wonder what will be the point of doing so if every Vickers-style retail bank is identical, offering the same products probably on identical terms. I would rather that the customer had real choice of what type of bank he switched to. For example, he might see a significant difference between RBS with its significant investment banking business and Lloyds with very little.

I refer noble Lords to the article by Sir Martin Jacomb in yesterday’s Financial Times. As noble Lords will know, he is a distinguished banker. He was a vice-chairman of Kleinwort Benson when I joined and went on to be chairman at BZW and, later, the Prudential. As he argues, when Governments decide that retail depositors must not lose money and that some banks are too big to be allowed to fail, regulation becomes essential and the importance of sound management is diminished.

My noble friend Lord Lawson argues for a return to the separation of banks and investment banks. I think that I have heard him on a previous occasion advocating the introduction of a Glass-Steagall Act in the United Kingdom. As Sir Martin points out in his article, though, Glass-Steagall was abolished because customers want the services that universal banks can provide. In any event, the purpose of Glass-Steagall was completely different from that now sought by the ring-fencing proposal.

I do not believe that ring-fencing is the answer or that the lack of it was the cause of the bank failures. Neither do I think it likely that any other country with a significant financial market will introduce it. Even in a Vickers-style ring-fenced retail bank, there will still be some risk. We should beware the paradox that a system to limit risk invariably increases it.

15:40

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Myners for making this debate possible. I am grateful to him, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, my noble friend Lord Davies of Abersoch and others for their expertise and insight. It has been a real treat and has given me serious food for thought. Unlike many noble Lords, I have no particular expertise. The only interest that I should declare is that I have a current account and a joint savings account with First Direct.

Like many noble Lords, I would have liked Vickers to have gone further. I support, though I will not repeat, many of the concerns of my noble friend Lord Myners, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, and others. However, I am also aware that the best should not be the enemy of the reasonably good and that, contrary to some of the views that we have heard from people in the banking industry over the past few days, time is pressing.

I want to make some points about the importance of ensuring both that the recommendations of the commission on banking are implemented swiftly and that we do not make the mistake of thinking that the set of issues addressed by the commission, crucial in protecting taxpayers as they are, somehow completes the task of addressing the full range of problems related to our banking sector that were thrown up by the financial crisis, the ensuing recession and the continuing economic slowdown.

It is good to hear strong support for the proposals of the commission across the political spectrum. There is widespread recognition that the two key proposals in the final report—the requirement for the ring-fence to protect individuals and small business and the stipulation of minimum capital requirements—are tough as well as right. They offer the prospect of much more effective protection for ordinary depositors, small businesses and taxpayers alike. They are serious proposals, which are commensurate with the seriousness of the structural problems in our banking industry revealed by the crisis. The primary challenge now is for the Government to show decisiveness in response to the commission, not simply by welcoming it—although I am glad that they have done that—but by legislating sooner rather than later. Acting swiftly should not be tendentiously misinterpreted as acting rashly.

The magnitude of these changes requires that they are made in collaboration with the banks. The structural changes to banking operations need to be planned and tailored to each bank, as Vickers notes. Minimal capital requirements cannot be introduced overnight. All this is understood. However, an early and swift move to legislate is crucial, first, because the banking industry itself and its shareholders and customers need certainty to plan ahead. Secondly, we need to send an unambiguous signal that the period of lobbying to contest both the basic approach and the provisions of reform is now over. We have all noted the noises off, as well as some noises on, from the banking industry over the past few days, as well as some of the thin praise uttered though gritted teeth by others. However, I hope that our leading banks recognise that the Vickers recommendations will be implemented and co-operate in making that happen promptly and smoothly.

The Government have a role to play here, too. If they allow a mood music of reticence, foot-dragging and uncertainty to emerge after the publication of the report, they may give false hope to the small—we hope—minority in the banking community who want to turn a period of reflection on how to implement Vickers into a period of rethinking whether the recommendations should be implemented at all. That is why I join the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and others in urging the Government to get on and legislate in the near future, and to agree that the upcoming financial services Bill is the best vehicle to do as much of the work as possible in laying the legislative groundwork for these reforms.

Secondly, I hope the Government remain robust, both privately and publicly, in rebutting the criticisms that have been lodged against these recommendations. Some have said that the reforms will damage the competitiveness of British banks, penalise shareholders and lead to an increased cost of credit. However, underlying these criticisms is a slightly false choice between the competitiveness of our banking sector and the stability of the banking system as a whole. We cannot afford to base the banking industry on inadequate regulatory standards that cost the British economy more in the long term and—in times of economic crisis, as we have realised in the past few years—sometimes in the very short term, too. The aim of these reforms is to protect the long-term stability of the banking system and the taxpayers who have in the past few years been called upon to guarantee its health, in a way that is consistent with maintaining the banks’ competitiveness and improving their services to depositors and businesses. The important issue is not whether there are some trade-offs in the short term between some of these objectives—there probably will be—but whether the recommendations as a whole are right for a sector that has been through such turmoil and caused such turmoil for millions of ordinary people.

The recommendations of the commission are important, and it is important that the Government act swiftly to get the ball rolling on making them a reality and hold the line against those who want to derail this process. It is equally important to recognise that there is a set of related issues around the activities of our banks and their relationship to the wider economy that cannot and should not be parked, but requires action in parallel with implementing the commission’s recommendations. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, that Vickers cannot answer all the issues surrounding our banks and the problems that we have experienced. My concern is that these other issues are addressed—and addressed in parallel.

First, as many noble Lords have said, the commission has some good recommendations on competition in the banking sector, particularly on greater divestiture of Lloyds branches, account switching and the case for a new challenger bank, although detail on how to achieve some of these is a bit slight. However, I am puzzled as to why the commission has backtracked on its interim report recommendation that the Financial Conduct Authority should have a primary duty to promote competition, to saying simply that the duties of the FCA should go in a more pro-competition direction. I hope that this is not a prelude to a weak rather than a strong competition role for the FCA. In addition, the recommendation that the Government should wait a full four more years before even considering a Competition Commission reference two years after these reforms should have come into effect, seems a bit lax and not to reflect the importance of ensuring greater competition as soon as possible.

Secondly, the Chancellor said on Monday that one reason for his caution in progressing quickly with the Vickers recommendations was that he did not want to,

“damage credit supply in the short term”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/2011; col. 770.]

I welcome the Chancellor’s early and clear support for the report as a whole. However, I think that many people will be surprised that concerns about the weak supply of credit lurk behind some of his scepticism about the banking commission’s reforms, when at the same time the Government have done so little to get credit flowing from our banks to our small and medium-sized businesses over the past year and a half. This is, of course, in part a consequence of a policy choice of a contraction in economic policy during a period of prolonged stagnation. But more specifically, I hope that the Government now take up the Governor of the Bank of England’s idea of instructing UKFI to require state owned banks to increase lending now.

Thirdly, the Vickers proposals on structural reform of our banks are intended to protect taxpayers’ interests in the event of future bailouts. We all understand that but we must remember that the financial crisis threw up other activities and practices that undermined the stability of the banking system as a whole, and on which Vickers’ report says not as much. In particular, we know from the past decade the risks of activities such as proprietary trading where banks essentially develop internal hedge funds and trade using their own rather than their clients’ money—activities which were associated with the crises at Drexel, Barings, Salomon Brothers and others. We know that proprietary trading can lead to concerns about conflicts of interest that undermine confidence and increase the fragility not only of individual banks but of the banking sector as a whole. In the United States there is a strong debate going on in Congress and elsewhere about how to respond to this problem. Opinions differ on that, but there is a recognition that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. I hope that in the coming months the Government set out what their thoughts are on this important area of financial regulation. Perhaps the Minister might say something about his thoughts on that.

The ICB’s report has already succeeded in commanding authority and respect in the academic and policy communities, and in creating a cross-party consensus. It should be applauded for that.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords—

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

I am sorry. I have just one or two more sentences. The key message here is that the ball is now in the Government’s court. I hope the House will agree that if we want British banks to be not only world-leading, secure and efficient but also the servants of ordinary depositors and of businesses whom we rely on for jobs and prosperity, we need to maintain the level of ambition and urgency that this report demonstrates.

15:52

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the House is indebted to my noble friend Lord Myners not only for securing this extremely timely debate on such an important and pressing subject but for identifying the issues raised in the Vickers report and seeking to put them into context, including issues that perhaps Vickers addressed more marginally, if at all. I am grateful that this theme was taken up, most significantly by the noble Lord, Lord May, who illuminated the debate with his analysis of the problems of systems and how we need to address ourselves to the totality. He was followed by my noble friend Lord Plant who was keen to emphasise that bankers should act with a sense of morality to enable our country to be better served than it has been in the recent past.

First, I wish to concentrate on some basics, as did a number of noble Lords. I am not going to follow the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, my noble friend Lord Liddle, or, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, who got involved in an evaluation of the report that gave rise to an academic nomination of its success rate. I am not going to give it an academic grade. I am going to say that as far as the Opposition is concerned the report is extremely useful in clarifying some significant issues. We are sufficiently in support of its cardinal points, particularly about ring-fencing, which is a tough and radical proposal and causes anxieties, which have been reflected by my noble friend Lord Davies of Abersoch and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, about the care we need to take. I am very grateful for the noble Viscount’s contribution. We recognise the care with which we need to follow these measures.

We also need to put that into the context of what the country demands. It of course demands some security as rapidly as possible against the horrors that have been visited upon our fellow citizens as a result of the banking crisis of recent years, and the economic and financial crisis that is the consequence of it. That is why we support the report, but we are somewhat concerned about the timescale of implementation that the Government appear to be sympathetic to. I agree entirely with noble Lords who have emphasised this in this debate. It was begun by my noble friend Lord Myners, but others have supported the need for us to take legislative action as rapidly as we can. We all recognise that some fresh legislation will be necessary and that that will take some time, but the fact that we have a financial services Bill under some consideration by Parliament surely provides an option for early action to lay some of the groundwork on implementing some of the key features of the report.

I appreciate the aspects of the debate that have emphasised the degree of additional competition sought in the report. We share the anxieties that the FSA is not in fact being charged with quite the same proactive role to encourage competition as the earlier report presaged. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it is important that we see the emergence of competitive banks in such a way as to, first, make us less dependent on the growth of the mega few and, secondly, provide greater choice for the consumer. It is clearly a reflection of a long-standing position in the community that the numbers of people who change their bank accounts—their current accounts—each year in Britain is a mere 6 per cent, which is less than in almost any other advanced country. That is a reflection of the fact that the consumer sees no overt advantages in competition between the retail banks, which we want to encourage. This report indicates a route down which that could be pursued. We want greater competition between retail banks.

However, we are also concerned about investment banks. For instance, it seems that the effective charges put on equity underwriting fees have increased enormously over the past 25 years—again a reflection of the rather closed circle in which these decisions and opportunities are expressed, rather than in a more open system. Of course we appreciate that the tougher capital standards that will be required will make demands upon the banking system, but the earlier we approach these issues the less the danger that ordinary members of the public will bear these costs, whether they are individual account holders or small or medium-sized businesses seeking to borrow at reasonably competitive rates.

This is of cardinal importance for business. Thus far, the Government have replied overwhelmingly, in all responses on the question of increased investment and opportunities for credit by banks to businesses, on the Merlin project. Clearly, the Merlin project is a failure. The amount of lending under that framework is falling year by year, at a time when it is so clear that we need to rebuild our small and medium-sized businesses in this country.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Myners broadened the context of the report by emphasising the international dimension. That theme has been picked up on several sides. I recognise the points made about the importance of ensuring that London is internationally competitive. I was very grateful for those contributions, which emphasised the significance of the finance sector to our economy.

It is clear that if we are to make progress on the effective structure of British banks, we need to appreciate the international context within which they work. That is why so much work needs to be done in the international sphere. If there is a criticism that I would want to express in a debate that has been largely free of party politics, while at the same time seeking to deal with the inherent nature of the problem that confronts us all, it is that the Chancellor ought to be more active in the international councils that set out to deal with international crises in circumstances in which we all recognise that we cannot solve the problem just on a British basis. However, the report, if implemented by the Government as rapidly as possible, can go a considerable way to creating security for our banking system and remedy the abuses of the past.

16:02

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Myners, on the timeliness of this debate. Even if I do not agree with everything he said, I thank him for his questions, because they set the parameters for the debate today, which was helpful.

When they came to office, the Government faced the task of establishing a new culture for regulation where irresponsible risks were unacceptable, while creating the space for innovation and commercial success. This included addressing the issues of financial institutions deemed too big to fail.

Alongside a wider programme of reform in financial services, the Government established the Independent Commission on Banking to formulate policy recommendations with a view to reducing systemic risk in the banking sector, mitigating moral hazard in the banking system, reducing the likelihood and impact of firm failure, and promoting competition in both retail and investment banking.

I join others in thanking and paying tribute to Sir John Vickers and the other members of the commission, Clare Spottiswoode, Martin Taylor, Bill Winters and Martin Wolf, for their work during the past 14 months. Theirs has been little short of a herculean task, producing an issues paper, an interim report and now their final findings—in all, more than 600 pages of documentation. They have sifted through more than 300 submissions and thousands of pages of evidence from market participants, consumer groups, individuals and wider society. I say with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, that I think his criticisms are more than a little unfair.

However, I agree with him that decisive action is needed to reform financial services and to ensure that the sector is responsibly managed and well regulated. I shall set out the commission’s key recommendations and how the Government intend to respond.

The report proposes a high ring-fence around retail banking to protect the provision of vital retail banking services, such as taking deposits from individuals and small businesses and the provision of overdraft facilities. Furthermore, it adds that retail subsidiaries should be able to operate and meet regulatory requirements independently and that relationships with the rest of their group should be conducted in the same way as with third parties. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, that the ICB proposes that they would have separate boards of directors and I welcome some of his other helpful suggestions. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wood, the report is clear that proprietary trading, about which he was concerned, is very firmly outside the ring-fence.

As my right honourable friend the Chancellor has said, we welcome this recommendation in principle, as we do the commission's other proposals. Successful implementation of them will allow us to resolve universal banks more easily in the event of a crisis, without affecting vital payment systems or banking services. They will also help to address issues such as the perceived implicit guarantee from taxpayers of so-called too-big-to-fail institutions.

Today there were powerful arguments from my noble friend Lord Lawson and the noble Lord, Lord Plant, among others, for total separation. Decisions on implementation will be taken once the Government have considered the report. The Government accept in principle the ICB’s recommendation that retail banking should be ring-fenced. For any ring-fence to be practical, it will need to be set up so that high-street banking can still provide vital banking services efficiently. The Government’s response will be announced by the end of the year; however, the ICB believes that ring-fencing can achieve equal benefits at a lower cost because total separation could have a higher economic cost than ring-fencing in terms of efficient intermediation between saving and investment, diversification of risk and customer synergies. It is not clear whether total separation would make for greater financial stability, as it would preclude support for troubled retail banks from elsewhere in banking groups and because total separation is harder to enforce under European law inasmuch as universal banks in other member states would still be entitled to own UK retail banking operations.

The point of firewalling is not to eliminate all risk, but to minimise the cost to taxpayers should a bank fail. These measures should not be seen in isolation. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, referred to governance. Here the Government are taking strong action on financial regulation. The UK's resilience to future crises will be strengthened by the creation of a new prudential regulation authority as a subsidiary of the Bank of England. To complement it, the Financial Conduct Authority will provide strong conduct regulation across the industry.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, and my noble friend Lord Lawson asked an important question about who will monitor the integrity of the ring-fence. The FSA and the future prudential regulatory authority will be responsible for supervising UK deposit-takers. Recovery and resolution plans will provide the regulators with a basis on which to assess whether a bank is resolvable. As set out in the PRA White Paper, bank resolvability will be at the heart of supervisory risk assessment of United Kingdom banks.

The noble Lord, Lord McFall, asked whether a ring-fence is permeable and whether it contains any doorways between the retail and investment bank and how firm will be the separation. The retail ring-fence will limit the funding and capital exposure to the investment bank. The ring-fenced bank will be able to access funding only from the investment bank on a third-party basis as though it were borrowing from another bank. Those restrictions are part of limiting contagion in the event of failure, ensuring that the ring-fenced bank can continue operating, should the investment bank fail. The Government will examine those proposals in detail and respond before the end of the year.

My noble friend Lord Griffiths asked about ring-fencing for retail banks and suggested that it did not address the Lehman risk or the financial stability consequences of allowing the investment bank part of a universal bank to collapse.

Ring-fencing the retail bank will mean that it can continue functioning even if the investment bank were to collapse. However, it is essential to consider the stability benefits of ring-fencing as part of a wider package of reforms, of which I spoke earlier. Vickers has presented his report as a package aimed at improving bank resolvability and reducing taxpayer exposure.

Turning to loss absorbency, the commission recommended a 3 per cent equity surcharge for large, ring-fenced banks, over and above the minimum 7 per cent required under international requirements, giving an overall equity capital requirement of 10 per cent, supported by a tighter leverage cap than proposed in Basel III. The commission also recommended that banks be required to hold so-called bail-in bonds and for this to be supplemented by a backstop statutory bail-in power to improve their loss-absorbing capacity in resolution and ensure that bondholders share the costs of bank failure. I thank the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, for his fascinating contribution which, I think, focused on this area and I would like, if I may, to think further about what he said.

My noble friend Lord Caithness raised the issue of the adequacy of any particular level of capital. The ICB has done a great deal of work examining what happened in the recent crisis and has not lightly recommended a loss-absorbing capacity of between 17 per cent and 20 per cent of risk-weighted assets for the UK’s largest banks. The Government will, as I have said, review these recommendations and particularly how these impact upon our banks in different ways. My noble friend also asked for a definition of risk-weighted assets. I approach this question with some trepidation, but in outline, risk-weighted assets are a regulatory measure of the riskiness of certain assets and are used to calculate the level of capital a bank should hold, based on the riskiness of its asset base. For example, cash has a zero risk-weighted asset factor applied to it and therefore requires no capital to be held against it.

The third area of the ICB’s recommendations is the depositor preference for deposits covered by the financial services compensation scheme to give depositors super-senior status over other unsecured creditors.

Finally, there are a number of recommendations to improve competition in the banking sector, including an account redirection service, to which the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, referred. I assure him that we will be examining it carefully. It will make it easier for personal and small business customers to switch their bank account from one bank to another. Other recommendations include welcoming the Financial Conduct Authority’s proposed statutory competition duty while proposing changes to the treatment of competition and efficiency in its statutory objectives, reiterating that the Lloyds Banking Group divestment should deliver an effective new challenger and recommending that the Office of Fair Trading should review progress against these measures in 2015.

The noble Lords, Lord Myners and Lord Davies of Oldham, asked what is proposed to increase competition. It is clear that the UK banking market needs increased competition. The ICB puts forward sensible proposals that the Government will consider. The proposals on account switching—making the switching process easier, faster and risk-free for consumers and small businesses—will empower bank customers to hold their banks to account better. The ICB also recommends giving the Financial Conduct Authority a primary duty to promote competition. We agree in principle with all the recommendations and will need to work through them in detail. Allied to this, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, asked what the Government are doing to encourage new entrants. The Government are committed to reducing barriers to entry in retail banking, subject to the risks which we must, of course, take into account. The Financial Services Authority has taken steps to reform the new bank authorisation process—the application process for prospective new banks. The process is now more streamlined, with “minded to approve” letters now provided to applicants to provide feedback. Numerous new banks and lenders are currently going through this process. The Government will consider the ICB’s competition recommendations carefully to see what more can be done to foster an environment in which banks better serve their customers.

The noble Lords, Lord May and Lord Wood, asked about a review of the market by the OFT. The ICB’s competition proposals include measures on transparency, switching, the objectives of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Lloyds divestment. These measures cannot be implemented overnight and it is important to get them right. The FCA still needs to be set up by the next financial services Bill and the finer details of the transparency measures still need to be worked out if they are to be implemented. The Government believe that a competitive market is, by and large, the best way to achieve positive outcomes for consumers and the economy and we will carefully look at the timing by which any competition measures can be achieved.

The Government are very grateful for the proposals that were put forward by the ICB. We recognise the need to give industry certainty. To that end we will begin considering and consulting on the costs and benefits of what has been proposed, and examine the design and implementation options that might be available, so that we can provide the Government's initial response to the commission's proposals before the end of the year.

As the Chancellor made clear in his Mansion House speech, the Government will judge the commission's final proposals against the condition that, as the noble Lord, Lord McFall, said, a bank should be allowed to fail without affecting vital banking services, without imposing costs on the taxpayer, and in a manner applicable across our diverse sector and consistent with EU and international law. We will then seek to implement any resulting measures according to Sir John's recommended timetable, with any necessary primary legislation by 2015 and implementation by 2019.

The noble Lords, Lord Myners and Lord Davies of Oldham, and my noble friends Lord Lawson, Lord Griffiths and Lord Oakeshott, spoke about the speed of implementation. Not all of them came at it from the same direction. The Government have welcomed the suggestions in principle. However, as Sir John noted, these are extremely complicated, far-reaching and detailed proposals. The report acknowledges that the additional capital measures in particular will need an implementation period of the order recommended. Crucially, as my noble friend Lady Kramer and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Abersoch, said, we need to consider the changes with international partners to ensure consistency with international agreements, in particular Basel III and EU law.

Powerful arguments were made today for the Government to get on with it. I acknowledge that need. There is every intent in government to act in a timely manner, and I will welcome further debates and questions, which I have no doubt that noble Lords will bring to your Lordships' House to keep up the pressure.

Noble Lords raised a number of other issues in the debate that will need to be considered by the Government ahead of their response. The noble Lords, Lord Myners and Lord Wood, and my noble friends Lord Lawson and Lord Newby, were among those who asked how the proposals would be legislated for. The Government will consider ICB implementation options between now and the publication of their formal response. To the extent that the Government decide that legislation is necessary, they will set out their plans before the end of the year, with the intention of legislating by 2015.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, asked whether there would be a buyers’ strike for senior debt. It is fundamental to market discipline that private investors, not taxpayers, bear the losses where a bank fails. The Vickers report contains analysis of the kinds of losses that investors might absorb to leave the taxpayer protected in the event of bank failure. The Government will now consider the potential market reaction, as well as any interaction between this proposal and others in the report, and will respond in full later in the year.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners, and my noble friend Lord Lawson asked whether the bank levy would be dropped. I noted the comments attributed to Mr Winters in today's newspapers. The bank levy has been an important part of the Government’s reform of the banking sector. I note that the idea of dropping it was not in the report. However, the Government will consider the overlap between existing policy and the Vickers report in drawing up their response.

The noble Lord, Lord McFall, referred to the vital issue of economic growth. This is an important issue that the Government will keep continually under consideration and bear closely in mind as they consider the report. The recent financial crisis demonstrated the significant detrimental impact that failure in the financial sector can have on the real economy and public finances. The Government are clear that decisive action is needed to reform the financial services and ensure that the sector is responsibly managed and well regulated.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asked what impact these proposals might have on lending. This is of course related to growth, and something that we will consider carefully. As the report says, ensuring that banks are more robustly capitalised, and creating a ring-fence, would provide a secure and stable framework for the supply of credit to businesses and households in the UK economy. Ring-fencing should strengthen, not weaken, the framework for the supply of bank credit to households and businesses in the economy.

My noble friend Lord Trenchard took the most extreme position against the ICB's proposals. I will not respond to him today, but will be happy to do so afterwards. However, I am a long way from agreeing with his central thrust.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to Project Merlin and the noble Lord, Lord Wood, also asked about actions on lending. In February, the Chancellor announced a new commitment by the United Kingdom’s biggest high-street banks to lend £190 billion of new credit to business in 2011, up from £179 billion in 2010. The Bank of England is monitoring lending on a quarterly basis, and, at the half-year point, banks are lending over £100 billion against the implied target of £95 billion, including £37 billion to SMEs.

The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, made a point about the importance of the competitiveness of the UK’s financial sector. This is an important issue that the Government will clearly be taking into account. Increased financial stability will be a positive for the UK’s role as a financial centre as well as for the wider economy. It is of course important to decrease the probability of another crisis happening.

The noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, made a welcome suggestion about customer service quality. Ring-fenced retail banks, no longer allowed to siphon customer deposits from their investment arms, will be forced to focus on their core business of lending to SMEs and individuals. This renewed retail focus will mean that banks will need to know their communities better and their customers, and the quality of those relationships and their understanding of those customers should improve.

I admit to having spent some of the happiest days of my life, at least before joining the Government, working for the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Abersoch, at Standard Chartered Bank, and I agree with him on what he says about the importance of culture. The health of his former bank speaks volumes for that culture. I have to say that being in opposition has certainly made his personal health look considerably better than being in government. His point about liquidity is well taken and, as I have said, we will consider all these issues before we respond to Vickers.

My noble friend Lady Kramer and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked whether the proposals take sufficient account of the need for international co-ordination, which is of course a vital point that I have referred to before. The Government are focused on preserving a level international playing field to ensure that UK firms are not unnecessarily disadvantaged. The UK continues to engage actively in international fora—in particular the Basel committee, the Financial Stability Board, the EU and the G20—to achieve a level playing field. That said, the size of the UK’s financial sector is very large relative to the size of our economy, and it is important that we take account of this as we examine the proposed reforms of the UK banking system.

I am sure that I have not answered every question raised by noble Lords today, of which there was a veritable blizzard, and if I have not, I will write to noble Lords afterwards. Strong, well capitalised banks will be an important part of a strong economy, providing credit and vital services to people and SMEs. As economic growth recovers, the financial services sector will need to respond to meet increasing demands from business customers. Poorly regulated banks have, however, cost our economy billions of pounds. The recent financial crisis demonstrated the significant detrimental impact that failure in the financial sector can have on the economy and public finances.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that the ICB’s final report is an important contribution to our programme of reform and we will produce a formal response by the end of the year.

16:23

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for a very constructive response and I thank those of your Lordships’ House who have contributed. The debate has once again shown the breadth of experience not only from those who might be described as insiders on this issue but from outsiders, who made fascinating and challenging contributions, such as those of my noble friends Lord Sawyer and Lord Plant and the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford.

I expressed some reservations about the Vickers report, but perhaps I carried expectations higher than they should have been. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and my noble friend Lord Wood of Anfield reminded me that this is but part of the complex series of actions being taken to address issues in the banking industry. On that basis, it is only right that I should note that Sir John and his esteemed colleagues Mr Winters, Mr Wolf, Mr Taylor and Miss Spottiswoode laboured diligently with little or no reward to produce a report which is, at the very minimum, extremely useful to our understanding of the issues and for which we should therefore express our great gratitude.

However, the Government are on notice. Sir John Vickers and his team have told us that the current system is unstable and places the taxpayer at an unacceptable level of risk. The taxpayer is on the hook, and the Government leave them on the hook until they take action. It is interesting that in his closing speech the Minister mentioned proprietary trading. The Government have done nothing to stop state-owned banks engaging in propriety trading. They are still speculating on the back of the taxpayers’ guarantee. However, I think we have had a very good debate, and on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Kosovo

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

16:26

Asked by

[Lord Hylton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the current situation in Kosovo.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, it is a long time since this House last discussed Kosovo, so for that reason I am very pleased to be able to introduce this debate. Kosovo is a highly symbolic place for two rival nationalisms. It was the centre of the great medieval Serb monarchy and contained its royal monasteries. In Ottoman times, it became more and more inhabited by Albanians, who declared independence in the 19th century at Prizren in Kosovo. The subsequent clash of cultures has led to great suffering in recent years. During Tito's time, Kosovo enjoyed a high level of autonomy and was modestly prosperous.

Milosevic, however, imposed direct rule, and the Albanians developed parallel institutions for education, welfare et cetera. When the tyrant began to drive out the Albanian population, NATO responded with a bombing campaign and the Kosovo Liberation Army fought back. It was thus that in 1999 Kosovo came to be occupied by KFOR and administered by UNMIK. In February 2008, Kosovo declared its independence, and this was confirmed by the International Court of Justice 18 months later. Its population is estimated at 1.8 million, of whom some 92 per cent are Albanian. This compares with 1.6 million people in Northern Ireland and somewhat over 600,000 in neighbouring independent Montenegro. Kosovo has a Parliament of 120 members, and by now has been recognised by 81 states. It is a member of the World Bank and the IMF.

This incomplete recognition is due, in part, to the fact that Kosovo does not have full control of all its territory. North of the Ibar River, the mainly Serb population has partly broken away and linked itself to Serbia. Mitrovica is a divided city, and last year I stood on the bridge marking the divide between Albanians and Serbs. Currently the Kosovo Government are trying to assert their control over the crossing points and customs posts between northern Kosovo and Serbia. At the same time, three northern Serb mayors have declared no confidence in Serbia's negotiator in the bilateral talks that are being held in Brussels and being mediated by a British official. I therefore ask Her Majesty's Government what there view is of the current Kosovan actions. Should not the border issues be settled by negotiation?

I am inclined to be somewhat critical of the international groups in Kosovo, which I have already mentioned and to which I would add EULEX, which has responsibility for the administration of justice and some oversight of law and order. No doubt they have suffered language and culture difficulties, while frequent rotations of staff have hindered full understanding. Nevertheless, they have been overconcerned with stability and have tended to avoid confronting difficult issues, such as the conditions of the Roma minority or relations between the historic Serbian Orthodox monasteries and their neighbours.

Will the Government seek to ensure that the right lessons are learnt from past experience, and that the activities in Kosovo of the European Union, the OSCE and the Council of Europe are better co-ordinated? Can the Minister first say to what extent Kosovo now has its own system of justice? Are the civil and criminal courts fully functioning? Secondly, given the still high unemployment, have Kosovo’s large mineral resources been fully, or even begun to be, brought into production?

To come back to the monasteries, almost all are on beautiful sites. The smaller ones cause little difficulty and often have good relations with their Albanian neighbours. Of the two major ones, Peç is a community of nuns and the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch. Deçani is a community of monks. Both are UNESCO cultural and historic sites, and I have visited both of them. They should not, however, be considered just as monuments of the past. They support living, functioning communities and are of huge symbolic importance. It should not be necessary, 12 years after the war, for detachments of KFOR to stand guard at their gates, checking the credentials of all visitors. This has the perverse effect of cutting off the residents from their neighbours.

Through two world wars, earlier Balkan struggles and the whole of the Ottoman period, the local Albanians successfully protected the monasteries against external violence. This traditional local situation should be restored, bringing free access for bona fide visitors and pilgrims, and freedom of movement for the monks and nuns. I believe this to be quite possible; indeed, my friend and colleague who founded the NGO called the Soul of Europe for peace-building work, first in Bosnia and now in Kosovo, has been invited by both sides to facilitate good, normal relations. The nearby Kosovar municipalities are keen, and the veterans of the KLA are also willing to sit at the table. Will the Government give more than just verbal support to this initiative? It has great potential as a confidence-building measure that would help further the wider bilateral negotiations already mentioned. Can the Government give some indication of how far those negotiations have already progressed and about their future prospects?

I am sure your Lordships would wish to see Serbia, Kosovo and their neighbours all playing their full parts in the European institutions. This would bring historic antagonisms to an end and greatly benefit their people. However, this cannot just be engineered from on high. It must be built upwards from the hearts and minds of people in villages and small towns. That is why I conclude by asking why community development is not built into the briefs of the international agencies, in particular those working in Kosovo. We have people, particularly in Northern Ireland and in multiethnic English cities, who have great experience in peace-building and community development. This could be a truly effective form of technical assistance. I saw something similar in Moldova during a 10-year period after their civil war. I commend this idea, and look forward to the Government’s response.

16:35

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for giving us this unusual opportunity to discuss the state of Kosovo. It is a great pleasure to follow his wise words. I will concentrate my remarks on two perspectives that have been of large concern to the European Union and the Council of Europe during the last years. I first visited Kosovo in the late summer of 1999, where I met Mr Bernard Kouchner, who was the high representative in the wake of the reconstruction and development plans for Kosovo.

Since then, the EU, both in its member states and institutions, and most particularly the European Commission, has played a very prominent role in the reconstruction and development of Kosovo. It is worth reminding ourselves that the European Union is the largest single donor, I believe, to the reconstruction of Kosovo. I think we have forwarded more than €2 billion to Kosovo since my first visit in 1999. I welcome that assistance and I particularly welcome, and wish to draw attention to, the valuable work of EULEX, which is working on the European justice system in Kosovo.

I also draw noble Lords’ particular attention to the valuable work that EULEX is doing on child trafficking and on bringing criminals to justice. I also commend the work of the high representative and vice-president of the European Commission, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, in this area. Of course, EULEX is a technical mission that mentors, monitors and advises, and the legal basis is the Council joint action of February 2008.

Noble Lords will be aware of several quite significant problems that Kosovo has faced in human rights. I will first mention the extraordinary problem of a number of families in grave difficulty since 1999. They live on the tailings of lead mines. Perhaps the most infamous one is Osterode. In 1999, I visited those families with Mr Kouchner, a medical expert. A number of Roma and other families had been placed on the tailings of the lead mine.

All of us in this House are well aware of the dangers to human health of lead. They are dramatic and drastic. Mr Kouchner, on behalf of the international community and the European Union, pledged to the families, who then numbered thousands and certainly now number many hundreds, that they would be moved within 40 days. Generally speaking, 40 days on the edge of a lead mine is far too long for lead ingestion, particularly for children and babies. I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to the gravely unhappy fact that those families are still there.

I have examined the World Health Organisation’s statement and I spoke with Mr Kouchner again recently. I wrote to him in 2008, when I also spoke to him. It is extremely sad that in the summer of 2000, although Mr Kouchner ordered his UN medical team to assess the extent of the lead contamination, these families have not been moved. The WHO report from the medical team declared that the families should be moved immediately and the camps destroyed. Blood tests carried out on some of the children showed that they had the highest levels of lead poisoning recorded in medical history, so the situation is extremely grave. When I met some of those families, I could see the impact of lead poisoning that has now gone on for over a generation. Because no records have been kept in the area and therefore no deaths have been recorded, it is difficult to say how exactly many stillbirths, deaths on arrival, maternal deaths and deaths of people in their early thirties can be attributed to lead poisoning. Many people have slow learning capabilities that may be due to this poisoning. However, the blood levels recorded in the children indicate the most devastating outcomes. As Mr Kouchner himself wrote to me:

“Ces progrès sont toutefois insuffisants”—

it simply is not good enough.

I was pleased to learn that the British Government had addressed this issue. David Miliband, the previous Secretary of State, wrote a good letter on 17 February 2009. He also pledged that the Foreign Office, various different members of the European Commission and the European Union, and of course the Government of Kosovo themselves, would do everything possible to support these families more effectively by placing them somewhere where they could survive. But I have to say that since UNMIK handed over the management of these places—I would not call them camps—to the Government of Kosovo, very little progress has been made. They were handed over in the first half of 2008 and are now the Government’s full responsibility. However, although the Commission has continued to provide financial assistance in the form, for example, of the €1.2 million CARDS project and much in the way of food provisions, legal assistance, basic household appliances and so on, the situation remains the same for one of the saddest and most tragic groups of people I have met for a long time. I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to this tragedy.

My second point derives from my present position in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In January this year the Council of Europe accepted a report by Dick Marty, the special rapporteur on trafficking in human organs from Kosovo over the past decade. It is a gravely worrying report. I am pleased to say that on 15 June the European Union appointed a special prosecutor to investigate trafficking in human organs in Kosovo. I believe that the prosecutor will be supported by investigators, and the Kosovo Government have declared that they will collaborate with this prosecution. However, I wish to put on the record that Dick Marty is requesting an international investigation because, as noble Lords will be aware, there are purchasers for these organs.

There is a marketplace, and some evidential trails indicate that perhaps some eminent or better known persons in the wider Europe may have been involved in, or at least had knowledge of, this issue for over a decade. Sadly, organ trafficking does not appear to have stopped. A particular tragedy is that medical advances have meant that an organ, a liver or kidney, can alas be taken from a six year-old child and usefully placed in a middle-aged man. That used not to be the case. The result is that children in Kosovo are gravely at risk of organ trafficking, as well as through associated trafficking throughout Europe and the wider world.

I hesitate to put such sombre facts on the record, but I have the greatest confidence in the British Government and the Foreign Office, and I wish to request support for the resolution of these problems.

16:44

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to join my noble friend in this debate. I apologise for being here after his opening speech because of unforeseen delays due to the closure of the Jubilee line and so forth. I also apologise to the government Whip and the opposition Whip and thank them for allowing me to come in at this late stage. In fact I have not missed anything: I have already read what my noble friend kindly gave me and I was here to hear the noble Baroness. It is a pleasure to be here.

As a tennis player, may I salute Novak Djokovic for winning the US Open? I had the opportunity to watch him win one of the earlier rounds in New York two weeks ago. While he is Serbian, his family comes from Zvecan in Kosovo. I can only hope that while he will be a young and loyal ambassador for Serbia, he will also be able to represent the special problems of Kosovo itself as he travels around the world.

My excuse for being here is that I have long stood beside my noble friend and others, including the noble Baroness, in arguing the case for greater autonomy for minorities in Africa and the Middle East and most recently South Sudan, which I visited in February. In fact there is a stronger parallel there than I had realised since religious, language and cultural differences are as relevant as territorial integrity and human rights abuses on a dramatic scale such as we have just heard from the noble Baroness. The comparison stops there because in Kosovo’s case, in spite of the ICJ ruling on UDI last year, true independence is still a good way off. I will be interested to hear the Minister's forecast.

The international guarantees are much more complicated in Kosovo as they involve several different institutions including the EU itself. Starting with the EU, I hope that the Minister will first clarify any differences there may still be between the UK and EEAS. Britain's role has been critical since 1999 and while there is virtually no public interest or awareness of it in this country, our support for KFOR, UNMIK, EULEX and the other institutions has been well maintained by this Government, which is to be welcomed.

Earlier this year, arguments were surfacing in the Commons EU Scrutiny Committee between the Minister’s colleague David Lidington and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, about the respective roles of the EU special representative and a representative in the International Civilian Office. A similar problem was occurring in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Will the Minister say whether there is still double hatting and whether these posts in Kosovo, having been nominally de-linked, still overlap and are therefore slowing down the critical process of negotiation? It is vital that the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue continues and is facilitated at the highest level.

At our own EU Committee during the summer, I asked Mr Lidington about the EULEX programme and whether the rule of law extended into the north or stopped at the internal frontier. His answer then was that there was no agreement at all about the mandate of institutions, principally the judiciary and the police north of the river at Mitrovica, and I expect the Minister will confirm that that is still the position. But it is the major sticking point, because lawyers and judges have made hardly any progress against organised crime such as we have just heard about—trafficking and offences against young people in vast no-go areas of the north. The EULEX programme there is still at a standstill.

There was fierce resistance along the internal border late in July when Kosovo quite reasonably attempted to strengthen its policing authority and since then the UN has sought to calm things down, although the underlying tensions of course remain. NATO has flexed its muscles and KFOR has had a change of command. Serbs in the north continue to protest against KFOR’s presence just metres over the border by blocking roads between the two communities.

The reported view of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, is that,

“the future of Kosovo is European”.

This seems to accord with the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, namely that through Europe we shall be able to guarantee the rights of the citizens of the former Yugoslavia, wherever they may be and divided as many of them remain within the current national boundaries. This means that Serbia will, at some future stage when it has accepted all the safeguards for Kosovo, be welcomed into the European Union. Does the Minister foresee this scenario and, if so, does he agree that since July it has receded even further over the horizon? Indeed, Chancellor Merkel had to warn Serbia only three weeks ago that it would have to dismantle its parallel institutions in the north if it was to have any real prospect of European membership. That is going to take a lot more time to negotiate.

Finally, what are the Government doing to explain what we are doing in Kosovo to our own general public in the UK, who seem quite unaware of the gravity of the situation or the potential risks there? Kosovo is no longer a faraway place in which we have no interest. It is a territory for which we have risked lives in our recent history. In case of any further outbreak of violence, what have the Government done to prepare us for any future commitments which may be forced on us? Also, why have we decided to withdraw our aid programme from Kosovo next year? I am sorry that I have not given the Minister notice of this question but, coming from my background, I have understood the relevance of so many programmes in Kosovo and I am concerned that they are due to be removed next year. Does Kosovo not qualify as one of Europe's poorest communities, urgently needing support for democratic institutions, good governance and the other virtues proclaimed by our Department for International Development?

In conclusion, I pay tribute to all the moderate citizens of Kosovo who recognise the value of international assistance and the strengthening of their institutions over the past decade and who, despite the frustrations, continually seek to win over their nationalist neighbours to ensure that they can live in peace and prosperity in the future.

16:52

[Lord Sheikh]

My Lords, I am interested in the Balkans and some years ago I used to handle the insurance account of Yugotours, a state-owned travel company which specialised in arranging holidays to Yugoslavia. During the existence of Yugoslavia I visited Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia. Since the independence of Kosovo, I have known the Kosovan ambassador and met him on several occasions. In fact, I saw him last night at a meeting I hosted in the House of Lords. I know the Imam of the Kosovan community mosque in Maida Vale and I have visited the mosque on several occasions and performed its inauguration. I have arranged for Friday prayers to be said in the House and the Imam has led these prayers several times. I have also met various members of the Kosovan diaspora. A high-powered delegation from the country recently came to see me in the House. I chair the Conservative Muslim Forum and one of my executive committee members is in fact a gentleman from Kosovo.

The Prime Minister of Kosovo, His Excellency Mr Hashim Thaci, has stated that he has worked towards three aims: freedom, independence and European integration. These aims are shared by all Kosovans, regardless of ethnicity or political background. In 1999, our Government played a crucial role in bringing about NATO intervention which saved Kosovo, and Britain was among the first countries to recognise Kosovo on 18 February 2008, a day after it declared its nationhood.

I feel that our Government should lobby with other countries, within Europe and globally, for Kosovo's inclusion within the international system. Furthermore, we should support Kosovo’s and Serbia’s EU integration prospects, as their entry will help to maintain peace and stability in south-eastern Europe.

I also believe that membership of the EU for both countries should be considered simultaneously. We should support the Kosovo Government’s action in extending the rule of law throughout the territory of Kosovo. I understand that a range of agreements have been reached between Kosovo and Serbia that will pave the way for the normalisation of trade between the two countries. In fact our ambassador, along with other European ambassadors, has met the Prime Minister of Kosovo today to discuss the implementation of the new customs regime.

We should look at the possibility of doing more business in Kosovo. The IPU is arranging a parliamentary delegation to visit Kosovo in October. There are opportunities for investment in Kosovo and the country has a lot to offer potential investors. Although small in size, it has abundant natural resources. Kosovo has large reserves of lignite, lead, zinc, nickel, chrome and bauxite. The ongoing privatisation process presents an excellent investment opportunity in the mining sector. Another sector that presents opportunity for investment is agriculture. Kosovo has large areas of fertile land, and investment in this field will be worth while and bear fruit.

Another great asset of Kosovo is its people. It must be emphasised that Kosovo has a young and educated population with a high literacy rate in foreign languages, and there is an excellent workforce to be employed. Notwithstanding the financial difficulties that a number of countries have suffered, Kosovo has experienced between 4 per cent and 6 per cent GDP growth in recent years, which I hope will continue in future.

In my dealings with the people of Kosovo I have found them to be hospitable and kind, and they have a will to succeed. I hope that the links we have built with Kosovo are strengthened and our friendship with the country and its people will continue to develop.

16:57

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I think that we would all like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for raising this subject for debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, who have spoken; they are all familiar with aspects of Kosovo in a way that I am not. My own personal knowledge of Kosovo was confined to the bunkers of Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence when, as an adviser there in the Blair period, I was greatly involved in the politics of the Kosovo campaign in 1998. It is an unpopular thing to say these days but I was proud of the courage that our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, showed on that issue, and it was a successful episode in what is now called liberal interventionism. We helped to prevent a genocide and secured the right of people to self-determination. From this side of the House we welcome the progress that has been made towards international recognition of Kosovo, including through the recent ruling of the International Criminal Court.

There are serious concerns, however. I did a little bit of homework for this debate, as we spokespersons have to do. I went first of all to an article in Survival by Ivan Krastev on the Balkans:

“Bosnia and Kosovo are trapped in the labyrinthine politics of semi-independence; Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are small and claustrophobic republics with populist and divisive governments”.

He goes on:

“The Balkans currently reflects a mixture of Greek-style economic problems, Berlusconi-style politics and Turkish-level hopes”.

That is a rather pessimistic view of the Balkans.

The recent strategic survey—another bible for opposition foreign affairs spokespersons—raises serious concerns about the situation in Kosovo. There are widespread concerns about corruption at the highest levels of the Kosovo Administration. There was what has been described as industrial-scale fraud in the general election of 13 December. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, has referred to the awful business of the allegations of a trade in organs. There is also widespread criminality, which means that Kosovo is the only Balkan entity to have been denied visa-free access to the Schengen area. I think that is the case.

Kosovo needs to address these problems. They are problems not only for the Kosovars but for the Serbian Kosovars. They will not achieve full recognition of their statehood unless they accept the responsibilities that come with it. At the moment they are in this rather awkward in-between position. Fundamental to these matters are the independence and integrity of the police, the prosecuting authorities, the judiciary and the rule of law. That is still seriously in question.

We all want Kosovo to become a member of the European Union one day—at least, I assume we all do. I certainly do, as do the Opposition. However, increasingly there are questions about whether the EU can be the magic wand that spirits away the problems of the Balkans and the former Yugoslavia. There is enlargement fatigue within the European Union. There is a loss of interest in the Balkans, particularly from the Americans, who face many other problems in the world. The EU is incredibly internally focused because of the crises that it currently faces. How can Britain play a role within the EU to keep up the momentum of progress that has been made in the Balkans and take the countries there towards EU membership?

I should like the Minister’s view on whether there is something of an opportunity in what has happened in Serbia. I know that Serbia has lots of pluses and minuses but the arrest of Mladic was a great step forward. It showed that President Tadic, who I have met, takes his nation’s EU ambitions seriously. That is why this happened. Can we and the EU use the wish of the Serbs to progress their EU membership as leverage to resolve the outstanding Kosovo issues? Kosovo will not get anywhere unless those questions are resolved.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, talked about the Serbian monasteries and whether progress can be made towards autonomy within Kosovo or whether that is unrealistic. Of course, the Kosovars also have incentives to settle these issues if they are to make the final progress that they need towards recognition and getting on the path of EU membership. On behalf of the Opposition, I hope that we will continue to pursue an active policy in these areas. However, we will succeed only if the general framework of our European policy is right. I am sorry if I sound like a record stuck in its groove on this issue but we will have absolutely no influence over our partners if people think that we are heading towards a semi-detached relationship. We will have no influence on shaping the justice and home affairs issues which are so important in the Balkans, particularly in Kosovo—everything to do with criminality, law and the rule of law—if we decide to opt out of it all in 2014. That will not send the right signal about British engagement. Of course, if the rest of Europe allows the Balkans simply to stew in its own juice, we cannot rule out the possibility of future bloodshed. Do not let us imagine that in future the Americans will come to our rescue in sorting out the Balkans in the way that they have done in the past. Unless we are committed to European defence, we will be shown to be very inadequate.

In conclusion, like the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I want to see Britain play a very active role in trying to maintain progress towards Kosovo’s independence and membership of the European Union; and, indeed, towards the enlargement of the EU in the whole of the Balkans. However, we will achieve this only if the Government’s policy framework towards the European Union is right.

17:07

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree strongly with those who have said that it is high time to have a debate on Kosovo. We should not neglect the western Balkans. Indeed, one of the occasions on which I have represented Her Majesty’s Government since the election was at a very useful conference on the western Balkans. This is not something which Her Majesty’s Government neglect.

As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, recognised, there are severe problems in maintaining public awareness. Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, the Arab spring and Libya have driven Kosovo off our television screens and on to, at best, the side columns of page 20 of the quality newspapers. Therefore, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for opening this debate and maintaining his active interest in the Government’s policy towards Kosovo.

Her Majesty’s Government are a firm supporter of Kosovo’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Our objective is to see a stable and prosperous Kosovo making progress towards the EU in line with that of the wider western Balkans region. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that I, my party and many others actively supported the Blair Government’s intervention in Kosovo. It was absolutely right. I am a little puzzled that he thinks that the United Kingdom is being stand-offish on European defence just after the conclusion of the Franco-British-led operation in Libya. Her Majesty’s Government are not standoffish on European defence. The exchanges that people like myself occasionally have with members of other Governments about whether we are in favour of a “common European army”, which those representatives often think would actually not do anything, are a very long way from the practical co-operation with the French and other Governments which we have been pursuing and will continue to pursue. Whether one should accept that what Europe needs next in European defence is a common operational headquarters that will take a number of staff officers away from different countries and not then actually do anything, or whether the way forward is precisely the sort of practical co-operation that we are pursuing, is a matter to which we will no doubt return on other occasions.

Kosovo has been through a period of bitter relations between its majority and minority communities. Mistreatment of the majority under Milosevic’s regime was followed by conflict in which both sides committed a number of what one has to call atrocities. It takes a long time for those wounds to heal. They have not entirely healed and none of us from the international community has succeeded in helping Kosovo to establish a stable and well functioning state.

However, the past 15 years have seen the establishment of greater stability across the western Balkans. The region nevertheless requires continued active engagement, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, reminded us, because the area is still criss-crossed by ethnic, religious, cultural and historical divisions. Many people are still very poor, organised crime and corruption are still big problems, investment is growing slowly and government remains weak. In all those respects Kosovo is no exception.

That is why the Government unequivocally support Kosovo’s ambition to join the EU and NATO. We will support, encourage and, at times, challenge the Kosovo Government on their way to achieving that goal. As one of Kosovo’s near neighbours, Croatia, has so successfully shown, progress towards the EU means stability, security, a long process of improvement in institutional, judicial and civil rights, and economic and commercial opportunity. It also means the full implementation of European values—democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of minorities. Regional co-operation has a crucial role to play in bringing political stability, security and economic development to the region. Not only is that a cornerstone of the European integration process but it can act as a catalyst for reconciliation in the region.

Recent events have shown how vulnerable the progress we have seen in the western Balkans can be to the politics of ethnic division. In July, a Kosovo police officer was killed in northern Kosovo, and Kosovans of both Serb and Albanian ethnicity were injured. These events have shown us more than ever why the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia is of crucial importance for the future of both countries and for our collective efforts to realise peace and stability in the western Balkans. Many in this House will know Robert Cooper, the senior official who is leading that dialogue. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, can continue to rely on Britain’s unwavering support for her stewardship of this process. With political will on both sides, it will improve the quality of life for the citizens of Kosovo and Serbia. It will support in a more stable manner the progress of both countries towards EU accession.

The dialogue is slowly making progress. On 2 September, Serbia and Kosovo agreed after the dispute that led to the incidents in July to use Kosovo’s customs stamps—thus paving the way for a free flow of trade between Kosovo and Serbia. The EU’s Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, EULEX, has engaged closely with the Governments of Kosovo and Serbia on how to implement that programme. Tomorrow, 16 September, EULEX will reopen the customs controls that had been disrupted by July’s violence. Kosovo’s customs officers will be at the gates alongside EULEX staff. This is welcome. But even now we are witnessing efforts by some to undermine this progress, to raise the rhetorical ante, and to provoke further tensions between the communities. The UN Security Council will this evening discuss this question in closed session.

Her Majesty's Government urge the Governments of Kosovo and Serbia to act in a mature and responsible manner during this period of unavoidable tension, to avoid engaging in provocative rhetoric and to do everything in their power to moderate responses to the opening of those two conflict-ridden gates.

Kosovo is now, we hope, moving towards a more stable relationship with Serbia. On northern Kosovo, the EU and the international community have repeatedly said that there can be no change to Kosovo's borders. Any attempts to encourage the partition of Kosovo or to reopen status talks would threaten stability in the entire Balkans region and will be strongly resisted. Kosovo's status has been resolved and there can be no turning back. I think that we are all conscious that the current situation in northern Kosovo is unsustainable. The potential for northern Kosovo to become, if you like, another Transnistria—a lawless area which is a base for organised crime—is there. That would be a danger to the entire region.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was unkind to EULEX. EULEX has an indispensable role to play in Kosovo. It has nearly 3,000 staff. Unavoidably there is turnover, but not at too fast a rate. It is playing a role in the judicial development of Kosovo in customs and police. That is a vital contribution to enabling Kosovo to meet EU standards for the rule of law. Tackling organised crime and corruption is essential for the long term and for the long-term stability of the western Balkans as a whole. Furthermore, it has a direct impact on organised crime networks operating across Europe, including within the UK. It is also essential for Kosovo to make progress on its European perspective.

Britain currently provides more than 30 secondees to EULEX. EULEX has an executive mandate to enforce the rule of law in the north, as shown by its recent operations to arrest those individuals suspected of involvement in the burning of Customs Point 1 and the murder of a Kosovo police officer in July. Full co-operation from both Belgrade and Pristina is essential for successful EULEX operations in the north. EULEX is a good example of how all member states, whether or not they have recognised Kosovo's independence, can work together in support of Kosovo's European perspective. Indeed, some states which have not yet recognised Kosovo are providing support for EULEX.

On access to monasteries, the United Kingdom consistently urges the Kosovan Government to fulfil the terms of the comprehensive settlement proposal, including on freedom of religion. We understand that relations between the Serbian monasteries, particularly those in the centre and the south, and their local communities, have improved a great deal, and we will give all support to further means to bring those monasteries closer to their communities. We are sorry that we cannot yet provide the more than verbal support asked for—I note that hint—because the United Kingdom budget, like everything else, has its limits, but we have been giving as much support as we can to all those initiatives. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, about the importance of intercommunity dialogue.

The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, talked about industry and investment. We hope that the mines will soon reopen. We were delighted recently when the British company Coresteel completed the purchase of the Llamkos steel plant.

On the Roma question, we have been working to assist the rehousing project for Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian residents away from the lead-contaminated camp. That is now under way. We are very sorry that it has not yet been completed.

On organ trafficking, as noble Lords will know, US Ambassador Clint Williamson has been appointed as chief prosecutor in charge of the investigation. We welcome his appointment and it is our firm view that EULEX has the mandate, jurisdiction and resources needed to undertake an objective investigation into these allegations.

On EU aid, DfID, as noble Lords will know, is reducing the number of countries to which it provides development aid. Aid will continue to flow to Kosovo through the interdepartmental conflict prevention pool from which half of the UK aid to Kosovo was provided last year.

I am conscious that I have not answered everyone’s points, but I am now out of time. However, I am told that Andy Murray will be Novak Djokovic’s best man at his marriage which will take place in northern Kosovo. I trust that that is regarded as an informal British contribution to intercommunity dialogue and good relations in the western Balkans.

I shall write to noble Lords on a number of other points. I conclude by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and I look forward to him maintaining the Government’s necessary responses to our policy on Kosovo.

House adjourned at 5.21 pm.