Westminster Hall

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

Tuesday 6 December 2011

[Jim Dobbin in the Chair]

Sport and Youth Crime

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Nick Herbert.)

09:30

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. Today’s debate on the effects of sport on youth crime falls, in some ways, in the shadow of last summer’s riots, and from his appearance yesterday on “Newsnight”, I know that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice is up to speed with the subject. This debate is set against a longer-term concern about the rising problem of disengaged youth, which has disturbed Governments of all persuasions for decades, and a belief by many in the sporting community that sport can and does play a positive role in re-engaging young people and refocusing their lives.

Nelson Mandela has said:

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire… It speaks to youth in a language they understand. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down social barriers”,

and I want to use this debate not just to say that sport is good for its own sake, although many people believe that numerous benefits come with it. Studies of the benefits of youth participation in sport suggest that sport in and of itself is not enough to refocus or turn around the lives of disadvantaged young people and that what is required is a structured programme of support alongside the sporting activities. It is not simply a case of putting on ad hoc sporting events or creating new sporting facilities, but about how programmes are managed.

This is not simply a way of saying that Government intervention is necessarily a bad thing, or that Government agencies and public bodies are unable to deliver programmes that successfully intervene in young people’s lives. Support, including financial support, from the Government and their agencies is incredibly important to the success of such projects, but a good deal of new evidence suggests that sporting organisations and brands that have credibility in the eyes and lives of young people are often more successful in achieving the breakthrough that we all seek.

There has been a debate among people with an interest in sporting interventions in the lives of young people. People instinctively feel that such interventions are the right thing to do, and they have anecdotal evidence that they make a positive difference, but if there is any criticism, it is that there is perhaps a lack of robust data about exactly how they reduce criminal behaviour. I want to highlight some case studies that show the positive impact of such interventions on reducing crime and on antisocial behaviour and in improving the general well-being and educational performance of young people. The studies, of necessity in some ways, focus on relatively small numbers of people in relatively small geographical areas, and I would like the Government to consider some broader research that would seek to demonstrate the value for money and the performance of sporting interventions with young people.

I want to thank a number of sporting and other young people’s organisations that run such programmes and have provided information about them for the debate today—in particular, the Premier League, with its Kickz programme; the Manchester United Foundation; Charlton Athletic Community Trust; the Rugby Football Union; Sky Sports; the Sport and Recreation Alliance; First Light, which works in the arts; and Catch22. Their formal programmes are largely delivered by volunteers from the communities that they serve, and so I also want to thank the many volunteers who make them a success and the hundreds and thousands of people who work every day to deliver youth sporting projects, not just for disadvantaged young people but for all young people across the country. Their work is incredibly valuable and important to us all.

I want to look at four important areas that are of relevance to the debate: sporting programme interventions that help to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour; interventions that engage young offenders, both in young offenders institutions and after release; programmes for improving school attendance and attainment; and initiatives that help to rebuild young people’s self-worth.

We must consider costs; none of these programmes is delivered for free, although many are delivered with the support of the private and charitable sectors. We must also consider the costs of doing nothing, of maintaining the status quo. Based on 2010 figures, the National Audit Office has calculated that more than 200,000 criminal offences a year are committed by people aged between 10 and 17 at an annual cost to the country of up to £11 billion. It costs up to £100,000 a year to keep someone in a young offenders institution, and the number of 15 to 17-year-olds in prison has doubled over the past 10 years. During the five days of riots in August, 26% of the rioters were under 17, and 74% were under 24. There is not a male bias in the programmes and activities—they are open to boys and girls—but it is worth noting that 90% of the rioters were male.

First, on reducing crime and antisocial behaviour, one of the longest running and most successful projects is Kickz. It has been run by the Premier League for five years, has involved contact with more than 50,000 young people across 113 projects in some of the UK’s most deprived areas and has been supported by 43 professional football clubs. Kickz targets 12 to 18-year-olds, and its projects are football-led but include other sports and programmes designed to encourage young people’s awareness of health issues. The schemes typically take place three nights a week throughout the year, which is important in that they are frequent and have a very fixed structure. Kickz and the Premier League believe that one in 10 of the young people who initially attend the programmes as participants go on to volunteer, delivering the programmes for other young people, and they say that 398 people have gained full-time employment in some of the professional football clubs that have run the projects.

A report published last year by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital, entitled “Teenage Kicks”, looked at a project run with Arsenal football club in Elthorne park in London and discovered that the investment in the project potentially created £7 of value for every £1 spent, with the savings coming from the reduced costs to the state of the reduction in criminal behaviour, with less police and court time needed to put people in detention. One participant said that he thought that 25% of the kids on the estate would be in jail without the programme, and he highlighted the nature of the problems that many young people face. He was someone who came home from school to find not a fridge full of food and people waiting for him, but nothing for him at all and an empty time in his day.

Interestingly, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation also commissioned a report looking at the role of sport in gang culture. Young people involved in the research gave reasons why they might get involved in activities that would keep them out of trouble, and the top reason was that the activities would simply give them something to do. We should not underestimate the importance of that.

Returning to the study of the Elthorne park Kickz project delivered by Arsenal, it suggested that there had been a 66% reduction in youth crime within a one-mile radius of the project. Even taking into account other interventions—through community policing, for example —and after looking at national youth crime reduction trends for that period, the study’s authors thought it reasonable to suggest that at least 20% of that reduction was directly related to the project.

The Manchester United Foundation has delivered similar projects, with its star footballers working with youth workers and volunteers to deliver football-based recreational projects for young people in Manchester. Some of its research suggests a similar pattern of behaviour to that found in other research. It believes that in its Salford project there was a 28.4% reduction in antisocial behaviour during the session times when the foundation was working, and a 16.3% reduction in Trafford.

There are other smaller projects that in some ways work with people with more challenging needs, and I want to highlight—this has been highlighted in the Laureus report and by other people—the work of the Tottenham boxing academy. Members who know more about boxing than I do might take part in this debate, so I will not dwell too much on this. The project was designed for 14 to 16-year-olds. Physical impact sports—boxing and rugby—seem to be particularly effective when working with people from troubled backgrounds and certainly with those who have been involved criminal activity. There were 17 people on that project. Eight of them were known to have been offenders in the past, and based on normal intervention programmes, two thirds of those young people would normally be expected to reoffend within a year. However, in that instance, only two did. It is a small project, but it suggests that sporting projects help to re-engage people. They engage young people through a sport and then allow the youth workers delivering the project to engage with them about the other issues that they might have.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He has spoken a bit about curing those who have committed youth crime. Does he accept that prevention is also an issue with youngsters who might otherwise be attracted into criminality?

May I make a quick plug for the club that is probably nearest to where we are sitting now? About 300 yards away is St Andrew’s club at Old Pye street. The club has been around for 130 years, runs 12 football teams on a weekly basis and has an indoor gym. It works well with Westminster school, which has put a lot of money into ensuring that the gym is up to the highest standards, and it makes an impact in the vicinity. St Andrew’s club operates not too far away from what would otherwise be a quite troubled area of social housing.

[Damian Collins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. St Andrew’s club is indeed a great success. I know that it has his support as well as that of previous lord mayors of Westminster, who have made it their annual mayoral charity. Its work is greatly appreciated by people in central London.

The project Hitz is delivered by the Rugby Football Union, the premiership rugby clubs and the police across 10 London boroughs, and has 750 participants. Again, the sessions are led by youth workers and run frequently, twice a week for 50 weeks of the year. In the Haggerston park area of Hackney, where the project was delivered, the fall in antisocial behaviour calls was calculated at 39% during the project.

Such projects often encourage people not just to take part in the project itself, but to take their interest into a more structured environment and perhaps into full-time participation in the sport. The Hackney Bulls rugby club recruited six new players from people involved in Hitz, and overall, the programme has taken 41 young people into full-time participation in rugby.

In my area, Kent, the Charlton Athletic Community Trust has done excellent work with young people over a number of years. Certain projects that have sought to re-engage young people and refocus their lives have caused similar falls in antisocial behaviour, including a fall of 35% in Aylesham and 59% in Buckland. The trust also does good work on alternative curriculum provision to re-engage young people with their studies, and I will come to that in a moment.

Good work can be done in the community to help direct young people away from the path of criminality, as my hon. Friend highlighted. There is also some evidence on work being done to engage young people in the prison environment, often at low cost, as many prisons and young offender institutions have good sporting facilities, and it is a question of bringing in the right people to engage young offenders. Those programmes use sport to help bridge the gap between life inside an institution to life outside it afterwards.

A project called 2nd Chance has worked in the Ashfield young offenders institution. Drawing on professional sports clubs around Bristol, such as Bristol Rovers and Bristol rugby club, it has worked with 400 offenders a year and is a low-cost provision. It has been calculated that, if just one offender with whom the programme works is kept out of prison, that will pay for the delivery of the entire programme for a year. When we consider that the current reoffending rate for young offenders in Ashfield is 76%, it seems a risk worth taking.

As part of the study of its work, 2nd Chance has asked that it and groups like it have access to information about reoffending rates for people who have engaged in such programmes, to demonstrate whether they offer a value for money return. At the moment, it is difficult for those groups to access that information, as all sorts of data protection issues rightly surround information that can be traced to individual offenders. However, could general information be given to make that link and demonstrate the payback of such projects? The project within Ashfield was delivered for less than £80,000 in a year of operation and worked with more than 400 young people.

The Rugby Football Union has a programme called Try for Life that has worked with young offenders in numerous institutions, and a programme called Prison to Pitch that trains young people in prison to play rugby and then helps them gain placements with rugby clubs outside prison. As with the programmes run by the Premier League, individuals who do not go on to work within the sport go on to volunteer to help deliver programmes for other young people.

School attendance and attainment is particularly relevant to a case from my own constituency that I want to cite: the work of the Charlton Athletic Community Trust in New Romney. It is worth noting in the data from the riots that 30% of rioters were persistently absent from school. In New Romney, the Charlton Athletic Community Trust has taken over alternative curriculum provision, a mainstream piece of provision offered across the country. Charlton Athletic won the contract to deliver it. It uses its role as a football and sport club to re-engage young people, but it also delivers studies in maths and English, as well as a broader basic curriculum.

The project opened in New Romney in September. I attended, along with my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and the Olympics. During the two or three months since it started, the rate of attendance of the young people involved has improved significantly. The project gave me statistics. The attendance rate of one of those young people went from 1% at their previous institution to 55% now. Another student’s attendance rate went from 26% at their previous institution to 100% now.

Such projects help to reduce antisocial behaviour, as some statistics demonstrate, and a broader, fuller study by the Government would be welcome. I have cited examples showing how they can intervene successfully in the lives of young people in prison and re-engage those who have had trouble at school with their studies. There is also much to be said about the projects’ ability to help rebuild young people’s sense of self-worth and make them feel happier in their working and school environments.

The charity Greenhouse does a lot of work across London. It was supported by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their wedding guest list and by The Times’s Christmas appeal. In the research based on its 41 full-time sports and performing arts projects across London, some things that stand out strongly are improved school attendance, improved timeliness for the projects and increased happiness in school. An evaluation commissioned by Greenhouse from external valuers showed that 87% of the young people with whom the charity worked reported being happy at school as a result of the new programmes in which they were taking part, compared with just 52% before the start of the programme. Those might be softer measures of improvement, but they are important when we consider that we are dealing with people who are, on the whole, quite disengaged from their environment and from formal learning areas and practices.

The Manchester United Foundation calculated that its project had worked with 500 young people. Of those 500, seven got jobs with Manchester United, 14 were recruited as volunteers, 30 gained accreditation in music and IT production projects, eight completed football level 1 and 2 qualifications, 12 won boxing tutor awards and 30 became junior football organisers. That is not a bad rate of return for engagement with 500 young people, and the project was delivered at relatively low cost, for less than £50,000 a year.

In conclusion, I ask the Government to consider the issues raised by my remarks and the case studies that I have mentioned. The Government should shift their priorities generally—they have already signalled a shift—so that they do not just increase participation in sport for good but consider how targeted intervention by sporting projects can help change the lives of some of the most hard-to-reach young people. They should consider how to create a unified approach to delivery across Departments. The work touches on the role of the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government, all of which have some interest in the delivery of such projects. A unified approach is needed, probably with a lead Minister to take responsibility for and an interest in how those projects are delivered.

There should be a review of some of the rules and regulations about the delivery of sporting projects on the ground. Many sporting clubs cite problems with Criminal Records Bureau checks and other forms of bureaucracy that make their work more difficult. We should certainly look at that. All the national sporting bodies should prioritise the development of coaching qualifications and the training of people to help deliver projects.

To return to what I said at the beginning of the debate, a good starting point would be to build on the work that is being done by many sporting and charitable organisations, take up the research that they have done, complete a fuller study and analysis of the benefits and the rate of return from this type of intervention, and then consider the potential basis of further Government support via Government agencies, local government and the police—through crime prevention strategies—to make this a fuller programme for the country. The need to re-engage with young people is strong and evident, and the riots over the summer demonstrated that clearly to us all. Through the fog of this despair, there is evidence of some incredible and successful interventions that are turning around the lives of young people. We should draw from that and build for the future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, it looks as though four or five other Members would like to contribute. I intend to call the shadow Minister at about 20 minutes to 11.

09:50

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

Thank you, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate. I hope that hon. Members will not feel too much of a sense of déjà vu after I have finished, because I will make many of the points that he has already made, although I will use examples that are local to me in order to illustrate them.

The debate’s title could have been recast and centred on the effect of sports leaders on youth crime, because I think that sports leaders are what really do it in terms of reducing crime. Clearly, the sport itself plays a part, but I think it is the sports leaders who have the impact, and that is because of the discipline that they can instil, their important mentoring role, and the values that they demonstrate in leading young people, whatever their sporting activity. The Government have to get on top of the mentoring role. I believe that there is an issue about which Government Department should take responsibility for mentors. There is a clear need for them in, I would suggest, large numbers, but there seem to be difficulties in securing them, so that is an area for the Government to focus on.

Sport is also central to reducing youth crime and engaging young people in positive diversionary activities. Sport is all about team play—working together with others—which might be something that they have not experienced before. Moreover, exercise undoubtedly helps address the anger management issues that some young people may have—it is a lot harder to be angry after three hours of intense sporting activity. Sport is also about sportsmanship and being able to demonstrate to other young people the value of fair play. Wrapped up in all that is the issue of diet. Addressing dietary failures is necessary not only to succeed at sport at almost any level, but particularly if alcohol is an issue.

There are many examples of very successful sports schemes—or schemes that use sport, which are slightly different—that are used to tackle criminal behaviour or reduce the risk of offending. The hon. Gentleman has referred to Kickz, which is a very good project, and I will refer to a couple of statistics that highlight its success. There has been a 60% reduction in antisocial behaviour in areas in which Kickz is active, and up to a 20% reduction in the crimes that are most often associated with young people. Clearly, the project has the metrics to demonstrate that it is successful, but, like the hon. Gentleman, I think there is an issue about being able to demonstrate what types of projects are in fact successful. Anecdotal evidence is, of course, very good, but if the Government, the voluntary sector and charities, or social entrepreneurs want to invest in something, we need more than anecdotal evidence to support what is and what is not successful.

I am fortunate to have Cricket for Change based in my constituency. It does a lot of work on street cricket and engaging young people, both boys and girls, in it. Such is the success of its programmes that it has exported them to other countries around the world, such as Jamaica, Sri Lanka and South Africa, so it has taken the idea to challenging deprived areas and has bound people together. It has just finished a three-year programme targeting the 10 communities in London with the highest levels of youth crime. I want to see what that project’s metrics say about the outcomes, because it may have been very successful.

Another local project is Community Inspirations, the importance of which is that it can provide wraparound for some young people who have fallen out of education. They may, for instance, be training locally at the Skills and Integrated Learning Centre—SILC—in plastering, tiling and other skills. There is often an issue about what they do during the school holidays. The typical activities of organisations such as Community Inspirations centre on sport. It often takes a group of young people who may never have stepped outside their postcode to another part of the country to meet other young people and play in competitions. It is having an important impact.

I had a chance meeting last night on my way to the Akash Tandoori, an establishment that I would recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Wallington. It is run by Yawar Khan, who is the president of the Federation of Bangladeshi Caterers and with whom I do a lot of work. Incidentally, I think that the Government and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government could perhaps give him credit for the idea of setting up a curry college in the UK, because he and his federation have been pushing for it for a number of years. He certainly sees the value in training young people here, as opposed to bringing them over from abroad. I will not pursue that line of inquiry, because its link with sport is tenuous.

Mr Khan was hosting a fundraiser for the Royal Marsden at which I happened to meet Mike Fleet, who runs Croydon Harriers. It takes its role in education very seriously, to the extent that when it takes young people on a coach to an athletics meet, the team managers go around and ask the young people, “Where’s your homework? Are you doing it? Do you need some help with your Spanish?” It is, therefore, very hands-on in its support for those young people, as well as in coaching them in their sporting activities and techniques.

I asked Mike why he thought sport was successful and whether it was because the young people win and it gives them a sense of worth. He replied that that was not necessarily the reason, because, of course, they do not all win. He said that it is actually about things such as feeling that they are part of a family. They see a group of young people and adults on a regular basis who can provide them with support. Croydon Harriers work with a range of young people, from perhaps some of the most challenging in Croydon to pupils from Whitgift—whose behaviour I do not think is particularly challenging—and provide them with support and a family environment. In fact, they will often bring in a young person’s actual family and provide an environment in which they can work together, with sport as the coalescing factor. Young people can also see their own progress—they start out achieving a certain distance or time and can then monitor their progress and realise that they are taking positive steps.

Members may not have expected this, but the final project that I would like to mention is the work of the Angling Trust on urban fishing and getting young people from areas that we would least expect involved in fishing. However, a blogger responded to my suggestion that this was a good thing by saying that they did not want oiks to ruin their fishing, so there may be some issues about ensuring that regular fishermen and women do not feel threatened, but the project has an important part to play.

I have given examples of some very good schemes. Finally, I would like to go over the same ground as the hon. Gentleman. There are statistics and hard facts about what is successful, and a lot of anecdotal evidence, but we need to channel that into a strong body of evidence on which the Government and other groups can base decisions about what types of sports schemes they should support. That is true for the whole area of criminal justice, for crime prevention and detection, and for sport. I understand that a sports think-tank has just been set up. Andy Reed, who used to be the Member of Parliament for Loughborough, Lord Addington and a Conservative peer whose name, unfortunately, I cannot remember are on that think-tank. That organisation may want to consider the matter in terms of pulling together the evidence. We need some joined-up government.

This is my last point. We know that the cost of sending people to prison is £40,000, and up to—who knows?—£200,000 for a very secure establishment. We want to see some hard facts about the success of these projects in diverting young people away from crime, so that we can offset the expenditure on those projects against the savings that will be derived by having fewer young people in our prisons. If the Government can achieve that, there will be a substantial improvement in our understanding of how we can tackle these problems.

10:01

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, in this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing it.

Anecdotally, we have all seen programmes that touch us in understanding how sport has actively intervened in people’s lives to put them on the straight and narrow or, indeed, to make them positive role models in their own communities and families. My hon. Friend has already set out in substantial detail the wide landscape within which many programmes operate. The Positive Futures programme in Suffolk is run as part of a national programme and has been a significant success. It is funded by the Home Office drugs strategy directorate and I hope that the Minister may have some evidence of its benefits. All of us can think of examples in our constituencies where such an approach has worked.

The Rugby Football Foundation, which has already been mentioned, is involved with the Prison to Pitch initiative. I have been impressed by Sally Pettipher from the Rugby Football Foundation, who has described that scheme to me. I have tried to help to organise some funding and she has been very diligent in trying to get the initiative going, which works with people who are in prison or a young offenders institute. The physical playing of rugby is a useful energy release exercise, but that is not the only beauty of the project. When people leave prison or a young offenders institute, they are invited to join their local rugby club. The intention is that, instead of perhaps going back to the so-called family or friends who lead them astray or back into crime, they can have a new family within the rugby club. Rugby is particularly well set up for that because it has more of a clubhouse feel and that community aspect is far more evident than perhaps with many football teams. Those teams do a great job across the country. Often—how can I put it?—they assemble on Hackney marshes on a Sunday and go for a drink afterwards, but the members of the teams do not necessarily see each other from one week to the next.

I want to encourage the Home Office and the Minister to try to do what they can to support that programme. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), who is responsible for prisons, was very supportive of the scheme and, indeed, still is. However, I know that Ministry of Justice officials were initially concerned that allowing a contact sport into a youth offenders institute would introduce safeguarding issues around children. We seem to have got over that, but I encourage the Minister to do what he can to try to stress the positive aspect of sports as opposed to erecting barriers.

A separate programme—the Wooden Spoon programme—essentially involves a group of teams that go out and play and raise money for community projects. That has been very successful; indeed, it has crossed codes, with the league and the union coming together to provide mutual support. The programme’s projects not only tackle things such as disability and opportunities, but, with the Young Men’s Christian Association, focus on NEETs. That has been successful in trying to tackle antisocial behaviour in deprived areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe is a big Manchester United fan. I happen to be a Liverpool fan. After the party conference this year, I was in Manchester, but I made the trip down to Speke in Liverpool. I was made very welcome there by the Liverpool football club community department. I pay particular tribute to Bill Bygroves who is the community officer. He has a focused team of people, and has shown true leadership since the scheme was set up in 2000. From what I could tell from my time there, the scheme has gone from strength to strength and is broadening out into a variety of functions, including addressing issues such as men’s health.

I want to focus on some of the work that the LFC community department does with children and schools. It employs some people who, by their own admission, have strayed off the straight and narrow path but have turned their lives around and have been encouraged by the positive association in the community with a brand as strong as Liverpool football club. That brand association has taken these programmes into places where things that are not very cool, such as a local youth service, might not reach. Of course, it is not only happening in Liverpool. We have heard about Manchester United and I know Everton do it. In addition, the excellent Kickz scheme has been mentioned. The LFC community department has done something very good in systematically associating something positive with a general challenge to attitudes and, critically, with talking about positive relationships.

I have been shown a variety of material that has been shared with many children across Liverpool. The scheme works in such a way that, essentially, children from a class will spend time at a particular sports centre and interact with people who work for the club. Various worksheets are used as part of its education curriculum, which talk about things such as “positive relationships,” “tactics for families,” “respect for all,” “truth for youth,” “drop the drugs,” “ban the bully,” “rule out the racist,” “shoot goals not guns” and “say no to knife crime.” As hon. Members can see, very positive messages are associated with leading football players such as Steven Gerrard and because Stevie says so, kids will stand up and take notice, which is very positive.

On other local activities, I must admit that I do not have children, but I always get a bit fed up when I meet younger people who say that there is nothing to do and blame this, that and the other. If we look around us, we can see the great work that is done in every community across this land, whether by volunteers who help to run the scouts and the guides and enjoy that kind of sport; those who are involved with work in lucky places such as Manchester, Liverpool and other main conurbations where football and rugby teams proactively go out to help their local communities; or people who are involved with the local Army Cadet Force or similar organisations. I genuinely believe that there is a lot out there for young people to do, but sometimes we just need to encourage them in the right direction.

Of course, many of those things are not seen as being very cool. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury talks about civic society, he needs to go and engage with these people. Something we can all do is direct people towards such organisations. One of the lessons we can learn is to associate positive brand ambassadors with these initiatives, whether they are at a football club or a local church school hall youth club that meets on a Thursday night. We need to have such positive brand imagery and to encourage all our local celebrities and respected local people—that may even include Members of Parliament—to fly the flag for the volunteers who are trying to make a difference with youth and sport.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

In case hon. Members are interested, for the record, I should say that I am a Glasgow Celtic fan.

10:09

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing the debate, which could not be more timely or more important. I thank him and other hon. Members for illustrating so effectively the statistical basis we have to demonstrate why sport is so important in tackling youth crime.

There is also the value-for-money aspect. My hon. Friend talked in a learned manner about boxing and the Tottenham boxing academy. What is so fascinating is that, as an alternative pupil referral unit, it actually costs a lot less than a regular PRU and is significantly more successful. In difficult economic times, youth sport is not only a good mechanism to tackle one of the big issues of our time, which erupted in August, but an extremely valuable mechanism to deal with social problems that arise when we do not have much money to do so.

In my short time this morning, I do not want to concentrate on anecdotes, because there are many, or the statistics and value-for-money figures, because they have been given out very effectively. I want to outline briefly why sport is important. If we understand what sport is and why it is important, it becomes a no-brainer that it will perform the functions that we need to demonstrate statistically—because we are accountable politicians—before we spend money on it. It is very important to understand what sport is.

I am president of my local boxing club, The National Smelting Co Amateur Boxing club, and chair of the all-party group on boxing. As with many sports, boxing is so important for many young people who have fallen out of all the normal authority measures. They have fallen out of school because they do not see that it offers anything for them. They have fallen out of the council’s best attempts to engage them in its systems of social work because they feel that they are dislocated from authority. For many young people, the boxing club is the only rival identity to other less savoury identities that are offered to them. One young boxer said to me:

“My life was a cul-de-sac of going into a gang. If I wanted an identity, security, protection, feeling I am something, there was only one option for me and that was to join a gang. My local boxing club provided an avenue off that cul-de-sac where I could find a family and identity.”

Family and identity, particularly identity for young people, are massively important. We all remember our school playground days and how important it was to be a member of a group of friends for our own identity. Crucially, for many young people, sport is the first opportunity they have to have a traction on achievement. In the riots, we saw a whole generation of young people who felt that they had nothing to lose, so why not go off and do stupid things? They felt they had no traction on achievement in their lives. They did not actually know how to achieve. The word “aspiration” is bandied around a lot, and the concept, included in the document, “Five days in August”, of hope and dreams is also bandied about a lot. There is a big, big difference between having hopes and dreams, and having goals. A hope and a dream is something one might vaguely hope to get to. Lots of young people have hopes and dreams of being David Beckham, or a WAG. They do not have any idea of how to achieve those hopes and dreams.

Sport begins to give young people a ladder to climb, from where they are now to where they think they want to be. Not everyone can be David Beckham. He is a very talented footballer. The narrative that society gives to young people is that David Beckham became David Beckham by just appearing on TV one day in a football kit, but David Beckham became David Beckham by putting in hours and hours and hours of training and hard work. The immense value of sports clubs—particularly boxing clubs for kids who will not engage with other forms of society, because they feel they are too much part of authority—is that they provide the first opportunity to learn the very important lesson that my old swimming coach, Eric Henderson, taught me—no pain, no gain. To achieve something, one has to put in effort now, be it doing maths homework because one wants to be rich, have a fast car and a very attractive wife, or be it putting in a bit of effort going for a run and a sports training session that one does not really want to do—because it is early in the morning, it is raining and one feels tired—but one does because one wants to achieve something in sporting life later on. That, of course, applies to school, sport and life. It applies to getting a job. It applies to so many things. In fact, it is the citizenship lesson about work and achievement—about teamwork, learning how to win and learning how to lose—that is so often delivered in schools in a two-dimensional form on a piece of paper, but which we need to deliver to young people in a real form on our sports fields and in our sports clubs.

We have the most extraordinary opportunity on our horizon next year. It is a once in a generation event: the Olympic games. We have just come through a summer that has rocked our nation. There is a problem with youth disengagement that we all knew existed. My goodness me, communities up and down the country knew it existed, because it was on their doorsteps daily. It erupted with massive force in London in August. The whole country looked at our young people and asked, “How have we let this happen?”

Next year, we have the most iconic solution to that problem—we have the Olympic games. I beg Government—I will do everything I can to work with them—not to let the opportunity of an Olympic legacy go to waste. On the ground, people know that sport works. If we understand the basic psychology of kids and all human beings, it is very apparent why sport works. We urgently need statistics, and the statistics base around it, to justify expenditure we need to make. We need to put that at the heart of tackling the massive social problem that erupted this year. What better opportunity is there to do that than when our British Olympic champions stand up on those podiums with those medals that I have no doubt they will win, saying, “Not only is this a gold medal because I was fastest or jumped highest on the day, not only is this a gold medal to say I was the best, but this gold medal also means a lot to me because of all the work I put in to get there”? Not everyone can be an Olympic champion, but everyone has their own personal best that they can achieve. It would be a great message to have every British Olympian standing and inspiring our young people to achieve. We can only do that if they have the rungs on the bottom of the ladder in our communities at grass-roots sports level in our schools and in our amateur sports clubs.

Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for securing this debate, which could not be more timely. We do not have much time to act and I urge the Government to address this issue with all seriousness.

10:09

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this important debate.

I am passionate about the positive role that sport can play in our local communities. I support that positive role through encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle that improves behaviour, teamwork and enjoyment. Sport can channel young people’s energy and boost self-esteem. Sport can be a forum for enjoyment, friendship and personal fulfilment. Sport can reach and change young people by improving their life chances, increasing educational attainment and building life skills. Sport can achieve some of the social outcomes that will help transform our society, and sport can be used a tool to benefit disadvantaged young children.

The reason why I am so passionate about sport relates partly to my own background and partly to the fact that I was the lead member for leisure on Swindon borough council before I became a Member of Parliament. I went to a school that was bottom of the league table in Worcestershire. We had many of the challenges that are often raised in debates connected to this subject. Two of my best friends when I was growing up ended up spending time at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Some would say that, now that I am in Parliament, perhaps I did not do better than those other two people, but among our group of friends, the main reason why the majority of us did not follow my two friends who did go to prison was, frankly, that we were too tired at the end of the day because of sport. We were influenced by role models on television. We predominantly played football, but, if it was Wimbledon fortnight, out came the tennis racquets. If the Tour de France was on, out came the bikes from the shed. If it was the Ashes cricket, out came the cricket bats. This is a serious point: we were genuinely too tired to cause too much trouble. By the time the sun went down, we were more than ready to go home and be watered and fed.

I want to focus my comments on the opportunities that I benefited from and that we as a society can provide for young children. When I was first elected, probably one of my more controversial moves was to support the move to defend the school sports partnership programme. I was a big champion of that scheme, because its whole principle was to provide sporting opportunities for those who are not particularly naturally competitive. If someone is gifted at sport, invariably that is because their parents have encouraged them from a young age, and they will therefore have been provided with plenty of opportunities. The vast majority of children, however, need a bit more encouragement. The one thing that the school sports partnership programme does very well is offer a wide programme of opportunities. There is a sport for everyone. When I refer to sport, it is not always necessarily the obvious sports that we might see in the Olympics or on the television, but such sports as street dance—basically, anything that can make young people active and constructive.

We also need to encourage more coaches—a number of hon. Members have already touched on that—but also day-to-day volunteers. When I talk to sports clubs, their biggest challenge is to find someone to be the club secretary or treasurer, and someone to fill in all the complicated forms and to organise the fixtures. There is a real deficit of people to fill those roles. In a society, people who are not particularly sports-minded can still play a constructive role. I welcome the work of the Football Foundation with its funding; rather than only the traditional provision of a brand-new, shiny set of football kits for a variety of sports clubs, it is looking at the legacy and encouraging more coaches and volunteers, so that more people get an opportunity to benefit.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we are going to talk about the big society, for example, there are few areas where it is more prevalent than in sport?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I am passionate about the merits of the big society, and sport can be absolutely at the heart of it. We can all play a role, even if it is not the traditional one of leading on the front line in the sporting team.

During the 10 years that I was a councillor, four of which were spent as the lead member for leisure, the one thing that I was most proud of was setting up the Sports Forum, which brought together about 60 different sporting organisations from throughout Swindon. They would meet once a quarter to share best practice, to identify additional funding, to help increase their presence in the local media and to share facilities. It was a huge success.

In a brief deviation, we had the extremely sad news that Roger Byrne, who was the lead officer for leisure, passed away last week. He was one of the main driving forces behind the Sports Forum, and during my 10 years on the council, he was easily the most respected officer that I and many others ever worked with.

From the Swindon Sports Forum, an example of how different organisations coming together can make a huge difference is Esprit Gymnastics, an excellent not-for-profit organisation promoting gymnastics. It used a facility that was full to capacity, with about 400 children a week benefiting, but it was so popular that the neighbouring units on the industrial park where it was based complained, saying that there was nowhere to park after school times, because all the parents were descending, and that either it should move away or they would move away.

Suddenly, a successful gymnastics organisation was faced with being homeless. Through the Sports Forum and Swindon borough council, an alternative facility was found—at the old Headlands school, which was being bulldozed to create a new academy, although a £4 million sports hall had only been built a couple of years earlier. We faced the embarrassing situation of bulldozing a relatively new £4 million sports hall, and to cut a long story short, a deal was done and Esprit Gymnastics moved into the sports hall site, while the school was bulldozed around it. Esprit paid a level of rent to the council and managed the facility.

I went to visit last Monday and not only does the site now have a much bigger gymnastics facility, but the Kirsty Farrow dance academy and the Leadership Martial Arts organisation are in place as well. From 450 children a week benefiting from a facility, we now have 2,000 children a week. This is all washing its face, and it is a fantastic facility. I met with parents who were dropping off one child for dance, one for gymnastics and another for martial arts. Some do different activities on different nights, and we even have a shop in the facility that provides all the specialist clothing. It is a really good example of organisations coming together, led by volunteers, to transform a number of young children’s opportunities.

Other opportunities go back to when I was younger and playing lots of sport: the absolute, desperate need for accessible, usable open spaces, which I talked about in my maiden speech. The turf on the football pitches does not have to be premier league quality. I played on an almost vertical hill that worked very well; because two of my friends, the twins Matthew and Paul Gilbert, were so much better than we were, they had the privilege of kicking uphill all day long, while the rest of us got to kick downhill—we still lost.

The other frustration that I saw when I was a borough councillor was to do with private finance initiatives and access. Schools in my old ward of the borough were PFI and, once the clocks hit 4, it cost an absolute fortune to get access to those facilities. I represented a high-density housing estate with limited open spaces, but with wonderful expanses of open space behind high fences priced out of the community’s reach. As a society, we need to look at that.

I welcome some recent Government measures—in particular, the introduction of a “troops to teachers” programme. When I visit schools, particularly primary schools, the heads are saying that their big challenge in providing sporting opportunities is not necessarily having a pool of teachers who have the confidence or the skills to deliver a wide variety of sport. If we can get some of those troops who become teachers into primary schools, they would be apt to offer such opportunities.

Insurance continues to be a big burden, particularly for young teachers who are extremely expensive to insure for school minibuses, which limits the opportunities to go and play sport in school competitions or at the regional or district level. I keep calling on the Government to broker a national agreement, with their collective power of hundreds and thousands of schools, to get a better deal for the younger staff.

Let us look at legacy and the schools Olympics. As has been mentioned, the Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to inspire young people who, however, then need the opportunity to play the sports in which we are successful. Whichever sports we are successful in are the ones that the children wish to replicate, so it is really important that the schools Olympics that we are driving forward are taken on board and utilised, so that everyone has regular opportunities, especially once the razzmatazz of the Olympics has passed.

There have been many mentions of mighty premier league football clubs such as Liverpool and Manchester United, so I will throw in Swindon Supermarine of the seventh tier of the Football League, whom I worked with to secure funding for from Capita, to pay for a sports programme for the most challenging schools in both the Swindon constituencies. It was about not only providing an opportunity to play football but helping with nutritional advice—in some cases, the basic necessity of a meal—as well as providing kit. Again, that has been exceptionally popular.

Finally, sport needs to work more with the youth service. In the old days, the traditional youth service and the traditional sports club, which was for the most competitive and technically able children, would never mix. The two should be one and the same. In all local authorities, the head of sports should also be the head of youth. When I was head of leisure, I touched on the youth service briefly, and I visited a lot of those traditional youth centres, which might have only six or eight children on a Friday evening. Yet I would go to the ice-skating disco and 600 teenagers were whizzing around the rink, chasing whoever was their flavour of the month and keeping themselves active and constructive. It always used to frustrate me that sport could have been used to engage with children, whether street dance, ice skating or football. The youth service needs to get out of its fixed facility and park itself outside wherever sport is enticing children.

Recently, I spoke to Stratton parish council, which is considering spending somewhere in the region of £4,000 or £5,000 on graffiti walls, which I am utterly opposed to. I said that it would surely be far better to spend that money on hiring some coaches, whether for boxing or for football, who could come in on a Friday night—the council would not have to charge itself for opening up its own facilities in community centres and school grounds—and those coaches, on £30 or £40 an hour, could provide entertainment and a constructive outlook for young children.

My plea to the Minister is to keep driving home the need to create opportunities. The facilities do not necessarily have to be fantastic, wonderful or driven by the most efficient, sports-minded people, but give young people an opportunity—they are creative enough to take advantage of it. If we can keep them engaged actively, as I was, they will be too shattered to cause any trouble.

10:28

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I congratulate my fellow Red—in many senses, from what he said today—the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing the debate, which is timely, as has been said. There is a large degree of consensus in the Chamber about the importance of sport to our young people. I wish to talk about that, about some of the challenges in achieving the outcomes that we all say that we can achieve through sport and about why that matters.

The first point to make on the record, perhaps with an exception for the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson)—I take issue with his humbleness about the impact of sport on his own achievements—is that we all recognise, as the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, that sport is not enough on its own. It is not about containing or diverting young people, but about the relationship that good, positive sporting activities and those who undertake them can play in securing achievement for our young people. Therefore, it is important to see sport not simply as a form of diversion but as a pathway to that achievement, and that is how we get the impact that we are all talking about. Not only do the coaches in our own communities keep kids off the street, but they keep them on that path towards the straight and narrow, towards the things that they could do in life.

This is not just about young people’s formal exercise activities—I take on board the points made by the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for North Swindon—but about the soft skills that they learn from being involved in sport and working with sports coaches and other young people. Those skills include team leadership, teamwork and participation, and what they offer not just on the pitch, but in the playground and the classroom. The importance of data and examples to prove what we have all known for many years—this applies especially to those of us who have worked in the youth voluntary sector—about those relationships and what sport gives to young people is vital to understand in whose interest investment in sport provision is and to secure those outcomes.

We have talked about different interventions, or alliterations, whether prison to pitch, cricket for change, or troops for teachers, and they all show that thinking smartly about how to bring those skills to young people—the right people to work with to engage them in those activities—reaps rewards that last not just while taking part in the sport, but for a generation. We also talked about the value for money of those programmes, which is a key point to which I shall return. If it is recognised that the benefits accrue not just in the short term, but in the long term, it is necessary also to recognise whose responsibility it is to support that work to secure the gain.

The challenge for us all is not to make the case for whether sport can play an important role in helping young people to achieve, thereby in tackling crime and under-achievement, but to say how to do that. The hon. Member for North Swindon mentioned school sports, and I pay tribute to the support that he gave to many of us who were deeply worried by the proposals to cut the school sports programme. I want to put on the record my personal thanks to my right hon. Friends the Members for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) for their work in improving dramatically the teaching of sport through schools and for having the far-sightedness to recognise its value.

School sports drove up participation in high-quality physical education for our young people from only 25% in 1997 to more than 90% in 2010. The school sport partnership, to which the hon. Member for North Swindon referred, was vital because it enabled the infrastructure that made participation possible to be put together, including the people who organised the games, provided the coaching and looked for the range of sports that young people want to take part in. When the Government foolhardily tried to dismantle that network, there was, rightly, an outcry. It is welcome that they have backed down to some degree, although many of us who still work with our local school sport co-ordinators are worried about the impact of those changes.

The issue is not just what can be done in schools. Critically, it involves the role of the voluntary sector. Some fantastic examples have been mentioned today. I have worked in the scouting movement, and I want to put on the record my support for voluntary organisations and the number of activities that they could provide. We are all clear that not just one sport is involved. Indeed, the scouting movement prides itself on being able to provide 200 different activities for young people each week and recognises that a range of provision is needed to engage with the range of young people.

I see the work of organisations such as Kickz in my community, and I want to put on the record my thanks to the Leyton Orient community sports programme for promoting that work. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe referred to the “Teenage Kicks” research. We know the impact of its work in pulling back young people who are at risk of antisocial behaviour, and we know that that makes a difference and is valuable not just regarding their antisocial behaviour but for their future achievement. He also referred to a social return on investment. Such programmes with the right people bring rewards that we could not achieve through sport provision alone.

I pay tribute to some of the grass-roots organisations. Many hon. Members have talked about fantastic large organisations that work with young people. I also pay tribute to Manchester United for inspiring me in many different ways. I share sympathy with the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for her support for Liverpool, and I appreciate the work of the Liverpool community sport programme. Many of us know of smaller organisations in our communities, including Salaam Peace and Asianos in my constituency, that encourage young men to take part in football and cricket. They engage with young people with mentors from similar backgrounds who recognise the role of sport in providing soft skills and spend their lives encouraging young people to take part.

All such organisations—I want to turn to risks—show the importance of joined-up provision. The funding for such organisations often comes from a range of sources, including public and voluntary sources, and philanthropically from the private sector. That is a concern that I want to put to the Minister. We all recognise, because of the relationship to achievement, the value for money of investing in sport and providing sporting activities not just early in children’s lives, but throughout the critical periods of transition to adulthood, but how can we ensure that that happens not just for the few, but for all young people?

One of my concerns, having worked in the voluntary and community sector in providing for young people, as well as in local government, is the impact of some of the cuts on our ability to deliver such services. One challenge for local authorities, which often fund such work initially and are often a vital support for voluntary organisations at grass-roots and national level, is that the speed of the cuts means that they are cutting the very relationships that we all believe are important for young people, because there was no time to find efficiencies, to renegotiate contracts or to share services. Inevitably, funding for the voluntary sector, especially non-statutory services such as youth services, has suffered most. No one is denying that money must be saved, but it will clearly be a false economy if the very services and relationships that we know make a difference to our young people are the first to be cut.

[Damian Collins]

On priorities, the previous Government decided not to support Kickz from the investment budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport because the programme was not designed purely to increase participation. Some people may say that it had a stronger function, but that function has been recognised by the Home Office in particular under the current Government. Total money is important, but so is deciding on priority areas of spending.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about priorities, but he is being a little disingenuous about Kickz, because it received public funding from other agencies. This is not just about particular projects; the case that he made powerfully, with which I agree, is that it is about the activities that we ask youth providers to undertake. Indeed, I would be critical of those who simply offer sport without asking what it can do in the long term for young people and those who say that it is enough just to get young people off the streets. That is why I challenge the hon. Member for North Swindon, who suggested that all that mattered was that he was tired at the end of the day. I suspect that participating in sport, working with other young people and organising sport made a difference to his confidence and probably also to his life chances.

We cannot get away from how to fund such activities. My worry today is that cuts mean that organisations and programmes such as Kickz and Leyton Orient’s community sports programme are under pressure as a result of some of the Government’s choices. If we all accept the case that good sports activity can provide that longer-term function in young people’s lives, we should be fighting for resources to go to those organisations and making the case for investment now and in the future, as a way to protect longer-term achievement.

The issue is not just the practical provision of services, but how that can help to reduce crime. The Minister may not be responsible for the allocation of budgets to the Department for Communities and Local Government, but he is responsible for community safety grants. We have seen a massive slashing of those grants and the very money that was helping the police and local authorities to work creatively with local community groups to provide outreach activities. For example, in Lambeth, one of the boroughs that was affected by the riots, the community safety grant has been reduced from £691,000 in 2010-11 to just £276,000 in 2012-13. Hounslow is facing a 32% cut in its youth offending budget next year. That matters because the funding allows people to think creatively about how to engage with young people and to do more than just tackle crime; it can prevent it by funding work with those young people, but that is under threat.

I want to flag up for the Minister the fact that the funding cuts for local government are a real risk to some of their key provision of facilities. The hon. Member for North Swindon spoke effectively about the importance of school buildings. The extended schools programme was doing exactly what he was asking for. It was encouraging schools to consider how to open up their facilities. I represent an area in north-east London, and I am conscious of the lack of space to undertake sporting activities. There is a relationship between playing sport at school and taking part in sporting events organised by voluntary organisations outside the school, but somewhere is needed to do that work. Will he make a case for revising that decision? I am sure that he will ask where the money will come from.

May I encourage the Minister to talk to his colleagues in the Department for Education about the national citizen service? There are questions about the scheme’s value for money, and the Education Committee has highlighted concerns about the costs versus outputs that we will get from the service as it is currently constructed. If the Minister recognises the social return on investment in sport in tackling youth crime and also in delivering achievement, I suggest that he work with his colleagues across the Government to make the case for a better use of the funding that is available for youth provision.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that much of the purpose of the citizen service scheme is to engage young people in the idea of volunteering and getting involved in their communities? On no planet will the Government be able to fund the entirety of amateur youth sport across the country. The national citizen service scheme plays a valuable role in introducing young people into their communities, so that they too can coach young people and play an active part in their community. It cannot be measured in the simplistic terms suggested by the hon. Lady.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Lady ought to listen to her colleague, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who talked about priorities. In a time of financial austerity, the national citizen service is a very expensive scheme for a very small amount of time. If we are not able to fund everything—yet we are all in this together—we have to look at what money is being spent on young people. I advise the hon. Lady to look at the Government’s commitment to fund the national citizen service for all 16-year-olds and the amount of money that that implies. She has made a powerful case about value for money and the cost of some of the alternative schemes that support young people, but perhaps she should consider which is the greater priority at this point in time. I have a background in working with a national scheme that provides exactly that sort of citizen service through the uniformed organisations. No one is suggesting that such schemes do not have merit, but in a time of financial austerity, it is absolutely right to ask about the Government’s priorities, especially given the powerful case that Conservative Members have made about the impact of sports provision and the importance of working with voluntary organisations and providing services not just for eight weeks in the summer but throughout a young person’s life, so that they can have mentoring and support, not just to avoid antisocial behaviour, but to secure achievement.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

The hon. Lady suggests that the systems that we have had seem to have worked. It is fair to say that this new initiative is a seedcorn project, but I think that it has great potential. We should not keep throwing money at projects that may not have had the impact that the hon. Lady suggested.

[Stella Creasy]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, and I therefore advise her to read the Education Committee’s report on the national citizen service in which questions were raised about the scheme’s value for money and efficacy. That is the key point. If we all agree that sport makes a difference to young people’s achievement, we have to look at how we can use the resources that we do have to make sure that we get results. I will end on that point. The Minister needs to champion the work that we all agree is important and he needs to champion the resourcing, otherwise many young people will not have access to the opportunities that we all agree make such a difference, and we all recognise that Britain would be poorer for it.

10:43

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate and on speaking with great expertise and clear conviction about the importance not just of sport, which is something that we can all agree on, but specifically the role that sport can play in reducing youth crime. It is a profitable subject to debate and some positive contributions have been made. I noted with a certain amount of concern his suggestion that there needs to be a lead Minister to co-ordinate across government. He plainly put in a credible bid for his own potential role in that respect, so some of us will have to watch ourselves very carefully.

We should acknowledge that most young people are not involved in crime. Often in our debates—for example, in yesterday’s debate about the causes of the riots—we ignore the fact that the vast majority of young people do not engage in crime. Sport has a value to them, which is separate to our discussion this morning. It is also important to state that, apart from recognising the value that sport may have for reducing crime, we are committed, as I am sure the previous Government were, to reducing youth crime. That will continue to be important for the communities affected by crime. We must prevent young people getting drawn into a life of crime and into a cycle of criminality from which it can be difficult to escape. Providing routes out and choices, which are so important at an early age, is what this debate has been about. Indeed, there was a lot of discussion about that in the context of the riots. What positive or alternative options can be given to young people who may otherwise be drawn into criminality? What alternative structures, as it were, can be offered?

[Tom Brake]

On the subject of routes out, does the Minister have the capacity to look at what sporting and diversionary activities the authorities in areas where the riots took place are planning? In Croydon, 500 people were arrested and 400 charged. I suspect that 200 or 300 will have gone to prison. They will be coming back to Croydon, because 80% of them were from Croydon. It is important that the Government monitor what will be in place to take those people on board when they return.

[Nick Herbert]

We will come to a discussion about who is responsible for providing such activity. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) described somebody who had gone into what he felt was a cul-de-sac as a result of gang activity, but boxing had been the avenue out. Routes out are important. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke about the route that he found out of what might have been an alternative career option such as his friends pursued, which was time spent detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He has found a different course, although many would suggest that there is not much difference between that role and that of his friends.

Nevertheless, there has been general agreement in the debate. There has been no dispute about the value of sport in having a positive impact on behaviour. It teaches control, self-discipline and the importance of teamwork. It unites people and provides opportunities for people, wherever they come from. Sporting activity is of huge value in preventing offending. Where offending has taken place, sport can play an enormous part as an intervention to break the cycle that I described. We must be careful to ensure that it is not the only intervention. There may be other causes of offending behaviour that need to be addressed in parallel. Whether there are learning difficulties or various addictions, sport can be one of the means to help an offender, but other interventions may be equally important.

There was also agreement about the importance of role models, particularly the powerful role models provided in sport. Such role models can of course provide a catalyst for change. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talked about the particular value of sports leaders, but I am sure he did not mean to imply that those were simply national sports leaders. Of course, national figures in sport, as mentioned by other Members, have a significant impact on young people. The mentors described by my right hon. Friend work at local level and come from all sorts of places. They can show a leadership role, and assist and encourage young people to engage in sporting activity. That is equally important.

I spoke recently to a police community support officer who, in addition to his community work, devotes much of his private time to working with young people and providing coaching in local sporting activities. He felt that it was important to assist those young people to take part in a constructive activity that would prevent them from getting into trouble. Such volunteers and local heroes matter just as much as national role models; I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) when she said that it was important to fly the flag for volunteers, and to celebrate them and recognise what they do.

[Damian Collins]

In the United States there is a programme called Badges for Baseball—all these programmes have snappy names—in which the police organise baseball and softball league games directly with young people. Does the Minister feel that there may be additional scope for police to be directly involved with such programmes in the UK?

[Nick Herbert]

I am sure that there is scope. Equally, if I were to ask any of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, I bet that they would supply good examples of activities in which local police officers are already engaged. I am sure, however, that they would accept my hon. Friend’s encouragement in the right spirit. They play an important role in the community.

I reject the characterisation of the police that was offered yesterday in research commissioned by The Guardian. It suggested that some hostility to the police is necessary, but in fact the development of neighbourhood policing and the community interaction carried out by the police is important and something that we must maintain and continue to develop.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister and I agree that it is important for the police to interact with young people over things other than criminal behaviour, so that trust can be built and young people can see the police as being on their side. What assessment has the Minister made of the effect that cuts to police numbers and the safer neighbourhood teams will have on the ability of the police to participate in sports games, to be on the street and to have that relationship with young people?

[Nick Herbert]

One departure from an otherwise consensual debate was the utterly predictable statement made by the hon. Lady when she laid at the door of the Government cuts that, in her assessment, will mean that none of the positive activities under discussion can take place. She described the choices that the Government are making, but we make such decisions because the economy is in difficulty and we inherited debt from the previous Government. Some contrition and responsibility for that on the part of the hon. Lady might make her position more credible. Like any Government, we have to find savings. When it left office, the hon. Lady’s party was committed to £40 billion of unspecified spending reductions and knew that savings had to be made. So far, the reduction in front-line policing numbers has been just 2%; there is no need for the front line to be affected, provided that police forces make savings in the right way. Such partisan points do not assist the debate.

Several hon. Members mentioned the importance of the Olympics in offering something of lasting—rather than just temporary—value to this country and its young people, and we want to harness the power of the games to provide new opportunities for young people to take part in competitive sport. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon mentioned the school games, and such activities will be particularly important. Since the issue of funding has been raised, I will point out that over £128 million of lottery and Government funding is being invested to support school games, and that is underpinned by continued investment to increase the numbers of new clubs, coaches and volunteers working in sport with young people.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Will the Minister recognise the work of the Football Foundation? It carries out fantastic work not only by efficiently using funds to renovate community sports facilities but by putting structures in place so that those facilities are more self-sustaining and do not require so much Government funding. That is the kind of long-term legacy that it would be good to see more of throughout the country after the Olympics.

[Nick Herbert]

I am happy to recognise that; there is clearly a role for civil society, sport clubs and organisations, as well as for the Government and bodies that provide public funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned Kickz and Hitz as examples of programmes that are driven by national sporting organisations and have a real impact on the ground. StreetChance is an initiative that promotes cricket, and StreetGames works with national governing bodies to support athletics, table tennis, handball, gymnastics, badminton and rowing. Through the initiatives of such national sporting bodies, it is possible to reach out and offer young people the opportunity to engage in a multitude of sports.

In the remaining time available, I wish to pick up on some specific points raised by my hon. Friend. He was clear that he was not calling for a general increase in sporting participation, and that targeted intervention—rather than just dealing with crime—was the objective. I agree with him. He specifically called for robust data on such interventions, and for research to identify whether they provide value for money. That general call is welcomed by the Government. The whole thrust of our criminal justice reform programme is to move to a situation in which we are much clearer about the outcomes that programmes deliver. When resources are tight, it is particularly important to ensure that money is being well spent, and that is why we are increasingly moving towards payment by results in the delivery of criminal justice interventions, so that we can be certain that we are getting the outcomes we need.

In spite of the challenge of public spending, Government- funded programmes are continuing, specifically in relation to youth crime.[Official Report, 20 December 2011, Vol. 537, c. 8MC.] The Positive Futures programme will continue until the end of 2013; thereafter, elected police and crime commissioners will have a budget that they can distribute for similar programmes, should they so choose. The Positive Futures programme delivers sports and arts-based activities that target and support vulnerable 10 to 19-year-olds in some of our most disadvantaged communities.

Although I accept my hon. Friend’s injunction about targeted interventions, it is important to ensure that school children have access to sporting facilities—my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon also raised that point—and that physical education is valued in schools. Physical education will continue to be compulsory for all pupils following the review of the national curriculum, and we are taking action to ensure that young people in local communities are not deprived of access to playing fields and sporting facilities.

As part of Sport England’s £135 million “Places, People, Play” legacy programme, the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, and Sport England, recently launched a protecting playing fields initiative—a £10 million fund to protect and improve sports fields across the country. The programme will fund projects that create, develop and improve playing fields for sporting and community use, and offer long-term protection of those sites for sport. Sport England will run five £2 million funding rounds over the next three years, investing between £20,000 and £50,000 in schemes such as buying new playing field land, improving the condition of pitches through drainage, or bringing disused sports fields back into use. That is important; the issue is not only about role models, access and funding schemes; we must also ensure that facilities are available both inside and outside schools.

Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe on securing this debate. The Government accept the value of sport in reducing crime, and that responsibility is shared by them, local authorities, and by members of civil society and sporting organisations. I am sure that all hon. Members will have listened carefully to the contributions made by my hon. Friend and others during the debate today.

Mental Health (Veterans)

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

11:00

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to have secured the debate. It has attracted interest from hon. Members on both sides of the House, who have offered me their support. Many hon. Members, in all parties, have pursued the issues relating to veterans for a considerable time and have been very effective in securing improvements in the way in which the country looks after and supports veterans.

I am here today because of a very special young man, Mr Neil Blower, who is one of my constituents. He is here to observe the debate. Incidentally, that is because of much appreciated help from Virgin West Coast Trains. We are glad that he has been able to make it here today. Neil is 28. He served in the Royal Tank Regiment for six years. He served a tour of duty as a peacekeeper in Kosovo and he was involved in the invasion of Iraq. He was in his tank when it was attacked at a vehicle checkpoint in Basra and he had the terrible experience of watching his sergeant be attacked and killed. He saw for himself the real and terrible horrors of war.

In 2005, Neil was discharged from the Army, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the horrific experiences that he had undergone. When Neil turned up at my surgery, I did not know what to expect. I thought that there would be issues about the practical help for veterans with mental health problems—issues about housing, employment and all the things that we associate with people adjusting to civilian life. What I did not appreciate was that I would meet someone who is incredibly articulate, passionate, committed and determined. Neil Blower is a very special individual indeed. I wanted to help him as much as I could in any event, but our discussion was quite enlightening to me. He told me not only of the problems that he had encountered when he left the Army—finding a home, looking for a job and trying to pick up the pieces of a normal life—but that he had discovered a new talent, a passion for writing, which had helped him to come to terms with the horrors that he witnessed during his Army service. He gave me his book to read. It is called “Shell Shock: the diary of Tommy Atkins”. There is a warning on the front cover that it contains strong language, and it certainly does, but it also contains a deep insight and a profound humanity. I have read the book. It has the power to move people and to make them laugh. It certainly made me laugh, but it also moved me to tears.

As I said, the book is called “Shell Shock: the diary of Tommy Atkins.” We all know the words of Rudyard Kipling in the poem “Tommy”:

“For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’

But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot”.

Neil’s book is the diary of an ordinary soldier who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, who has watched his friends die, who feels guilty that he has survived and who is struggling to come to terms with civilian life. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. That is why this debate is so welcome.

Luckily, combat stress and post-traumatic stress are now widely recognised by our armed forces, but that was not always the case. During the first world war, 266 British soldiers were executed for desertion, 18 for cowardice, seven for leaving their posts, five for disobeying a lawful command and two for casting their weapons aside. Some of those men were no doubt victims of shell shock. Their families had to live not just with the loss of their brothers, husbands and sons, but with the shame, anger and humiliation of their deaths at the hands of the state. In 2006, a conditional posthumous pardon was granted in respect of those individuals. That was a big turning point in how the country approaches these matters. We have come a long way in recent years in recognising the problems experienced by those who have been in battle, and Governments of both parties have taken action to provide improved health services for both physical injuries and mental health problems, but there is still more for us to do.

I pay tribute to Combat Stress, which does a tremendous job in helping veterans and is the UK’s leading military charity specialising in the care of veterans’ mental health. It looks after people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, sometimes phobias and certainly nightmares and flashbacks—all the things associated with having been in the heat of battle and having a mental wound as a result.

Last year, Combat Stress received more than 1,400 new referrals—that is the scale of the problem. It has a current case load of more than 4,600 individuals, including 211 who have served in Afghanistan and 583 Iraq veterans. In March 2010, its patron, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, launched the Enemy Within appeal on behalf of Combat Stress. That is a three-year fundraising campaign to try to ensure that Combat Stress has the capacity to continue to treat the increasing numbers of people who are now, happily, coming forward with the problems that they have developed. I understand that on average it takes someone who has developed anxiety and depression after having experienced the horrors of battle an unbelievable 13 years to come forward. For some, it will be longer, and for others it will be a shorter period, but that length of time indicates the embarrassment and shame that people still feel and the stigma that there still is around mental health problems. Of course, that is not limited to military life; there is still a huge stigma about mental health problems across society as a whole. But I think that, when people have been in combat situations, it is even worse.

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

I am delighted to hear the praise for Combat Stress, which is located in my constituency. The right hon. Lady mentioned the figures. Is she aware that the rise in applications is running annually at about 12%, whereas the percentage of Government funding is dropping quite dramatically? I hope that she will touch on that.

[Hazel Blears]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The capacity of the people at Combat Stress to cope with the increasing number of referrals is of concern to all of us in the House, because they are specialists—they know what they are doing and are very effective. The best way to use Government funds is to put them into the services that we know achieve positive results, and Combat Stress has an excellent record. I will come to the issue of funding shortly.

Combat Stress provides very practical help. It is establishing 14 community outreach teams across the country. It has three short-stay treatment centres and it wants to enhance the clinical care that it provides at those centres; it wants to provide better clinical care. That is one of the uses to which any additional funds should be put. These are very specialised areas of intervention, and giving people the highest-quality clinical support is very important indeed. Since 2005, Combat Stress has seen a 72% increase in demand for its specialist services catering for veterans’ mental health problems. The services are free of charge to veterans, so they have to be financed through fundraising and from public sources as well.

A number of veterans leave the armed forces with very severe psychological wounds. Post-traumatic stress disorder can go on for a long time—for years, in fact. These conditions are not susceptible to easy treatment. Therefore, there needs to be a sustained commitment to funding and support for organisations such as Combat Stress.

Combat Stress also offers a 24-hour helpline. That provides confidential help not just to people who have been in the military, but, crucially, to their families. We sometimes forget the huge impact on the families of veterans suffering from mental health problems. If people commonly have nightmares and panic attacks, lose their temper and occasionally become violent, the impact on families can be enormous. The 24-hour helpline is therefore a practical way for people to get emergency help when a situation gets out of control.

Combat Stress has an expanding outreach service. It has a team of mental health practitioners, community psychiatric nurses and regional welfare officers. It has three centres, in Shropshire, Surrey and Ayrshire. In September, it introduced a six-week veterans programme, which provides enhanced treatment for people with complicated presentations—it is intended really to dig deep and to delve into all the symptoms people exhibit.

Combat Stress also has a well-being and rehabilitation programme, which is available to all the veterans in the short-stay treatment centres. The programme uses a really structured occupational therapy model, which draws on best practice in civilian mental health. It includes employment mentoring and life skills workshops, and it deals with the practical issues of rehabilitation so that people can take up social activities in the community, which they may have lost touch with while they had post-traumatic stress disorder.

Combat Stress is absolutely the leading organisation in this field in terms of expertise. It now has a partnership agreement with the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health, and £350,000 of investment was recently agreed, which is, of course, very welcome. Despite that, however, Combat Stress is still feeling the pressure, as the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said, and that pressure is likely to increase. I therefore asked it what it was looking for from Ministers, and I want to put to the Minister the points it raised so that he can address them.

First, Combat Stress is looking for increased recognition of the number of people who are beginning to disclose that they have post-traumatic stress disorder, especially given that an increasing number of servicemen are being withdrawn from the combat zones we have had in Iraq and Afghanistan. As these people come home, the pressures will build, and more and more of them will need services.

Combat Stress estimates that 960 of the service personnel leaving the armed forces in 2012 are likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, while about 4,700—a huge number to cope with—are likely to suffer from a more common mental illness, such as depression or anxiety. That is the nature of the problem. Combat Stress’s services are running at capacity and demand is going up, so my first question to the Minister is whether the MOD and the Department of Health, which is responsible for treatment, recognise that this problem, which will increase, should be firmly on the agenda.

Combat Stress’s second request is for increased capacity. The organisation is now extremely well known, so anybody who is in the circumstances I have described turns to it for help. The last thing Combat Stress wants to do is to turn people away because it does not have the facilities to cope. Can the Minister therefore tell us whether any planning is being done to deal with this issue? What proposals are there to meet the increased demand over the next few years? Where will the investment go? There will be investment in NHS facilities, but the facilities I am talking about, which are close to people and their families, can make a huge contribution in addition to that made by the NHS. I would therefore like to hear what specific proposals the Minister has to provide more funding, more resource and more capacity, particularly for Combat Stress’s outreach work and its 14 outreach teams, which will be extremely helpful for people suffering from the problems I have mentioned.

The third issue I want to raise with the Minister is the stigma around these conditions. There is much more to be done on this. Some 81% of veterans with a mental illness feel ashamed or embarrassed, which sometimes prevents them from seeking the help they absolutely need if they are to get well. One in three veterans—this is a very sad figure—are too ashamed even to tell their families about their mental health problems. I can only imagine what it must be like to live in a family with someone who becomes withdrawn, who is no longer part of the family, who suffers from all the symptoms I have described and who is often in a desperate state and too embarrassed to tell the other members of the family how they feel.

The Government—indeed, all of us—have a job of work to do to raise the profile of these issues and to remove the stigma around them. These things happen in conditions of war, and we should not be embarrassed or ashamed about them. We should do our utmost to help people in such circumstances. I welcome the MOD campaign on this, which is called “Don’t bottle it up”. It is a good way of starting to get rid of the stigma, but more could be done.

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

The right hon. Lady is talking a great deal of sense. Allied to the question of stigma is people’s failure to recognise symptoms in themselves. People often suffer some of these things many years after the incident that caused them. Does she agree that another role the NHS could usefully play would be to advertise some of the symptoms and causes of these unfortunate mental disorders so that people actually recognise what is happening to them?

[Hazel Blears]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good and practical point. The NHS runs public health campaigns about a range of issues that affect people, such as smoking and obesity. If we could normalise mental health in that way to some extent, people would feel much more comfortable about coming forward and saying they have a problem. One symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder is that people often resort to drugs or alcohol and end up with alcohol problems, not recognising that there are severe mental health problems underneath them. The prisons have recognised that about 50% of ex-service people in prison could well be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that is estimated to cost the nation about £300 million a year. This is a good example of a public health issue, and taking the approach I have described could not only result in significant savings, but contribute to the well-being of all those who are suffering. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

On the same sort of theme, when veterans leave the forces, it is frequently 12 to 14 years before they present, as Combat Stress says. In the meantime, as the right hon. Lady has said, families, communities and so on can face havoc. The United States and the United Kingdom have a decommissioning period in which they help people leaving the armed forces, but ours is very short. The United States actually targets individuals so that they can be picked up and referred before they get into the community. The funding that she talks about will come predominantly from the NHS, and the Minister cannot really speak for the Department of Health. However, he can speak about what the Ministry of Defence can do to catch people early, before they do any damage to themselves or others.

[Hazel Blears]

The hon. Gentleman touches on a good point, which relates not quite to prevention, but certainly to early intervention before problems get worse. I am coming to the funding that will be supplied by the Big Lottery Fund, which will specifically target this issue, and it, too, is a good step forward. One issue is how we co-ordinate all the funding going through the NHS, Combat Stress and the Big Lottery Fund to make sure that we provide a really good wraparound service.

I want to say a word about the Big Lottery Fund investment. Over the next few years, the Big Lottery Fund will put £35 million into this issue. It is setting up a trust called Forces in Mind, which will provide long-term support and advocacy across the United Kingdom—it is important that ex-forces personnel have someone to speak on their behalf. The trust is about people making a successful transition back into civilian life. It will work with the people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will look at mental health, family breakdown and alcohol-related problems, which are absolutely pressing.

The trust involves a partnership between the Mental Health Foundation, the Centre for Mental Health, the Confederation of British Service and Ex-Service Organisations and the Shaw Trust. It therefore includes a number of good organisations that have reach into these areas, which is positive.

The trust had its business plan approved by the Big Lottery Fund board last month, and it has three early projects, which I will say a quick word about. The first is the early service leavers trial, and the hon. Member for Mole Valley touched on the issues it deals with. It is called “Future Horizons” and it is an enhanced transition programme for those who leave the services early, but who currently get no support from the armed forces. One thousand such people recruited from across the UK will go to Catterick garrison. They will get 12 months —this is a long-term programme—of enhanced support with finding jobs and accommodation, as well as guidance with educational problems and mental health issues. Twenty-six different community organisations are involved, so, again, there is good local reach. That is the beginning of what the hon. Gentleman seeks—an enhanced transition. It is no good giving people help for six weeks when they are looking for a job, trying to find a home and trying to get back into life. A 12-month programme will therefore be very helpful.

Another project will involve SSAFA Forces Help, which was the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association. It will work with the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation, TimeBank, Shoulder to Shoulder, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and Help for Heroes—again, it is a big consortium. Working with Cruse Bereavement Care, it will support people who are bereaved. Cruse is renowned for working with bereaved families. It is expert in counselling and support and will be a crucial part of the partnership, which will work with the widows, widowers, partners, children and siblings of those who have been killed, covering the whole range.

The other project, which will come on stream quite early, is with mentoring organisations. It will involve early service leavers who are under 24, so very vulnerable young people will get a specific mentor to help them through the transition—a buddy to be side by side with them, if you like. Younger people are often more vulnerable and their problems can be very long term. If we can intervene early, perhaps the transition can be more effective. The money from the Big Lottery Fund is therefore very welcome, but in my view it does not absolve the Minister from looking at other Government resources that might help. I am sure that we will all be interested to hear from him.

Neil Blower, my constituent, has made me much more aware of the problems faced by people than I ever was before, and I am grateful to him for that. I asked Neil, as I asked Combat Stress, what one thing he would really want to happen. What is his wish to help veterans in such circumstances? Neil has been lucky enough to be admitted on to the degree course in creative writing at the university of Salford and he has had his first book published—something that many budding authors never achieve. He hopes to go on to have a career as a writer, and I am sure that he will be successful. He wishes that there were a Tommy Atkins scholarship fund, and I would like the Minister to consider that seriously. It would be akin to the GI Bill in America, whereby the American Government paid for servicemen and women, after the Korean war, to go to university when they left the forces. That helped them to go from combat to classroom. Supporting some of our forces to realise their talent and potential through access to higher education would be a tremendous step forward.

Neil is busy costing the project and I am sure that we will come back to the Minister at a later date with a detailed proposition. Giving people the chance to have an outlet into higher education, whether to enter teaching or another important area of life, would help them with job seeking and give them more skills and a better chance in the labour market. Neil felt that, for him, education was a great way to deal with his mental health issues. It helped him enormously. He felt that he was doing something worth while, it made him feel as if he belonged and made him feel part of society again. The power of education therefore can be of tremendous benefit.

I am not on a sales trip, but Neil’s book is available and I urge as many Members as possible to get it. I did not know what to expect from that little volume. It is short, but incredibly moving, and I want to finish with a quote from it. I do not want to give away the ending completely, but in the book, Tommy Atkins is at the end of his tether. He has come home and life is terrible. He breaks up with his girlfriend, his mum and dad break up and a series of terrible events happen to him. I am sure that such things happen to an awful lot of people in these circumstances. He gets to the point where he is absolutely desperate and it is so difficult for him to carry on that he thinks of taking his own life, but then something kicks in inside his head: “This was a coward’s way out. I was a British soldier and we don’t do that. We never surrender and we never give up. That is for other people. I realise that, despite all the pain and heartache and suffering that there is in the world, there is good as well—there is good in this world. The love of another, the bonds between family, friendship—these are the things that I fought for. These things are still worth fighting for and they are worth staying alive for. I will love my mum and dad whether they are together or not. I just want them both to be happy. I will meet another girl and fall in love again. I will always remember the friends I’ve lost—Kev, Johnno, the serg, Jamie. I will honour their memory by living, by leading a good life. I stood in the mirror and looked at my medals, then I did the bravest thing I have ever done. I picked up the phone, I rang Combat Stress and I told them about me. I told them what I was feeling and I felt a great weight lifted from my shoulders.”

That, for me, is the best summary that I can give of the experience of Tommy Atkins and all those thousands like him. From this book, we can all rededicate ourselves to ensuring that we press for better understanding and better support to improve the lives of those who have given so much for all of us. I am grateful for being granted the debate this morning.

11:25

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on securing the debate. It is on an issue that I have spoken about on one or two occasions. I am delighted to say that in my maiden speech I gave warning and notice to my right hon. Friend the Minister that I was likely to carry on banging on about it. I am therefore grateful to have the opportunity to do so. A big problem with such debates is that the issues are covered by not only the Ministry of Defence but the Department of Health, and it would be helpful if we could, at some stage, get a Minister to come to talk about the health implications of what we want.

The right hon. Lady has given a very good briefing on Combat Stress, and I, like her, have been to talk to that organisation. It has been incredibly good at ensuring that I am kept informed and have an understanding of exactly where the problems are. Of course, we have heard a lot about the concentration and focus on veterans who have come out of Iraq or Afghanistan, but we must remember that people who were involved in conflicts in Northern Ireland will also need help. They also make up a significant number of the casualties who were created from that long and bloody conflict.

We talked at some length about how there will be an increasing number of people dealing with combat stress over the years. The Government have announced that we will withdraw from the Afghanistan conflict by 2014, but activities will continue there. During a trip that I made to Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago, I was told that although the troops will not go out on patrol, we will almost certainly need to support and help those in the Afghan army and police, who will need guidance. I am in no doubt at all that elements in the Afghan resistance will seek to ensure that our troops are subject to many attacks.

I grew up with these issues. My father went into the Royal Navy at 14, and was awarded the distinguished service cross for his activities in Narvik. He told me, when I was a child and a teenager, of how it was that he had been responsible for trying to take the head of one of the people he had served in a cabin with to throw it over the side when it was blown off in action. Fortunately, that did not have an impact on us as children. He was a very normal man and lived a full and active life until he was 89, but there was a real chance that such activity could have had a significant impact, not only on my mother, who, I have to say, had the most wonderful sense of humour, but on us, as children. We have all come out, I hope, reasonably sane and balanced.

The other day, I visited the Royal Marines in Exeter. One person told me a sad story of how when he had served abroad in action, he came back and wanted to talk to his wife about what he had faced. He wife looked at him and said, “Don’t start talking to me about any of that. I’ve had a damn awful day as well. I’ve had to deal with 300 e-mails, so that’s my priority”, so he did not talk to her about it. He tried to talk to his mates, who were not involved in the armed services, but they found it very difficult to understand, so he had to find his fellow servicemen—Royal Marine friends—who lived in Aylesbury, where he came from, and talk to them. It was only by having that opportunity to share his experiences that he saw what was going on.

I represent Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, and it is a great pleasure to do so. We have just, literally, had 3 Commando Brigade come back from Afghanistan, and I think it also has some of the scars that come with that.

I am delighted that we have accepted the military covenant into law. I hope that the Secretary of State’s regular reports on that issue will be informed, and that we will be able to talk about mental health. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) on writing the paper called, “Fighting Fit”. I think that that was the benchmark for ensuring that we were able to produce a strategy, and we are taking the issue more seriously.

I am also concerned about the reservists. We are enormously good at talking about regular service personnel, but we do not talk too much about reservists, although I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has been doing an extraordinarily large amount of work on this. I was talking to the British Legion the other day, and it told me how it did not seem possible to share information on reservists with charities that are delivering support and help. Could we look at that? Can we make sure that the information is much more readily available, so that people such as Combat Stress and the British Legion are aware of exactly where the issue is going to?

[Mr Gray]

There is a particular problem regarding the Territorial Army and reservists in general. Whereas a regimental family closes around someone among the regulars who is bereaved or has mental problems, and regulars tend to live in the same place as where they are serving, reservists often come from right across the land, and there is a much less strong regimental hierarchy to look after them. Reservists need particular help from the Ministry of Defence.

[Oliver Colvile]

I was just about to make that point. Those people work and live in isolation. The problems that they have with decompression are enormous. When they come back, they do not necessarily have the same amount of time as regulars do to unwind and be debriefed. We need to look at that issue. When I was talking to a senior Royal Marine the other day, he said that it would be helpful if the decompression time for reservists could be longer. I urge the Minister to consider that.

Another issue that we need to look at is how the national health service is dealing with the matter. As I said, the question is not just about how the MOD deals with the issue, although the Minister has been doing excellent work on veterans. I support the way in which we will change the structures of the NHS. I voted for the legislation, and I think it is the right way of going about it, but will our general practitioners and commissioning boards be able to manage the matter? If GPs commission such services, how far up the agenda is the mental health issue going to be? How will policies be implemented? Will we have lead GPs taking an interest? I will most certainly be asking my GP commissioning board down in Plymouth how it is proposing to manage the issue. We must think the matter through. We in this place can pass legislation easily, but we must ensure that it is implemented and that we monitor the results.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

That issue was raised with the previous Government. Some time between then and now, national commissioning of Combat Stress long courses was introduced. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the recommendations of potential patients and about the other niche groups and niche courses. The Department of Health will need to look at the issue.

[Oliver Colvile]

I think that that is right. Local authorities also have to be involved. They will now take increasing responsibility for the matter. I was talking to the leader of my council last week, and she explained that until recently, the primary care trust had not been that interested in engaging on some of those big issues. I will be interested to know how that will happen. The whole story of mental health, as the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles said, is an important issue.

We closely support our armed forces and veterans. Some of us—I happen to agree—are not convinced that we have handled the politics of what is going on in Afghanistan particularly brilliantly. However, if we are going to support our armed services, we must ensure that we look after them properly and that they come out with good results. How we deal with the issue of mental health will be paramount. As others have said, there are issues regarding licensing. In Plymouth, we have significantly more licensed premises than in Liverpool. That is a big issue. When people get depressed, they end up turning to alcohol and other substances. We must ensure that there is a joined-up and co-ordinated approach.

If we do not deal with the issue, we will have problems with our infrastructure, not only of the health service but of education. I heard a story that it is not mainly what comes out in the health stories but what happens in the home that is absolutely, utterly and desperately important. That is where all the problems kick off, and they do not become apparent until significantly later.

Mr Dobbin, thank you for allowing me to talk about the matter. I feel absolutely serious about the issue. It has been a great pleasure and honour to follow the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles.

11:36

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I, too, add my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on securing this important debate today. Raising the profile of the matter will in itself do much to enhance public recognition of the issue, and she spoke passionately and poignantly about the need to achieve that.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) made an excellent point in his comments, which is that we must cast the net a lot wider than the immediate conflicts that we are aware of in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not be unusual for Members to hear me speak about what has happened in Northern Ireland. We have a walking community of forgotten heroes who have served the nation well and with gallantry, from the Ulster Defence Regiment, the Royal Irish Regiment, the British regular Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Only today, as the situation has normalised, has there been a true opening and unfolding of the trauma and devastation in the lives of individuals who gave service to this nation, and the effect that the conflict had on their families. Families lived with service personnel who not only served our country but lived within the community that they were serving—it was a double impact. It is only now, in this new Northern Ireland, in a more peaceful society, that that is starting to unravel and unfold. We must ensure, as we have started to peel back the issue and look at what could be an appalling vista, that we as a country recognise that we have a responsibility to address the concerns that we are starting to discover.

Several former soldiers, from the Ulster Defence Regiment in particular, visited me in my constituency office. They had stopped serving in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and yet they were still talking about things that they saw that are impacting their lives now. They look back and recognise that the awful pictures that flash in their memory have had an impact on how they have lived their lives in the past 20 years, and on members of their community and family.

[Mr Gray]

What the hon. Gentleman is saying with great passion brings to mind an episode yesterday. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was entertaining on the Terrace of the House of Commons one of the widows from the outrage of Ballykelly all those years ago, when 20-odd souls were killed in a pub. My hon. Friend was reminiscing about how he cradled his lance corporal in his arms. His lance corporal had lost all four limbs before he died. What sort of effect does that have, not on my hon. Friend—I am glad to say—who is remarkably well-balanced, but on any less well-balanced soldier? What possible effect will that have on the rest of their lives?

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. I also had a constituent who visited me about this problem. He was a big, strong, tough frame of a man, but he was like a quivering autumn leaf when he started to tell me about what he had seen and what he remembered. Indeed, his constant memory was the sound of the scrape, scrape, scrape of the shovel that he had used to put his comrades and colleagues into a waste disposal bag after an outrage by the Provisional IRA. It is a burning memory that he will never forget and that woke him in the dead of night, leaving him soaked in sweat and crying out in fear, and yet it is a memory that he has had to bottle up and carry with him.

As a nation, we must take responsibility and recognise that there are things that can be done for these people we are talking about. They are not hopeless people; they are people whom we can actually give hope to, if, as the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles said, we first help to remove the stigma, and help people to recognise that there is help available and that they will not be stigmatised by going for that help. In fact, that help will only be of benefit to this community, this nation and indeed the NHS, which will have fewer problems to deal with as the years go on.

I hope that the passionate words that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles put to this House this morning will be recognised and that we also recognise that post-traumatic stress disorder is not only about the immediate battles that we are aware of today but about the long-term problems that our country faces. More than 100,000 gallant soldiers from our nation passed through Northern Ireland in service and we are just starting to scrape the surface of this issue when we recognise that, 20 or 30 years after the conflict ends, there could be people who will come forward to say, “I have a problem because of what I saw, because of what I witnessed and because of what I went through as a serving personnel officer in Northern Ireland.” We must ensure that that issue is properly recognised.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles spoke about the capacity to take on board the cases that will come forward. I want to see that capacity extended, to ensure that the needs of Northern Ireland and of the soldiers there are also taken on board. The Big Lottery Fund money—the £35 million—that has been brought to our attention today will be a welcome spend and of course it must include spending on people who served in Northern Ireland under Operation Banner, to ensure that their issues are properly addressed.

I want to make a final point about the issue of stigma. We need a public champion who can be identified with this issue and whose association with it will give a boost and encouragement to those soldiers who are sitting at home, and perhaps staring into an empty glass, contemplating self-harm or having a fight with their children or other family members. That public champion will give those soldiers the ability to say, “There is someone who can help me; there is an organisation addressing what has affected me, and I can now see that I have someone to shoulder this burden and someone who can be a help or a crutch”, at the most important time—when they are at their most vulnerable. I hope that that public champion can be identified.

In addition, I love the idea of a GI Bill or something similar for the UK. There would be so much opportunity with such a Bill that we could build on, and I think that we could do things even better than they have been done in the US because this is a nation of people who come up with even better ideas than people in other nations do. We could learn from what has been done in the United States and come up with something really tremendous. I hope that this debate itself acts as a springboard and is a very hopeful and positive start to something that we can take great pride in.

11:44

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

Thank you very much, Mr Dobbin, for calling me to speak. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on securing this very important debate and on the passionate way in which she outlined her case on behalf of her constituent.

I think that we all know that there are about 5 million veterans in the United Kingdom and that a further 20,000 personnel leave our armed forces each year. Having recently returned from a visit to British forces in Afghanistan—a visit I was joined on by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile)—I will take a moment to praise the work of the men and women in our armed forces. They put themselves in harm’s way and they do a terrific job under very difficult circumstances. Of course, it is not only the right hon. Lady’s constituent who is a hero, although I am sure that he is a hero; all the men and women in our armed forces are heroes and heroines too.

In addition, I think that we all know that the transition from military life to civilian life will always be challenging. Of the 20,000 personnel who leave the armed forces each year, about 10%, or 2,000, are discharged for medical reasons and of that number about 10%, or 200, are identified as having one form of mental illness or another. That group of approximately 200 personnel are only 1% of the number of personnel who leave the armed forces each year, but these numbers that I am citing are not insignificant. Last year, 164 personnel had to leave the armed forces due to psychological problems and of that number 35 were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. We have heard a lot this morning about PTSD, but it is not the mental health illness that is most commonly experienced by armed forces personnel. Depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse are far more prevalent, especially among young men leaving the service early. Indeed, those young men who leave the armed forces within four years of enlisting have been identified as a particularly vulnerable group.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) for securing this debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one very important issue in this debate is homelessness among veterans, which is closely linked with other problems affecting veterans? When I worked for a housing charity in London, I was struck by the fact that I did not have to speak too long to people working in night shelters before they made the point that there is always a certain percentage of veterans who are homeless on our streets, and that homelessness is a problem that is related to the other problems affecting veterans.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, and she could not be more right about that issue. I chair the all-party group on housing and I have made it a particular business of mine to look at homelessness; in fact, I have applied to speak in an Adjournment debate on that very issue, Mr Dobbin. When I talk to organisations such as Centrepoint or St Mungo’s, it is absolutely clear that there is a particular problem with people who leave our armed forces and who are unable to adapt to civilian life and stabilise their housing needs. The hon. Lady makes a point that I hope the Minister will find time to address when he winds up the debate.

[Mr Gray]

I just wanted to intervene on that particular point, before the hon. Gentleman moves on. It is often anecdotally said that there are more people living on the streets who are from a service background than there are civilians and it is also anecdotally reported that there is a higher proportion of people in prison from the armed forces than there should be. However, I suspect that there has not been a proper statistical analysis of either of those issues and perhaps one of the things that the Government could usefully do is to come up with some hard facts to establish whether or not the anecdotal reports about those issues are actually correct.

[Stephen Gilbert]

My hon. Friend steals one of the key points that I was going to ask the Minister to respond to, but hopefully the fact that we are both making the same point will be better than just one of us making it, and so I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.

The risk of suicide in army males under the age of 24 is two or three times greater than that of young males in the same age group in the general population. A recent study of 9,000 veterans showed that 20% of them had symptoms of common mental health problems and that 13% had symptoms of alcohol misuse. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles is absolutely right that we should be entirely clear that mental health issues can affect anybody in any part of the population, and that we should try to move away from the stigma that is all too frequently associated with those issues. Indeed, it is my understanding that 25%, or a quarter, of British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year, and that one in six experiences such a problem at any given time. Mental health problems are very pervasive in our society and we must tackle the taboo about discussing them.

I have spoken before in the House about the harm that alcohol abuse can cause, and that same study of veterans showed that 40% of the veterans who responded met the criteria for heavy drinkers; 27% of them met the criteria for very heavy drinkers; and 15% of them were classed as problem drinkers. Again, young men in the armed forces are more at risk than young men in the general population, with 36% of 16 to 19-year-olds in the armed forces drinking harmful amounts compared to just 8% of 16 to 19-year-olds in the general population.

It is right and proper that we do all we can to help those who have served our country, and not only while they are serving but after they leave the armed forces. That is why I welcome the recent pilots by the Department of Health and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that NHS health professionals have the appropriate support and available expertise to treat veterans with mental health problems. The four national health Departments, the UK Ministry of Defence and the charity Combat Stress have been working together closely to develop and pilot a new model of community-based mental health care, and I particularly welcome the fact that one of the pilots is in Liskeard in Cornwall, which is close to my constituency.

Nevertheless, we need to see what else we can do. At the moment, the support offered for the reintegration of former service personnel into civilian life is proportionate to the time they have served but, as we have seen, those with mental issues and other illnesses often need the most help, and we need to consider whether we have right the balance between the time we are putting into their transition and their needs. We also must ensure that when people leave armed forces medical care, their transfer into the NHS is seamless. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport made it absolutely clear that we need to look again at what happens to our reserve and territorial forces when they are demobilised, as they are increasingly part of our war-fighting mix. I welcome the previous Government’s reserves mental health programme, which aimed to tackle some of these issues.

We must redouble our efforts to raise awareness in the NHS, to help veterans who are concerned about their mental health. And it is not just within the NHS; there is an issue closer to the Minister’s own Department. The MOD’s website has only one link buried within it to a charitable organisation that can help with these kinds of issues, and I ask the Minister to undertake to see whether the website could be looked at, and the links made more prominent, so that people who are clicking through will be better signposted towards help.

In all the defence establishments that I have visited during the 18 months I have been an MP, and before that as a parliamentary candidate, I have seen awfully large numbers of posters, notice boards and other ways of conveying information to our forces, and I wonder whether they are being adequately exploited to signpost our armed service personnel to the help that they need. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) pointed out, we need more analysis and research into the wider consequences, and into whether we are providing the seamless support that we should, and to families as well.

Our service personnel never let us down. We ask them to do a difficult job under very difficult circumstances and they are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, so it is vital that this Government maintain the military contract post their departure from uniformed service. We must not let them down either.

11:49

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

I did not intend to speak, and I see the little time available to us, so if I may I will hold the House for just a few minutes before the shadow Minister does her bit and the Minister, from whom I very much look forward to hearing, speaks.

First, I pay a warm tribute to everyone who has spoken so far in the debate, in particular to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). She and I might not agree on many subjects, but on this one I think we are entirely ad idem. Everything she said was absolutely right. This issue is terribly important and she has raised it in a timely way. I also pay particular tribute to my next-door neighbour, in constituency terms, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), whose seminal work on this subject fulfilled a coalition agreement commitment to do something about the mental health conditions of the armed services. His report was extremely good, and it has given the Government a series of pointers as to what they can now do about this terrible problem.

I think that we are unanimous about the fact that there is this problem. I was struck by a conversation I had yesterday with my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who sends his apologies for not being here. He was having a drink on the terrace with a young lady who was the widow of one of his soldiers. He recounted how when he was digging into the pub in Ballykelly, she insisted on calling him “sir” throughout the time she was struggling to escape from the mud and dirt, and how he said, “You don’t need to call me ‘sir’ under these conditions. Your husband is dead beside you; we can forget the ‘sir’.” What kind of effect can that kind of episode, in which someone cradles a dying soldier who has lost all four limbs, have on those who are left behind? My hon. Friend is one of the most well-balanced individuals I know, and I am not for a second suggesting that he has any such problems, but how many people will have had similar experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how many soldiers who have had such an experience know what effect it will have on them in later life?

I remember speaking to a 19-year-old sniper when I was visiting Afghanistan last year. I asked him, “How many confirmed kills have you got as a sniper?” and he replied, “I’ve got 34 confirmed, and a further 26 probables”, so something like 50 or 60. I asked, “Doesn’t that worry you?” and he said, “No, sir, it’s no trouble at all. It’s a blur at the end of the sight, and I pull the trigger and do my job and that’s that. It has absolutely no effect whatsoever.” Who are we to say whether when that young lad is 50 or 60 he will have some form of effect from that experience? It is therefore incredibly important that we address this grave issue. I pay tribute to Help for Heroes and to my constituents in Wootton Bassett and across the area, who have done great stuff with bereaved families and soldiers coming back from theatre of war with injuries, but this is a much more invisible problem. We should be just as aware of it, even though the average time before a patient realises his problem is 14 years after the incident, and it may well be 20 or 30 years. It is important that as a society we do something about the problem.

Having agreed that—I am sure that everyone here today will strongly be in agreement—it is much more difficult to say precisely what to do. It is very easy to say, “Isn’t this an awful problem? Mustn’t we do something about it?” Well, yes, but what do we actually do? Two or three interesting proposals have come up in the debate. The first, and as I come from the Territorial Army myself I think this is very important, is that we should ask the reserve forces carefully to consider precisely what they can do. Very often, TA people coming back from the theatre of war leave the reserve forces within a year or two. They do not particularly want to carry on much beyond that, and they then disappear into civilian life and are gone for ever. We do not know where they are or who they are, and they may well be suffering from these same problems. We must find a way of pinning down where our reserve forces go when they retire, and do something about it.

[Mrs Linda Riordan in the Chair]

The second problem that people talked about very convincingly earlier was that of stigma and of people feeling that they do not want to come forward, and I think that that particularly applies to the testosterone-filled young men we send off to war—and women to a degree, but not the testosterone. They come back and do not want to say, “I’m a bit daft. I’ve gone a bit loopy. There’s something wrong with me.” The ethos is not to say that, and we have to find a way of encouraging them to believe that it is a normal thing to do, that they can perfectly sensibly bring themselves forward and say, “I’ve got a problem here, and I need some help.”

One thing we might want to think about doing is this. Some 10 or 15 years ago, our servicemen coming back injured from the theatre of war felt very uncomfortable being in civilian wards in Birmingham. No one is saying that they were not well looked after, but only a year or two after the conflicts began the previous Government introduced military-style care in Birmingham. Armed servicemen feel at home and relaxed in such an arena, and I think that something similar has to apply to mental health. Too many civilian mental health workers do not understand the problems, which may well present many years after the incidents that cause them. Particularly in areas such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), where there are very large numbers of armed servicemen, we have to find a way of saying to our primary care trusts, “This sort of problem is coming your way over the years. You have to find a quasi-military way of dealing with it. You have to realise that military life is different from civilian life and that these are different problems from civilian mental health problems, so let’s find a specifically military way of dealing with them. Let’s keep in touch with the armed services and find out precisely what they know about post-traumatic stress disorder and the rest of it, and let’s find a military solution to what is a military problem, albeit within a civilian environment.”

This has been a useful debate. We have raised the issue very satisfactorily and the armed services, which are aware of the problems, will, I think, be grateful to us for having done so. But it is very easy to do two things. First, it is easy to exaggerate the problem, and it would be useful if the Minister could initiate a statistical analysis of how many people it affects in a real sense. Earlier, we discussed prisons, alcohol and homelessness. How much of that is caused specifically by combat, and how much is in the normal run of human beings? There are 200,000 people in the armed services. A number of them will be drunken or homeless. That is the nature of the beast. How much of that is caused by military service, and how much is incidental to it?

So first, we must not exaggerate the issue. Secondly, we must not just take political capital from expressing our sympathy and concern; in debates such as this, we must make specific proposals about what we can actually do to lessen this problem in our society. I look forward to hearing from the shadow Minister and, perhaps more importantly, from the Minister, on what we can do about this dreadful problem.

12:00

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on securing this debate on an important and topical issue. More importantly, I thank Neil for coming along today and allowing us to hear his story, which has both provided a context for our discussion and put a face on the issue that we are debating.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan). We have spent much time during the past year discussing the Armed Forces Bill and the armed forces covenant. The Bill has now received Royal Assent, so it is perhaps fitting that as we come to the end of the year, we are again discussing the welfare of our brave serving personnel and veterans and the impact on their families.

My right hon. Friend painted an honest and vivid picture of the problem of veterans’ mental health. It is easy to be preoccupied with the scenes from Afghanistan that we still see and not to pay as much attention to the issues facing service personnel and their families when they leave the forces or return from theatre. We know that they are skilled, highly trained and resilient people, but more than 180,000 personnel have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, as we have heard, and a significant number will have returned with mental ill health or will, sadly, go on to develop problems later in life. We should be prepared to deal with that and ensure that the right facilities and support are in place to diagnose and treat such conditions.

Significant progress has been made in recent years, particularly through mental health pilot schemes and work done since then, to improve support and treatment for personnel suffering from mental health problems, but no party has a monopoly on wisdom when it comes to improving services for our forces. We have all met constituents who have told us about their experiences. We have heard about some of those and about Members’ personal experiences of the issues.

I emphasise the importance of the current campaign by Combat Stress about the stigma attached to mental health, which my right hon. Friend mentioned. Combat Stress provides an invaluable service to veterans around the country. Its centres and outreach work allow veterans to get the help and support that they need in a specialised environment, along with other veterans going through similar experiences. Combat Stress’s “The Enemy Within” campaign seeks to tackle the stigma that, unfortunately, can be a barrier to people getting the support and help that they need.

However, the work of Combat Stress and of many other important organisations and charities such as the Royal British Legion should not give the Ministry of Defence or the Government an excuse to opt out of their responsibilities, or indeed ours. It is important that we do not view the services offered by the voluntary and charitable sector as a replacement for acting ourselves. Such organisations should complement, not replace, the services that the Government offer. The voluntary and charitable sector is facing a tough time at the moment. Forces charities are spared some of that pain by generous ongoing public support, but we should not assume that those services will always exist and will always have enough funding to run.

Government should decide what services they have a duty to provide and should fund them properly. The Government need not always be the vehicle to deliver those services, as we have heard, but they can fund experts such as Combat Stress to do so on their behalf. This Government should also consider how mental health services for veterans or anyone else who needs them can be guaranteed when their national health service reforms are removing accountability. Again, we have discussed that already.

Those in the forces are trained to be strong, resilient and able to push through any challenge that stands in their way. That does not lend itself easily to admitting that one needs help because of a mental health problem. My right hon. Friend highlighted the high proportion of veterans suffering from a mental health condition—a staggering 81%—who are embarrassed by or ashamed of their condition and do not feel able to come forward. We have also discussed the average length of time it takes people to present in search of support, which is about 13 years. I understand that there are examples of people who have waited up to 40 years to get help. We must do all that we can to change that situation. We cannot just let it continue.

Combat Stress has also provided detailed evidence involving cases of individuals who have faced marriage break-up, unemployment, social isolation or substance abuse, all because they were unable to deal with their mental health. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) mentioned homelessness as well. We should be concerned about the figures, and I agree that it is right that we should seek to quantify the problem. The figures show that, even though help and support exist, too many people still find the stigma far too great to overcome. Until we tackle that stigma, no matter what support is out there, there will be no real change. Combat Stress’s campaign focusing on the issue of stigma is vital.

We have spent much of this year’s parliamentary debates on the forces discussing legislating for the covenant, so it is welcome that we are now debating the substance of the issues covered by the covenant and what it should mean in practice. It is right that nobody who serves their country in the forces should be disadvantaged as a result of their service. In some ways, however, getting the Government to enshrine that in law was the easy bit. The Government must now take action to implement the covenant so that we can see what it means in practice. I would welcome information from the Minister about the planned implementation of the covenant and how the Government intend to ensure that Departments and public bodies audit and change their policies to give our forces, our veterans and their families a fair deal.

My right hon. Friend highlighted the need to recognise how many veterans suffer from mental health issues. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the previous veterans’ Minister, announced plans when he was in post for a veterans’ ID card. The card would have enabled veterans to be identified easily and to get priority NHS treatment.

As we have discussed, it is difficult to quantify the level of need. Without a tracking system for veterans, we will never be able to do so. My right hon. Friend has asked in written questions how many ex-service people are being treated for mental health problems on the NHS, but there is no record, so the Minister replying was simply unable to give an answer because the data do not exist. Being unable to quantify the problem makes the Government unable to quantify the true cost of treating mental illness among former members of the armed forces. Therefore, the true impact is unknown at the moment. A veterans’ card would enable the Government to track veterans and offer the right support to those who need it.

In the Armed Forces Bill Committee, on which the Minister and I both served, the Minister reiterated his opposition to introducing an ID card, but the Government agreed earlier this year to launch a veterans’ privilege card allowing veterans to access commercial discounts. That is welcome, but I urge the Minister to look beyond discount schemes and extend those proposals, and to use the card as a way to ensure that veterans can access the support that they require when they need it.

[Mr Gray]

I am puzzled as to why the deeply bureaucratic and complicated system of issuing 5 million people with a piece of paper would help those suffering from mental stress many years after service to come forward and ask for the help that they need. I am not certain as to why that is a solution to the problem under discussion.

[Gemma Doyle]

The proposals were not overly complicated. The initial proposal was to start issuing a veterans’ card to people who are leaving the services now, not necessarily to go back and identify the 5 million people, because, as the Minister has told me, he cannot identify them. If we do not start to make some changes, we will never be able to quantify the problems. When we are able to know who the people are, the right support and services can be offered to them and contact can be maintained where it is wanted to ensure that the services are being delivered. Then, when an individual presents with a mental health problem, they can clearly be identified as a veteran and we will be able to see the problem much more clearly.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

The point made by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was that many of these people will not present themselves and do not understand the problems, and that asking them will not get the result that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) seeks. That is why I have insisted— I think this point was raised earlier—that the decommissioning that is done in the States, and to some degree here, might be the answer, without the paper.

[Gemma Doyle]

No one measure will sort out this problem—there needs to be a range of measures. I think that, taken together, the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion and mine would help to address the problem. I do not think that we will be able to quantify the issues unless the data and the systems are in place.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) has already mentioned that it is important that we do not overlook the particular impact of deployment on the mental health of our reservists. Professor Simon Wessely of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research states that reservists who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are three times as likely to suffer mental health problems as members of the regular forces. The Government’s Future Force 2020 plan suggests that the role of reservists is to increase substantially as a result of the reductions in the number of regular service personnel, so the Government must have the support in place to ensure that reservists are prepared to take on those extra responsibilities and that extra role, as well as guarantee that they have access to the correct mental health care and support when they return from deployments or are no longer mobilised.

As in the rest of the forces, there has been progress in recent years. The reservist mental health programme extended mental health support for reservists, but, with their role set to increase, the provision of support will have to be pointed in the right direction to cope with the increased number of reservists who are to be deployed. I would therefore appreciate an assurance from the Minister that the mental health care of reservists will be given due attention.

In conclusion, I again congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles on securing this debate. We have heard of experiences from around the country, and they have illustrated the need for attention not to be diverted from the issue. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) asked what measures we can and should take to improve the situation. Combat Stress is asking for five things. I do not think that I can improve on them and would welcome the Minister’s comments on them. This debate has given us the opportunity to recognise the role that the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and Combat Stress play in supporting the mental health and welfare of our veterans. I pay particular tribute to Combat Stress, which, along with many other service organisations and charities, plays an outstanding role in support of the whole armed forces family, for which we should thank it.

12:14

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

This is a hugely important topic, so I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) has secured this debate. I thank all Members who have taken part. The right hon. Lady is a former Minister with responsibility for public health and therefore knows a lot about the issues. I am not in any way clinically trained, so I tread very warily around issues of mental health. We should be wary of making grandiose statements on a very complex situation. I certainly try not to tell clinicians how to address it.

There is, however, a good story to be told. A great deal of progress is being made and the subject has rightly received a lot of attention in recent years. Our armed forces are currently deployed in the most demanding areas of conflict, and we have a moral duty, not only as a Government but as a nation, to support and look after them, to care for them when they are injured and to maintain that care when they leave service. Mental health problems, as we have heard, may take some time to manifest themselves, in some cases many years after service. Mental ill health can be a truly debilitating condition. As several Members have mentioned, it still has a stigma attached to it, and I believe that there is a lot of common ground across the political parties to remove the barriers for those seeking the help that they so desperately need.

I acknowledge the work of the previous Administration in launching ex-service mental health pilots throughout the country during the previous Parliament. Such was their success that they continue in the NHS, which is leading the fight to ensure that those who need our help receive it.

Although I am responding on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, it has been the policy of successive Governments that the treatment of all health-related conditions and problems for those who have been in service is the responsibility of the national health service. I mention that because I deal very closely with the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), who from time to time makes comments in the House about zombies—some Members may have noticed that recently—that may have deflected us from his excellent work in the Department of Health, especially his close work with us on various issues, particularly mental health. Indeed, he and I together visited Combat Stress in Leatherhead about a year ago. The NHS and the MOD together have also set up armed forces networks to ensure that ex-service personnel in particular can access health care. Members have said that people do not understand what ex-service personnel need, but this should go some way to helping in the future.

To ensure a coherent approach across the Government, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who served as a medical doctor in the Royal Navy, to conduct a study into the relationship between the national health service and the armed forces, including former servicemen, in terms of mental health. It was a thorough examination of our procedures and led to my hon. Friend’s well-respected “Fighting Fit” report. If hon. Members have not read it, I commend it to them.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles asked about our plans for the future. Essentially, they are based on that report. The former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), announced on 6 October last year that we would accept all of the “Fighting Fit” recommendations. They include a scheme, beginning next spring, routinely to contact service leavers at the 12-month point after discharge to establish whether they have any health need for which they are having difficulty in accessing treatment. That is actually very difficult, because when people leave the armed forces, they often change address, move away, go abroad or do all sorts of other things. It is not as easy as one might think. In addition, we will enable those identified as having a mental health problem during service to continue to have access for up to six months to the MOD’s departments of community and mental health. That will help smooth the transfer of care from the MOD to the NHS. We have also enhanced service medical examinations to enable earlier identification of mental health problems.

One of the earliest “Fighting Fit” recommendations to be implemented is the new 24-hour helpline, which is run by the charity Rethink on behalf of Combat Stress and is funded by £200,000 from the Department of Health. It allows former personnel with mental health problems and their families to get specifically targeted support from people trained and experienced in dealing with serving and former armed forces personnel and their often complex mental health needs. It is a real success, and when I have met Combat Stress and its clients, I have seen for myself how important this enabling of the first step to seeking help really is. I telephoned the helpline shortly after it was set up because I am sometimes slightly sceptical about helplines, and I can assure hon. Members that it works.

Through working with Combat Stress, the NHS is also increasing the number of mental health professionals, with a focus on providing help to veterans with mental health problems. That provides the opportunity for veterans to be seen locally by NHS professionals who have a better understanding of veterans’ needs, working side by side with Combat Stress outreach teams and their extensive experience and knowledge.

To help with the process of removing the stigma, to which several hon. Members referred, the Government have introduced an online well-being network that is accessible to serving personnel, their families and veterans. It is called the Big White Wall and is staffed by professional counsellors, who can be contacted 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That social network, which is reflective of today’s society, allows individuals to engage with others who are in similar difficulty. The anonymity connected to that network allows for a free and frank exchange of experiences, with a view to generating a wider sense of support. The Big White Wall has logged 1,000 hits since going live, more than 40% of which are from serving personnel, which illustrates that it will be a success.

I must acknowledge the significance of Combat Stress’s collaborative approach with the NHS and the MOD, which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and others. I bought my Christmas cards this year and last year from Combat Stress, so I would like to think that I do my little bit personally to support it. My Department provided Combat Stress with £3 million in the financial year 2010-11 for the treatment of those in receipt of a war pension who require treatment for mental health problems caused by service.

Combat Stress was formed shortly after the first world war to help those returning from the battlefields, but it is as important today as it was then. Indeed, I first came across Combat Stress 25 years ago when I was serving. It was known then as the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society. We have heard today about Neil Blower, a former serviceman who served his country in Iraq and Kosovo. He experienced difficulties after service, but received excellent help and support from Combat Stress. He has now become a published author. I wish him continued success, and I should say to the right hon. Lady that I found the quotation from his book very moving.

I accept that the Government cannot and should not do everything. Through the armed forces covenant, we are building partnerships between all arms of government—national and local—and with the NHS to deliver better support to the armed forces community. The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), who speaks for the Opposition, mentioned all arms of government and how we need to bring them together. A report on the covenant will be published before Christmas.

We also need to work more closely with the charitable sector to get the right support to the right people at the right time. The covenant has the important principle of removing disadvantage. Any former serviceman who is ill as a result of their service can access priority treatment through the NHS—subject, of course, to the clinical needs of others. We continue to work closely with GPs to make that more widely known because there is an education issue. The Department of Health, working with the Royal College of General Practitioners, has put in place an e-learning package for GPs. That will increase awareness of the status of patients who are veterans, thus enabling more proactive monitoring of veterans’ mental health and helping to ensure that they receive the treatment that they deserve.

We acknowledge that, in some cases, it can take years for psychological problems to manifest themselves. It is therefore important that we recognise through-life responsibility to our armed forces and that we do all we can to increase awareness and reduce the potential for developing mental health problems in the future.

[Hazel Blears]

If the Minister’s plans to reduce stigma are successful—and I very much hope that they are—that will inevitably result in more people presenting for treatment and help and support. I specifically asked him what his estimate is of the increase in the number of people presenting for next year and the years after as troops withdraw from the theatres where they have been active and what plans he has to meet that increase in the number of people presenting. I would appreciate some detailed answers to those specific questions.

[Mr Robathan]

I was going to come to that, but we do not have estimates for the figures that may emerge because it is a very difficult clinical situation. Some people—mostly not qualified doctors—say that a tidal wave of mental health problems is coming. I do not know whether that is the case, but what I do know is that we must be ready for whatever comes, so that we can help ex-service personnel. That is the right way forward, but making estimates that must inevitably be guesses because they depend on individual situations would not necessarily be very helpful.

I want to answer a few more of the right hon. Lady’s questions. We have mentioned stigma. It is our policy and that of the armed forces that mental health issues should be recognised properly and handled appropriately. Every effort should be made to reduce the stigma associated with such problems. Service personnel are given briefings before, during and after any operational deployment that explain the symptoms to look for and signpost the support services available. As well as medical officers, welfare staff, mental health personnel and chaplains also deploy to places such as Afghanistan and are available to provide help and advice.

One of the most successful recent innovations has been the introduction of trauma risk management—TRiM—which I have seen. That is a process of peer-group risk assessment, and mentoring and support for use in the aftermath of traumatic events. Such a process is undertaken as soon as possible after the event. That could happen, for example, after a patrol in a forward operating base. Evidence suggests that that process has been successful in increasing awareness and reducing the stigma attached to mental health disorders, which the right hon. Lady mentioned.

Away from the operational theatre, we provide a range of specialist care, primarily through 15 military departments of community mental health across the UK and four such departments in Germany. Those departments provide out-patient mental health care and are staffed by community mental health teams comprising psychiatrists and mental health nurses, with access to clinical psychologists and mental health social workers. In-patient care, when necessary, is provided regionally in specialised psychiatric units under a contract with the NHS.

To help our understanding of the issues that affect service personnel and those who have left the services, we fund a large-scale research project at King’s College, London on the experiences of those who are serving or who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only last Monday, I spent the morning at King’s with Professor Simon Wessely and other academic staff who are undertaking that research. If anyone wishes to go there, I can arrange a visit because they are extremely on the ball and know an enormous amount about the subject, as one would hope. The project includes a large-scale study involving more than 20,000 participants, which is monitoring the effects of operational service compared with a cohort group that did not deploy.

In May 2010—the project was funded by the previous Government—the latest phase of that research confirmed that there is a continuing relatively low prevalence of probable post-traumatic stress disorder for the UK armed forces. Some 4% of respondents displayed symptoms of PTSD compared with other studies that show a range of rates between 3% and 7% in the general population. Recent evidence suggests that PTSD is likely to present at a peak of about three years, but we accept that it may be longer in some cases. It is therefore important that we recognise our through-life responsibility to our armed forces.

I will try to cover the questions asked by hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) made some excellent points. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke with passion about the legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland. Having spent the best part of a year of my life on the streets of west Belfast, I have a very real understanding of and a great deal of sympathy with some of his points. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) spoke with great feeling, but we should be careful that we do not see ex-service personnel as victims. They are very capable people, and the overwhelming majority of people who leave the services plough a pretty good furrow and get a job. I had to become an MP to get a job; nevertheless, most people get a pretty decent job after they have left the armed forces, and they do not want to be patronised.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) added his experience of the Territorial Army and acknowledged the real difficulties that we face. On the reservists, he is absolutely right. I say gently to the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire that we must understand—I think that she does understand—that many ex-service personnel do not want to be pursued. When they leave the armed forces, they do not want to be followed up.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles particularly mentioned education. I will write to her if I may with the details, but I think that she will find that the further education scheme funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills provides free tuition for service leavers undertaking a first qualification at that level. That gives ex-service personnel the opportunity for higher studies, which they may have been denied by military service. Furthermore, they can build up learning credits during service that can be used to fund education for up to 10 years after leaving service. However, I will write to her with the details on that.

In conclusion, there is consensus here. The right hon. Lady has raised a very important issue. We can never remove the exposure to trauma in operations, but we must do all we can to minimise the effects that that might have. TRiM on the battlefield gives the opportunity to discuss the shared experience of trauma, and that concept is continued with the Big White Wall. For some, medical intervention is required, which I have discussed, but we continue to address the recommendations made in “Fighting Fit.” All that is complemented by Combat Stress and other service charities. As we have heard, they do a huge amount to rebuild lives, and we are, as a Government and a nation, eternally grateful for that.

Arctic Convoy Veterans Medal

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

12:30

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mrs Riordan, for the opportunity to secure the debate. I want to speak about two words: “heroism” and “bravery”. They are words that we hear too often in modern language, yet their true meaning is absolutely personified by the gentlemen in the white berets. They are the Arctic convoy veterans of world war two. They are the men who risked their lives again and again on what Winston Churchill described as:

“the worst journey in the world.”

On a daily basis, they endured sub-zero temperatures—sometimes as low as minus 60°—and had to hack away at the ice and snow that covered the decks and external parts of their ships. One veteran said that he did not realise how cold it was until he accidentally grabbed a ladder, which removed all the skin on his hand. However, the weather was nothing compared to the continual aerial bombardment from German U-boats, battleships and planes that plagued each trip.

One grim feature of the campaign was the use of suicide flights. Fighter planes were flung into the air with the use of a catapult when enemy aircraft were sighted. With nowhere to land when they were shot or ran out of fuel, pilots were forced to crash into the sea and face almost certain death. A total of 78 convoys delivered 4 million tonnes of vital cargo and munitions to the Soviet Union, which allowed the red army to repel the Nazi invasion. The cost in terms of life was horrific. More than 100 vessels perished and 3,000 UK seamen were killed in the treacherous waters of the Arctic ocean as they undertook terrifying trips to keep Russia supplied and fighting on the eastern front. Nine per cent. of the seamen who took part were killed— the highest fatality rate of any maritime campaign in the war.

The cost, had the Arctic convoys not succeeded, would have been worse. Nazi Germany would very probably have won the second world war. Churchill had promised to supply Stalin “at all costs”. He knew that, if Russia fell, the full weight of the Nazi military machine would be targeted at the west. Yet, because Norway and the Baltic states had been captured by the Germans, the only way to get supplies to Russia was through the northern ports of Murmansk and Archangel, which are both inside the icy waters of the Arctic circle.

Were the convoy veterans honoured with a medal by their own country? After all, even Russia—the Soviet Union—awarded medals that acknowledged its gratitude to the surviving sailors, whom it regarded as heroes. No. The convoy campaign was the only major sea campaign of the second world war not to be honoured with a specific medal. Instead, it was included in the battle of the Atlantic, which was a separate campaign to keep Britain supplied during the German U-boat blockade. This is the biggest fallacy: the Arctic convoy veterans all qualified for the Atlantic star. Leave aside that the Atlantic is 800 miles away from the Arctic and a wholly different campaign. Uniquely for campaign medals, recipients of the Atlantic star had to fulfil a six-month qualifying period, as opposed to just one day for the Africa star, for example.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She mentioned the Africa star. Not only does the campaign star system allow for such a stand-alone medal—the Italy star is another example—but it permits recognition of a significant event, battle or sustained effort; for example, the one-off clasp, the 1939-1945 star, to commemorate the battle of Britain. Does she agree that there has been a worrying complacency on this matter, in that neither of those ready solutions has been proposed? Today, the Ministry of Defence’s own website does not even mention the convoys in the criteria for the Atlantic star.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and has worked extremely hard on this campaign, as we all have. There is a ready-made solution within the star framework. The complacency in relation to rewarding these extraordinary men is, in many ways, shameful.

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

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Probably the most powerful point she has made is that the qualifying criterion for the Atlantic star was 180 days, which by modern standards is very long indeed. I think that for the Falklands it was one day. For the current operational service medal, it is only 30 days. In fact, if she were devilish, she could ask the Minister what the qualifying period was for his two medals.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very helpful intervention.

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

If one considers that the war went on for six years, and people then looked back and decided on the length of time required to qualify for medals, I think that that was a perfectly reasonable position. As I recall, Northern Ireland was 30 days, which was essentially a quarter of a four-month tour. Actually, if my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) thinks that accumulated service medals should take longer to acquire—does he have one, or is he about to get one?—he raises a sensible point, but the second world war went on for six years.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am very pleased to be acting as a referee in this particular discourse.

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

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Dinenage]

In two moments, I will. I welcome the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North, whom I think is still a serving member of the Army. I am sure that he very much represents the views of the service people of today, who recognise fully and fully appreciate the sacrifice that these gentlemen made.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Like others, I congratulate her on successfully securing the debate. She said that there were two words that she wanted to talk about. There are two other words that, unfortunately, have not been taken on board by the Government. One is gratitude—the gratitude of the nation to these men. The other is obligation—the obligation that successive Governments have refused to take up to honour these men with the medal they deserve. The Minister’s outburst belittled the importance of this debate, and I regret that he chose to make those statements. I believe that “obligation” and “gratitude” are the two things that the nation now needs to show these men while they are still alive.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and echo everything that he has said. I know that he has also been a great supporter of the Arctic convoy veterans in their campaign for a medal.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

The hon. Lady has been generous in giving way. She is making a powerful and eloquent case. I just want to underline the strength of cross-party support for her campaign, and the support it enjoys among the wider British public, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) has said. We owe these veterans a vote of thanks, and we owe them a distinctive Arctic convoy medal.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that good intervention. He has, in many ways, hit the nail on the head.

The Minister talked about qualifying periods for medals. The Arctic convoys sailed in excessively awful conditions. It is important to point out that nobody could possibly have managed six months of continuous service in those horrific conditions. There were people who sailed on the convoys, and many who lost limbs in the horrific extreme cold, who did not serve long enough to qualify for the Atlantic star. The Atlantic star qualification—albeit perhaps inadvertently—was therefore set up in such a way as to make sure that nobody who only served in the Arctic convoys could qualify. The Arctic convoy veterans who did receive the Atlantic star—there were a good number of them—only did so because they had also been part of an Atlantic convoy during other parts of the war; they did not receive it purely on the basis of their serving in the Arctic campaign.

Why was the Arctic the only campaign of the second world war to be ignored? The most likely explanation is that, as world war two ended, the cold war began and our relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated. Fear of communism was growing internationally and it was somehow seen as inappropriate, or perhaps even unfashionable, to recognise the efforts of our country in supporting the Russians. In some ways, this whole incredible, valiant episode was just brushed under the carpet. It was only in the 1990s, after the end of the cold war, that this incredibly heroic band of gentlemen felt that they could put forward their case for a medal.

Commander Eddie Grenfell survived his ship being bombed five times, and being plunged into the icy water where life expectancy was just minutes. He somehow managed to get rescued from the water and then spent many months recovering in Murmansk hospital. He is now 91. Lieutenant-Commander Dick Dykes spent more time in the Arctic convoys than anyone else alive today. Such men are heroes, yet they are still fighting. Portsmouth’s The News has led a campaign for more than 10 years to get a medal for Eddie, Dick and the ever-dwindling band of brave men: only 200 now survive. The News might be the champion, but the cause matters not only to people in Portsmouth.

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

I appreciate the hon. Lady securing the debate and congratulate her on that. My now dear departed uncle was on one of the convoys, and he was thrilled to be awarded the Russian medal, although our brave convoy veterans are not allowed to wear it on the same side as their other decorations. If the veterans can receive that medal from Russia, as they did several years ago with great honour here in London, should they not be honoured by our country?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady makes a super point and underlines the strength of feeling on the subject up and down the country. It is almost impossible to understand why our brave servicemen have been rewarded by other countries and not by our own. It is not only a local issue, as she pointed out. Loch Ewe, from where the convoys were launched, has a museum and an annual service of remembrance, and the Scottish Government are even considering including the story of the Arctic convoys in their national curriculum. When I raised the matter at Prime Minister’s questions in January, the incredible outpouring of support I received came from all over the world and from as far afield as Canada and Australia. The medal has the support of people in all walks of life, young and old, and nowhere more so than among our serving servicemen and women. Next year, a new diamond jubilee medal will be awarded to anyone who has completed five years of service in the military, whether on active service or not. Many of the young people in the armed forces in my constituency have said that, if it is only a matter of money, they will happily forgo their own medal in order to afford one for the Arctic convoy veterans.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me for a second time. Is she aware that the £12.3 million estimate for an Arctic convoy medal is based on incorrect numbers of servicemen and costings? Looking at the actual costs of other medals and allowing for inflation and even design costs, which obviously would not have to be included, I am hard pushed to reach even £1.2 million.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information, which further underlines the obstacles that are being put in the way of doing the right thing. The Ministry of Defence was asked to review the medals system in July 2010, and it took 16 months to get nowhere. However, time is of the essence. It is 70 years since the first convoys, and the remaining veterans are in their 80s and 90s; of the thousands who took part in the convoys, only 200 are yet alive.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

The hon. Lady is being enormously generous in giving way again. Is she, like me, unable to find a single precedent other than that of successive Ministry of Defence Ministers from all Governments against giving the medal?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Absolutely—I have yet to find anyone who finds the medal unpalatable, other than members of the MOD.

Does the Minister agree that enough time has already been wasted on reviews and delays? How long will the new independent review requested by the Prime Minister take, and when will it be completed? Finally, what are the scope and leadership of the review? According to the MOD, the details are expected to be released shortly—but “shortly” is not a period that we understand. What does it mean? Time is not on our side, and I ask him to be more specific. I understand that the MOD hides behind rules, protocols and precedents, but another criterion ought to take absolute priority: this is the right thing to do. Those men are not politicians, and at their age they should not have to fight for justice. It appals me that people who gave so much to ensure the freedoms that we daily take for granted should have to beg for the recognition that they deserve.

Successive Conservative leaders in opposition have committed to the medal without review. It is dreadful that it has to be reviewed again and again. I urge the Minister to ensure that it is done quickly. Time is not on the side of those brave gentlemen. It would be utterly disgusting were a medal awarded and no one was alive to receive it.

12:44

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) for raising this important issue, and I congratulate her on securing the debate. She feels passionately about it, and we have discussed it in the past. There is no scintilla of difference between us about our respect for those of my father’s and her grandfather’s generation who served in the Royal Navy and the Arctic convoys in the second world war. It might be relatively cold outside, but as we sit here in our centrally heated comfort, well clothed and dry, it is difficult to imagine the conditions in which young men in their teens and 20s went to sea in the Arctic before we were born. I pay real tribute to their courage, resolution, determination and bravery when necessary—all those things were shown by the people whom we as a nation sent to war in the Arctic. We agree about that, and the question is what we should do about it.

I mentioned my father’s generation, and I was brought up immediately after the second world war, so I have a much closer feeling with it, if I may say so. My mother’s first husband was a glider pilot killed at Arnhem, and the courage and resolution shown by glider pilots were similarly astonishing. In the battle of Sicily more than half the glider force was dropped in the sea and almost all of them died, as far as I am aware, so then to get back in a glider and fly off to Arnhem and D-day was similarly incredibly brave. I pay tribute to all those from this nation who in the second world war did amazing things. Nothing that I say should detract from that. The Atlantic convoys, rather than the separate Arctic convoys, lost 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships.

The position of the Government, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is that we will have a review. It was thought that the earlier review, to which she referred, was insufficient, and therefore we are putting in place another one, for which the terms of reference and the chairman have yet to be decided. I can, however, assure her that that work is most definitely happening at the moment. It is important that the decisions be made not by me or by Ministers but independently. Neither the Ministry of Defence nor I will have any hand in those decisions, which will be made by an independent chairman and group. It is important that politicians do not have such decisions at their fingertips. The truth is that politicians should not be involved in awarding medals.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I think that politicians ought to have the decision in their gift. If they should not, why did successive leaders of the Conservative party promise the medal to veterans while in opposition? It should not be subject to review and it does not need independent scrutiny to decide that this is the right thing to do. Politicians are perfectly capable of making the decision and making the right one.

[Mr Robathan]

Every Member in the Chamber, pace the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) who might possibly be an exception, was born after the end of the second world war. Politicians should not revisit decisions made in the past, second-guessing those who are not around to speak for themselves and who knew the details, were much closer to them than us and would have known people who had been on the Arctic convoys, perhaps losing friends or relations on that convoy, when we do not.

The current situation is that an independent review, into which I will have no input, will investigate. However, I would like to state the facts, which are what we should deal with. The Admiralty fleet order dated October 1946 refers to

“Qualifications for the Atlantic Star”

and states:

“After qualification for the 1939-45 Star by six months’…service, in areas defined below.

(A) Six months’…service afloat as defined in Section III”,

which included time in port, and

“(B) Service in home waters, service on the convoy routes to North Russian ports, service in the South Atlantic between the longitude of Cape Horn and longitude 20° E”.

The point was that the Admiralty was trying to have one medal to cover those issues. Whether that was right or wrong, it is wrong to say that the Arctic was ignored. It was not. It was mentioned in the Admiralty fleet order, and it was recognised, but I accept that whether it should have been recognised further is a matter for debate.

The campaign suggests that the Atlantic star is not enough, and I understand the strong feeling about that. I cannot understand what it was like to be in such appalling cold. However, it was also cold in the Atlantic, and I have mentioned the 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships that went down. Most people who earned the Atlantic star must be very proud to have done so when so many died. One also reads of the deprivation on the Atlantic convoys. It was pretty tough going across the Atlantic being chased by U-boats, and many ships were sunk.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do not believe that anyone here wants to get into a competition about who suffered most, although we must recognise the appalling conditions endured by the Arctic convoy veterans. The Minister is rightly sticking to the facts, but the facts are that the Arctic convoys were a separate theatre of conflict, and a precedent was set with the Canal medal. If it was thought that an error had been made, for understandable reasons—my right hon. Friend alluded to what they might be—we could revisit a decision. I do not believe that politicians should make those judgments, but it is our job to raise the concerns of our constituents throughout the country. There is a great feeling that we should revisit the facts, and there is a precedent for change if we think an error has been made.

[Mr Robathan]

I am saying that that determination is possible if people in the past got it wrong. We are saying in this debate that those in the Admiralty who determined who would receive medals got it wrong and that in some way we who were born after the second world war know better than those who were in that war. Actually, they were people like us, who are sitting in our centrally heated Chamber. Mountbatten was not on the Admiralty Board because he was Viceroy of India at the time, but he had commanded Kelly during the war, and ended up an admiral. That was not unusual for experienced people. We are in danger of saying that we should gainsay their knowledge and disparage their decisions, which were made by good people with experience.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Robathan]

No, I will not.

The intention post-war was not to cover everyone with medals. Medals in the UK mean something, and we pay tribute to the people in the Public Gallery who are showing the medals that they won through risk and rigour. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport mentioned the USSR. Authoritarian regimes and dictators, such a Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, often throw medals around. North Korean generals are covered with medal ribbons. We have traditionally taken the view in this country—hon. Members may disagree—that medals will be awarded only for campaigns that show risk and rigour.

[Mrs Glindon]

Veterans who hold the Russian Arctic medal may think the Minister’s comment about regimes that give away medals is disparaging. I hope that he recognises that. Under Winston Churchill, the Government discouraged the award of the Russian medal, but the fact that it was given and that the brave men who received it were recognised should be mirrored in this country. I should be pleased if he made a different comment from the one that he made earlier.

[Mr Robathan]

I apologise if my comment was taken in the wrong way. That was not the intention. I am not sure when the Russian medal was given to our veterans, but I believe that it was after 1990. There are not many Soviet survivors from the second world war, but generals in the Soviet army were covered in medals, which is not the tradition in this country. That is the point I was trying to make.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The Minister’s comment about the Russians giving out that medal disparages what the Russians clearly recognise as the unbelievable commitment and bravery of gentlemen such as those in the Public Gallery to whom he referred. We are now in the habit of giving out medals to people who have not committed acts of bravery. Next year, the Queen’s diamond jubilee medal will be given to people who may have spent five years driving a desk in the Ministry of Defence.

[Mr Robathan]

That is a fair point, but the diamond jubilee medal is a commemorative medal, not a campaign medal. That is the difference, but I agree with my hon. Friend. She made a reasonable point. I apologise again if she took my comment the wrong way. My point was that some regimes give out a large number of medals, whereas traditionally the United Kingdom does not.

I commend Commander Grenfell and his colleagues on their campaign. It seems to have started in 1997, which was 51 years after the Atlantic star was awarded, so I am not entirely clear what prompted it. Two Members in the Chamber have been on their parties’ Front Benches, and the last Government, under a lot of pressure, decided that they would award a special medal, but they awarded the Arctic star. In Portsmouth, The News stated, under the heading, “We’ve Won” and “Historic victory in long battle to win honours for heroes of the Arctic convoys”, that Commander Grenfell said:

“I am really very happy with what we have achieved. It has been a tough campaign, but we have finally got the recognition the Arctic veterans deserved.”

It also quoted the hon. Member for Portsmouth South who said:

“This is a tremendous result, and it is wonderful that the Arctic veterans have at last won recognition.”

I must tell Opposition Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith), that their Government believed that the matter had been put to bed.

Finally, the facts are that the decision is not one for politicians. I have huge respect for my father’s generation, who gave up their youth in the service of our country and deserve to be continually respected. The Arctic convoy veterans served in the particularly appalling conditions of the Arctic, but we should not pretend that we know better than experienced people who had taken part in the second world war and who had served on Royal Navy ships at sea. A decision will be taken, rightly, by the medals review. It should not be a political decision; it should relate to those who look at all the facts, take a view dependent on their respect for our veterans and make their decision accordingly.

Police Stations (Overnight Staffing)

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

12:59

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to bring this matter to the House’s attention. [Interruption.]

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. Will people leave quietly?

[Ian Austin]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to ask the Minister a series of questions about the proposed evening closure of Dudley police station, and, as we can see from the presence of other Labour Members, other stations in the west midlands. I want to express my admiration and support for West Midlands police, led by our chief constable, Chris Sims—[Interruption.]

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. Could you wait until the public have left the Chamber?

[Ian Austin]

I think those in the public gallery have done their bit. They have every right to have their case heard.

Led by Chris Sims and his senior colleagues, the force has seen crime across the region fall over the last few years, but many of us are worried that the force will find maintaining its performance impossible, because it is being forced to cut its budget by £126 million over four years. It is losing 14.5% of its funding, one of the biggest cuts in the country. As a result, the force is losing 1,250 officers, recruitment has been frozen, and experienced and valuable officers are being forced to retire early because they have completed 30 years’ service. Other savings are being made in back office functions and administrative functions as well.

The force is now proposing that the front desk at Dudley and a number of other police stations be closed to the public during the evening or overnight. Dudley’s front desk has been closed to the public between 10 pm and 7 am for the last four years or so, but under the new arrangements the front desk would close at 6 pm and not open again until 10 am the next morning. I think it is fair to say that were it not for the need to save £126 million, West Midlands police would not have put this proposal forward. However, they have to make savings and they have put forward a number of arguments, which I will set out and deal with.

First, it is said that

“The review of front offices found that public demand is very low in the evenings and overnight and recommended that staff be redeployed back into contact centres to increase the efficiency of call handling.”

Secondly, the force will

“continue to provide 65 front offices open to the public; a service to local communities far wider than most other police forces offer across the country.”

Thirdly,

“households will never be more than four miles from a 24/7 police station”.

Finally, the force is looking for other locations in which to meet the public and more modern ways of communicating, such as Twitter and Facebook. The force has established a new appointments system so that officers will visit the public instead of expecting the public to come to them.

I am all in favour of new ways of communicating with people and having more locations in which the public can meet the police, but there are specific factors in relation to Dudley which I am not convinced the current proposals have taken into account. As soon as the proposals were brought to our attention, my colleague Councillor Shaukat Ali and I launched a petition asking that the proposal for Dudley police be dropped. The fact that more than 2,000 residents signed our petition in just a fortnight illustrates the level of local concern. Residents, businesses, publicans and students in the town all expressed their concern. The Central Dudley Area Committee held an emergency meeting and unanimously called for the proposal to be dropped.

There are a number of specific factors in relation to Dudley. First, the nearest station run by Dudley police for many will be at Brierley Hill, five or six miles away for many residents. Secondly, I receive frequent complaints about antisocial behaviour on estates near the town. Much of this obviously occurs during the evening, and people strongly value having a station open should they need it. Thirdly, Dudley is the largest town on the list and I do not think there is anywhere of similar size in the region that would not have a station open to the public in the evening.

I am all in favour of using new methods of communicating with people, but it is to the West Midlands force’s credit that it operates so many more open front desks than other forces. The fact that there is a busy and active, fully staffed station is very important to traders and shoppers.

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

My hon. Friend knows that we are in the same position in Coventry. It will be difficult for the public to get access to a number of police stations, particularly over the weekends, as a result of the reduction in hours. Not far from where I live is Chace police station, which is a major station for Coventry. More important, when anyone is arrested for alleged terrorism, they are normally held there until they are moved somewhere else. It is vital that the Minister take a serious look at this.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has experienced another problem. At weekends, when crime is more likely, it is difficult to get a senior officer at these stations to talk about certain incidents that may happen in the centre of Coventry or in different locations in Coventry. Several police stations in my constituency, but equally in the other two MPs’ constituencies, will be experiencing the same thing. It is vital that people have an open police station at the weekends so that they can get to the people they want. It is no good leaving sergeants in charge.

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is correct. There are various ways in which his and my stations could be kept open in the evenings and, in his case, at weekends by looking for savings in other areas. It would help if the force was not being forced to find this level of savings in the first place.

As in Coventry, specific factors in Dudley mean that it is important to have a station open in the evening. We have got £30 million being spent right now on new college and sixth-form buildings in the town centre, which will result in hundreds more young people in and around the town during the evenings. The new college includes a theatre, which will bring hundreds of visitors to the town at night. Our town centre market is about to be rebuilt, strengthening the town centre economy with, again, more activities in the evening. Several pubs and cafés and a wine bar are currently being refurbished. Much of the regeneration of the town centre is based on driving up trade and activity in the evening. Finally, there is strong public support for my campaign to open up the castle in the evenings during the summer for concerts and plays, which would bring thousands more people to Dudley during the evenings.

On the number of visitors, the force’s own figures show that a third of front desk enquiries come between 6 pm and 10 am. That is bound to increase as a result of our ambitions to boost the town’s night-time trade and visitor economy. In the light of these particularly local factors, I want the Minister to ask the force to reconsider this particular proposal. Not unreasonably, the chief constable says that if front desks are not closed, savings will have to be made elsewhere. I understand that, but I need to be convinced that all possible savings have been found from administrative and back office functions before front-line services such as Dudley’s front desk are cut.

Forces across the country buy pretty much the same cars and other vehicles, uniforms, protective clothing and equipment. They use similar computer systems and so on. Will the Minister explain why individual forces are still procuring cars, vehicles and equipment individually and separately instead of driving down costs by purchasing centrally and getting bigger and better deals for the taxpayer? Will he tell me why we have police, fire and ambulance services in the west midlands operating separately instead of merging some common functions? Why do they all need separate finance, human resources and PR departments, for example? Why have we got 40 separate local or regional police forces across England—four in the west midlands alone—all providing different and separate services instead of sharing expertise and knowledge, as well as administrative functions and computer systems, for example?

Rationalising such functions would save a fortune, but I can think of other savings that we could be making, too. Many of the areas I have listed are precisely the areas that we identified as part of the 12% efficiencies that we would have made over four years, rather than the 20% cuts that have been front-loaded and that are being imposed on police forces at the moment. Is it not the case that the Government’s decision to go much further and much faster has probably impeded forces’ abilities to make efficiency savings, which would take time to work out with other police forces, but would limit the impact on the front line? They are being forced to do these things more quickly and more severely. That has forced them into quicker but more damaging savings, such as reducing the number of front-line officers and closing stations in the evening instead of the administrative and procurement savings that I have suggested.

We should also consider why the police authority and force are based in costly offices in the middle of Birmingham city centre, which is probably the most expensive place to run a service anywhere in the west midlands. Like me, I am sure my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) could identify offices in their own constituencies where services could be provided much more cheaply.

The Minister will no doubt say that he cannot do much about where the authority is based, but he ought to be ensuring that it has found savings from all the other areas before touching the front line. He can certainly do something about the way the police force is funded.

The police authority and leaders from all parties in councils across the region have made representations to Ministers on two specific issues. Although all police authorities have been subject to some reduction in the Government grant, authorities such as the West Midlands police authority have effectively been penalised because they kept precept increases to a minimum over the past few years. They are, therefore, more reliant on the Government grant compared with authorities such as Surrey, which increased precepts at a faster rate and are therefore less reliant on the Government grant.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My hon. Friend makes a comparison between the west midlands and Surrey. In the west midlands the authority relies on an 80% grant from central Government, whereas in Surrey it is the reverse. That shows a real disparity.

My hon. Friend also mentioned efficiencies. I do not have a lot of evidence, but once or twice I have noticed that during an incident such as the arrest of a person for causing a problem on a bus, it can sometimes take six police cars to surround that bus and remove the individual. When talking about efficiencies, perhaps that practice should also be examined.

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is correct. Total spending power—the Government grant and the precept—in the west midlands will reduce by over 4% in 2011-12, compared with only 1.5% in Surrey. As the Minister will know, that position is exacerbated further by the application of grant damping, together with the “floors and ceilings” that have been applied every year since the last funding formula review. As a result, the West Midlands police authority will receive £27 million less than its full formula entitlement, whereas Surrey will receive £4 million more. It means that the West Midlands police authority, which has one of the highest policing demands in the country, will be forced to make the biggest percentage reduction in spending, while areas such as Surrey that have much lower need and demand will make the smallest reductions. As the West Midlands police authority says,

“this is neither fair, reasonable nor indeed equitable.”

Stations such as those in my constituency would not be faced with closure in the evening if the Government introduced arrangements that properly reflected the need and demand for policing services in the west midlands, and which treat that area and the people who live and work in it fairly and equitably.

I will suggest one other saving. Although I am not against elected police commissioners in principle, I am not sure how they will find enough things to keep them busy and in particular to justify their enormous salaries—I thought about that when I visited the police authority last week, and it is an interesting point. One argument that was recently advanced for police commissioners cited the great job that we were told the Mayor of London did during the recent riots. The Mayor of London, however, looks after a whole range of services and functions across the city, and has a much bigger area of responsibility than simply the police. I am not sure what police commissioners will do to justify being paid £100,000—as I understand it, the police commissioners in the west midlands will be paid £100,000, and they will be the best paid in the country. That seems an odd priority when resources are so scarce that we are losing 1,200 officers and face the evening closure of stations such as that in Dudley.

Finally, does the Minister think that the officers in question and my police station’s front desk are front-line services? I would have thought it difficult to identify anything more front line than a full-time police officer and a public inquiry desk. At the election, the Prime Minister promised that there would be no front-line cuts, and that any Cabinet Minister who proposed them would

“be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.”

Does the Minister think that the cuts in question are front-line cuts, and will he do what the Prime Minister promised would happen under such circumstances and think again?

13:13

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

I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has secured this debate because Bloxwich police station in my constituency is affected by this issue. My hon. Friend is right.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. May I check that the hon. Gentleman has the permission of the Minister and Opposition spokesperson to speak?

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

Leave me time to reply.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Please keep your contribution short, Mr Winnick.

[Mr Winnick]

I certainly will, Mrs Riordan. As the Minister knows, the West Midlands police force faces a devastating cut of 26% over the next few years. That is bound to affect it adversely both in the west midlands as a whole and in individual constituencies. As indicated, there will be 1,250 fewer police officers as numbers fall from 8,627 to 7,377. Moreover, there will be fewer members of police staff in other roles. That is the background to what is happening and the reason why certain cuts are taking place at the moment.

The decision to close Bloxwich police station after 6 pm each day cannot be justified. My figures show that on average, more than 30 residents visit the station at some stage during the time it will be closed. Furthermore, the fact that the police station is closed will lessen the feeling of security among the residents. There may be alternative ways of contacting the police, but that does not alter the fact that the police station will be closed when previously it remained open, and people are concerned about that.

We started a petition to protest about what was happening, and there was not the slightest reluctance by anyone to sign—I would have been surprised if there had been. I know that the Minister is checking the figure I gave about the number of people who go to the station—that is the average figure that has been publicised; if it is not the most accurate figure, so be it. The fact remains, however, that until now and before the cuts were announced, the police station remained open and its closure was never suggested. The only reason the station will close after 6 pm every day is that indicated by my hon. Friends. I hope that, when looking at the situation in Dudley and Coventry, the issue of Bloxwich station and whether it can remain open will also be considered.

Finally, I sent the petition to the police authority with a supporting letter, and I believe that there should be a genuine consultation exercise in which people are asked their views. If the Minister wishes to challenge what I have said about the need for Bloxwich police station to remain open, let a genuine consultation exercise be held in Bloxwich, and other areas of my constituency that use that station, so that people can express their views.

13:17

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) on securing this debate. I recognise that the availability of the police is a matter of concern to his constituents, and the Government share that concern.

Police visibility and availability is important, and we want to see more police officers on the streets preventing and cutting crime, rather than sitting behind their desks. We must, however, recognise that policing today reaches people through many means, not just police stations, and we must be careful not to confuse buildings with the visibility and availability of the police, which I fear may be behind public concern.

I know that the hon. Gentleman recently attended a meeting of the West Midlands police authority at which it considered a report by the chief constable on the proposed operating hours for the force’s public inquiry offices, and he also mentioned the petition that he presented. As I understand it, the views expressed by petitioners will be taken into account as a response to the police consultation. The consultation period will continue until 15 January, after which time all responses will be considered. Such decisions are taken locally and not by the Government.

In his report for the authority meeting, the chief constable made plain the force’s commitment to a visible and accessible service to the public:

“Providing a visible and accessible service to the public is core to the approach West Midlands Police takes in delivering its mission of ‘Serving our communities and protecting them from harm.’ West Midlands Police must deliver reductions in its budget of £126 million, but in making these savings we have been clear that we will still offer the protection the public demands, but the way services are delivered must change.”

The approach described by Chief Constable Sims reflects the core challenge that the police service faces—to reduce costs while maintaining and, indeed, improving public services. The Government have no option but to reduce public spending. As a service spending £14 billion a year, the police can and must make their fair share of the savings needed. I think that there is cross-party agreement that the police can make savings; we may disagree about the amount.

The hon. Member for Dudley North and his hon. Friends raised the issue of the funding for the west midlands. Of course, I will revisit the damping decisions to be made in relation to the third and fourth years of the spending review. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make. I have said before that we decided that an even cut across police forces was the only fair solution, because otherwise we would be penalising forces that were already taking more from local taxpayers than others. These are difficult decisions, but we decided that that was the fairest solution. I repeat that we want to move away from damping to full implementation of the formula as a proper reflection of policing need. It is difficult to do that when funding is falling, because it means that other forces would have to pick up the bill and receive a deeper cut than the level proposed by the Government, and those forces would not regard that as fair. Nevertheless, I will continue to consider these matters and have just reassured the chair of the police authority and the chief constable that I will do so. As I continue to take the decisions about individual allocations, I will pay the closest attention to the points being made.

My absolute priority is to ensure that the police service retains and enhances its ability to protect and serve the public, but for that to happen, business as usual is no longer an option for police forces and authorities. A fundamental redesign of police force organisation is needed. This cannot be about salami-slicing police resources. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has shown that a significant proportion of the police work force are not working in front-line roles—that is certainly true in the west midlands—and that there is wide variation among forces when it comes to the availability and visibility of officers to the public whom they serve. That is evidence that forces can do much more to manage their resources better in order to prioritise front-line services. I know that the very good chief constable in the west midlands has embarked on that mission. He is focusing on the redesign of policing that is necessary to deliver a high-quality service to the public, given that resources are diminishing.

The test of the effectiveness of a force cannot be the total amount being spent on it or the total number of staff it employs—or how many police stations it has or when front counters are open. There is no simple and automatic link between those things and how accessible the police are or how crime is being fought. The effectiveness of a force depends on how well the resources available are used.

It is plain from the report provided by the chief constable to the police authority last week that West Midlands police have devoted more of their resources to managing contact with the public than similar forces have, but without reaching the productivity levels that could be achieved. The cost of that approach is not only financial; it constrains the ability of the force to return officers to the visible policing that the public want. The changes proposed will enable the force to deliver a £1 million saving on the cost of managing contact with the public. They also involve redeploying officers and staff to make better use of their time and skills, rather than staffing police counters at times when few people use them—I will come to that point. Staff from the sites with reduced hours will be redeployed into contact centres, which will improve call handling, and police officers will be released to other duties, so the proposals about which the police are consulting involve changing the balance of resources to improve the way in which the police respond to the public through the channels by which and at the times at which the public actually contact the police, rather than preserving a service in places where and at a time when the public rarely use it.

West Midlands police have found that, during the daytime, on average only two people an hour visit each front counter. Many of those visitors are solicitors visiting the custody facilities or are people whom the police have asked to attend, such as in relation to bail or production of documents. The proposed new opening hours for a number of station front counters will meet two thirds of existing demand, which is concentrated in daytime hours.

I note that the hon. Member for Dudley North has said that one third of front-desk inquiries come between 6 pm and 10 pm. It is worth him looking at the graph produced by the police that shows the actual demand at Dudley police station. I have just been looking at it. He may be right that one third of the inquiries come between those times, but let us look at the actual number of people making visits—those who choose to come in, not those who have been asked to come in by the police, because clearly they could be asked to come in at a different time. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows what the numbers are. At 6 o’clock, the average number was 0.3—0.3 people came in. It was 0.4 at 7 o’clock, 0.4 at 8 pm and 0.2 at 9 pm. At 10 pm, it was zero. During daytime hours, when the counter will remain open, the peak number of visits to Dudley police station came at 2 pm. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman knows how many people came in at that peak time. One person came in. We need to understand the scale of the numbers of visits, what hon. Members are asking for and the impression that may be being given to local people of what the changes to the service mean.

The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) referred to Bloxwich police station. He is right: there is a little more demand on Bloxwich police station out of hours. I do not know whether his figure of an average of 30 is right. It does not look correct on the figures that I have, but I am happy to take what he says at face value. I can tell him that the peak number of visits in the daytime occurred at 4 pm and that two people came in. At 10 pm, the start of the out-of-hours service that he was concerned about, it was one person. Therefore we need to get all of this in context.

I have consistently said—this view is shared by chief constables—that we must find a new range of strategies for the police contacting the public. There are very good examples up and down the country of forces doing far more with their money—getting more bang for the buck—by finding new ways of contacting the public. Whether that is through the new opportunities that various media present, whether it is through contact centres on our new non-emergency number, 101, where people can get hold of the police, whether it is through the internet or whether it is the contact that the police can have through things such as supermarket surgeries, where they can meet thousands of people, rather than the very few who may come in to a police station, it is incredibly important that we realise that there are many more innovative ways by which contact can be maintained.

[Mr Winnick]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must make one or two final points in response to the hon. Member for Dudley North. I hope that he understands.

[Mr Winnick]

indicated assent.

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with the hon. Member for Dudley North about the importance of driving savings where we can to ensure that front-line activity is protected. That should be our shared ambition. I am committed to it, and so, I know, is Chris Sims. All the things that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are exactly the areas where we are doing that. We are driving hard on procurement. On police vehicle procurement, which he mentioned, the Police Act 1996 (Equipment) Regulations 2011 came into force in March. That means that all forces must now buy vehicles through a national procurement framework. We have identified some £380 million-worth of savings that could be achieved by police forces through better use of IT and procurement. That is a very good example of what the hon. Gentleman was talking about. The point about interoperability was also right. He mentioned interoperability between the blue-light services. We are encouraging forces to collaborate and share services. He will know about the innovative proposals that West Midlands police have in relation to business partnering. We are encouraging the 43 forces to share services and reduce back-office costs. I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman about all that, and chief constables are working on it.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of police and crime commissioners. I am pleased that he said that he was not against them in principle. I know that Labour is now calling for candidates, and I have no doubt that we will be putting up a candidate in the west midlands. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman plans to run. The truth is that there will be no greater running cost with the police and crime commissioner than there was with the authority. We are absolutely determined about that. There is no reason why the police and crime commissioner should cost more. I believe that it will be a full-time position, because it will involve the important job of holding the force to account, which the authority currently does. It will be vested in one person, rather than the whole authority, so I think that it will be a full-time job in a big force area. We have just decided that it will involve responsibility for victim services as well.

The police and crime commissioner will do the very important job of holding the force to account and being the voice of the people. They will provide a voice for exactly this kind of exercise and pay attention to public concern, but if I were the police and crime commissioner for the west midlands, I would be looking very hard at the proposals that the chief constable has made. I would be looking at the numbers and saying, “Actually, they make sense, given that we need to make savings and improve the visibility and availability of officers by innovative means.” When we look at the actual number of visits that hon. Members have talked about, does it really make sense to be saying that making the changes is scandalous and wrong and that the service will not be the one that the public need? I suggest that, if people re-read the report, they will see that the proposal is not an unreasonable one for the chief constable to make. I understand why hon. Members raise these issues. I believe that our objectives are the same, but I also believe that in this case they should be supporting the chief constable in his endeavours.

Zimbabwe

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

13:29

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. I am extremely grateful to Mr Speaker for granting me this debate.

Zimbabwe is an independent sovereign country, but one with which the United Kingdom has strong historical ties. We therefore have a duty to work for the best outcomes for the people of Zimbabwe, because to ignore what is going on there is to condone it.

Let me give a little vignette of what life is like in Zimbabwe. Last week, I was sent the story of a Christmas lunch in Zimbabwe, which, with your permission, Mrs Riordan, I will quickly read out:

“Half way through lunch two police details came to the gathering and informed us that we had not asked for police permission to have the gathering. The member of staff at whose house we had gathered and myself were taken to the local police station where we were detained for over two hours before being released with a stern warning. We had apparently ignored a law requiring permission to have a gathering at a private house!”

That is a measure of the level to which Zimbabwe has sunk.

There are seven issues I want to address, but first let me give a little context in respect of recent events. About 4 million Zimbabweans have set up camp over the border in South Africa. They are refugees from their country because of what has gone on there. That figure represents 20% to 30% of Zimbabwe’s entire population, including the worldwide diaspora of Zimbabweans.

There have been terrible violence and brutality. In 1983 and 1984, there were the massacres of the Ndebele people—the first major post-independence dispersion of Zimbabweans. This was black-on-black violence, and tens of thousands of people were displaced. They fled initially to the second city of Bulawayo, while others left for Botswana and South Africa. This crime against humanity was quickly forgotten by the rest of the world.

The land invasions that began in 2000 were, effectively, a Government-sanctioned looting spree and a desperate election ploy in reaction to the rapid rise of the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change. ZANU-PF was prepared to annihilate vital organs of the economy to win the election. Agricultural productivity declined by 80% between 2002 and 2008. Zimbabwe used to produce about 330,000 tonnes of wheat a year; last year, it produced 11,000 tonnes, and this year, it produced 10,000 tonnes.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew Selous]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who is an expert on agriculture.

[Neil Parish]

I was an election observer in 2000. At that time, the farms were being overrun. It was not just the white-owned farms that were affected, but all the black workers who were driven off them. Ever since, there has been virtually no production on that land. Zimbabwe should be one of the bread baskets of Africa; instead, it has to import food. Everything we can do to bring about change and some sense in Zimbabwe would be great.

[Andrew Selous]

I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for getting that on the record.

There were three years of national food deficit in the 20 years from independence to the beginning of the land invasions, and those three years were actually years of severe drought. In the other years, the country maintained an export surplus. Since 2000, when the land invasions started, there have been 11 consecutive years of food deficit.

There are now 1 million AIDS orphans out of a resident population of about 11.5 million. One child in four has lost one or both parents to AIDS. Meanwhile, up to 500,000 of the 1 million farm workers who were removed from white farms have died as a result of a combination of malnutrition and inadequate health services.

Water supply and sewerage systems are wholly inadequate, and one of the largest outbreaks of cholera in world history took place in 2008, infecting 100,000 people and killing more than 4,000.

The country’s jails became concentration camps. For many people, a petty offence of false conviction became a death sentence. Indeed, in 2009, six people starved to death in their cells.

The first major issue I want to concentrate on is the prevention of violence and intimidation in the run-up to the general election. In the 2008 elections, polling station results were used to target areas of Opposition sympathy. Huge groups of militia roamed the countryside, beating, burning and killing people at random. Torture bases were established—nightmarish places where the innocent were afflicted for days at a time.

In this period, more than 200 people were killed, thousands were beaten—hundreds of them now have lifelong disabilities—and tens of thousands were displaced. This was revenge and pre-emptive action rolled into one. The message driven home was that people’s choice in the second round of the vote was literally between President Mugabe or death. Rightly or wrongly, the MDC decided to pull out of the election with a week to go, hoping to spare people further suffering.

The International Crisis Group in southern Africa warns that there is a real danger that ZANU-PF will employ violence again to force people to vote. As we know, there must be an election before 2013. Reports in the independent press and statements by Opposition parties indicate that violence is already escalating significantly across the country.

On 10 November, Southern Africa Report, the South African Development Community’s bulletin of political and economic intelligence, announced that the Zimbabwe Defence Force had taken delivery, via an African intermediary, of the first of several consignments of Chinese small arms and equipment—a deal said to have been negotiated by Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa. The consignment included 20,000 AK47 automatic rifles, uniforms, 12 to 15 trucks and about 21,000 pairs of handcuffs.

Given the escalating pre-election violence and ZANU-PF’s consistent history of initiating country-wide campaigns of violence to force the electorate to vote for President Mugabe, international observers and monitors are essential, and I will press the Minister to respond to that point when he replies. Additionally, a peacekeeping force, which could be deployed in the country at least three months ahead of an election, particularly in rural areas, would help to protect the lives, livelihoods and homes of vulnerable communities. The peacekeeping force should be required to remain in place after the election to prevent violent retribution.

We need to look at reform of the security forces in Zimbabwe, because even under the multi-party Government, the armed forces remain central to all aspects of life. The Joint Operations Committee, which is a non-statutory body, is made up of President Robert Mugabe’s inner circle, and it remains antagonistic to the unity Government with Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC. It is also distrustful of non-military politicians, even in President Mugabe’s own ZANU-PF party.

The security forces’ access to economic opportunities has strengthened their bond with President Mugabe and their willingness to defend the status quo. While conventional military capacity and competence have declined massively since the 1990s, Zimbabwe’s security forces remain a major and arguably the central obstacle to the resolution of the country’s political instability. Unless the security sector is reformed, violence initiated by ZANU-PF is likely to continue, making the holding of free and fair elections problematic at the very least.

On racism, there are further steps that we can take. Is it not a pity that Zimbabwe does not look across the border to Zambia, one of whose vice-presidents, Dr Guy Scott, happens to be white and a democratically elected politician? Would it not be good if Zimbabwe had the same spirit as Zambia and took the same action?

Zimbabwe actually signed the United Nations convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination on 13 May 1991. That bound Zimbabwe to allow its people full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the right to property and protection before the law. It also condemned racial propaganda and hate speech. Unfortunately, it does not allow for individuals to activate procedures to get the UN to ensure compliance; it needs a fellow signatory United Nations state to do that.

For more than a decade, the Zimbabwe Government and ZANU-PF have been allowed to get away with demonstrably defying the treaty. No signatory state has called for an investigation. No signatory state has asked for the 18-member sitting committee of independent experts to be activated and to go to Zimbabwe. No signatory state appears to care enough about racial discrimination in Zimbabwe to do anything about it. Frankly, many people find that hypocritical.

What would the benefits be of a signatory state getting the UN committee to investigate under article 11 of the convention? The committee would undoubtedly act as a deterrent for continued acts of abuse in the land programme and the indigenisation programme, just as the habitat investigation acted as a deterrent to stop the further destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes by state bulldozers back in 2005. It would help protect the region’s judiciary, by taking the issue to an independent UN body, and it would provide the west with a defence against the fantastical charges of neo-colonialism when it raises concerns about racial issues. It would provide any future democratic Government with support to resolve the land issue in Zimbabwe. It would also help to restore much needed investor confidence in the country.

I am concerned about the Zimbabwean Government’s consistent refusal and failure to recognise international legal judgments. For example, the international and regional court of the SADC tribunal, which the SADC Heads of State suspended in May due to pressure from President Mugabe and ZANU-PF, needs international support to become a functioning court once more. Individual states must be held accountable in future, so that the rule of law and human rights can be promoted in the SADC region. Pressure needs to be exerted on policy makers, to ensure that the SADC treaty and protocol are not changed in the August 2012 SADC summit, and I hope that the United Kingdom will be active in ensuring that. Without an international regional court, there is little hope of effective accountability or economic development being able to take place in the region. Furthermore, significant economic development cannot take place without respect for property rights, human rights and the rule of law, something with which the UK Government are already properly concerned in their international development policy.

I want to turn to the Marange diamond fields. I am grateful to the hon. Members who have joined me for the debate. They may be aware that participants in the Kimberley process agreed to relax the ban on export sales last month, subject to an adequate verification regime being in place. The European Union, the United States and Canada switched from opposition to the ban to abstention. The human rights group, Global Witness, is leaving the Kimberley process in protest at that decision. It is estimated that last week’s diamond auction could raise about $300 million US dollars. Contacts that I have in Zimbabwe commented earlier this week as follows:

“The situation is worse now than it has even been, the needs are spiralling. The theft of the diamonds has sadly given ZANU-PF a new lease of life and the future looks grim. There is no reason to think that when Mugabe dies the position will improve.”

That gloomy prognosis for Zimbabwe directly relates to the sales of diamonds from the Marange mine.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that although the picture may look grim, as the wave of life eventually laps from Mr Mugabe, there is a significant opportunity for that country to re-establish and redevelop itself and put in place the democratic structures that ought to be?

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for attending the debate and intervening. Like him, I am an optimist; I think that Zimbabwe can have a fantastic future, given its agricultural productivity, the resources of its people and its natural advantages in the region. The challenge for us is to help the political process to allow that to happen, so I agree with the point that he made.

On the treatment of Zimbabwean Anglicans, hon. Members may know that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was recently accompanied in Zimbabwe by bishops, not only from Zimbabwe, but from South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and Malawi, all of whom were absolutely horrified at what has been happening to Zimbabwe’s Anglicans. Since 2007, Anglican congregations have suffered systematic harassment and persecution at the hands of the police, often in direct contravention of court rulings. A report, which was handed to President Robert Mugabe, outlined details of that litany of abuses, which include false imprisonment, violence and denial of access to churches, schools, clinics and mission stations.

In the dioceses of Harare and Manicaland, properties belonging to the Anglican province have been misappropriated. It is a matter of the greatest sadness that Zimbabwean Anglicans are being prevented from continuing their work supporting local and often very needy communities with health care and education. Their priests and people are being denied access to their own clinics and schools. Many such institutions have been taken from Zimbabwe’s Anglicans, and are now under corrupt or poor management, being rapidly run into the ground and stripped of their assets. Details of that unwarranted activity and its impact on local communities were presented to President Mugabe in a report by Archbishop Rowan Williams. Every week, tens of thousands of Anglicans are denied their basic right to worship, because of the lies and falsifications propagated by the now excommunicated former bishop, Dr Kunonga, and his associates.

I have concerns about how the sanctions might be being evaded in Zimbabwe, and I ask that the Minister look into that. A glaring issue is that nationals of countries, including the UK, that have applied the sanctions—both individuals and companies—have continued to support the regime and nothing has been done about them. The British Government and others punish ZANU-PF, but fail to police their own citizens and, according to my sources, that includes companies such Old Mutual.

ZANU-PF officials have been able to externalise huge quantities of funds through share swaps between the Zimbabwean and London stock exchanges. Old Mutual has joint ventures with the Government of Zimbabwe that started before the formation of the unity Government, yet nothing is done. Moreover, those investments are directly connected to gross human rights abuses. Old Mutual has shares in a joint venture on the diamond fields where more than 200 panners in rags were gunned down from helicopters to clear the decks for investors. There are numerous reports of ongoing abuses. I understand that Old Mutual claims that any regrettable events predate its involvement.

The Central African Mining and Exploration Company purchased land from the Zimbabwean Government believed to have been extorted from another mining company and, in doing so, poured tens of millions into the pockets of the regime at a time when it needed election resources. What action can the British Government take on those issues?

The final words of my contribution should come from two black Africans, not a white Englishman.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Before he concludes, will he say something more about sanctions and restricted measures? He understands, as does the Minister, that the EU will decide what will happen with sanctions in February. Does he agree that it must be handled incredibly carefully and that we must not rush into removing any of those restricted measures, unless there is real evidence that it will make a difference to the political framework of getting a peaceful resolution and a free and fair election?

[Andrew Selous]

I welcome the comments of the hon. Lady, who is chair of the all-party group on Zimbabwe. She is right; the current regime has concerns about the sanctions. I think that they are partially effective. Her comments are wise, and I hope that the Minister will heed her words.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he recognise that South Africa is vital to getting a political solution in that part of southern Africa? A very big problem for President Zuma is that President Mugabe is still seen as a war hero and as the last war hero from the great struggle in the first place. That has made life difficult for President Zuma in trying to deliver.

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and on hearing the remarks of former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with which I intend to conclude, he will hear that he is also in agreement with him on that point.

Our own Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, was born in Uganda in 1949. A former lawyer, he incurred the wrath of the dictator, Idi Amin, because of his judicial independence, and was locked up for 90 days three weeks after his marriage. In a speech in 2007, he described how he had been

“kicked around like a football and beaten terribly”.

He is a man who has suffered in a similar way to many Zimbabweans. He went on countless marches to campaign for the end of the unilateral declaration of independence of Ian Smith and calls Zimbabwe

“a scourge on the conscience of the entire world”.

He is disappointed by the African Union’s response to Zimbabwe. He calls for the UN to make Zimbabwe a priority, saying:

“If it does not, the blood that is spilled will also be on their hands.”

He has also called for President Mugabe and his officials to be brought before the International Criminal Court.

Desmond Tutu is Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa. He said that the incomprehensible greed, appalling lack of compassion and unspeakable cruelty demonstrated by the Zimbabwean elite contradict the classical African concept of ubuntu—the essence of being human. He described the

“state-orchestrated crimes against humanity on a massive scale countrywide”

and said that Zimbabwe’s plight is all our plight and that

“to ignore its suffering is to condone it.”

I look forward to hearing what action the UK Government will take, particularly on election observers, the outstanding SADC legal judgements, action in the United Nations, the integrity of the sanctions regime and the Marange diamond fields.

13:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Henry Bellingham)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this debate, and I praise him for his concise and compelling speech. If I do not answer all his points, I shall write to him after the debate.

The timing of the debate is certainly opportune—ZANU-PF is currently holding its conference in Bulawayo, and it has an important few days ahead of it. Next year and early 2013 will be a pivotal time for Zimbabwe. The actions that ZANU-PF and other political parties take in the next 18 months will have a huge impact on the shape of Zimbabwe’s future.

Our policy at such a crucial moment can be summed up simply: we want to do all that we can to support the Zimbabwean people’s aspirations for a more democratic, stable and prosperous country. To set out what that means, it might be useful for me to provide a brief update on the situation on the ground and the role that the UK is playing.

It is important to recognise that the reform process has not stood still. Although movement is slow and can often be obscured by events, progress has been made. The economy, under the stewardship of the quite excellent Finance Minister Tendai Biti, continues to show signs of robust recovery. He forecast an impressive 9.5% growth in 2012 in his budget speech last week. There is a lively media, and newspapers that are openly critical of the Government are sold every day on the street corners of Harare. The provision of basic services has improved out of all recognition, supported by the important contributions of the Department for International Development and others in the donor community. Textbooks are now in every secondary school, medicines are in hospitals, and food is on the shelves. Zimbabwe has come a long way since its nadir in 2008, and we can be proud of the role that we have played.

There has also been progress, but not as much, in the political arena. Constitutional reform is moving forward, and although the process has been tough and slow, there seems to be no doubt on any side that a new constitution will be adopted before the next elections. There will almost certainly be a referendum on the new constitution early next year.

However, despite those green shoots of progress, there are considerable causes for concern. There are still those in Zimbabwe who seek to erode the reform process to retain their personal hold on power. The promising figures of the budget mask an unsustainable over-spend in public sector salaries. Violence and intimidation targeting activists from civil society and both Movements for Democratic Change continue, especially at the hands of the Chipangano militia group in Harare. Partisan political bias within the state security mechanisms threatens to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic foundation, as has been demonstrated by the cancellation of four Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai rallies by the police last month. A particularly acute illustration of that concern is the recent death threat made by an alleged state security officer to an MDC-T Member of Parliament, in response to points raised about the Marange diamond fields in a parliamentary debate. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire also gave other examples.

[Ian Paisley]

I would like to put on record my thanks to the Minister for his kindness and his good work and briefing that he has given many of us across the House on Africa and African issues.

Recently I had the opportunity of hosting Roy Bennett here. Will the Minister consider arranging for his officials and himself to receive a briefing from Roy Bennett about some of the ongoing party persecutions in Zimbabwe?

[Mr Bellingham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising his meeting with Roy Bennett. I also had the chance to meet Roy Bennett when he was here, about six weeks ago. He gave us a fairly comprehensive report, which we have seen. We will look at any other report he produces, because we have great admiration and respect for him.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire mentioned Marange diamonds. I would like to touch briefly on the recent Kinshasa agreement of the Kimberley process. It was the result of considerable diplomatic effort by the European Union and our partners, and we played a full role in it. I believe that the outcome, although not perfect, is a reasonable one for both Zimbabwe and the KP. We went into the negotiations with clear red lines on what we would not compromise on, and they remained intact in the final deal.

Under the terms of the agreement, Zimbabwe can export only diamonds from the Marange region that comply with KP standards. We need only to look at Minister Biti’s budget statement to see the importance of that revenue to the Zimbabwean Treasury. Furthermore, the agreement establishes a credible and independent monitoring mechanism to ensure that the standards are respected, which includes a role for civil society. The EU, Canada and other countries were pivotal in driving that forward. The United States abstained, but we were satisfied with the outcome because our red lines were kept in place.

I will say something about the subject of land and the continuing practice of illegal farm invasions. Such abuses are once again increasing in frequency. It causes privation not only to farmers and their workers, who are being forced from their land, but to the entire agricultural sector of Zimbabwe. As my hon. Friend pointed out, tobacco yields are down 38% on 2000 levels, and wheat yields are down a staggering 82%. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, the fact that a country of Zimbabwe’s agricultural potential still requires food aid for its citizens is quite appalling, and it is a result of destructive and vindictive land policies.

It is not only the UK that judges such actions to be illegal and in contravention of the global political agreement; it was also the judgment of a 2008 Southern African Development Community tribunal, which ruled in favour of three Zimbabwean farmers, including the late Mike Campbell. The demise of that tribunal was a retrograde step for regional law, but despite its suspension, the ruling was upheld by a South African court this June.

We have always recognised the central importance of the land question to Zimbabwe, which is why we contributed to a land redistribution programme immediately after independence. While we have never accepted the allegation that the UK alone should fund compensation for land redistribution, we remain willing to engage other donors in a land reform programme in Zimbabwe that is transparent, fair and pro-poor. We regard a land audit, as provided for in the GPA, to be a necessary first step in the process, and the EU made it clear some time ago that it was willing to fund such an exercise.

Continued farm invasions are symptomatic of a wider disregard for human rights, which extends to those of different political and religious persuasions. I welcome the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire on the UN convention, and I will write separately to him. I want to assure the House that the Zimbabwean Government are under no illusions of our strong condemnation of the ongoing abuses.

The enduring uncertainty over the timing of the next elections is at the centre of much of the abuse. Under the terms of the existing constitution, elections must be held by June 2013. What is crucial is that polls, when held, are preceded by the necessary reforms and avoid the devastating levels of violence that were seen in 2008. To that end, the UK fully supports the efforts of SADC, particularly those of South Africa and President Zuma, as they work with all three main Zimbabwean parties to agree a path to the finalisation of the GPA and a road map to elections. I assure my hon. Friend that the road map will include key items, such as provision for proper observers and monitors, a fully independent electoral commission and an electoral roll that is fit for purpose. As he pointed out, it is vital that the police and army stay out of the electoral process.

Regional engagement is essential. No country exists in a vacuum. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that the recent Zambian election provides an impressive regional role model to follow. We, as outsiders, have only a secondary role to play, but I assure Members that we have been absolutely explicit in assuring the southern African region of our commitment to and full support for their efforts. We stand ready to do more if called upon, and have made clear, for example, our willingness to participate in the provision of international monitors.

As for the EU’s targeted measures, we have made it crystal-clear—I say this clearly to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)—that we stand ready to revisit the measures only in response to concrete changes on the ground.

Zimbabwe is facing an absolutely critical time. Lessons must be learned from what has happened elsewhere in Africa, including northern Africa. A free and fair poll, which respects the will of the democratic majority of Zimbabweans, should follow the example of Zambia—

14:00

Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(11)).