House of Commons

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

Thursday 2 February 2012

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

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

1. What recent progress he has made on the red tape challenge.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

4. What recent progress he has made on the red tape challenge.

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

5. What recent progress he has made on the red tape challenge.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

To date, of the more than 1,200 regulations considered under the red tape challenge, we have agreed to scrap or substantially overhaul well over 50%. That is in addition to our plans to cap the cost of new regulations through the one-in, one-out system.

[Rehman Chishti]

I am very grateful to the Minister for that answer. Will he clarify how much the one-in, one-out rule saved businesses in 2011?

[Mr Prisk]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is costs that businesses are focused on. I can tell him and the House that last year we were able to rein back planned regulations, which will save businesses more than £3.2 billion a year.

[Brandon Lewis]

Businesses across my constituency and elsewhere, and organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses, are making it clear that red tape and bureaucracy are the biggest blocks to growth and employment. After six new pieces of red tape or regulation a day under the Labour Government, will the Minister outline how many regulations have already been cut and what his ambitions are for the rest of this Parliament?

[Mr Prisk]

We inherited a scenario in which there was the equivalent of six new regulations every working day. I am therefore pleased to say that in the last year we have identified 600 regulations under the red tape challenge which we will either scrap or substantially overhaul, and we intend to ensure that we increase that number in the years to come.

[Alun Cairns]

Reducing the number of regulations is extremely important, but so are the interpretation of regulations, particularly those from Europe, and the risk of gold-plating regulations, such as the agency worker directive. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that in interpreting regulations, we use the lightest touch possible to comply with the law?

[Mr Prisk]

We have changed the guiding principles from those that we inherited. That means, first, that we are not going to tie British business down by implementing early, as we have in the past. We will implement on the last legal day, under transposition rules. Secondly, my hon. Friend is absolutely right about interpretation. We will ensure that we copy regulations out and do not embellish them, as was sadly all too often the case under the last, Labour Government.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Higher education applications in this country have collapsed, although not across the board—I think applications to Oxford, Cambridge and Durham have increased. However, in the universities that ordinary people go to, they have collapsed.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. With reference to the red tape challenge.

[Pat Glass]

I just wanted to ask a question about—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady will have her opportunity another time.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Nobody disputes that unnecessary regulation and red tape have to be dealt with, but Government Members are deluding themselves if they think that is the central issue, when unemployment is at record levels and the economy has ground to a halt. Every time I go to meet a successful manufacturing company that has orders waiting and wants to take on new staff, I am told that the central problem is the lack of finance. Instead of trying to pursue this issue, the Minister should be concentrating on getting money from the banks to manufacturers so we can get the economy moving and they can take on more staff.

[Mr Prisk]

I am glad to say that we are capable of doing both. Unlike the last, Labour Government, we are tackling finance. It is sad that the Opposition are not listening to small businesses. We are, and we are working to make sure we help them.

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

As part of the red tape challenge, will the Minister look again at the regulations that deny employees the right to proper compensation or redundancy payments if their workplace has fewer than 20 people, as is the case for ex-employees of Woolworths? That is regulation that successive Governments have failed to address.

[Mr Prisk]

I am aware that what the hon. Gentleman refers to is a live case, so I must be careful in the sense that it is before the tribunals. However, I am sure that the representations he has made are clear. Again, we need to strike the right balance so that employers and employees have a fairer deal. Frankly, I do not think that was the case in the 13 years of the last, Labour Government.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Last year, 171 people were killed at work and 115,000 were seriously injured. Is the Minister really saying that now is the time to water down health and safety legislation?

[Mr Prisk]

The changes that Professor Löfstedt has identified are not about reducing safety at work; they are about cutting unnecessary red tape. That is clear; indeed, it is why one Opposition Member has been part of that panel and has supported its proposals, which this Government will implement.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

2. For what reasons he does not plan to implement all the recommendations of the High Pay Commission.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

12. For what reasons he does not plan to implement all the recommendations of the High Pay Commission.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

I welcome the High Pay Commission’s valuable contribution to this debate. The proposals that I announced to the House last week drew on its analysis, and we are taking forward 11 of its 12 recommendations either in full or in spirit. We have chosen not to implement its recommendation requiring workers to be put on all remuneration committees.

[Gregg McClymont]

Most people in this country would consider £180,000 a year to be high pay. Will the Secretary of State tell the House who signed off the special dispensation with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs regarding the extraordinary tax arrangements of Mr Ed Lester, the chief executive of the Student Loans Company?

[Vince Cable]

I understand that there is to be an urgent question shortly, when hon. Members will be able to go into that issue in detail if they wish. I simply say that this concerns an exceptionally useful individual who has helped to turn around that organisation. The arrangements under which the negotiations took place involved substantial value for money for the taxpayer and a tax cut by the individual. We will pursue matters of public concern on the tax issues, and the answers will be given by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in response to the urgent question.

[Mr David]

Further to that point, may I ask the Secretary of State who on earth signed it off? Answer!

[Vince Cable]

These issues will be answered, and the mechanics dealt with, in the urgent question in an hour’s time.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as we all share an ambition to put the employee’s voice on the board, the best way to do that is to encourage employee share ownership?

[Vince Cable]

It is indeed. Employee ownership is an expanding movement, and a popular one. It allows employees to become involved in the companies in which they have a share, and we wish to see it encouraged. We also wish to see workers properly consulted; there are powers to achieve that under existing legislation, but they are not being sufficiently used.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is better to force companies to consult all employees, rather than consulting one individual? How would that individual be chosen, especially in a company that might be located in many parts of the world?

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why we are stressing employee participation in remuneration discussions. There are powers under existing regulations and we want to encourage people to take more advantage of them. As she rightly says, there are enormous practical difficulties involved in choosing one employee who can properly represent the whole of an international labour force.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman is being saved up for later. It would be a pity to waste him at such an early stage in our proceedings.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

You can waste me first, Mr Speaker.

The Secretary of State will be aware of the performance targets set down in the Project Merlin agreement. One of the agreed measures to determine the bonuses of bank chief executives was to examine whether banks were providing the promised credit to businesses and, in particular, to small and medium-sized enterprises. The agreement also clearly stated that there would be no rewards for failure. Why, then, did the Government wave through the bonus for the Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive before the Bank of England had published the annual Project Merlin lending figures?

[Vince Cable]

The chief executive was on a contract, which I think was negotiated when Labour was in government. It had five separate metrics, of which that was one. It is certainly true that, according to the provisional data, RBS has not quite met its gross lending targets, but the Merlin agreement has not yet run its course, and we shall await its findings with interest.

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

3. What assessment he has made of the prospects for growth in 2012.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Office for Budget Responsibility produces independent forecasts for the economy and for the public finances. The OBR’s November 2011 economic and fiscal outlook predicts that the UK economy will grow by 0.7% this year and by 2.1% in 2013.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but consumer confidence is plummeting, the retail sector is struggling, the growth in jobs in the private sector is not matching the losses in the public sector, and in my constituency scores of people are chasing every single job. So if not Labour’s five-point plan for jobs and growth, what? This Government are not working.

[Vince Cable]

If the hon. Gentleman actually read the analysis produced by the Bank of England and, more recently, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, he would understand why the economy is growing slowly. The combination of higher commodity and oil prices last year and, more recently, the crisis in the eurozone is affecting all developed countries, many of them much more than the UK.

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

As confidence in growth continues to diminish among members of the small business community, does the Secretary of State share my view that the Chancellor should use more than one tool to get the economy moving? Many people think that he has lost the tool box. What influence is the Secretary of State bringing to bear on behalf of small businesses to nudge the Chancellor into creating greater private sector demand?

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress the crucial importance of small business. As he well knows from the autumn statement, the Chancellor has come forward with ideas about credit easing to make credit more easily available at lower rates to small companies, and we will wait for the Budget to see how that will be elaborated.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Our economy contracted in the last quarter, with small business confidence at rock bottom in the latest Federation of Small Businesses survey, and we teeter on the edge of recession, yet Ministers have lost control of the levers that active government has for growth. Why, 10 months after the first regional growth fund winners were announced, do a third still wait for their money while £1 billion from Europe lies idle? With national apprenticeship week about to start, why are Ministers not, as we have urged them, taking unused money from the growth and innovation fund to expand local schemes for small businesses to take on thousands more young people? Is it not true that today, under this Government, growth is just as glacial as the weather?

[Vince Cable]

On the specifics, as the hon. Gentleman will know, a third of regional growth fund projects have already started. I am surprised that he picks up apprenticeships as a theme, because we have increased their number by 50% in the last year from the rather depressed levels we inherited. In terms of broad policy, I understand that the hon. Gentleman is standing in this morning for my opposite number, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who wrote to tell me that he has gone to Germany looking for inspiration. I think the first thing the Germans will tell him is that if he wants sustainable growth, there has to be fiscal discipline.

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

In these difficult times, the food and drink sector is an example of success with year-on-year growth. I commend the report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and UK Trade and Investment entitled “Driving Export Growth in the Farming, Food and Drink Sector”, but trade barriers still exist. Will the Secretary of State ensure that such trade barriers are broken down so that this sector can go from strength to strength?

[Vince Cable]

My colleague is right to stress the importance of the food sector, including food manufacturing. We often talk about advanced manufacturing, but some of the most sophisticated industries are often in those traditional product areas. He is right about the importance of opening barriers. In the European Union context, my team is actively pursuing trade liberalisation with a variety of Asian countries, the Mercosur countries and others. We hope that those agreements will be delivered soon.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

6. What his policy is on the Daylight Saving Bill; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) for her excellent work on her private Member’s Bill? As the House knows, the Government supported the Bill, as amended in Committee. Unfortunately, and as the Leader of the House made clear last week, there is no way the Bill could complete its passage through both Houses in this Session, but it could be taken forwards by a private Member’s Bill in a future Session. The Government would not, however, expect to introduce any trial of daylight saving time if there was clear opposition in any part of the UK.

[Hugh Bayley]

In the Western Morning News, the Secretary of State is reported as saying that he is disappointed that the Bill was killed by a handful of Back Benchers who could not see the light, and that he did not rule out Ministers—I repeat, Ministers—finding more time. If the Government are genuinely committed to this measure, as they say they are, and if it is not just warm words and they really want it to happen, will they commit to bring forward a Bill of their own in this Session or the next?

[Mr Davey]

The Leader of the House explained the problems of doing so in this Session and was equally clear that we would welcome a private Member’s Bill in the next Session. This Government have worked harder on this issue than the last one did, and we have made more progress. I would hope for emerging consensus in the House because this Government are making real efforts.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Minister seems to be trying to face two ways at once. It is quite clear that time could have been made. We have a general debate later today and the time for it could quite easily have been devoted to private Members’ Bills. I doubt whether today’s business will run the full course. Come on, let’s put this Bill back on and let Parliament decide.

[Mr Davey]

I know my hon. Friend is a huge supporter of the Bill, but the Leader of the House has made clear the problems of getting it through both Houses during this Session, and I am certainly not one to challenge his judgment.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to support micro-businesses.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

The Government have already acted to make it easier to start and grow micro-businesses. Action has included cutting corporation tax rates, extending relief from business rates, and introducing a moratorium from regulation for all micro-businesses.

[Anne Marie Morris]

The Minister is conducting a review of disruptive business models as part of the red tape challenge. Has he considered introducing a new limited liability scheme for sole traders, similar to the limited liability partnership? I believe that such a scheme operates in France, and it would be fantastic to see one like it operating here.

[Mr Prisk]

I know that my hon. Friend is a real champion of micro-businesses. The Government have focused on practical measures that help the micro-businesses’ bottom line, but, as she knows, I am happy to consider the legal issues with her and her all-party parliamentary group.

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

On Friday I attended the opening of a micro-business in my constituency, Little Rembrandt’s Café in Ferryhill. That business opened despite the Government and despite the banks, which refused to lend. The owner had to put her own financial security on the line by remortgaging her house. That situation obviously cannot be right, because it is stifling growth in the economy.

[Mr Prisk]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. Two thirds of small businesses are able to secure the money that they want, but that is no consolation to those who are not. Perhaps I could write to the hon. Lady about the community development finance institutions, which we have been funding and which are well placed to help the kind of micro-business to which she has referred.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

When will the call for evidence on making it easier for micro-businesses to part company with their employees begin, and what will be the terms of reference?

[Mr Prisk]

Not yet, but soon.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister was right to describe the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) as a great champion of micro-businesses. Last week she called for the Government to introduce a VAT cut to 5% on construction, which is part of our five-point plan.

The truth is that the Government are failing Britain’s small businesses. They have failed to live up to expectations on regulation, they have failed to persuade the banks to lend to small businesses, and they have failed to get growth into our economy. Why does the Minister keep pretending that small businesses think his policies are working when it is so clear that they are not?

[Mr Prisk]

There are substantially more small businesses now than there were when we came to office, and they have confidence in what we are doing. We need to support and encourage them, and we will do that. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s wholly negative analysis.

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

8. What steps he plans to take to address executive pay and reduce rewards for failure.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

Last week I announced a comprehensive package of measures to tackle the disconnect between executive pay and company performance. These proposals will increase simplicity and clarity, give shareholders more effective power through binding votes, increase the diversity of boards and remuneration committees, and encourage employees to be more engaged.

[Simon Hughes]

In the last few weeks the chief executive of Lloyds TSB, then the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and then its chief executive appear to have got the message that huge bonuses are not acceptable in this time of austerity. Given that this month we expect both banks to announce significant losses amounting to millions of pounds, how can Government, Parliament and constituents such as mine in Southwark convey the message to the rest of the directors and investment bankers in the publicly owned banks that they too should not have huge bonuses in times of austerity?

[Vince Cable]

Those two individuals are symbolically very important, but what is much more important is that we have a proper system governing executive pay over the long term, and that is what my proposals were designed to achieve. Bonuses in the banking sector as a whole are now running at roughly a third of the level at which they operated at the peak of the boom when Labour was in power. As for the state-owned banks, my right hon. Friend will know that a set of disciplines is being introduced through United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with Will Hutton, the chair of his High Pay Commission, that there should be a definite risk to the basic pay of executives who fail to meet their targets?

[Vince Cable]

Yes. I have talked extensively to Will Hutton about that. In the proposals that I will bring forward next week, we will introduce the principle of a clawback; that clawback can operate in different ways, and we are certainly looking seriously at one of the ways that Will Hutton has recommended.

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

To get to the dizzy heights of executive pay, one must first get a job. What are Ministers doing to reduce the red tape and bureaucracy relating to apprenticeship schemes for small and medium-sized businesses?

[Mr Speaker]

That question is fascinating, but sadly it bears absolutely no relation to the question on the Order Paper, so the hon. Gentleman should keep it for the spring, or some other suitable time.

[Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)]

In view of the Secretary of State’s answers, will he assure the House that he has made representations to the Chancellor and United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd to make sure that in the RBS last year’s practice of giving 323 bankers bonuses in excess of £1 million is not repeated, and that the anticipated payment of £4.5 million to John Hourican, a senior banker in RBS, does not go ahead?

[Vince Cable]

Of course there is a continuing issue with the scale of bonuses in RBS, but they are vastly reduced from their former level. We are conscious of the issues involved. Many of those people are American traders operating in the United States, but we are conscious that every amount that goes out in bonuses is money that could otherwise have gone to small businesses.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

9. What plans he has to facilitate the provision of higher education in further education institutions.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The Government see a crucial role for further education colleges in delivering higher education, because demand cannot be enlivened unless supply is diverse, so we are extending loans to part-time students; freeing up controls on student numbers; increasing directly funded places at FE colleges; widening access to higher learning; and changing assumptions about the modes of and access points to learning. It is higher education for the many, not the few.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his answer. Will he join me in congratulating Central Sussex college in my constituency, which last September started a university presence on its campus? It is linking local students—under the previous Government, only 17% of them went on to higher education—with first-class local employers. Of course, he has an open invitation to visit.

[Mr Hayes]

I am aware of that excellent development, which enjoys the wholehearted support of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science, who has done much to encourage the widening of access to higher education. My right hon. Friend will offer some exciting news about additional places when he rises to his feet, because we are determined that everyone, wherever they begin, should have their chance of glittering prizes.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is very real concern in the FE sector that, arising from the core and margin provisions for higher education and a potential reduction in university places, higher education institutions may claw back provision from FE colleges. What reassurance can the Minister give the sector that that will not happen?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to that risk, and it is absolutely right that, given our ambition to widen access, which I articulated a few moments ago, universities should not engage in anti-competitive practices. The Secretary of State has made it clear that that is not acceptable, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science is taking action to prevent it. We will take a very dim view of universities that are not engaged with our mission to elevate the people through access to learning.

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

University Campus Suffolk is based in Ipswich, in a neighbouring constituency to mine. One of the challenges it faces is that as it does not award its own degrees, it is not allowed to appear in the league tables, or in other listings that students readily access. Is there something that can be done to remove that element of bureaucracy, so that it can appear alongside any other university?

[Mr Hayes]

Sometimes, my relentless drive to remove bureaucracy is regarded as excessive, but if that is the charge, I plead guilty. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we need to make the process as straightforward as possible, and we will take action to do so, partly stimulated by her question and her excellent work in this area.

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

The expansion of the role of further education colleges in providing higher education is a positive step, but it sits alongside the Government’s plans to expand the role of for-profit providers in delivering higher education. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government will bring a higher education Bill to the House later this year, and will he undertake not to introduce regulatory changes that make it easier for for-profits to enter the sector without full parliamentary scrutiny?

[Mr Hayes]

If I were a less experienced Member of this House, the hon. Lady’s erudition and charm might encourage me to make predictions about the Queen’s Speech, but it would be quite wrong to do so and I cannot possibly answer that question. What I will say is that the determination on this side of the House to seed opportunity by providing greater access to higher education is a profound one.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

10. What recent progress he has made on determining the location of the green investment bank.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

In December, the Department invited applications to bid for hosting the green investment bank. The closing date was Monday 30 January, and a total of 32 bids were received. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make a decision shortly.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Newcastle has submitted an outstanding bid to host the green investment bank, and as a region we have the right mix of natural environment, green expertise, infrastructure and professional services, all supported to grow under the last Government in order to make it a success. However, bearing in mind that we are the region with the highest unemployment levels, to what extent will the Government’s commitment to supporting private sector growth, particularly in areas suffering the greatest loss of public sector employment, be a factor in the decision-making process?

[Mr Prisk]

I do not wish to prejudice the case Newcastle has put forward as one of the applicants. All I will say is that we will look at the points the hon. Lady has raised as part of the criteria for all applicants, and make sure that we can get a decision out by the end of the month.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of prospects for economic growth and their effect on business confidence.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

As I noted earlier, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that the UK economy will grow at 0.7% this year and 2.1% in 2013. The OBR states that the intensification of the European sovereign debt crisis has

“doubtless helped to reduce confidence”.

[Lilian Greenwood]

One of Nottingham’s Work programme providers recently told me not only that she was disappointed that the future jobs fund had been scrapped, but that local employers were reluctant to invest in apprenticeships because they simply were not confident they would have jobs for the apprentices to fill at the end of the process. Is it not time that this Government admitted that their economic plan has failed dismally, and that they need to adopt Labour’s plan for growth and jobs?

[Vince Cable]

I am very surprised that the hon. Lady gives apprenticeships as the central example of failure, given that apprenticeship numbers have risen by 50% and apprenticeships are extremely popular with young people and employers. This is a success story, and I am surprised she is denigrating it.

Perhaps I should also point to the most recent indicators, which were published yesterday. In the manufacturing sector, which is absolutely critical for recovery, the purchasing managers index suggests a significant recovery in the short run.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The Government had the good sense to award a grant under the regional growth fund to the Goonhilly radio astronomy project in my constituency. That is very welcome, but the implementation of the decision seems rather slow. Will the Secretary of State look into the matter and accelerate the implementation of that project, which will generate many jobs in our local community?

[Vince Cable]

I am aware of the difficulties associated with that project, which relate to the fact that we are trying to integrate two separate bidders. My hon. Friend knows the practical difficulties, but we will certainly do the best we can to expedite the project.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the chorus of disapproval at the manner in which the Government have handled the decision on solar power feed-in tariffs. Both the CBI and the Environmental Audit Committee have stated that it has wrecked supply chains and undermined confidence. Erica Robb of Spirit Solar told the Prime Minister last month that “weeks of chaos” have resulted in her having to lay off more than a third of her work force. As the Minister charged with responsibility for growth and co-ordination of industrial policy, what role did the Secretary of State and his Department have in this debacle, and how does the Government’s decision help the establishment of a long-term, credible and co-ordinated industrial strategy that supports fledgling sectors and provides the environment for business confidence and economic growth?

[Vince Cable]

This Department certainly does wish to promote the renewables sector and the supply chains. However, given the history of this problem, the hon. Gentleman will know that the level of subsidy—which I think his Government fixed—was totally unsustainable, and action had to be taken to cap it.

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

Has the Business Secretary had the opportunity to assess the implication of the growing places fund for infrastructure projects such as that relating to the A64 in North Yorkshire? What criteria will apply to selecting such projects, and how can we guide the local enterprise partnership in the right direction?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know that the Secretary of State’s reply will relate to economic growth and business confidence.

[Vince Cable]

That infrastructure fund, which relates specifically to small projects, has proved very valuable and the local enterprise partnerships have an important role in working up those projects. There are set criteria, of which they are well aware, that they must meet.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

13. What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on promoting job creation in Scotland.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Greg Clark)]

Ministers in the Department have regular conversations with Scottish colleagues on areas of mutual interest. I have been invited to meet representatives of Scotland’s cities to discuss their contribution to the economy and I expect to do so shortly. Much of Britain’s future prosperity depends on our cities, including Dundee.

[Jim McGovern]

I thank the Minister for that response. Job creation is of paramount importance in my constituency in Dundee. Dundee has a highly skilled and highly educated work force, but despite that fact unemployment figures remain stubbornly high, particularly those for youth unemployment. There is an increasing feeling that that is the fault of both the coalition Government and the separatists in Edinburgh, who seem unwilling to use their powers to promote economic growth—they are too busy pointing their finger at other people for that. Will the Minister make an urgent assessment of how he, working with the Scottish Executive, can improve job creation throughout Scotland?

[Greg Clark]

I will, but it is fair to point out that, under the Labour Government, youth unemployment increased by 40%, so I think the hon. Gentleman is wrong to imply that that phenomenon has just established itself. He will know that the best and only way to create jobs is on the basis of a successful, stable economy. He will have seen the Institute for Fiscal Studies report yesterday that made it very clear that had the previous Government’s plans been in place, borrowing would have been at £76 billion in 2016-17 rather than £26 billion. That would have been disastrous for the credit rating of this country and the interest rates on which job creation depends.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that one way to create jobs and promote job creation is for cities to embrace the concept of elected mayors and would he encourage the Scottish Executive to do so?

[Greg Clark]

That is a matter for the Scottish Executive, but my hon. Friend will know that we are debating orders in Parliament to require referendums in the cities of England to give people the choice of whether they should have elected mayors. We would not be doing that if we did not think that elected mayors gave the kind of leadership that London has benefited from considerably through the leadership of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in recent years.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to promote business growth.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

The plan for growth commits the coalition to creating the most competitive tax system in the G20. We will make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business and we will create a more educated work force who will be the most flexible in Europe.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful for that answer. Given the vital role of exports in trying to grow our economy and yesterday’s disastrous news about Typhoon not being take up by the Indians, will the Minister meet me and other BAE Systems MPs to find out what his Department can do to get behind BAE Systems?

[Mr Willetts]

Let us be absolutely clear that the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and I have all been on trade missions to India because we recognise its importance as an export market. British exports are growing by 10% and we will continue to argue the case for Typhoon as an excellent and cost-effective deal for the Indian Government. Of course, Ministers would be very happy to meet employees.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Economic growth has been greatly enhanced in east Kent by the huge amount of work done by BIS for the enterprise zone and the regional growth fund. What more can be done through UK Trade & Investment to promote life sciences internationally and to get inward investment into east Kent?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, this week is the first anniversary of the announcement by Pfizer that it was planning to close completely its facility at Sandwich. That will now be transformed into a research and business park, not least thanks to the excellent efforts of my hon. Friend. Indeed, Pfizer will be an anchor tenant employing, we believe, 750 Pfizer staff. That shows we can fight back and we can maintain life sciences activity in this country. Through the proposals we set out in December, we aim to increase that.

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

If we are to get business growth in our country, we must provide finance. Does not the report that the Minister has just made on the green bank show the truth that we want that sort of bank in each region, particularly in Yorkshire and the Humber? We want a bank for every region that knows the local circumstances and will invest in our regions.

[Mr Willetts]

I have a lot of sympathy with the argument that overall we need to see much greater diversity in British banking. Indeed, one reason why the Government are implementing the proposals from the Vickers commission is precisely to make it possible to have once more local banks that understand the needs of the local business community and local individuals, but our position on the green investment bank has been made clear by the Secretary of State.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the strength of the construction industry.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The construction industry, as with much of the economy, has come through a difficult period and faces a challenging year ahead but, as ever, in the areas for which I am responsible I offer sunny uplands. Figures published just yesterday show that construction industry apprenticeships for 2010-11 saw an increase of 11.4%—fine words, still finer deeds.

[Heidi Alexander]

The Minister says that the construction industry faces a challenging year, but it faces a challenging decade. The Construction Industry Training Board points to new research suggesting that employment and output in the construction industry in 2016 will be 5% lower than 2007 levels. Given that the construction industry could be a real stimulant to jobs and growth, will the Minister tell me when the Government are going to come up with policies that actually work instead of ones that just sound good on paper?

[Mr Hayes]

The figures I just revealed show that the construction is not being hampered by current difficulties but is investing in its future. We know that industry sectors that invest in the future bounce out of the kind of downturn that the industry currently faces. However, I accept what the hon. Lady says and we will go further. As a result of her question and my consideration of these matters, I will, with the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses, invite the construction industry into BIS to talk about how that boost in apprenticeships can feed the kind of improvements that she seeks and Britain needs. Talking down business is talking down Britain, and that is something we will never do on this side of the House.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Construction is an important sector in my constituency, but its future very much depends on making sure that we have the skills available to support this sector for the future. Will my hon. Friend set out what actions he is taking to make sure that we support skills in this vital area?

[Mr Hayes]

As I said, the investment in apprenticeships is critical. No one doubts that construction industry apprenticeships are vital to building the skills the industry needs. I just want to say that no Member of the House has been more doughty in championing the interests of business in his constituency than my hon. Friend. He personifies our determination to boost skills, improve our prospects and build recovery.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is very grateful for the Minister’s tribute.

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

16. What assessment he has made of the effect of higher tuition fees on the level of university admissions in the next academic year.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

UCAS published figures on 30 January 2012 covering applications to higher education institutions by its main deadline. That independent information shows that the proportion of English school leavers applying to university is the second-highest on record and is higher than in any year under the previous Labour Government. It is also encouraging that applications from people from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds remain strong. We will continue to monitor closely the data on applications.

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the Minister for his answer and draw attention to my interest in this matter, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Since this Government’s punitive and regressive £27,000 tuition fees have been introduced, university applications for design are down more than 16%, applications for history are down more than 7%, applications for classics are down more than 8% and applications for non-European languages are down more than 21%. Britain has long had a world-class reputation for the humanities; why are this Government so determined to kill it off?

[Mr Willetts]

I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman could refer to an arrangement under which graduates pay for their higher education only if they are earning more than £21,000 a year as a regressive policy. It is a progressive and fair way of maintaining higher education. Because, unlike him, young people across the country understand that, we have had a very healthy level of applications to universities this year—down only 1% on last year’s peak.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

What assessment has my right hon. Friend undertaken of the impact on admissions of university access agreements supervised, and indeed enforced, by the Office for Fair Access?

[Mr Willetts]

It is very encouraging that when we look behind the 1% fall in applications overall, it looks as though the fall in applications from prospective students in the most disadvantaged areas is actually only 0.2%. That tells us that the message is getting across, and I pay particular tribute to the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) and the advice we have had from him, and to the work done by OFFA to get that crucial message across.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Higher education applications have collapsed. In teaching, we have a simple way of measuring whether children are learning by rote or are actually learning and understanding: we ask them what would happen next. When the Minister tripled tuition fees and abolished education maintenance allowances, what did he think was going to happen next?

[Mr Willetts]

I thank the hon. Lady for the advance notice of her question. Contrary to the stories of collapse and disaster, we believe that the fact that applications have fallen only by 1% is evidence that the message that students do not have to pay is getting across, and this summer I shall once more sadly be in the position of having to explain why young people applying to go to university do not have a place. In other words, we have succeeded in explaining the truth about our proposals, contrary to the misleading allegations of the Opposition.

[Mr Speaker]

I know that the Minister will not be suggesting that any Opposition Member has misled the House. I am sure he is referring to activity outside the House.

[Mr Willetts]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful for that ministerial head-nod, if I can put it that way.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend the Minister join me in reassuring my constituents that, unlike the views of the Opposition, under our scheme a top-quality university degree will actually cost them only £30 a month when they are earning £25,000 a year?

[Mr Willetts]

I entirely agree. Indeed, that figure on earnings of £25,000 a year contrasts with payments of £75 a month under the arrangements we inherited from the Labour Government.

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

17. What his policy is on responding to public interest declarations made to him or his Department.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State takes seriously any public interest declarations made to him. If a declaration alleges that a company is trading in a fraudulent manner, the Secretary of State can authorise an investigation into the affairs of that company, using powers under the Companies Acts. Such investigations are confidential and it is seldom possible to confirm or deny whether an investigation is in train, but if there is an enforcement action as a result of the investigation, that can be made public. My officials will of course be willing to take further details of the allegations.

[Mr Raynsford]

I am grateful to the Minister for his answer, and to the Secretary of State for the letter he sent me yesterday in response to my constituent’s public interest declaration. I cannot but note that it is only since the question appeared on the Order Paper that his Department appears to have been taking the matter seriously, because the declaration was made in mid-December. Given that it is a serious declaration, involving allegations of unethical and probably criminal behaviour by a significant company, will the Minister ensure that the investigation takes full and detailed evidence from my constituent?

[Mr Davey]

I am sorry that after the initial e-mail sent just before Christmas there was no substantive follow-up. I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent, but the Secretary of State has now written to the right hon. Gentleman, as he acknowledged, and I confirm that officials of the Insolvency Service who exercise those powers will now make contact with his constituent as he has requested.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

My Department has a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy and business to deliver growth while increasing skills and learning.

[Gregg McClymont]

A moment ago, the Minister for Universities and Science referred to student loan repayments, which the right hon. Gentleman will know are deducted at source, which is more than can be said for the extraordinary contract awarded to Mr Ed Lester of the Student Loans Company. Will the Minister explain why he signed off those extraordinary tax avoidance arrangements?

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Let me be absolutely clear that this arrangement is set out very clearly in the Student Loans Company annual accounts. If Labour Members had cared to study the report, they would have seen on page 42 a completely transparent account of the arrangements for Mr Ed Lester’s reimbursement. It is set out very clearly there. The payments are to the recruitment consultancy company that found him, and he was appointed on an interim basis to tackle a disaster in the SLC that we inherited from the Labour Government. We of course recognise the importance of ensuring that proper arrangements are in place and will continue to monitor the situation, but I can inform the House that we have agreed that, for the remainder of the chief executive’s contract, the SLC will account for PAYE and national insurance at source.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

T3. Last Sunday I attended Indian republic day at the Wellingborough Hindu Association, yet the same week we learn that a £20 billion fighter contract has been lost to, of all people, the French. We now know that the lead bidder was not the British Prime Minister or the British Government, but the Germans. What on earth do they know about cricket and curries? Why was the British Government not leading on that? How did the Secretary of State allow such a cock-up?

[Vince Cable]

As was explained earlier, the Prime Minister, the Trade and Investment Minister, I and others have made strong representations to the Indian Government on the merits of BAE Systems for this contract. The hon. Gentleman will know that the contract was narrowed down to two companies on the basis of quality. The Indian Government appear to have made a narrow decision based on price, but this is by no means the end of the process. BAE Systems will have plenty of opportunities to restate its case on quality and life-time costs and we shall reinforce it.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has leapt to the defence of the tax deal by which a public servant running the Student Loans Company avoids tax of £40,000 a year. It is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman is not as vigorous in defending the interests of small businesses when it comes to bank lending. Can he confirm, as the Minister implied earlier, that this arrangement will end immediately? Does he agree that when his Government say, “We’re all in this together”, they mean the tax avoiders and the excessively paid, not the people in businesses who desperately need support in order to get our economy working again?

[Vince Cable]

My colleague, the Minister for Universities and Science, has already given a very full answer on this issue. When I spoke about it earlier, I should have made it clear that Mr Lester had accepted a pay cut, not a tax cut. In addition, there will shortly be an urgent question on the matter, when any further details can be pursued. As for the wider policy questions, we made it very clear last week that we believe that our reforms of executive pay will radically reduce the rewards for failure and mediocrity in business.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

T4. I welcome the Government’s plan to set up catapult centres. Will the Minister update the House on what progress has been made in setting these centres up?

[Mr Willetts]

Our proposals for launching the catapult centres are proceeding. We have already announced five technology and innovation centres across the country and will announce the remaining two soon.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

T2. The Secretary of State is aware of the imminent closure of the Rio Tinto Alcan plant in my constituency. Rio Tinto Alcan said recently that it puts the blame firmly on the Government because of the lack of investment. The £250 million for energy-intensive industries is too little, too late, and there are also the green taxes. Would he care to comment on those allegations?

[Vince Cable]

Those were certainly not the allegations Rio Tinto Alcan made to me when I met representatives of the company. They made it clear that this was part of a global downsizing of their operations and that many countries are affected by it. I have visited the site and met the hon. Gentleman to discuss this. We are concerned about the future of the labour force, and we sought to help the company through the support for energy-intensive industries. Now that the company has decided to go ahead with closure, we will see what we can do to help the people in the area.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T7. What can the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills do to support the more than 1,500 community-led work clubs across the country to help young adults to recognise the apprenticeship opportunities that exist, ensure that further education colleges can provide training opportunities for those out of work, and link in the national careers service?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has raised that matter again, as he has done frequently. He has done much work in Banbury in this area. The important thing to do next is to match the businesses to the young people. We can do that by getting businesses into schools and by speed-dating—that is an exciting prospect, is it not, Mr Speaker? We must use all modern media to ensure that young people know about the jobs and opportunities that exist—where they are, what they are and how they can find them.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

T5. Somethin’ Else is a design and creation company on Silicon roundabout in my constituency. It employs 65 people and recently produced a film that was shown at the Conservative party conference. Recently, it has been battling with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over disproportionate fines for the alleged late payment of tax. That has led to a fine of more than £25,000. Given HMRC’s deals with large corporations and the Government’s professed support for small businesses, which the Secretary of State has reiterated today, what discussions is the Department having with HMRC and the Treasury to ensure that businesses are aware that it is on their side and that the Government are acting in a joined-up fashion so that punitive tax attacks are not made on small businesses?

[Mr Willetts]

That is, of course, a matter for the Treasury. The Department is on the side of small businesses. I have visited that business in Tech City and was very impressed with what it does. Tech City, which had about 100 small businesses when the coalition came to office, now has more than 600 small businesses because of our commitment to the area.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

T8. May I, on the eve of national apprenticeship week, congratulate the Minister and the Government on the steps they are taking to increase the number of apprenticeships? I invite him to support the Norfolk Way project, which is giving youngsters work experience and entrepreneurial mentoring. I also invite him to agree with the wonderful words of Galileo Galilei, “We cannot teach people things; we can only help them discover it within themselves.”

[Mr Hayes]

John Clare, who is greatly admired by my hon. Friend, said:

“The best way to avoid doing a bad action is by doing a good one”.

Of course, he ended his life near Norfolk. My hon. Friend understated his own involvement in the project that he mentioned; he launched it, but he was too modest to say so. It says here that the project is “determined to nurture the ambition of enterprising young people and to encourage a can-do attitude.” I cannot do better than that.

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

T6. The Government have been sending out mixed messages recently about the extent of their financial commitment to the proposed green investment bank. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the proposed public contribution will be £3 billion as promised and not up to £3 billion, and that the bank will assume its borrowing powers in 2015?

[Vince Cable]

I can confirm the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question: the £3 billion is fully committed to and there are no mixed messages. On borrowing, it is not merely a question of the date, but of the fiscal position of the country.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

T10. This week’s National Audit Office report on apprenticeships shows that for every pound of public money that is invested, there is a return of £18. Will my hon. Friend reassure us that he is taking all reasonable steps to continue the successful growth of apprenticeships?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend will know that the figures published this week show a record number of apprenticeships across the whole country, in all sectors and at all levels. What does the NAO report say? As my hon. Friend described, it shows a massive return on public investment. This is success by any measure. By the way—I did not want to emphasise this, Mr Speaker—it also states that our policy is far better managed than was Train to Gain by the previous Government.

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

How hard did Ministers press the case for British business with their colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, who yesterday produced a written ministerial statement which said that the Government will no longer prioritise UK suppliers when purchasing defence equipment? That is another kick in the teeth for all of us who are fighting to prevent British BAE Systems jobs from being exported, at a cost of £100 million to British taxpayers.

[Vince Cable]

Of course we have discussed those issues extensively with the Ministry of Defence, and if the hon. Lady actually reads the statement, she will see that it is absolutely clear that in defence, as in other areas, public procurement will operate on a strategic, long-term basis, not as it did under the last Government when narrow contractual arrangements involved purchases off the peg.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

Will the Minister support me in establishing a pilot scheme on Wirral bringing female business role models into schools and thereby working towards the coalition’s intention of practical, real-life role models?

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

I would be delighted to support that. It is an excellent idea and builds on the work that we are doing to recruit 5,000 new business mentors—real business women, helping those who want to start their own enterprise.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

What is the Secretary of State doing to stimulate growth in manufacturing industries, particularly the steel industry, which is so important to UK plc and my constituents?

[Vince Cable]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, because I have visited his constituency and discussed these issues with him, the steel industry is going through an extremely difficult time not just in the UK, and steel makers have made losses. We are helping them through energy-intensive support, and there are other forms of help such as the regional growth fund and enterprise zones. We are doing what we can to help steel areas that are affected by the current contraction.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

The one seemingly hopeful part of the Government’s otherwise dreadful response on pub companies was the unfortunately named PICAS—the pub independent conciliation and arbitration service. However, hope soon faded when it was revealed that it was to be pubco-funded, and this week it has been announced that it will be chaired by a Punch Taverns surveyor. Does the Minister think that licensees will want to use that supposedly independent body?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

I am afraid that as in a number of aspects of this debate, my hon. Friend does not reveal the full details. Rodger Vickers has been appointed with the unanimous support of the board of the pub independent rent review scheme, which includes two members of the Independent Pubs Confederation, the champion of licensees and tenants. I have made it clear to the independent chairman of PIRRS, Mr Brindley, that its efforts to appoint a vice-chair, again with high standing among the licensee community and close links to the IPC, should continue.

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

Will the Secretary of State clarify what is actually happening to the Typhoon contract? There was an implication that it could be renegotiated. If he fails to renegotiate it, will he blame the previous Government?

[Vince Cable]

There is no question of renegotiation. The Indians have had a pre-selection process, from which the French bid has gone ahead on the basis of price. There is a lot of experience of contracts being reconsidered at the final stage, and at that stage BAE Systems has a very good case to make as part of its consortium. We will support it thoroughly.

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

Although I understand that the Minister does not want to be unfair to other cities, does he agree that Brighton would make a fantastic choice of location for the green investment bank?

[Mr Prisk]

My only worry is that I did not have the opportunity to travel to all 32 locations and be wined and dined, but I note Brighton’s application and we shall have to see.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

British Aerospace has a 17% global share, and as such is No. 1 in Europe, but its future depends on not only exports but on investment in research and development. Given that many other Governments in Europe and around the world give more support to research and development than we do, what more can the Government do to help in that vital area?

[Mr Willetts]

That is why the Government have provided cash protection and ring-fenced the science and research budget, and why in the autumn statement we were able to announce significant increases in funding for the Technology Strategy Board.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

With no pressure from the Secretary of State for a cut in the jobs tax, no meaningful roll-back of job-destroying red tape, no pressure from him for a cut in enterprise-sapping tax rates and his lauding as a good example the pillorying of people for fulfilling their Government contract, can he advise me of what he is doing to encourage enterprise rather than to discourage it?

[Vince Cable]

I think my ministerial team have given an extremely good account of the many things that we are doing in that area, starting with an extraordinary cut in the amount of red tape, which I think is the issue that most concerns my hon. Friend.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is unsatisfied demand, as tends to be the case. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues, but we must now move on.

Tax Avoidance (Public Servants)

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

11:34

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Treasury if he will set out the Government’s policy on the operation of tax avoidance schemes in the civil service.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to set out the answer to this question. As hon. Members might be aware, departmental public spending encompassing the appointment of senior civil servants is audited against the Treasury’s “Managing Public Money” guidance. That document makes it clear that

“public sector organisations should avoid using tax advisers or tax avoidance schemes as any apparent savings can only be made at the expense of other taxpayers or other parts of the public sector.”

There is no place for tax avoidance in Government.

A recent case has highlighted those issues, and although I cannot comment on the specifics of an individual’s tax affairs, for reasons of which the right hon. Gentleman will be fully aware, I want to take the opportunity to explain the action that I have taken.

As hon. Members are already aware, for senior civil service appointments whose salary exceeds £142,500, terms and conditions are negotiated by the appointing Department and are presented to me for approval of the salary. Those arrangements are in place to control excessive pay.

In the light of that recent case, I have asked the Treasury urgently to review the appropriateness of allowing public sector appointees to be paid through that mechanism—[Interruption.] I have also asked the Treasury Officer of Accounts—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I granted this urgent question because I thought it warranted ministerial comment and scrutiny by the House. The House can rely upon me to ensure that there is plenty of time for Back Benchers, but as a matter of procedure, propriety and courtesy, we must hear what the Chief Secretary has to say, preferably without constant interruption and heckling.

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker.

As I was saying, I have also asked the Treasury Officer of Accounts to write to all accounting officers across Whitehall to remind them that all appointments should, in line with existing guidance, consider the wider cost of lost revenue to the Exchequer when considering value for money.

Furthermore, I have requested that all Departments carry out an internal audit by the end of March. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science has said, the Student Loans Company will for the remainder of the contract in question change the arrangements and deduct tax and national insurance at source. Across Government, if any appointments that do not provide value for money are found, whether agreed by this Government or the previous one, I have urged Departments to seek to unwind them as quickly as possible and as quickly as is compatible with securing good value for public money.

At a time when we all have to pull in the same direction to tackle the country’s financial problems, it is essential we all pay our full and fair share. That is why I have taken this action to ensure that Government Departments do not support tax avoidance schemes.

[Mr Brown]

May I point out to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the chief executive of the Student Loans Company is the accounting officer? Perhaps the Chief Secretary can tell the House what sort of reply he expects from that accounting officer when he writes to him.

It is reassuring that the Chief Secretary told the House that national insurance and income tax will be paid in future, but the purpose of those arrangements was to avoid paying income tax and national insurance. When considering those arrangements, did he consider the demoralising and corrosive effect that such an arrangement must have on the rest of the public service? What fees are paid by the Department to the service company that is laundering that money? The loss is to the Exchequer and not to the Department’s budget, in which I would have thought the Chief Secretary would take an interest.

The Chief Secretary says—I support him in this—that he will now, belatedly but correctly, scope how many such arrangements there are in the public service. When his investigation is completed, will he put the facts—all of the facts—in front of the House of Commons? Given the controversial nature of those arrangements, will he tell the House whether the Cabinet Secretary approved them, and whether the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is the Department responsible for the Student Loans company, were explicitly aware of those arrangements and whether they explicitly agreed to them?

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support for the action that I have taken in respect of this case. He is right that accounting officers of organisations are responsible for implementing the “Managing Public Money” guidance. That is why the Treasury Officer of Accounts is contacting all such officers within the Government as we speak. I look forward to seeing the responses, including from the range of individuals to whom he referred.

As I said in my response to the right hon. Gentleman’s original question, my responsibility in such matters is with regard to the salary level. In this case, I reduced the salary level and amount of expenses paid under the contract, the details of which were the responsibility of the Student Loans Company and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I was not made aware of any tax benefit to any individual as a result of this case, which is precisely why I have put in place the arrangements for the review that I have set out.

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that I would of course want to update the House on the results of that review when it is completed, and I look forward to having a further opportunity to discuss the matter with him.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

May I say how much I welcome the Chief Secretary’s urgent review? There has been too much of this going on; there was certainly a similar case involving the chief operating officer of the Rural Payments Agency, who was appointed in an interim way under the previous Government, which should not have happened. May I invite the Chief Secretary, in the spirit of the coalition, to say whether he agrees with the former leader of the Conservative party, Michael Howard, who is now in another place, when he said:

“Special rules for special…groups breed anger and division. They blur the distinction between right and wrong. And they give the impression that some people are above the law”?

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for the action I have taken. I was not aware of the example he gave in relation to the Rural Payments Agency. Of course, if other such cases still exist in other parts of Government, that is something the review I have instituted will bring out. I do agree with the statement the hon. Gentleman read out, which is why the Government have taken a series of strong steps—much greater steps, frankly, than the previous Government—to deal with tax avoidance and make sure that everyone pays their proper amount of tax.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I welcome the commitment that has been made to review the arrangements relating to this individual and to review whether such things happen anywhere else across Government. Will the Minister agree to publish the complete list of senior civil servants whom the Government pay through companies when he completes his review by the end of March? In particular, will he report to the House on the role of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in authorising the arrangement with this individual? Will he also report to the House on why the Cabinet Secretary appears to have authorised it? Will he ask officials about, and report to the House on, why a contribution to this particular individual’s pension was also agreed?

[Danny Alexander]

First, I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s welcome for the action we are taking on this issue. As I said in answer to the original question, I will certainly make available to the House, and indeed to the Public Accounts Committee, if she is interested to follow the issue through that route, too, the results of the inquiry that we have set out and the information on the number of individuals—if there are any others—who are paid under similar arrangements. As I have also said, if there are such arrangements in other places, Departments have actively and urgently to consider unwinding them and making sure that proper arrangements are put in place so that people pay their full share of tax.

There will be opportunities for the right hon. Lady’s Committee to scrutinise the role of HMRC and the Cabinet Secretary in these issues, if it wishes to. It is a matter of public record that the Cabinet Secretary signed off these arrangements. The original arrangements were put in place before I was appointed Chief Secretary, but the salary was brought to me when the appointment was turned from an interim one into a temporary one for two years, which is what the arrangements now are. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science has decided, through the Student Loans Company, to make sure that these arrangements apply no further in this case.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the urgent review will also investigate the terms of appointments made by the previous Government?

[Danny Alexander]

Yes, I said that in answer to the original question. The cases that are brought to me are cases in which the level of pay is in excess of £142,500. Of course, the review will look not just at those cases, but, potentially, at the cases of people on lower salary levels. Appointments that are currently in operation may well have been put in place under the previous Government. I do not know that there are any; that is why I have instituted a review, and we will see in due course what that brings forward. As I say, I will be happy to share that information with the House.

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

The Government have a duty to ensure that everyone pays their faire share of taxes. They should be especially careful when making senior appointments themselves. At a time when the economy is flatlining, families are being squeezed and students are facing the tripling of tuition fees, the news that Ministers approved the contract of a senior official that allowed tax and national insurance to be avoided shows just how out of touch they are.

There are several important questions that the Chief Secretary must answer. When he approved the contract, did he ask about the tax and national insurance implications of employing Mr Lester on this basis? Did HMRC approve the arrangement after Mr Lester was appointed chief executive on a permanent basis, or only when he was the interim chief executive? Does the Chief Secretary know how much tax and national insurance has been avoided by these arrangements? Has he now withdrawn his approval of Mr Lester’s contract, and is it being redrawn? How many other senior appointments have the Government made on these terms? Surely the right hon. Gentleman will know how many he has signed off. If he does not know, is it not time that he started asking questions of his colleagues and defending the interests of taxpayers?

The Government’s handling of higher education has been disastrous. This week, we have heard that their tripling of fees and botched reforms have cut applications to university, and before Christmas the Public Accounts Committee criticised HMRC for its cosy relationship with big business. There will be great concern if it turns out that the Government have turned a blind eye to tax avoidance. I look forward to the Chief Secretary’s answers about what seems to be a Treasury-backed tax dodge, and to a full investigation into the facts of the case.

[Danny Alexander]

I agree with the hon. Lady’s first remarks: of course we have a duty to ensure that every individual pays their fair share of tax. That is why the Government have done much more to tackle tax avoidance than Labour ever did during its 13 years in office.

The hon. Lady asked some important questions. I was not made aware, when approving the salary level for this post, of any tax benefit to the individual concerned. As I said earlier, the initial interim arrangements were approved before my time as Chief Secretary. I was involved in the re-appointment. As far as I am aware, having looked through the cases, of the 180 appointments with salaries of more than £142,500 that I have approved as Chief Secretary, this is the only one to which such arrangements apply. That does not mean, however, that there are not similar existing arrangements for people appointed under the previous Government or for those with lower salary levels. That is why I have implemented the review that I have set out to the Chamber. I am sorry that she did not feel able to welcome that step. I would have thought that she would have. As I have said repeatedly, however, I will happily bring the information that we unearth back to the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is much interest in this subject, and if I am to accommodate it, brevity is required in both questions and answers.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend understand that those genuinely working on the front line in the public sector will find these revelations obscene? When his review is complete, will he be able to tell us when such practices first entered the public sector, and whether it was under this Government or the previous one?

[Danny Alexander]

I well understand why people would see it that way—frankly, I see it that way myself. It is interesting that already today we have heard one example, from my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who is a member of the PAC, of a similar arrangement made under the previous Government. Of course, the review will not look back on arrangements that have now been discontinued, but will look at those currently in existence in the public sector in order to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of tax. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) will strongly agree with that.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In December, I tabled a round robin question to every Department asking whether senior staff in Departments, Executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies were

“paid by means of payments to a limited company”.

On 5 December, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), who has responsibility for consumer affairs, replied on behalf of BIS:

“The Department's policy is that staff salaries are paid into employees’ bank accounts.”

He also wrote that

“there is no evidence that any senior civil servants in the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and its non-departmental public bodies are paid by means of payments to a limited company in lieu of a salary.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 152-3W.]

Why did they get it wrong, and why did I not get an answer from the chief executive of the Student Loans Company?

[Danny Alexander]

That answer described the arrangements as I understood them until I received information about this case in the past few days. The inquiry that I have put in place will reveal whether any more of these arrangements exist elsewhere in Government.

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

Does the Minister accept that, regardless of whether someone is employed in the public or private sector, tax avoidance—otherwise known as tax mitigation—is actually legal, whereas tax evasion is illegal?

[Danny Alexander]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on the point of fact. It is fair to say that this Government have taken strong action to deal with both tax avoidance, where we wish to remove schemes that people use to minimise the amount of tax they pay, and tax evasion, which, as he says, is illegal. We announced an initial £900 million in the spending review for HMRC to invest for that purpose. As a result, we are, for example, quadrupling the number of court cases for tax evasion, to ensure that we make an example of people.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

At this time of austerity, when the poor are being made to suffer for the behaviour of the rich, is the right hon. Gentleman ashamed that his Government have failed to do anything to stop such tax avoidance? What will he do to close that loophole across all taxpayers?

[Danny Alexander]

I think a better way to characterise what is going on in the economy at the moment is that the whole country is being made to pay for the mistakes made by the previous Government. I have already set out the action that we taking. An urgent review is taking place, both in Departments and through the Treasury, which I put in place because I take such matters incredibly seriously. That review is of a piece with the enormously wide range of action to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion that has been put in place by this Government. As just one example, the high net worth individuals unit was not put in place by the previous Government until they had been in office for 12 years. That was 12 years of inaction on tax avoidance in that part of the population. Contrast that with the record of this Government and we see a coalition Government who view making sure that everyone pays their fair share of tax with the utmost seriousness.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I think there is a word, Sir, for the mock indignation on the Opposition Benches, but as I was reprimanded for anti-parliamentary language previously, I will not say it today. Will my right hon. Friend please set out what specifically we are doing about tax avoidance in foreign domiciles, which is an equally important issue?

[Danny Alexander]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I should just emphasise that the right hon. Gentleman will want to focus specifically on the terms of the urgent question, and I know that that is what he will do.

[Danny Alexander]

The question is a broad one about tax avoidance in Government. There are Government employees in other jurisdictions, and I am sure that the measures we have taken—for example, in relation to Switzerland and Lichtenstein, the non-dom levy that we have put in place, and so on—will ensure that any practices that might have been in place in the past no longer occur.

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My understanding is that a service company managed the arrangement for Mr Lester. Can the Minister tell the House what fees were paid to that company?

[Danny Alexander]

I cannot give a detailed answer about the fees paid to that company. My understanding of the arrangement that was in place is similar to that which the hon. Gentleman has described.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

I know that the Chief Secretary well understands that there is a question of fairness at the heart of this issue for all public sector employees, so should we not either allow all employees of the Government the same advantages of tax efficiencies, if legal, or stamp out such practices altogether, right across the public sector?

[Danny Alexander]

I would not agree with the hon. Gentleman that such arrangements should be put in place for every public sector employee. The review that I have put in place is precisely designed to root out such arrangements across Government.

In answer to the earlier point, I gather that the fees that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) asked about are set out in the Student Loans Company annual report, which is available publicly, so he may wish to avail himself of a copy.

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

We all know, if we are honest, that the administration of student loans had been a mess for years. However, the fact is that this man was appointed on a higher package of emoluments than the Prime Minister. Why was that?

[Danny Alexander]

What we had was a situation where, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, for many years—including for many years under the previous Government —the Student Loans Company was in a mess. This man was brought in to run it, and in fairness I think it is widely agreed that he has done a good job of turning it around. In the context of this conversation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman would also recognise that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I do not think there is a problem with what was set up; the problem is that the Inland Revenue allowed it to happen. I do not understand how such a contract can be awarded to somebody working full time. Unless there was some agreement to the avoidance scheme by the Revenue, it is not the law that is wrong, but the interpretation by the Revenue.

[Danny Alexander]

It is precisely those sorts of issues that the review will seek to examine and properly understand, and I am sure that the Public Accounts Committee might wish to take an interest in that issue.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

Will the urgent review extend to the top salaries of people employed in local government?

[Danny Alexander]

I have so far written to Cabinet colleagues for salaries in central Government, and the Treasury Officer of Accounts has written to accounting officers in central Government, but I will take that suggestion away and discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether that particular extension would be appropriate.

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

The Chief Secretary has always been very robust in dealing with tax avoidance and tax evasion. May I seek an assurance that the Government’s policy will be what all those who have submitted their tax returns in the past few days want, namely to ensure that everybody in the public service, from the Cabinet Secretary downwards, and in local government service, pays normal tax like the rest of us, in a normal way, with no funny business on the side?

[Danny Alexander]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to be robust about these matters. Frankly, I think this Government have been a great deal more robust on tax avoidance and tax evasion than our immediate predecessor. I certainly agree with the principle that he annunciates, which is that we need to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of tax and that arrangements are not put in place that are in breach of the guidelines that I set out earlier, which specifically say that arrangements to avoid tax for individuals should not be put in place.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Can we really have any remedy to such scandalous devices without restitution? Will any review by Revenue and Customs have an eye to possible recovery?

[Danny Alexander]

As I said, the arrangement has been ended by the Student Loans Company in this case, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science has said. The review that I have undertaken is looking at the degree to which such practices are prevalent across the rest of Government. I have not given any consideration to the question of restitution, but I shall certainly do so in the light of the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Will the Chief Secretary confirm that his review will include all parts of the public sector, including, for example, the BBC, in which daily rates are quite prevalent?

[Danny Alexander]

The review that I have put in place covers all central Government Departments and their non-departmental public bodies. I will have to get back to the hon. Gentleman on whether that includes the BBC, but I can see the point he is making.

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

What message does the Chief Secretary think this arrangement sends to ordinary taxpayers in the public sector?

[Danny Alexander]

I do not think it sends a very good message. That is why we have ended the arrangement and why I have put in place a review to ensure that any other such arrangements, put in place by either this Government or our predecessors, is unearthed and that appropriate action is taken.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

Bearing in mind that what has happened is, technically, entirely legal, as my hon. Friends have noted, and that this issue is a matter of what the Government feel is right in policy terms for Departments to do, can my right hon. Friend outline what safeguards, regulations or guidelines from the previous Government he has found in his early investigations that were designed to ensure that such practices do not happen in Departments?

[Danny Alexander]

There are strict guidelines from the Treasury that have been in place for some time, which are set out in the document “Managing Public Money”, the most recent edition of which was published in October 2007. I quoted the relevant section in my answer to the original question from the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown). The important thing is that Departments, and indeed accounting officers, understand that it is their responsibility to ensure that the rules for managing public money are followed in every case, and I regard it as my responsibility as Chief Secretary to ensure that they are.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Clearly two Ministers were involved in the decision—the Minister for Universities and Science and the Chief Secretary—but so far the Chief Secretary has used practically every Murdoch excuse in the book: “I didn’t know the detail,” “Nobody showed me exactly what was going on,” and all the rest of it. Will he publish the precise documents that he and the Minister for Universities and Science signed off, so that the public can make a decision about whose responsibility it is?

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman might not have caught up with this, but a great deal of information has already been released on this issue under the Freedom of Information Act, which is precisely how it has come to my attention and that of others. As I said, my role in such matters is to sign off the salary arrangements and ensure that they are appropriate, given the level of salary in place. As I said at Treasury questions a few days back, in the 83 cases in which I have been involved where a previous post holder has been in place, I have reduced the salary substantially in 45 cases and frozen it in a further 23.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Although my right hon. Friend has already covered this matter to an extent, will he tell me what effective measures he inherited, and if they were inadequate, what action he took to put them right?

[Danny Alexander]

As I have said, the terms and conditions of appointments are negotiated by the appointing Department. I have a responsibility to control the salary levels in these sorts of cases, which I discharged in this case. I was not aware of any particular tax benefit to the individual involved. The arrangements in relation to tax avoidance and tax evasion that we inherited were not robust enough, and that is why we have taken significant steps to tighten them up, to ensure that we get the maximum amount of money from people across society. As several hon. Members have said, that is particularly important, given the difficult economic circumstances in which we find ourselves.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has pointed out, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has repeatedly denied knowledge of this arrangement, yet we know from “Newsnight” that the Minister for Universities and Science, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) signed off the deal. Will the Chief Secretary acknowledge corporate responsibility across Government and, despite all his protestations now, acknowledge that it was signed off by the Government?

[Danny Alexander]

As was revealed on “Newsnight”, and as I have said, a number of Departments were involved in this—the Cabinet Office, and so on. What I am trying to do now, through the review that I have put in place, is to ensure that these arrangements are not repeated in the future, and that any existing arrangements approved by this Government or the previous one are dealt with.

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

Is not the root of this issue based in the complex tax structure that has grown up over the past 15 years or so? What reassurance can the Chief Secretary to the Treasury give the House that such issues will be rooted out during the tax simplification review?

[Danny Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is precisely the complexity of the tax system that creates some of the opportunities of which many people take advantage. That is why we have created the Office of Tax Simplification, which continually makes recommendations for ways in which we could simplify the tax system and tackle some of the avoidance schemes. The very complicated tax arrangements that we inherited are gradually being changed by this process, which is in the best interests of the country.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury be the first Minister to accept responsibility for the conduct of the coalition in creating an “ineptocracy” of greed?

[Danny Alexander]

I am not quite sure how that relates to the question on the Order Paper today. I do not accept that description of what the coalition is doing. We are cleaning up the terrible economic mess that we inherited from Labour, and we are doing so in a way that is fair and that asks those with broader shoulders to bear the greater share of the burden. Frankly, if the hon. Gentleman’s party had not made such a mess, the country would not be in this position.

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

Will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury extend his review to cover the culture of bonus payments that has built up? Is he aware, for example, that the chief executive officer of the Rural Payments Agency is being paid a bonus for the work that he did while presiding over the Child Support Agency? Will my right hon. Friend root out this culture of bonus payments for poor performance, when they are simply not warranted?

[Danny Alexander]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point, although it will not necessarily fall within the scope of the review, which will look at the specific arrangements that we are discussing. However, we have substantially reduced the bonus payments to many individuals and the total amounts available in Departments’ bonus pools. That is the right approach. Of course, we also need to ensure that good performance is properly recognised at all levels in the public sector, and that is what the arrangements that we have in place do.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Which Minister is going to carry the can for this mess?

[Danny Alexander]

Well, I am here answering questions about it, and that is appropriate, given that the question was a general one about tax avoidance, which I am very pleased to answer.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I welcome the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s announcement today, and the robust action that the Government are taking against tax evasion and tax avoidance everywhere. They are certainly doing more than the previous Government did. Will he extend his review to cover the extraordinary salaries paid by NHS trusts up and down the country?

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for welcoming the tough action that we have taken in this case. I have contacted the Secretary of State for Health and the accounting officer in the Department of Health to ask whether any such arrangements apply in the areas for which they are responsible.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I welcome the review that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has announced, but why did it not occur to him to launch such a review when he was asked to sign off this deal? Secondly, he said that he was not aware of the tax benefits to the individual involved, yet a BIS spokesman said last night:

“Details of the arrangement were transparent throughout”.

The right hon. Gentleman will presumably have received a submission from officials. Will he put that submission in the Library? At what point did the Minister for Universities and Science know about the tax benefits to the individual? Will all the submissions that the right hon. Gentleman received be put in the Library as well?

[Danny Alexander]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for generously welcoming the steps that we have taken to deal with this issue. As I said in my statement, and in answer to several questions, I was not made aware of any tax benefit to any individual in this case. There is a great deal of information in the public domain that has been released under freedom of information, and I would urge him to study it.

[Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)]

So, is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury actually telling the House that the information passed to him when clearing the arrangement did not include details relating to the unusual aspects of the case, and that they were withheld by the Minister for Universities and Science?

[Danny Alexander]

No, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that the arrangements were put in place by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Terms and conditions of employment are a matter for individual Departments. My role is to sign off the salary level for appointments paying over £142,500. As I have said in answer to several questions, in this case we reduced the salary and the expenses payments. I think that that was an appropriate response to the information that I was provided with.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Who signed off the tax avoidance measures in this deal?

[Danny Alexander]

I think the hon. Gentleman should be careful about how he characterises these arrangements, given that they are currently subject to a review.

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

On a day when another 100 of my constituents have lost their jobs because of the failed economic policy of this Government, how does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury think those people will feel about the Government allowing tax dodges, and allowing Ministers to take no responsibility for their actions? When are the Government going to come clean?

[Danny Alexander]

I suspect that they will feel, as I do, that urgent action needs to be taken. We have changed the arrangements in this case, and the review will root out whether any other such arrangements were put in place either under this Government or when the hon. Gentleman’s party was in office. He should wait carefully for the results of the review.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has still not answered the question, so I shall put it to him again. Which Minister or Ministers signed off this tax avoidance scheme, and on what date?

[Danny Alexander]

I have made clear the answer to that question throughout my statement. I am responsible for signing off the salary level for appointments over £142,500, and I discharged that responsibility in this case.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Yesterday’s Financial Times reported: “Treasury beset by exodus of top staff”. Officials have also reported that the Treasury’s staff turnover rate is now “higher than McDonald’s”. Can the Chief Secretary to the Treasury ensure that there will be sufficient firepower at the Treasury to thoroughly scrutinise tax avoidance across Government, and did the Minister for Universities and Science, the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) agree to this arrangement?

[Danny Alexander]

It is precisely for the reason that the hon. Gentleman suggests that, in the spending review, we announced an additional £900 million for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enable it to focus attention specifically on tax avoidance and tax evasion. I very much hope that he welcomes that decision.

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

Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury regret not having asked more questions when he was asked to sign off this deal?

[Danny Alexander]

As I have said, I signed off the salary level for the appointment. I reduced it significantly, and reduced the expenses paid under the arrangement. As soon as the fact that there was a potential tax benefit to an individual was given to me, in the last few days, I took the action described, including writing round to Cabinet colleagues on Tuesday.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Given that this is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s third and last chance, will he now tell us which Minister or Ministers signed off the tax arrangements on this deal?

[Danny Alexander]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman what I have said already. I signed off the salary level in this case. The terms and conditions of the appointment were put forward by the Student Loans Company in the Department for Business, and came to me for approval in the usual way, given the salary level that was being proposed.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Opposition Front-Bench team and the 34 right hon. and hon. Members who were able to question the Chief Secretary. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) is thirsting to raise a point of order, but I am afraid he will have to wait until after business questions.

Business of the House

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

12:10

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for next week?

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

The business commencing 6 February will be:

Monday 6 February—Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill.

Tuesday 7 February—Opposition day (un-allotted day) (half day). There will be a debate on responsibility and reform for British banks. This debate will arise on an Opposition motion. It will be followed by a motion relating to metal theft. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.



Wednesday 8 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.

Thursday 9 February—General debate on Somalia.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 February will include:

Monday 20 February—A debate on Iran. The subject of this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. I commended him last week for announcing three days of actual Government business. Clearly exhausted after their exertions, next week the Government are to manage only a paltry one day of legislative business.

A few weeks ago, when I asked the Leader of the House for the date of the Queen’s Speech, he promised it “in due course”. On Sunday, The Independent on Sunday announced that the Queen’s Speech was delayed because the Government needed “more time” to secure their legislation. Given the Government’s incompetent handling of the legislative programme, if we have to wait for them to get their act together, we will not have a Queen’s Speech this year at all. Government business managers might find a deadline helpful, so will the Leader of the House finally tell us the date of the Queen’s Speech?

May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that one way to end the legislative logjam and enable the Government to get around to having a Queen’s Speech this year would be to drop the Health and Social Care Bill? This week, the British Medical Journal, the Health Service Journal and Nursing Times called for the Bill to be dropped because the NHS was

“far too important to be left at the mercy of ideological and incompetent intervention”.

The Prime Minister has told Ministers that he wants “less and better legislation”, yet last night the Government put down another 136 amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill—adding to the 1,800 already tabled. Does the Prime Minister actually know what is going on with his own Health and Social Care Bill? Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the NHS to give the Prime Minister the opportunity to inform himself on what the Government are doing and to give the Health Secretary the opportunity to come to this House to announce that he has finally seen reason and will drop this disastrous Bill?

I note that the Prime Minister did not tell his Ministers that he wanted fairer legislation. Yesterday, the Government voted to cut support for disabled children; they voted to cut support for people recovering from cancer; and they voted for a crude cap that even the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government says will increase homelessness. Can the Leader of the House find time—again, he has plenty of it—for a debate on fairness? That would give Ministers the opportunity to explain why, when they are cutting support for those who have the least, all we have had from the Prime Minister about the excessive rewards for those who have the most is pointless press releases.

The Chancellor, who has not been seen at the Dispatch Box since mid-December, is fond of saying, “We’re all in this together.” Will the Leader of the House explain, then, how this Government can triple student fees, leading to an almost 10% drop in university applicants, at the same time as they sign off a tax dodge for the chief executive of the Student Loans Company, which saves him tens of thousands of pounds a year? Will the Leader of the House explain, since the Chief Secretary to the Treasury did not, how that can be fair? While he is at it, will he explain which Minister was aware of this issue and went ahead and approved it?

Will the Leader of the House explain how it is fair that the Government did nothing to stop the chief executive of RBS taking a £1 million bonus and why it took the threat of an Opposition motion to put a stop to it? What have the Government been doing? If the Leader of the House could find time for a debate on fairness, perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could lead it. There has been no sign of him explaining in public why the Liberal Democrats did nothing to stop bankers awarding themselves multi-million pound bonuses, yet voted to cut support for those who have the least.

The Deputy Prime Minister did pop into the Chamber for the European statement earlier this week—at least he turned up for some of that one, although he was too busy sulking to turn up in December. On that occasion, the Prime Minister told this House there would be absolutely “no way” other European Governments would be allowed to use EU institutions to enforce a fiscal compact. He said “no way”, as he had vetoed it. This week, the Prime Minister slunk back to announce that EU institutions would be allowed to enforce it after all, but it was all right because he was going to be watching them “like a hawk”. Who is he kidding? The only thing the Prime Minister watches “like a hawk” is the news cycle. We have a veto that has been un-vetoed to a treaty that is not a treaty—it is like the mad hatter’s tea party.

[Sir George Young]

Three of this week’s four days have been on Government business, on Monday we have the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill, and on Wednesday we will deal with the local government and police grant orders, without which no local authority will get its funding next year. I hope the hon. Lady agrees that that is important legislation. There is an Opposition debate on Tuesday—I hope she is not going to describe that as “thumb-twiddling”, as she said last week. Next Thursday we have an important debate on Somalia, which some Opposition Back Benchers have asked for. I hope she will not be so dismissive about the House of Commons programme.

As for the Queen’s Speech, the date will be announced in due course in the usual way—a response with which the hon. Lady may be becoming familiar. There is legislation still to get on to the statute book. On the one hand, she wonders why things are taking so long, but on the other hand I am constantly being asked for more time for debates. At some point, the shadow Leader of the House will have to work out whether the Government are pushing their programme through the House of Commons too fast or whether they are taking a leisurely time about it.

We have no plans to drop the Health and Social Care Bill. The principles of clinical-based commissioning, of patient choice and of any qualified provider as well as the linking of health and social care are important reforms. There will be an opportunity for further debate when the House returns.

We discussed the issue of fairness at some length yesterday. We are convinced that work must always pay more than benefits, which is at the heart of our welfare reform. We owe it to people who work hard, do the right thing and pay their taxes to make sure that there are some limits on welfare. Some families in Westminster receive £2,000 a week in housing benefit; I think that position is wholly unsustainable.

So far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is concerned, I have announced a Second Reading on Monday of the Financial Services Bill; the hon. Lady may find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in the House for that. On student loans, we have just sat through 40 minutes of an urgent question, and I have nothing to add to what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said.

As to bankers’ bonuses, the hon. Lady keeps on asking who signed off the contract with Mr Lester, but we know who signed off the contract for the bonus for Mr Hester at the Royal Bank of Scotland. There is no doubt that the Labour Government signed off that contract, which entitled him to the bonus. Since then, we have taken steps, which Labour never took, to cap bankers’ bonuses in cash. Last week, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills announced new reforms to empower shareholders to control future pay.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the EU treaty. Perhaps at some point we could have an answer to the question of whether or not the Leader of the Opposition would have signed the proposed treaty.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

We shall never know the true circumstances behind the murder of Avtar and Carole Kolar by, allegedly, the Lithuanian career criminal Rimvydas Liorancas, but we do know that he entered the United Kingdom without a passport. May we have an urgent debate on the sharing of criminal records data with law enforcement agencies throughout the European economic area, which would prevent such tragedies from ever happening again?

[Sir George Young]

I am sure that the House has sympathy for my hon. Friend’s constituents who were murdered. As for the Lithuanian, who I think has taken his own life, I understand that police inquiries are continuing, so it is difficult for me to comment specifically on the case. I will, however, raise the general issue of the sharing of information about criminals with the Home Secretary, and will ask her to write to my hon. Friend giving the details and specifying the concordats that have been entered into ensuring that relevant information is shared between countries.

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

Obviously I do not want to sound dismissive, but despite the ample amount of time that has been available in the Chamber recently, the Government have chosen not to allocate it to Back Benchers, choosing instead to allocate it to general debates both today and next Thursday on subjects that they have chosen themselves. Meanwhile, Back Benchers have suggested to our Backbench Business Committee almost 20 debates on important matters such as assisted dying, the future of social care and the state of mental health services. I know that the Leader of the House is aware—because he himself has written to me about it—that there are three outstanding e-petitions which have secured 100,000 signatures. He has asked me to consider them for debate without giving me any time for them to be debated. Will he please stop bed blocking Back-Bench time, so that we can meet our basic commitments to Back Benchers and to e-petitioners?

[Sir George Young]

I commend what the hon. Lady said at the beginning of the Back-Bench debate on the European Council a week ago, when she made clear that responsibility for finding time for pre-European Council debates fell within the remit of her Committee, but of course the Government will do what they can to ensure that dates are available for such debates. She will have seen the recommendation in the Procedure Committee’s report that on Monday afternoons Westminster Hall should be used specifically for debates on e-petitions, with which I have some sympathy. The Government will respond in due course, and that will provide a partial solution to the issue that she has raised.

I am aware of the pressure on the hon. Lady’s Committee, and we will try to accommodate her with some extra time between now and the end of the Session. We are committed to providing 35 days in a Session; so far we have provided at least 49, and we hope to provide more. A number of days were provided before the Committee was set up, which were used for general debates. I sympathise with the hon. Lady over the problem that confronts her, and I will do what I can to help.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The wife of my constituent Mr Gordon Roberts has been placed in a home against the wishes of Mr Roberts. Sadly she suffers from dementia. May we have an urgent debate to consider the criteria according to which patients can be placed in homes against the wishes of their next of kin?

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry to hear about what has happened to my hon. Friend’s constituent. He will know that, under social care legislation, relatives of an individual such as his constituent have a right to be consulted before any package is put in place, and that that entitlement is accompanied by certain other rights. I will raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health to see whether any intervention is possible, but in this particular case much will depend on the role of the local authority, and on who was responsible for making the final decision to place the wife of my hon. Friend’s constituent in a home.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

A debate on the future of the Freedom of Information Act would allow us to test the use of private e-mails by Ministers. I fear that my constituents are losing out because Sandwell council may not have been able to test the validity of the decision to cut the Building Schools for the Future programme from £120 million to zero. However, there is a way of getting round that, which is for the Secretary of State for Education to publish all the private e-mails relating to Building Schools for the Future that he has exchanged with his special adviser Dominic Cummings and the civil servant Ms Narozanski.

[Sir George Young]

The freedom of information legislation is on the statute book. I advise the hon. Gentleman to take the action that is available to him through the process of appeal against decisions if he is unhappy with some of those decisions, and has not obtained information that he wants.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Every day about 75 people in Yorkshire and the Humber are diagnosed with cancer, but at the same time great work is being done in our area in the form of medical research and work on improving training techniques for surgery. I have seen that work being done at the Leeds cancer research centre, which is a partnership between the NHS, the voluntary sector and Leeds university. May we please have a debate on medical research and all that the Government are doing to support it?

[Sir George Young]

I should welcome such a debate. Within the budget of the Department of Health, research is a priority. As for the specific issue of cancer, we have created a £200 million a year cancer drugs fund to help cancer patients gain more access to the life-extending drugs that they need, which has financed more than 10,000 treatments. I know that my hon. Friend will welcome that.

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

Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on dignity at work in Parliament? Last night I was disturbed to learn that the guest beer in the Strangers Bar is called Top Totty, and that there is a picture of a nearly naked woman on the tap. As well as arranging a debate, will the Leader of the House join me in asking for that beer to be withdrawn from the bar immediately?

[Sir George Young]

I was not aware of that particular picture in the bar. I will raise the matter with the appropriate Officer of the House through the House of Commons Commission, and I am sure that appropriate action will be taken. I should very much regret it if any offensive pictures were on display in any part of the House.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

May we have an urgent debate on Sudan? Will the Leader of the House join me in calling on the Governments of North and South Sudan successfully to conclude the talks in Addis Ababa today on the outstanding issues of the border, the sharing of oil transit costs, and the stopping of the funding by the north of militia in the south?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the important issues that confront those who live in Sudan. I cannot promise an early debate, but he might like to apply to you, Mr Speaker, for an Adjournment debate, or apply for a debate in Westminster Hall, so that those important issues can be ventilated.

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

May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 2681?

[That this House notes that Network Rail has been found by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) to be in breach of its licence and that, according to the ORR, ‘major asset failures, congested routes and poor management of track condition' contributed to poor performance of the UK rail network in 2011; welcomes the statement by the Secretary of State for Transport reported in The Daily Telegraph on 19 December 2011, that ‘Passengers would be extremely surprised if Network Rail attempted to award bonuses next year in the light of this action by the ORR'; further notes that Network Rail members, at their meeting on 10 February, are to be asked to confirm annual bonuses for directors equivalent to 60 per cent. of their annual salary, resulting in a 340,000 bonus for its chief executive; and calls on the company's directors to reject these bonuses.]

The motion urges Network Rail directors to reject their six-figure annual bonuses this year on the basis that they do not deserve them. Will the Leader of the House invite the Secretary of State for Transport to come to the House and confirm that she stands by what she said last year, namely that

“Passengers would be extremely surprised if Network Rail attempted to award bonuses next year”?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman’s question is very timely, because later today there will be a debate on Network Rail in Westminster Hall. It would be entirely appropriate for him to stay in the Palace of Westminster a little longer so that he can raise those issues again this afternoon, when he will receive a full reply from the relevant Minister.

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

Members may be aware that Nantwich, in my constituency, plays host to the world’s largest cheese fair, which showcases outstanding local produce including the unbeatable Cheshire cheese. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on promoting local British produce, so that we can discuss how to stretch the consumer audience as far and as wide as possible?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend may have sparked a bidding war to establish which Member of Parliament has the finest cheese in his or her constituency. [Interruption.] I can hear that the bidding war has already begun. I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. I cannot find time for an early debate, but he has drawn attention to the wide range of cheeses that are available in this country and available for export, and I commend what he has done to promote that fine product.

[Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Two weeks ago I took the opportunity to alert the House to the plight of Darlington football club. I know that the House will be pleased to learn that the club is still alive, thanks entirely to the efforts of the fans and a very sympathetic administrator, Harvey Madden. When I alerted the House two weeks ago, the Leader of the House very kindly, and somewhat to my surprise, said that he would look into how the Government might be able to help, and would speak to colleagues. Will he let us know how he has got on?

[Sir George Young]

I commend the hon. Lady’s work on protecting the interests of her football club. Following our exchange a fortnight ago, I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, and I will find out what action he took as a result of my representations.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Following an announcement made some 18 months ago, 170 of my constituents are to be made redundant later this year as a consequence of the decision to transfer the functions of the General Social Care Council, based in Rugby, to the Health Professions Council, based in London. Given that office accommodation costs and the cost of employing people are lower in the regions than in the capital, may we have a debate about the Government’s strategy for the location of Departments and regulatory bodies?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend raises a serious issue, and I was sorry to hear about the loss of jobs in his constituency. Of course I will raise the matter with the appropriate Minister. As my hon. Friend will know, the Government have had to take some difficult decisions on public sector manpower that involve some rationalisation, but I will certainly see that his point about the relative costs in the regions are taken on board as we come to make these difficult decisions.

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

May I press the Leader of the House on the absolute bombshell for British manufacturing industry that we may not get the Eurofighter contract with India? Is it not about time that the House showed our constituents that we care about the manufacturing sector by having an urgent debate on the subject? Will he use his good offices to send Lord Bhattacharyya to India to try to sort this out for us?

[Sir George Young]

There was an exchange on the subject during Business, Innovation and Skills questions; I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was here.

[Mr Sheerman]

I was.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills say that we are disappointed that at this stage we are No. 2, rather than No. 1, but that there remain opportunities to try to secure the contract. We believe that the Eurofighter Typhoon offered the most comprehensive offer on technology transfer, industrial participation, and security of supply.

I now have in front of me a letter dated 26 January to the hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), setting out the action that is being taken as a result of the representations she made two weeks ago.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, that is helpful up to a point, but it is a bit of a tease from the Leader of the House. It is like saying, “I know a good joke, but I won’t tell it to you.” The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) is probably itching to learn the contents of said letter.

[Sir George Young]

It is a letter to the hon. Member for Darlington, dated 26 January, that I hope is in her hands.

[Mrs Chapman]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

We are all better informed. It is not clear whether the hon. Lady has yet received or read the letter; it seems as though she is not in receipt of it and has not read it, but there we go.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

There are two great mysteries in my constituency. First, do we have a giant cat with yellow eyes in Woodchester? Secondly, why are Gloucestershire’s schools suffering so badly under section 251 in the allocation of administrative grants and moving on to become academies? I would like a debate on the cat and school funding, but particularly on school funding, because the subject is important, and we need to encourage the academy programme.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think that I am right in saying that he has raised the issue with me before. There is a problem in his county about the way in which the so-called LACSEG—local authority central spend equivalent grant—formula works. His academies get the same per-pupil funding as local education authority schools, but the funds that the local authority used to dispense are dispensed to the academies in a formula that has disadvantaged his county. He will be pleased to know that there is a review to see whether we can move to a fairer system of funding. I hope that his county will find that that is an answer to the problem that he raises.

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

I have just come from a meeting with News International in Wapping in my constituency, during which I took the opportunity to congratulate it on today’s issue of The Times, which launches a campaign for safer cycling. Given the Leader of the House’s personal interest in the subject, will he advise me on whether there will be a statement from the Department for Transport, or a debate on cycling safety and the campaign, in the near future?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the subject, and to The Times both for the front-page spread and the profile it is giving to making cycling safer, not just in London but everywhere. Along with many other Members, I bicycled into the House today. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), takes cycling seriously. I would welcome a debate in which we could set out some of the steps that we have taken to promote cycling. I went on a trip with the all-party cycling group to Holland, where the lesson was that there is safety in numbers. When there are more cyclists, the terms of trade with the motorist begin to change, and cycling becomes safer. I welcome some of the steps that have been taken to promote cycling, as that will in turn change the terms of trade and make it a safer mode of transport.

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

May we have a debate on how we can expand the fantastic network of university technical colleges across our country? Early results are impressive; they represent real poverty-busting, enterprise-enhancing change in our country. I have one in my constituency, but I would like all colleagues to have one for the benefit of all our constituents.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that he has in his constituency a UTC that was approved in October last year by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education. We are committed to putting in place at least 24 of them across the country over this Parliament. Two have already opened and 17 are on the way. We will make announcements in the summer about where the UTCs will be based. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the support he has given, and for raising the profile of UTCs, which have an important part to play in higher education.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I was surprised to read a story in yesterday’s Financial Times, quoting liberally the Minister with responsibility for defence procurement, on a new Government policy of procuring defence equipment from overseas companies as well as British companies. I was particularly surprised when I turned up at the House to find that no oral statement to the House was planned, and that the statement being released was only a paper one. Either this is another instance of unilateral action by a Minister, in which case I hope the Leader of the House will take the issue up on behalf of the whole House, or the Government are changing the rules of engagement, and have decided to allow Ministers to announce major policy in the newspapers before they tell the House, in which case may we have a debate on the matter?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concern. I think it was entirely appropriate for the information to be placed before the House in a written ministerial statement. There are plenty of precedents for such important announcements being made in a WMS. If she looks at the business before the House yesterday, she will see that it was a serious debate on welfare reform. I am not sure that the House would have welcomed the Government injecting an oral statement, and so taking away from the House some of the time for debate.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

In his autumn statement, the Chancellor announced £30 billion-worth of capital projects as part of the rebooting of the economy. A recent Institute for Public Policy Research report stated that 84% of the projects are in London and the south-east—a spend of £2,700 per head in London, £134 a head in the north-west, and £5 a head in the north-east. May we have a debate or discussion on how we can get capital spending better aligned in the regions?

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. We developed the regional growth fund precisely to help regions such as those that he mentioned, and to move the centre of gravity, so far as one can, away from London and the south-east. He will know that we have introduced enterprise zones to encourage business investment in the north-east and north-west, which benefit from allowances not available elsewhere. There are also allowances available to new companies that locate outside London and the south-east, so we are doing what we can to promote a sensible regional policy to help regions such as that represented by my hon. Friend.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

At a meeting of the Select Committee on Education earlier this week, the Secretary of State three times refused to answer my question about whether personal e-mails have been used to avoid scrutiny of information that should be available under the Freedom of Information Act. He was unable to clarify whether any steps were being taken to prevent deletion of e-mails that contained important information that should be in the public domain. Given how potentially serious that is, will the Leader of the House ensure that time is allowed for Members to seek definitive answers to these important and incredibly urgent questions?

[Sir George Young]

If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education was unable to give an answer when asked the question three times, I hope that the hon. Lady will understand if I do not give an answer now, but I will raise the matter with my right hon. Friend to see whether he can add to what he said to the Education Committee. I shall also put to him the specific question that the hon. Lady asks about the deletion of e-mails, and ask him to write to her.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Warton in my constituency is proud to be the home of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the thousands of jobs associated with it. Will the Leader of the House give us some time to debate the Indian order, some of the decisions behind it, and what more the Government can do, even at this late stage, to secure that order for the UK?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern of my hon. Friend’s constituents at the Indian Government’s decision to back the Rafale rather than the Eurofighter Typhoon. During an exchange at BIS questions, the Secretary of State outlined the action still open to this Government and this country to try to secure the order. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but my hon. Friend might like to apply to you, Mr Speaker, for an Adjournment debate or a debate in Westminster Hall.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

International women’s day will be celebrated worldwide on 8 March. The theme this year is connecting girls, inspiring futures, which is timely at a time of such austerity. It would be a travesty if there were not a debate in this House, the mother of all Parliaments, on 8 March. Will the Leader of the House help to ensure that a debate takes place, in the main Chamber, on international women’s day?

[Sir George Young]

Last year, there was a debate, rightly, on international women’s day in the Chamber. As she will know, responsibility for finding time for international women’s day is specifically mentioned in, I think, paragraph 145 of the Wright Committee report. I will seek to make available to the Backbench Business Committee a day on or around that specific day, so it has the opportunity to fulfil the hon. Lady’s request.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

HealthEast is the GP-led commissioning pathfinder group that covers Great Yarmouth and, indeed, Waveney. May we have a statement on the progress of GP commissioning pathfinder groups across the country, given that, like HealthEast, many are enthusiastic about the programme and want to get on with the work, in order that local decisions can be made by local medical experts, rather than by central diktat in the NHS?

[Sir George Young]

There will be an opportunity to consider this issue when the Health and Social Care Bill returns, but my hon. Friend makes a good point: many GPs step forward to act as volunteers for the clinical commissioning groups. It seems there is a broader appetite in the country for these reforms than the impression sometimes given by the leaders of such bodies. My hon. Friend will have seen that the heads of more than 50 new doctors groups have argued that the BMA’s policy of blanket opposition fails to represent their views. I am grateful to him for making that point.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Does the Leader of the House agree that Select Committees, particularly the long-standing Public Accounts Committee, are crucial to our parliamentary system? If so, was he as concerned and alarmed as I was to see the article by Sue Cameron in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph stating that the outgoing head of the civil service, Sir Gus O’Donnell, who staggered out the door under the weight of his pay-off and his pension, had written to the Chairman of the PAC complaining about the robust questioning of senior civil servants? Is that not an outrageous challenge to the rights of Parliament, and may we have a debate in which we can remind these arrogant mandarins that they are supposed to be civil servants, not uncivil autocrats?

[Sir George Young]

It so happens that I have read Sue Cameron’s article in The Daily Telegraph, concerning the alleged letter written by Sir Gus O’Donnell to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. [Hon. Members: “Alleged?”] I have not seen the letter. The right hon. Gentleman raises a serious point, and of course the PAC is one of the most important Select Committees in the House. As I understand it, it will be up to the PAC to decide how it wants to respond to that letter, and it may want to make a report to the House, to which the Government would respond. That is the appropriate way to take the issue forward.

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

The UK Government have prioritised health reform and committed to increasing spending, while devolving decision making to clinicians at local level and making it more accountable. Sadly, my constituents do not benefit from such changes. May we have a general debate on health care, so we can compare and contrast the different forms of health care provision within the UK and expose the fact that Labour is the only party in government in the UK that is cutting the health service?

[Sir George Young]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend’s constituents do not benefit from some of the reforms that will be the subject for debate when the Health and Social Care Bill comes back. He rightly points out that the Department of Health is allocating an extra £12 billion over the spending review period for investment in the NHS—spending the NHS would not have got, had the Opposition been returned to government.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Some weeks ago, the Leader of the House promised me in this Chamber that we would have adequate time to consider the Welfare Reform Bill on receipt of the Lords amendments. Given the very short time we had yesterday, we could not divide on the programme motion, as we wanted to protect precious time for debate. The Minister of State hogged the Dispatch Box for some 45 minutes during consideration of the third group of amendments. One of the amendments that was then accepted, because it could not be put to a Division, hollowed out the Child Poverty Act 2010, which was supported by all parties in this House in the last Parliament. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the House can reconsider the matter, so that we do not end up telling the public that we inadvertently deleted a key field in that important Act, which was passed in the last Parliament?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern. The question whether any further debate is held on the Bill depends on another place, to which it has now been returned, amended. I did announce last Thursday one day’s debate on the Welfare Reform Bill. No official representations were made against what I had planned, and there was no Division yesterday on the programme motion. There were three separate debates yesterday, every single Lords amendment was considered, and we had already had some two days on Report, so it was not as if the House was addressing these issues for the first time. My view is that, in the context of Commons’ consideration of Lords amendments of other Bills, a one day debate was adequate, and that its structure enabled debates to take place on all the important Lords amendments.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). If the House had divided on the programme motion, I would have voted against it—the House’s view on it should have been tested. However, I am afraid that the official Opposition did not seek to divide the House, so the Leader of the House cannot be blamed. That said, I hope he will consider such issues in future, because that is what was wrong with the previous Government: they did not give enough time for proper consideration of Bills. Although I support the welfare reform legislation, we should have had more time to discuss it.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend has consistently argued for more time for debate. I am not sure whether he was in the House for last Thursday’s business questions, when I announced the provision of a one-day debate. That would have been his opportunity to make the point he has just made, which is sadly one day too late.

[Mr Speaker]

Or even a week. I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting is due to take place in Sri Lanka in December of next year. Given that President Rajapaksa is turning that country into a kleptocracy, that term limits on the presidency have been abolished—turning that country, potentially, into a dictatorship—and that there has been no adequate response to the UN Secretary-General’s commissioner for human rights, does the Head of our Government believe that it is still appropriate to hold the CHOGM there, and will the Queen attend?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman asks some good questions, and it sounds as if we have some time to reflect. If the CHOGM is taking place in December next year, we have adequate time, but I will certainly convey his concern to the Foreign Secretary. I expect that the decision on the location of this conference is one not for the UK Government but for the Commonwealth as a whole. However, as I said, I will pass on his concerns to the Foreign Secretary and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.

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

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the recent leaked NATO report suggesting that the Taliban insurgency will not be beaten and that the Taliban have widespread support among local residents, despite NATO’s public claims to the contrary on both counts. Given the report’s credibility, is this not the right occasion for the Government to make a statement?

[Sir George Young]

The Government do not normally comment on leaked reports, but my hon. Friend will know that the Government make regular quarterly statements on Afghanistan. I anticipate that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will make such a statement to the House very shortly, when my hon. Friend will have an opportunity to put to him the questions about this report.

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

The Leader of the House will be aware that the Government failed to convince the majority of Members in the other place of many aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill. Against that background, will he use his good offices to clarify reports that the Government intend to appoint to the other place a number of peers equivalent to the number of elected MPs in this place?

[Sir George Young]

That sounds an ambitious target. The question of the appointment of peers to another place is way above my pay grade, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should not believe absolutely everything he reads in the press.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Caring is a noble vocation but there are too few opportunities for training. May we have a debate on the establishment of carers’ academies, such as the one proposed in South Staffordshire at Rodbaston, to be run between the college there and South Staffordshire housing association?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We want to raise the qualifications of those who are caring and he might have seen a number of recent instances of bad quality care and untrained practitioners. I would welcome the initiative he has just mentioned. I will mention it to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health—and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if it is an academy—and see whether we can make progress down that path.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

This year the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency received more than 1 million requests just from car park operators for individuals’ vehicle registration information. Invariably, penalty notices followed. May we have a debate to review the measures the Government can take to protect motorists so that they are not fleeced by car park operators aiming to boost income through hefty fines?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point because later this year it will be illegal to clamp on private property, so the emphasis might move on to the collection of fines for parking on such property. I will raise the matter with the Secretary of State for Transport and see whether any additional measures are necessary to protect innocent motorists from being harassed by such companies.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On 16 January, in Education oral questions, the Secretary of State was unable to reassure the House that he or his special advisors had not

“deliberately destroyed or deleted e-mails relating to Government business that he has sent or received through private e-mail accounts”. —[Official Report, 16 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 467.]

May we have a debate on that issue, which other hon. Members have raised and which is beginning to have the whiff of a cover-up about it?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who raises a similar issue to that raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). I have already undertaken to raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman is copied in to the letter that will be on its way.

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

When will we get the Secretary of State for Education’s promised statement on the capital programme for schools? In the past, Ministers have made promises to visit schools in Coventry but they have not materialised. We have schools that are falling down and badly need a rebuild. The midlands in general badly needs those capital programmes, which could revamp the west midlands economy. When are the Government going to do something about it and when will we get that statement?

[Sir George Young]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, when we came into government we sought better value from the capital programme for schools and we brought to a halt a rather extravagant programme that we had inherited and introduced one that gives much better value for money. I shall raise the concerns with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and ask him either to visit Coventry or to write to the hon. Gentleman to set out our programme for investment in that city.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

May we have a debate on what safeguards there are to protect people studying for qualifications when their privately run providers go into liquidation? I met a constituent on Friday who had paid a substantial sum to obtain a plumbing and gas qualification from BTSC Europe—Building Trade Skills Centres Europe—which had styled itself as the largest such provider in Europe and even had the Prime Minister come and open its premises in Trafford park. My constituent has been left high and dry with no qualification and with debt now that that company has gone into liquidation. It seems another example of people who work hard and play by the rules being the ones who are punished when we as a state should protect them.

[Sir George Young]

It sounds as though the hon. Gentleman could have raised that issue in BIS questions, when the Minister for consumer affairs and others were in the Chamber. I am sorry to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. I shall raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and see whether there is any action that we can take to get redress.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

May I associate myself entirely with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee on the question of time? It is becoming rather difficult to manage the business proposed to us by hon. Members. At the Select Committee on Education on Tuesday, the Secretary of State asserted that he had received what seemed to be conflicting advice from officials about the use of private e-mail accounts for official business. He also told us that he chose to follow the advice that he had received from the Cabinet Office. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the publication of the advice the Secretary of State received from the Cabinet Office and have it placed in the Library? Will he also arrange for a statement to clarify what advice is given to Ministers on such issues?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will know that advice from civil servants to Ministers is not normally published, but he raises an issue that has been raised by some of his hon. Friends. I have got the message: they want some response from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I shall do what I can to secure that.

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

We already know that the Ministry of Defence will no longer support British industry and jobs. This week, Merseyside police authority decided to purchase a fleet of cars with no manufacturing base in the UK. May we have a debate on whether the Government and public services overall need to do a lot more to support British industry and jobs?

[Sir George Young]

There will be a debate on the police grant next Wednesday. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is not the Government but the police authority that purchases police cars in his constituency. He will have an opportunity to raise the issue on Wednesday and I shall ensure that the Minister replying to the debate knows that the matter will be raised by the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I do not know whether you, Mr Speaker, or the Leader of the House have read the article in today’s The Guardian by Professor Roy Greenslade on the continuing refusal of the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, to give the names of the 15,000 victims of data mining and illegal data trawling carried out for newspapers by Mr Steve Whittamore. I raised this absolutely astonishing question last week. May we have a debate on it? Perhaps you are among those people, Mr Speaker, because in those days the media were always ganging up on you. We need a debate on the Information Commissioner’s denial to the British people. He has given those names to the media and the police, but not to the victims. It is outrageous.

[Sir George Young]

I have to repeat what I told the right hon. Gentleman last week: it would be quite wrong for the Government to overrule the Information Commissioner. There is a process of appeal if the right hon. Gentleman is dissatisfied with the commissioner’s decision, and that is the line he should follow rather than asking me about it week after week.

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

The Government’s written ministerial statement, published yesterday by the Ministry of Defence, sets out a worrying path on defence procurement that will be to the detriment of British manufacturing jobs. May we have an urgent debate on that in Government time? Secondly, if time was short yesterday, why could not the Minister come and make the statement today so that we could question him on his policy?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend the Minister made the statement yesterday by means of a written ministerial statement. I have looked at it and I see no evidence to support what the hon. Lady has just said about it being bad news for UK industry. On the contrary, much of what he has proposed will benefit UK industry. For example, purchasing off-the-shelf rather than individually specified equipment is of great advantage to British manufacturers who already have a number of products in that range.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Tragically, it now requires 24 early-day motions to list the names of those brave soldiers who have fallen in Afghanistan as a result of decisions taken in this House. As the aims of the war become increasingly meaningless, may we debate early-day motion 2673 so that we can record our gratitude for the sacrifices of the fallen and avoid our military leaders being faced with the terrible question that John Kerry asked himself at the end of the Vietnam war: “Who will be the last soldier I will order into battle to die for a politician’s mistake?”

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces serving in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Kyle Cleet Marshall, from 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 23 from Newcastle, Private Lewis Hendry, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 20 from Norwich, Private Conrad Lewis, 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 22 from Bournemouth, Warrant Officer Class 2 (Company Sergeant Major) Colin Beckett, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 36 from Peterborough, Ranger David Dalzell, 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment, aged 20 from Bangor in County Down, Private Martin Simon George Bell, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 24 from Bradford, Private Joseva Saqanagonedau Vatubua, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 24 from Suva, Fiji, Warrant Officer Class 2 Charles Henry Wood from 23 Pioneer Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, serving with the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Task Force, aged 34 from Middlesbrough, Corporal Steven Thomas Dunn from 216 (Parachute) Signal Squadron, attached to 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment Battlegroup, aged 27 from Gateshead and Private John Howard, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 23 from Wellington, New Zealand.]

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman has consistently pursued this case in the House and we respect him for that. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), I anticipate that the Foreign Secretary might make his statement on Afghanistan quite shortly. That will be an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to make his case.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I have had many representations from constituents who are very concerned about the large increases in water bills announced in the past week or so, particularly against a background of people having their wages cut, losing their jobs or having only small wage increases. May we have an urgent debate so that we can hear from the Government what representations have been made to the water companies to try to keep down their charges?

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that Ofwat recently announced that water and waste water bills could go up by 0.5% ahead of inflation. That decision is broadly in line with the decision taken back in 2009 and is necessary partly to secure investment in infrastructure and drive up the standards of water in this country. He will also know that the Government are taking action to ensure that tariffs are available to those on low incomes so that they are insulated, to some extent, against the increases.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

On Wednesday 20 July, I received a written answer from the Department for Education on the use of e-mails. It was very clear:

“Never use non-DfE email services…to carry out Departmental business.”—[Official Report, 20 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1017W.]

It then became equally clear that officials were using Hotmail accounts to advise people in relation to academy status. I raised this issue at business questions on 8 September, when the Leader of the House helpfully said I would get a reply from the Secretary of State. In that reply, the Secretary of State made it very clear that this was one rogue official, and I accepted that response, but we have now heard, as recently as the Select Committee on Education’s session this week, that there is still a lack of clarity about how the Secretary of State himself is using private e-mail accounts. May we have a statement by the Secretary of State in the House to clear up this issue?

[Sir George Young]

It seems there is a theme running through some of the questions from Opposition Members. I refer the hon. Gentleman to my answers to the questions asked by his hon. Friends. I have registered the concerns of Opposition Members and I will take this up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education; I will ask him to respond to and address all the relevant issues that have been raised in this question session and to send a copy to all the Members who have raised them.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Government plan to introduce a draft parliamentary privilege Bill soon. May I urge the Leader of the House to delay the publication of that report, unlike all the other recommendations, until the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport has finished its report into phone hacking? I am not on that Committee, but it might well suggest that those who have lied to Parliament, including the police, the Murdochs and others, should appear at the Bar of the House and it would be unfortunate if there were any conflict with what the Bill is going to propose. While I am at it, may I suggest that the Leader of the House should stop continually delaying the end of this Session so that he can get his legislation through? That is what the Stuart kings used to do and it did not do them much good in the end.

[Sir George Young]

I am not sure what Bills they were trying to get on to the statute book but I wonder whether they had the merit of the Bills now before Parliament. On the hon. Gentleman’s first question, we are committed to publishing a draft privilege Bill in this Session, and we plan to do that, but it is a draft Bill and it will be accompanied by a consultation document. If after we have published the draft Bill other documents are available from a Select Committee, of course they can be taken on board before we decide to go ahead with a real Bill, so the conflict he outlines need not arise.

Points of Order

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

13:02

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We look forward to debating the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill, which is being presented by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs today. It will certainly be good finally to have some Government business to discuss. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, whether it is normal when a Bill is introduced outside the legislative programme, as this one has been, for the Opposition to discover its existence through leaks from the other place? Can you further advise whether it is normal for a Secretary of State when approached by her opposite number to state, “I’m not speaking to you; I don’t have to speak to you,” which was the response of the Environment Secretary when I approached her yesterday? I am not sure whether she was feeling a little out of her depth. When I informed her office, at 6.15 pm last night, that I would raise this point of order about the lack of usual courtesies, I received an e-mail from her 20 minutes later finally informing me of the Bill’s presentation in the House now. May I ask you, Mr Speaker, to use your good offices and the usual channels to ensure that the Opposition are kept fully informed of any future urgent business and that the Government do not just drip-feed information to us?

[Mr Speaker]

I will say a number of things to the hon. Lady. First, on the whole it is probably unwise for the Chair to rule on the matter of normality, which the hon. Lady raised early in her point of order. I shall eschew any temptation to say anything about that. Secondly, she has regaled the House with a racy and intoxicating account of the recent sequence of events which apparently perturbs her but about which I do not think any further comment from me is either necessary or helpful.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Of course, I will happily hear the hon. Gentleman. I did not know he was seeking to come in, but he will have his opportunity in a moment.

Thirdly, on the face of it, at this stage, the way in which this matter has been handled is not a matter for the Chair. All I can do, and must do, is ensure that proper notice is given to the House, and it has been. The rest of the matters may continue to be unsatisfactory in the hon. Lady’s mind, but she has given eloquent expression to her dissatisfaction.

[Richard Benyon]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to get on the record that the Secretary of State has written to the Opposition spokesperson, as well as to the Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the devolved Ministers, which I believe is the normal courtesy in these matters. We are very keen to work with both sides of the House to make sure that legislation is taken through in as consensual a way as possible, and we look forward to working with you and Members on both sides to make sure that that happens.

[Mr Speaker]

I am most grateful to the Minister. Two sides of this have been heard, and I think we will leave it there for today.

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In relation to the urgent question, is it in order for Ministers to put up a spokesman who obviously does not know the answers to the questions that Members are putting to him when the Minister who does know the answers is sitting next to him?

[Mr Speaker]

Who the Government put up on a matter of this kind is a matter for them. As to the content of answers, whether they impress the hon. Gentleman or not and what their quality might be, that is very murky territory, certainly for the Speaker, so I shall keep away from it. I do not think the hon. Gentleman really expected an answer to his question; I think he simply wanted to give vent to his views—and that he has done.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will know that previous Speakers have ruled that when a Minister relies on a document for their argument, they are then required to publish it to the House. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury earlier referred to documents that he had signed, so surely he should publish those to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. My understanding of the position on the question of reliance on a document and its consequent publication is that that applies where state papers are concerned, but whether it applies in this particular context I am not at all sure. I do not advance a strong view on the point. I think he is seeking to rev up or simply repeat a point that was made earlier.

[Chris Bryant]

No, this is a new one.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman professes his innocence and says it is a new point, but even if it is, it has been clearly made and has been heard. I shall not rule on it, because I do not think it is, at this stage, a matter for the Chair to rule on, but the Leader of the House will have heard it and I have a pretty strong sense that it will percolate through to the relevant Ministers. If the hon. Gentleman is still dissatisfied, I feel sure, knowing him for the sort of upmarket terrier that he is, that he will raise the matter again at the earliest opportunity. And in case he is going to ask me whether that was a compliment, as he did the other day when I paid him a compliment and I assured him that it was, it was. We will leave it there.

Bill Presented

Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 50)

Mrs Secretary Spelman, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Vince Cable and Richard Benyon, presented a Bill to make provision for the giving of financial assistance for the purpose of securing the reduction of charges for the supply of water and the provision of sewerage services and in connection with the construction of, and the carrying out of works in respect of, water and sewerage infrastructure.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 6 February, and to be printed (Bill 299) with explanatory notes (Bill 299-EN).

Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Seventh Report from the Justice Committee, Session 2010-12, Draft Sentencing Guidelines: Drugs and Burglary, HC 1211; First Report from the Justice Committee, Session 2010-12, Revised Sentencing Guideline: Assault, HC 637; and oral evidence taken before the Justice Committee on 13 December 2011 on the Annual Report of the Sentencing Council, HC 1711-i.]

13:08

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the work of the Sentencing Council and the transparency and consistency of sentencing.

I am glad to have the opportunity to debate this issue today. Public confidence in our criminal justice system rests on the principle that justice is dispensed independently by a judge in possession of the full facts of a case. It is normal to quote Magna Carta: we do not deprive people of their liberty

“without due process of law”

in this country. It is not the case in the United Kingdom, as it still is, unfortunately, in many parts of the world, that the Executive can order the detention and trial of people simply on the basis that they disagree strongly with the Government. Neither is it the case, as it is in some other judicial systems, that trials can be stretched out and rerun, until the “right” judgment is reached. Politicians do not sentence people in individual cases, judges do, and British Governments lose cases when they are parties in civil actions. I shall not go on, because we all know that those are the fundamentals of civil liberties and the rule of law in this country.

Independence is what we employ judges for, but alongside that fundamental truth lies an equally important principle—the discretion to do justice in individual case. Only judges see the full circumstances of each case, and they need the freedom to vary sentences in individual instances in accordance with the gravity of the offence. They have to bear in mind the circumstances of the individual offender and such mitigation as they may be able to offer. Sometimes the offence will be so aggravated that a higher than average sentence is required, as we saw, for example, after the riots in August. On other occasions, there will be significant personal mitigation, or relatively little harm caused to the victim, which means that a lower sentence than average will be justified. Just as we trust that our independent judges are the right people to make sensible decisions about the running of cases, so we generally trust them to apply the framework of criminal law across a range of different kinds of case of varying degrees of seriousness.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

It is very early, but I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Keith Vaz]

On the point about gravity, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will have noted the sentences that were given yesterday to a group of four al-Qaeda inspired fundamentalists, who as the result of a Goodyear hearing will, in effect, be out of prison within six years. Does he consider it important to revisit the whole notion of Goodyear hearings in view of the fact that people who were going to cause mayhem in London have got away with being in prison for only six years?

[Mr Clarke]

I am not yet familiar with the full facts of the case, so I certainly shall not comment. There is also a matter of principle. The custom is growing that Ministers conduct a running commentary on sentences in individual cases as they proceed. I do not think that that is wise. I believe in the separation of powers. The right hon. Gentleman is a senior and respected Member of the House, but my understanding is that those people will be sentenced next week. I will check. When the sentence is actually imposed, we have a system whereby the Attorney-General can put in an appeal on the ground of leniency and ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider it. I will inquire more closely during the course of the debate, as the right hon. Gentleman is obviously concerned.

Public confidence would not be well served if individual judges gave widely varying sentences in similar cases. We have one body of law as determined by Parliament, and the punishment should fit the crime. Parliament imposing the law is the guardian of public opinion. We are answerable to the general public and the maximum tariffs set by the House have to be taken as a guide by judges in all cases.

Different cases should attract different punishments. The question is how to ensure that our independent judiciary can make judgments that fit the facts of the case but are also consistent with each other: how to balance, on the one hand, the imperative of judicial freedom—such that they have the latitude to sentence according to circumstance—with, on the other hand, the need for a consistent approach across the system and in all our courts.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend rightly focuses on public confidence. What assessment has he made of the current state of public confidence in sentencing? Does he have a view about the poll commissioned by Lord Ashcroft and carried out by Populus, which shows that more than 80% of the public, more than 80% of the police and more than 80% of victims think that sentencing is too lenient at the moment?

[Mr Clarke]

That has always been the case, certainly in my lifetime, and I suspect it always will be. I always wonder why that is the consistent public attitude. I shall not launch into criticism of the press, but I think it is because of the way these things are always presented to the public. The newsworthy cases are those where the newspaper decides to give a short version of the case and rouses the indignation of its readers by the apparent leniency of the sentence. Much though I respect opinion polls, particularly those obtained by Lord Ashcroft, the fact is that most citizens never go to a court of law. Most people, if we ask them, do not know what sort of sentences are imposed by the court. If all they read about are individual sensational cases, which a particular editor is trying to present as scandalous because of a lenient sentence, it tends to form public attitudes.

I shall not go further, but when we read a newspaper, we should not believe we are hearing all the facts of the case. The judge has probably heard hours of evidence from both sides, but what we read are two or three snappy lines summarising what is supposed to have happened in the opinion of the journalist.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Let us look at the facts. Perhaps the public are worried about this fact: 48% of burglars do not receive an immediate custodial sentence.

[Mr Clarke]

In a moment, I shall probably make another passing reference to the fact that the Sentencing Council guidelines make it clear that custody is undoubtedly a normal sentence for burglary. In my experience, it always has been, and it still is. There has to be a clear mitigating circumstance for anybody to avoid a custodial circumstance.

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

My right hon. and learned Friend is correct in his assertions about lack of knowledge. It is not the fault of the public; it is the fault of the system that there is lack of knowledge in the public domain. That point is eloquently demonstrated and backed up by the findings of research conducted by Ipsos MORI for the Sentencing Council in May last year.

[Mr Clarke]

There is a very interesting website—I forget what it is called—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

You be the judge.

[Mr Clarke]

I am reminded by my hon. Friend.

The facts of a case are given and the public are invited to give what they think is an appropriate sentence. Then they are told the sentence the judge gave. In fact, members of the public tend to give more lenient sentences than judges impose, because they have been led to believe—I shall not carry on, because it will only lead to reprisals in the morning. Some of our right-wing newspapers, which I started reading when I was a very small boy, have been telling the nation about soft judges letting off criminals for as long as I can remember, and in my opinion that will be the theme of some of our leading popular newspapers in 50 years’ time, if they survive that long. I shall move on.

This is where the Sentencing Council comes in—the independent body established in 2010 and ably led by its chairman, the right hon. Lord Justice Leveson, to whom I am grateful. Its role is precisely to promote a clear, fair and, above all, consistent approach to sentencing, backed up by supporting analysis and research. As hon. Members know, it does that by publishing guidelines—carefully crafted analyses that set out a clear decision-making process for courts and give guidance on aggravating and mitigating factors to help inform the sentence.

The guidelines include examples of the different levels of harm that a crime can cause, both to victims and the community. They set out varying levels of culpability that apply to offenders, such as whether the offence was committed on the spur of the moment or whether it was carefully planned in advance. They suggest common starting points and ranges for courts to use for different levels of offence. Importantly, they are guidelines, not tramlines or a rigid framework. They are flexible, and judges are always free to depart from them in exceptional circumstances. The most valuable quality for any judge in any court is judgment, which is what, in the end, they bring to bear.

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

The point that guidelines should be guidelines was demonstrated after the riots, when in extraordinary circumstances judges used their discretion and gave firm sentences. Guidelines are for ordinary circumstances, but for those extraordinary events judges were spot-on in using their discretion.

[Mr Clarke]

As it happens, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s opinion. Judges rightly reflected the fact that the background was a sudden, alarming outburst of public disorder and that they needed quickly to give firm and severe sentences, in some cases above the average normally imposed for the offence. That was a correct response to public need.

In the two years it has been operating, the Sentencing Council has done much valuable work not only to promote consistency but in its more general role of seeking to improve public confidence in the criminal justice system. However, it has on occasion been criticised for both its general role in developing guidance for the courts and the contents of particular guidelines. The case that I want to make today, before listening to the views of the House, is that the current system is the right one and that these criticisms are largely misdirected. Contrary to what one sometimes reads in the newspapers, sentencing guidelines take a proportionate and sensible approach to the punishment of offenders, and one in which the public should have great confidence.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend, in his normal charming way, has encompassed some of the problems in his overview of the concerns about the faith and trust of taxpayers and constituents in the criminal justice system. He says that he does not want to set a precedent whereby Parliament provides a running commentary on sentencing, and he criticises the media prism in which sentencing is discussed, but surely he concedes the obfuscation of court procedures. When will the average taxpayer get a say on sentencing in this country?

[Mr Clarke]

That is what this debate is for. MPs, and everyone else, are of course perfectly entitled to make whatever comments they wish about the criminal justice system, which, like every part of the public service, is accountable to Parliament, and ultimately it is Parliament that determines the framework of law by which the whole thing is conducted. It seems to have become rather fashionable nowadays for a running commentary to break out about a series of cases, and I think that we should be more sparing. I also think that anyone who comments on this or any other matter should ensure that they have the full facts before going out and giving a considered opinion, rather than just reacting to something they read over their morning coffee.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Will the Lord Chancellor give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will, but then I really must make some progress.

[Nicola Blackwood]

I thank the Lord Chancellor, who is being extremely generous, for giving way. His points about press sensationalism, the separation of powers and not wanting to have a running commentary from politicians are well made. However, I think that the lack of public confidence is not just due to a thirst for punishment beyond reason, because there is also the fact that reoffending rates are high. The point about sentencing is that we want it to be an effective deterrent against reoffending. At the moment, 49% of all prisoners reoffend within a year of release, and for adults released from short-term prison sentences the rate rises to 60%. We have to convince the public that our criminal justice system is effectively deterring prisoners from reoffending, which is not an issue of sensationalism.

[Mr Clarke]

I could not agree more. In fact, in so far as I have brought anything into policy since taking up my current post, it has to put much greater emphasis on reoffending, which is the biggest weakness of our system, but covering the full range of reforms would be outside the scope of the debate. The system punishes first of all, but it would serve the public better if it also led to the reform of more offenders, so that we could get reoffending rates down to a more respectable level. My colleagues and I are trying to address that in everything that we do in the Department of Justice.

It is relevant to the debate to consider what is most effective in deterring reoffending. Some people have held the belief for years, quite understandably, that in order to cut reoffending we must deter people by sending more and more to prison for longer and longer sentences. My personal opinion is that the evidence completely refutes that view. That approach does not work, particularly if it makes prisons overcrowded and unresponsive places where prisoners toughen up and meet some rough friends before being released to fend for themselves in the outside world. We are making more intelligent use of the prison estate so that, in addition to the punishment of confinement, there is a process of reform based on a working environment that tackles drugs, drink, mental illness and all the other things in order to lead people to behave when they are released.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I have now set off a whole lot of other interventions. As I have started this diversion, or been led to it, I will give way again.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I am very interested in what the Secretary of State is saying and agree with his view about the importance of deterrence as well as punishment, but there is a flaw in what he is saying about sending people to prison. When talking to police officers in my constituency a year or so ago, I was told that they took five or six prolific burglars off the streets and put them away for a year or two, which had a massive impact on burglary rates in the area, so it does work. Although they will be released eventually and might reoffend, the fact is that putting people in prison does have an impact in certain circumstances.

[Mr Clarke]

Burglary rates dropped in recent years because we had an economic boom, and I think that there is a serious danger that they will go up again—they are going up at the moment—if we do not get out of our present economic difficulties quickly. Better policing also counts. In my opinion, the police have become much better at targeting suspected offenders and arresting the people causing most of the crime. Of course prison is the right place for serious offenders, so the sentences that the hon. Gentleman describes sound quite light to me for persistent burglars, and everyone gets a rest while they are sent to prison. As I said when agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), while such people are in prison, given that they will be released one day, we should make more intelligent use of prisons to try to ensure that we reform those people so that they are less likely to reoffend.

[Philip Davies]

The Secretary of State seems to be arguing that sending people to prison for longer would not help to reduce reoffending, but his Department’s own figures indicate that the longer they spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend. If he is not sure about that, I can tell him that the reoffending rate for people who spend less than 12 months in prison is 61%; for those who spend 12 months to two years in prison, it is 36%; for those who spend two to four years in prison, it is 28%; and for those who spend more than four years in prison, it is 17.6%. It is clear that the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend.

[Mr Clarke]

There is another debate to be had on that, which my hon. Friend will no doubt press for. If people are sent to prison for less than 12 months, we really do nothing whatsoever for them there. They are locked up, released at the end of their sentence and given no support when they leave, and there are staggering levels of reoffending. One thing that has always been done, by the previous Government and every Government, is that the more serious offenders are kept in prison for longer and more effort is made to try to keep an eye on them when they get out. That is a very brief summary of that debate. Once we start swapping statistics in this way, we could argue practically anything, particularly as most criminal statistics have been remarkably unreliable in recent years—I hope that they are now being improved. My hon. Friend’s view is not quite the same as mine, but I respect it.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

My right hon. and learned Friend is being most gracious and generous in giving way. I wish to be helpful, if I can. I am puzzled by his view on the fact that putting people in prison does not work, because he will know about the possible great success of the social investment bond in HMP Peterborough, where 46% of the indicative income for keeping prisoners in prison will go back to St Giles Trust, Nacro and other third sector organisations. That approach will be rolled out across the whole country, if it is successful. Surely the point is that putting people in prison can work, if it demonstrably reduces recidivism in the long run.

[Mr Clarke]

I do not disagree. I have always held up the arrangement at Peterborough prison as a model of where we want to go. It is exactly what I wish to encourage. People are imprisoned, first, because they have to make their reparations to the public and be punished for what they have done but, as my hon. Friend has rightly said, there is now an extremely interesting situation in place where attempts to start reforming criminals start in the prison and are followed through outside by St Giles Trust, which is the partner of the private sector managers of the prison. We hope to replicate that pilot across the country, which is an example of where we ought to go. People get the punishment first and then proper efforts to stop them offending when they are released.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

To pursue that point further, is it not the case that if we have a system that faces constant increases in numbers, overcrowding and prisoners being moved around in order to accommodate the problems that the system faces, we will not get sentence planning, the careful structuring of sentences or measures to prevent reoffending, which are needed.

[Mr Clarke]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, that problem has constantly recurred with the extraordinary explosion in the number of people in prison in recent years.

As I have said, I am not saying that everything is perfect in the wider criminal justice system. I freely acknowledge that reporting and public understanding of our system is far from ideal, which is one reason why the coalition Government have a far-reaching programme of criminal justice reform as well as measures to promote transparency and public understanding. However, we should not muddle the problems of an overly complex body of law, which is too rarely reported accurately, with the rules governing how our judiciary apply the law in particular cases.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is worth saying that although the Sentencing Council is a recent innovation, the approach that it embodies is not new. Sentencing has operated in England and Wales for more than 100 years under broadly the same well-established constitutional settlement, in which Parliament sets the overarching legislative framework within which courts sentence, including the maximum penalty and, for some offences of particular public concern, the minimum penalty available to the courts. The role of independent judges is to work within that framework.

Since 2010, the Sentencing Council and its predecessor, the Sentencing Guidelines Council which was created in 2005, have provided courts with a decision-making process to assess the harm that offences cause to victims and communities, suggesting common starting points and ranges, and highlighting aggravating factors. The Sentencing Council has not fundamentally changed the basic division of responsibilities or the balance of power between Parliament, Government and the judiciary. Before the previous Government created the Sentencing Council, the Court of Appeal carried out this function. Its criminal division gave guidance to courts when it thought that discrepancies were beginning to occur. The Court of Appeal has not lost that power entirely and still gives guidance when it feels it necessary. However, the council now provides the great majority of such support to the courts.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Clarke]

If my hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, I ought to get on or else I will be running a seminar for a large part of the afternoon, which would not satisfy all my hon. Friends.

The Sentencing Council adds stronger checks and balances to the tradition. It does so, first, through its 13-strong membership. The majority of its members are judges and magistrates, but it also includes the Director of Public Prosecutions, the former acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the former chief executive of Victim Support. The council has not yet produced guidelines for any category of offences that have not received the support of the Association of Chief Police Officers. These are not simply judge-made guidelines for the courts; a range of backgrounds are represented on the council.

Secondly, the guidelines are determined independently and transparently, but with extensive public consultation. The consultations for recent guidelines have happened over 12 weeks and have elicited thousands of responses. Thirdly, the guidelines enjoy a proper level of parliamentary scrutiny. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and his colleagues on the Select Committee on Justice consider every draft guideline in detail, taking extensive written and oral evidence from a wide range of experts, including the chairman of the council. The Select Committee’s work ensures that there is meaningful democratic engagement in sentencing guidelines, without compromising the crucial principle of judicial independence.

Over the past 18 months, the council has published guidelines on a number of areas, on occasion attracting lurid headlines about excessive leniency and so-called soft judges. Let me address that directly. Our judges are far from overly lenient. The average length of prison sentences has increased by 20% over the past 10 years. I do not have proper figures but, having practised myself 30 years ago, I think that the increase has been even greater. We now send many more people to prison and impose longer sentences than was ever the norm until the past four years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) pointed out, judges can still respond to things such as the riots in an appropriate way.

The guidelines are concerned centrally with ensuring that sentences properly reflect the seriousness of an offence. They are statutorily required to have regard to the impact of sentencing on victims and public confidence in the criminal justice system. Naturally, people seize on isolated parts of the guidelines and quote them out of context. However, when set against the cases that courts see every day, they are well-thought-out, carefully considered, serious pieces of work. For example, the guideline on burglary concludes that domestic burglary should habitually attract a custodial sentence, that the sentimental value of any goods taken must be considered alongside their financial value, and that the presence of children when a burglary is taking place will significantly aggravate its seriousness.

[Mr Leigh]

My right hon. and learned Friend is gracious in giving way so often, and he has made clearly his point that burglars should get a custodial sentence. Let me refer to my previous intervention. If we are talking about domestic burglary—which is the worst thing—in 2009, 37% of those convicted of domestic burglary were given a non-custodial sentence. Does it worry him that the courts are not following what he is advising, which is that the people who cause such misery should end up in prison?

[Mr Clarke]

Individual judges must have considered the guidelines, which are quite new. I am surprised by that figure, however, because burglary has always habitually required a custodial sentence. There must have been some feature in those cases that made people think—either because of a particular problem with the offender when it might have been better to send them on a drug-rehabilitation course, or some other mitigating feature—that on this occasion they would not impose a custodial sentence.

Like all criminal offences, burglary is a wide-ranging offence. It covers everything from someone who has opportunistically opened a door, nicked something off a shelf and run, to two men wearing masks and going into a building, prepared to be violent towards anyone who tries to stop them. There is bound to be a range of sentences, but the guidelines of the Sentencing Council state that domestic burglary should habitually attract a custodial sentence. I have always agreed with that, as does my hon. Friend.

I want to consider the guideline on drug offences that produced some headlines last week. That guideline helps courts to distinguish between organised criminals who, as we know, cause misery to families and the whole community, and those who have become involved in the drug trade through intimidation or a dependency of their own. Contrary to the rather inaccurate headlines that occurred last week, which claimed that street dealers caught with 6 kg of cocaine could avoid jail—that startled me when I heard it repeated on the radio—the truth is that possession of that amount of a drug would be a very serious crime. The starting point for sentencing would be at least seven years in custody, even for an offender playing a lesser role in a criminal operation, rising to a starting point of 14 years in custody for those who have a leading role. The wholly inaccurate headlines stating that drug offences would receive lighter sentences were based solely on the reduction of the sentence for so-called drug mules, if they are addicts and are being exploited to carry drugs for the person who is manipulating them. That sentence has been eased a bit, to the extent that sentences for drug mules who bring in 1 kg of heroin or cocaine now have a starting point of only six years in custody, whereas previously that might have been 10 years.

Significantly higher sentences were recommended for those who play leading roles in a criminal operation, which is why the guidelines on drug sentencing did not receive the slightest criticism from anybody who knows the criminal justice system, including the police and prosecutors. Frequently, the commonly made criticisms of our judiciary and of the guidance produced by the Sentencing Council are unmerited.

I do not, however, wish to defend the status quo uncritically. Anyone who is remotely acquainted with our justice system knows that there are genuine challenges facing it, and that we cannot afford any complacency in addressing them. Sentencing guidelines, and the work of the Sentencing Council, would benefit from further public scrutiny and understanding. The need to ensure that the guidelines receive due public and parliamentary focus is precisely why the Government have allocated today for this debate. I look forward to listening to right hon. and hon. Members and hope that the debate will make a small contribution to establishing public attitudes, and perhaps also to successfully scotching some of the myths that surround the Sentencing Council’s work.

More broadly on confidence in the criminal justice system, it is no surprise to me that the public find it difficult to make sense of the body of criminal law, given that it has grown like Topsy in recent years. Under the Labour Government, constant changes and 20 criminal justice Acts over 13 years left us with a system that even experts have struggled to make sense of. Top-down schemes, meddling and prescription left the system in a complete mess. There were thousands of new offences. I was greeted publicly at the judges’ dinner with the complaint that

“hell is a fair description of the problem of statutory interpretation”.

The net result? A sentencing policy so chaotic and badly managed that towards the end of the last Government’s time in office, they had no room for all the extra people they were putting in prison. They had to let 80,000 criminals out early who promptly went on to commit more than 1,600 fresh crimes. I approved of the new unpaid work community payback scheme, but the way in which it was put into practice meant that offenders serving community sentences usually completed only one or two days of unpaid work each week. That is why there is an urgent need to sort out sentencing, and why we are reforming it. We will simplify it and make it easier to understand, and the House has already considered the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently in the other place and will introduce some of our far-reaching reforms.

Under that Bill, we propose to reform the statutory duty on courts and judges to explain the meaning and effect of their sentences and communicate them in plain English so that people can understand what will happen to the offender. We are simplifying the release framework so that all prisoners will be governed by one set of rules, making it easier for justice agencies to keep victims informed, and we are replacing the disgrace of so-called indeterminate sentences for public protection with a tough, determinate regime that can be easily understood by victims and the public. [Interruption.] I hear protests, but we all know that the guru on sentencing, Mr Thomas, described those sentences as an “unmitigated disaster”. In due course, we will also bring forward proposals to ensure that community punishments punish and reform more effectively.

Finally, I believe that our system suffers from a fundamental lack of information and openness. Public understanding of sentencing is critical to confidence in the system and to its effectiveness in ensuring that justice is done. We need to open up a system that to many people remains a rather mysterious world, to reassure people that the law is on the side of the law-abiding citizen. That is why I have announced measures that, in my opinion, collectively amount to a revolution in transparency in our courts.

One major item of progress is that we are developing legislation to remove the prohibition on cameras in courts and allow the broadcasting of sentencing remarks. That will be introduced in the Court of Appeal in the first place, but will be followed by extension to the Crown court at a later date. The filming of victims, witnesses, defendants and jurors will of course not be allowed under any circumstances. The change is intended to ensure that the public can see and hear sentences being handed down and hear the comments that judges make on cases. It is not so that our courts will become theatre. I hope that it will help to demystify the court process without undermining the seriousness and diligence that is so central to the quality of our justice system.

Alongside the televising of sentencing remarks, we are seeking to expand the use of restorative justice. Though the restorative approach is often seen as a means of reducing reoffending, for victims who want to take part it also helps to open up the court process. It allows victims to play an active role in helping the court determine how to deal with an offender, which is one reason why victim satisfaction levels with the approach are so high. Restorative processes can help to turn the justice system from one that does things to victims to one that does things with victims.

Last but not least, we are releasing more data than ever before on the performance of our courts. The radicalism of that policy has perhaps not yet been fully recognised, but it has the potential to deliver major progress in public understanding. For the first time, we are making available information on court performance, including delays and total times, and on sentencing decisions classified by offence. That will enable the public to see exactly what sentences are being handed down and where, particularly in their own locality, and it will help them to put that information in context.

What we are doing will represent a fundamental shift in how the justice system works. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done if it is to command public confidence. The challenge is to deliver reforms to the wider system to simplify it and make its performance more visible to the public. As the measures that I have outlined suggest, I believe we are on the threshold of a step change in openness and transparency. The changes will complement and strengthen the sensible arrangements under which the Sentencing Council operates, which I readily acknowledge were introduced by the last Government, and its wider place underpinning the sound and long-standing division of responsibilities between the judiciary and the Executive in England and Wales. I look forward to the whole process being subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which we are taking a step further by having this debate.

13:46

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Transparency and consistency in sentencing is both an end in itself, as part of an open justice system, and a means to an end. It is an essential component in dispensing criminal justice that is fair and credible and has the confidence of the public. No one has a monopoly on wisdom in these matters, although this country is fortunate to have a judiciary and judicial system that has intellect and integrity and applies itself to achieving fair and honest outcomes. From the magistracy to the Supreme Court, from first hearings and summary trials to second and third-stage appeals, there is much to take pride in. Anyone who doubts that needs only to read the sentencing remarks of Mr Justice Treacy in the case of Dobson and Norris, the murderers of Stephen Lawrence.

That is not to be complacent, and it does not mean that we do not need to review and change things. In government, Labour improved the quality of training for lay magistrates, which means better and fairer decision making and gives us confidence to rely more on what has been a mainstay of justice for 650 years. We also set up the Supreme Court, a body that within a few years has become central to the administration of justice in the UK.

I give credit to the Lord Chancellor—[Interruption.] Will the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), allow him to have my attention? I give credit to the Lord Chancellor for some of the steps that he has taken to promote open justice. Publishing comparative data is a good way of examining the performance of individual courts and measuring consistency. We can cautiously welcome the televising of proceedings. Provided that it protects witnesses and victims and does not sensationalise crime or allow defendants to grandstand, it will be a welcome extension of the principle that the default position of the English courts is that they operate in public.

Perhaps in return, Government Back Benchers will give some acknowledgment of the record of recent Labour Governments, although I doubt it. We inherited a poor record in criminal justice, as we did in health, education and policing. We had communities in thrall to crimes that all too often went unsolved and unpunished and a sentencing policy that was too inconsistent and unscientific, lacking any coherent vision of how to deal with criminals and the revolving door of recidivism. Vulnerable young people were being recruited into crime at ever younger ages. In Moss Side, Liverpool, Newcastle and London, people knew that the Tories could not be trusted on crime and justice. Poorer communities suffered more from the effects of crime, and were abandoned by a succession of Tory Governments who either would not or could not turn things around. It was not only Liverpool that the Thatcher and Major Governments condemned to managed decline.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

rose—

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

[Mr Slaughter]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti).

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman talks of managed decline and the Thatcher and Major Governments, but will he explain why 80,000 people were released early from prison under the Labour Government? Those people were prosecuted—I was a prosecutor—and judges passed proper sentences, but they were let out early by Ministers. That was totally unacceptable.

[Mr Slaughter]

I took only two notes when the Lord Chancellor spoke, one of which was on that point. It was a bare-faced cheek for him to talk about the early release of prisoners by some days at the end of their sentences under the Labour Government and then immediately to decry indeterminate sentences for public protection, which ensure that violent and dangerous sex offenders are kept in prison until they are not a danger to the public. Does the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) want to intervene?

[Paul Maynard]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Slaughter]

The hon. Gentleman can make his point in his own time.

Labour’s legacy was somewhat different from that of the Thatcher and Major Governments. The current Government published statistics that show that over the last Parliament, there was a 43% reduction in first-time youth offenders—down from 107,040 per annum to 61,387. As a result, there was a 34% reduction in offences committed by young people, down from 301,860 per annum to 198,449. As a result of that, there was a 15% reduction in young people in custody, down from 2,830 to 2,418. That trend has continued to date. Those are long-term changes in behaviour, in opportunity and diversion from criminality, not the quick-fix methods of trying to shave numbers off the prison population that the Justice Secretary favours.

Youth offending teams—multi-agency partnerships embedded in local authorities—dealt with young offenders from arrest to court to managing their punishment in the community or the securest date for reintegration. As the teams bedded down in their core statutory functions, the previous Government added prevention work to their remit and resourced them with expertise on gang behaviour and restorative justice. We also gave them considerable latitude for innovation to allow for the development of new ideas and local solutions. At the same time, we created the Youth Justice Board to ensure that places in custody were commissioned efficiently and effectively to co-ordinate best practice among YOTs.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Would the hon. Gentleman care to explain why Labour Administrations, in 13 years, lamentably failed to deal with key prisoner issues such as literacy, numeracy, health and mental health? When we had benign financial circumstances and a growing economy, they failed the general public and prisoners.

[Mr Slaughter]

That would be a good point, if it were true. My colleagues and I visit prisons and young offender institutions around the country, every week and every month, and see excellent education work, and vulnerable and damaged young people gaining skills. We also see YOTs at work.

[Nicola Blackwood]

“Rehabilitation of Prisoners”, a Home Affairs Committee report from 2004, states that

“47%...of prisoners…spent no time in education and 31%”

spent

“no time in prison work.”

[Mr Slaughter]

The young lady—the hon. Member—quotes statistics, but she fails to give credit for the steps that were taken and the resources that were put in. I think I had better stop on that point before I say something else I might regret.

As I was saying, the Youth Justice Board and YOTs together ensured that a child-centric approach was embedded in our youth justice system. The Labour Government correctly said that the right way to cut youth offending and the number of young people in the secure estate was to stop them turning to crime in the first place. Labour’s approach was incremental, evidence based and properly resourced.

The Opposition understand that the Lord Chancellor’s reckless promise to lead the austerity charge means 20% cuts to YOTs in one year, but up to 60% cuts to their preventive programmes. We puzzled at the wanton attempt, which was abandoned only at the last hurdle, to abolish the YJB. At least the Government did not seek to abolish the Sentencing Council. I do not know why they did not do so, because it is a recent Labour innovation, and it is transparent and effective, and it gives coherence and yet flexibility to a key area of public policy. I would have thought it was ripe for the chop.

It is worth recollecting the recent history of sentencing policy to see how far we have come in a relatively short time. I do not disagree with the Lord Chancellor on the current operation of the Sentencing Council, but I shall go over its history to show how it developed. Prior to 2004, sentencing guidelines were laid down by the Court of Appeal criminal division in the form of guideline judgments, and beyond that advocates and sentencers were reliant on practitioner texts, primarily Thomas. The texts were effectively sentencing decisions in individual cases accompanied by a more general judicial commentary on sentencing ranges for the type of offence under consideration. In the words of Professor Ashworth, former chairman of the Sentencing Advisory Panel:

“A guideline judgment is a single judgment which sets out general parameters for dealing with several”

variations of a certain

“type of offence, considering the main aggravating and mitigating factors, and suggesting an appropriate starting point or range of sentences…This kind of judgment was pioneered in the 1970s...guideline judgments...set out a fairly elaborate framework within which judges should determine length of sentence…These judgments acquired authority from the fact that the Lord Chief Justice laid them down: they were intended to bind lower courts, and were treated as doing so...the key element is that they were intended and accepted as binding, in a way that most Court of Appeal judgments on sentence are not.”

The Court of Appeal criminal division’s guideline judgments covered both a limited number of specific offences and more general overarching sentencing principles. Guideline judgments were, however, relatively infrequent and by the late 1990s covered only a small proportion of offences.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created the Sentencing Advisory Panel to solve a problem with the Court of Appeal system. When drafting its judgments, the Court of Appeal was constrained by the material on which reliance could be placed. The Sentencing Advisory Panel, chaired by a distinguished academic lawyer, was established to draft and consult on proposals for guidelines and to refer them back to the Court of Appeal for consideration and, in that way, to inform the issuing of a guideline judgment. The Court of Appeal was not obliged to accept the panel’s recommendations, but in most cases did so, sometimes with modifications.

The important feature was that the laying down of guidelines remained under the control of the senior judiciary. The Sentencing Advisory Panel was launched on 1 July 1999 as an advisory non-departmental public body, its role being to promote consistency in sentencing by providing objective advice to the CACD to assist it in framing or revising sentencing guidelines. The panel consisted of 14 members, including sentencers, academics, those with recent experience of the criminal justice system and lay people with no connection with criminal justice. They reviewed the applicable law and statistics and any relevant research and consulted on proposals before formulating advice. In its first five years of operation, the panel produced draft guidelines on about a dozen offences, which were submitted to the Court of Appeal. The Court acted on all but one of those advices, issuing guidelines in a subsequent decision.

In 2001, the Home Office published the Halliday report, which examined the sentencing framework in England and Wales and concluded that we should go further and set up an independent body—either the Court of Appeal sitting in a new capacity or a new judicial body set up for that purpose. The Government took that recommendation forward in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which established the Sentencing Guidelines Council. The council was established by the 2003 Act and came into effect on 27 February 2004.

[Mr Buckland]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for regaling us with a detailed history of sentencing policy development, but would he enlighten us on what happened to “custody plus”, a policy that was introduced in legislation but then dropped because no work was done on how it would be implemented?

[Mr Slaughter]

I hope I am not boring the hon. Gentleman, who I know takes a keen interest in such matters. Contributions from Government Back Benchers seem ad hoc and based on anecdote. I am setting out how a Labour Government approached policy in a rather more controlled manner. He mentions “custody plus”, but he will be aware—he was a member of the Public Bill Committee on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill—of the terrible confusion that he and his colleagues got themselves into on the question of whether to allow magistrates to sentence for 12-month periods. They first objected to that and then withdrew their objections, so he has not chosen a great example.

[Mr Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman touches on another measure the previous Government brought in but never enacted, so that was a very poor example to choose, if I may say so.

[Mr Slaughter]

At least we were clear in our intent—the hon. Gentleman does not even seem to be clear in that. However, I do not want to have a go at him. While I was listening to the Lord Chancellor, I was reading the evidence Lord Justice Leveson gave to the Select Committee. I was pleased to see that when he sits as a recorder he always fills his forms in properly and submits them to the Sentencing Council. I think he deserves a bonus for that. [Interruption.] I might be telling the hon. Gentleman things he already knows, or he might just not be interested, but I will progress.

In all fairness, the Lord Chancellor said that the Sentencing Council was a good thing to set up and that it was performing a sensible role. The Sentencing Council was set up in 2010 under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The Act replaced the SAP and the SGC with a single unified Sentencing Council. The council’s functions, of which the House should take note, are to promote a clear, fair and consistent approach to sentencing; produce analysis and research on sentencing; work to improve public confidence in sentencing; prepare sentencing guidelines; publish the resource implications in respect of the guidelines; monitor the operation and effect of the sentencing guidelines; prepare a resource assessment to accompany new guidelines; promote awareness of sentencing; and publish an annual report, the first of which we saw last October.

I trace that history to show that, in only 15 years, we have moved from a largely ad hoc system to one that is comprehensive, statute based and already recognised as an asset to the criminal justice system. That process of change has been rapid, but organic. It has required co-operation and open minds among politicians, civil servants and sentencers. Finding a balance between a framework that delivers consistency and transparency, and retaining the discretion and independence of the sentencer, is no easy task, but the stepped process the council adopted permits the best of both worlds.

In his foreword to the first annual report, which was published last October, Lord Justice Leveson rightly says the council is proud of its progress so far. I do not believe we would have had a Sentencing Council without a Labour Government, any more than we would have had a Youth Justice Board or YOTs. I welcome the present Government’s support for all three, however belated.

The annual report came too early for the latest published guidelines, on drugs offences, which were released last week, as the Lord Chancellor said. However, the guidelines are a good example of how an effective and intelligent sentencing regime could operate. They recommended lower tariffs for what are sometimes called drug mules, who, the council noted, are often vulnerable people.

[Mr Leigh]

If only to slow the hon. Gentleman down a bit—he is reading very fast—may I ask him a simple question? Does he think domestic burglars should go to jail on virtually all occasions? Is that the Labour party’s policy now?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman is listening, and I will direct my words more to him. He put that question twice to the Lord Chancellor, who made a very reasonable point: the purpose of sentencing guidelines is to identify a framework in which judicial discretion can progress. The question is therefore somewhat nonsensical. There are starting points for sentences, and there are recommended sentences; there are aggravating and mitigating factors, and there is a range of sentences that can be brought in. The Lord Chancellor talks about us commenting on sentences, but the hon. Gentleman seems to want the House to make sentences in individual cases, which is simply not possible.

[Stephen Phillips]

The point my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) is driving at is Labour party policy on this issue. The Sentencing Council says domestic burglars should ordinarily go to jail. If the Labour party disagrees, why does it do so? Will the hon. Gentleman tell us?

[Mr Slaughter]

No, the Labour party does not disagree. As I said a moment ago, the Labour party set up the Sentencing Council and believes that thus far—we do not always necessarily agree with everything it does—it has done a good job. I do not see the point of the hon. Gentleman’s comment.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, under the previous Administration, the Sentencing Guidelines Council said that a first-time dwelling-house burglar who was addicted to a drug, and who was susceptible to treatment for that addiction, should not go into custody?

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady is still practising—she was practising recently—but she has a slight advantage over me in relation to those issues. However, the point is that we cannot pick and choose. Where I do agree with her, and where I disagree with the Lord Chancellor, is that the public have a role. The idea that they, or indeed the media, do not have a role in expressing their view of sentencing policy is quite wrong; if they did not, we would have no change, be it a liberalisation or an intensification of sentencing policy over the years. It is arrogant to say that they should not have a role. Indeed, in giving evidence to the Select Committee, Lord Justice Leveson said as much. He sees one of his important roles as chair of the council as going in the media to explain things. Yes, he is in despair, as the Lord Chancellor is, when his comments or recommendations are taken out of context and bowdlerised, but he sees that it is important to have the confidence, support and advice of the public, and indeed the media, in these matters.

I was talking about drug mules. The Lord Chancellor has referred to this issue, but it is a good example of where a comment by the Sentencing Council has been taken out of context. The council noted that drug mules are often vulnerable people and victims of exploitation and violent coercion by organised gangs. Disproportionately, they are women, poor and poorly educated, and they are minor beneficiaries of the illegal trade, if they benefit at all. However, the guidelines retain the deterrent effect of a substantial prison sentence, while rejecting the current entry point of 10 years’ custody. They reduce that substantially, but the sentence is still six years.

There are changes in sentencing for the possession or supply of illegal drugs. However, if people make money from selling drugs, they will go to prison; if they deal heroin or cocaine, they will go to prison for a long time; if they deal drugs to children, they will go to prison for a longer period still; and those who take an industrial approach to drug manufacturing and supply can, under the guidelines, expect substantially longer jail sentences than is currently the case. That guidance and clarity is invaluable. By setting standards, it increases the likelihood of the deterrent effect working. It will increase public confidence and increase the confidence of victims in the justice system.

In government, Labour aimed to replace a patch-and-mend system of criminal justice with something more coherent and long term, whether it was a matter of prevention, detection, reassurance, due process—including sentencing—or punishment and rehabilitation. Now, we are going back to patch and mend. To get to the point of sentence, we need a well-resourced police force that can detect and solve crime, but we face 20% cuts to policing numbers. We need effective prosecutors, but we face 25% cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Is the hon. Gentleman making a commitment that a future Labour Government—if there were such a thing—would increase expenditure on policing by 20% and expenditure on justice by a similar amount?

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is committing himself to the coalition in perpetuity in making those comments, but he knows the answer to his question, because the shadow Home Secretary set it out very clearly. We would have made cuts, but we would not have made 20% cuts, and we would not have made the cuts in front-line police officer numbers that are happening everywhere, but particularly, as I can attest, in London.

We need options for judges; we need prison places, which, as we know, are already at crisis level; and we need community sentencing. Every probation service and YOT can name at least one community sentencing project that has had to shut down in the face of cuts, and that is without looking at the cuts in youth services that divert young people away from crime and anti-social behaviour.

The Secretary of State and his Ministers talk a lot about restorative justice, and we have heard about it today. Restorative justice can indeed be transformative justice. As compared with control groups, those sentenced to restorative justice see falls of between 10% and 50% in reoffending. However, despite its success in Northern Ireland, the Government will not resource restorative justice conferencing.

The Opposition support effective alternatives to custody, but where are they? If magistrates and judges do not have the option of, or the confidence in, community punishment, they will be forced to impose custodial sentences. Cutting probation service, YOT and community justice budgets to the extent, and at the speed, that this Government are doing will fatally undermine their plan to reduce detention numbers.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the hon. Gentleman answer a direct question? If he is not in favour of a 20% cut in police numbers, and, assuming that he would ring-fence any savings or cuts within the criminal justice system, how would he make up the difference between the 12% cut in police numbers that he would make to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, and the 20% cut that the Government are proposing? Where would that 8% come from in the criminal justice system?

[Mr Slaughter]

I hope that I have answered all questions directly. The hon. Gentleman is asking about an alternative Budget. He is asking what a Labour Government would do differently. We have made it clear that we would not ask police forces around the country to take a 20% cut. That will result in falling police numbers and an increase in crime, but as always the Lord Chancellor seems completely complacent about the idea that we are in a recession and therefore that crime will go up. We were in a recession in 2008-09 but crime was still falling.

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

Why, when police numbers in Humberside in 2008 fell by 137, did not a single local Labour politician campaign against the cuts, but instead defend them saying that police numbers did not necessarily have anything to do with crime levels?

[Mr Slaughter]

I can go a certain distance with the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot get involved in the minutiae of his conflicts with local Labour politicians—he must fight his own battles in his own backyard.

The size of these cuts fatally undermines the coherence and transparency of the sentencing framework. The guidelines might talk about community punishment but we tell our judges, quite properly, to work with due care: they must minimise risk, and if they cannot sentence in the community, they will sentence to the secure estate. For women and children in particular, this is often a tragedy, disrupting families, education and life chances. We have agreed with the Government on those parts of their policy that simplify and rationalise sentencing options, as some of the measures in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill do, but we do not agree when quick and lazy solutions are sought merely to reduce funding. The 50% discount on sentences and the restriction of magistrates’ ability to remand are back-door ways to cut prison numbers, and they put the public at risk.

The Lord Chancellor may be sincere in wishing to reduce the prison population and in seeing effective community punishment both as an alternative to custody and as a better way to reduce recidivism, but there is little or no sign that he knows how to do this or has the resources to do it. The very significant falls in young offenders in custody were not an aberration but the result of applied policies over 13 years. Keeping young people out of the criminal justice system by preventing offending is probably also the most effective way of reducing the adult prison population in the long term, but the scale of cuts to YOTs risks these hard-won gains.

Worse is the Secretary of State’s attitude to dangerous offenders. This is another difficult issue but not one that will be solved by sweeping away IPPs and replacing them with a patchwork of slightly longer tariffs and the bizarre “two strikes and you’re out” policy. Where violent and dangerous criminals and sex offenders are concerned, the public want a “one strike and you’re out” policy.

I started by praising the sentencers and the sentencing framework that Labour introduced, and I noted the successes we had—not least the 43% fall in crime and the introduction of neighbourhood policing—but further improvements in sentencing policy are needed. Last summer’s riots focused an unusual degree of attention on sentencing policy and practice, and questions were raised about the harshness or deterrent effect of some sentences. What should be of equal or more concern, however, was the disparity between sentences in different regions and different courts. Today’s Library debate pack includes statistics showing that a higher percentage of people in black and minority ethnic groups than of white defendants were sentenced to immediate custody for indictable offences.

I wish I had confidence that the Government would deliver the improvements that we still need. Criminal justice policy should throw up a good deal of consensus, not least because effective solutions need continuity across Governments, but that is not what this ministerial team will be remembered for. Instead, they will be remembered for the sabotage of their flagship Bill by the Prime Minister’s press conference shoe-horning a mishmash of measures into the Bill hours before the Lord Chancellor’s statement to the House; for living under the shadow of their own Back Benchers, who are always watchful for a deviation from the “prison works” mantra; and for offering up cuts so deep and so damaging that successful initiatives have no chance of continuing or being replicated.

This is more than a missed opportunity; it is a certain path to decline. It is the opposite of transparency and consistency; it is holding out false hope and muddling through. The Secretary of State is a prisoner of the promises he made to the Treasury, and as the prison population grows towards capacity and further cuts need to be found in the rest of the Ministry’s budget, his options will become more limited. On sentencing, as in so many other areas of public service and public policy, we found a creaking system and left one that worked well. Our legacy, and that of the country, from this Government will be another broken justice system.

14:09

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I was going to begin by complimenting the previous Government on setting up the Sentencing Council, but given that the Labour spokesman devoted his final paragraph to the cuts, I have to say, before turning to the work of the Justice Committee, that since the Labour party envisages cuts on a similar scale to the Government’s—they might be slightly smaller, but spread over a longer period—we are all talking about the same amount of money. Were there a realistic prospect of removing from the Ministry of Justice the obligation to make significant cuts in expenditure, we could all think of ways of spending the money, but any party confronted with office now would have the problem of funding desirable things out of a shrinking resource of public expenditure. If we can all be realistic about that, we may be able to make more progress on those things that we agree on.

One of the things that we seem to agree on is that the Sentencing Council is a valuable body. The Justice Committee has a statutory role in being consulted on the council’s proposals, as has happened in several cases—a couple of reports are on the Order Paper today, one relating to drugs and burglary and the other relating to assault. Our normal practice is to take detailed evidence, after which I normally write to the chairman of the council, Lord Justice Leveson, on behalf of the Committee, and we publish the letter along with the evidence that we have received. I strongly recommend that Members concerned about the council read the evidence from representatives of bodies such as Victim Support and others who come to hearings and give their views about the impact of sentences and about what they think is appropriate.

We believe that the system works well but faces serious inherent difficulties. On the evidence base, we have drawn attention to a fundamental absence of sufficient empirical evidence on which to base decisions on guidelines—for example, those relating to the cost and effectiveness of specific sentences. This is a general problem for those in the judiciary, be they judges or magistrates. Rarely do they get much evidence on the effectiveness of sentences, still less on the effect of sentences on individuals—unless of course they see the same individuals coming back again and again, having committed further offences. We need to ensure that we have the empirical evidence to provide a realistic basis for decisions about appropriate sentences.

Another problem has been mentioned today: the need to produce guidelines which the general public can understand and which are not simply lawyers talking to lawyers—that was an expression that Javed Khan of Victim Support used in evidence to the Committee. There is a tension between providing guidelines that are reliable and soundly worded—for legal purposes—and enabling the public to understand what the Sentencing Council is doing. It is a challenging task, the importance of which we have drawn to Lord Leveson’s attention. We also encourage Lord Leveson’s efforts in matters of public awareness, to increase public understanding of sentencing and work more effectively with the media, a role that the judiciary did not want to undertake in earlier times, for understandable reasons, but which is now much more widely recognised to be important.

Having referred to the work that we do on the Sentencing Council, I want to address what the purposes of sentencing are. The first purpose in my view—this view is generally shared across the Committee—is public safety and the maintenance of law and order. Therefore, there are people who have to be sent to prison, in some cases for very long periods, because they represent a serious danger to public safety and there is no obvious way of reducing that danger while they are at large. Prison therefore has an important part to play in the system. However, public safety also requires that sentences be imposed that are most likely to prevent further offences and the creation of further victims. The vast majority of people who are sentenced in court will come out again—whether after a short sentence or after a longer sentence—committing further offences and still representing a potential danger to our constituents. In many cases, they will have committed offences for which it would not be reasonable, by comparison with more serious offences, to impose very long sentences; therefore, we have to accept the reality. People will come out of prison, and at the moment, far too many of them come out and commit further offences—often repeat offences—over a number of years, which creates more victims.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a reasoned and moderate contribution, if I may say so. Indeed, he certainly takes a more robust view than many in his party. However, what would he say to the family of my constituent, John Hutchinson, who on 31 October was attacked by a group of feral teenagers, one of whom has subsequently been sentenced to a nine-month referral order, which is effectively a glorified contract promising to be good? My constituent is now having to leave his home and go into institutionalised care. Where is the faith and trust of my constituents in the criminal justice system when such an incident happens, and when they know that that individual is likely to go out and commit further crimes in future?

[Sir Alan Beith]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituent has obviously had a terrible experience, but we should all resist the temptation, in this place and elsewhere, to comment on particular sentences when we do not know all the circumstances in which they were given. If the sentence in a particular case is not appropriate, the Attorney-General has the power to return to the courts and seek a longer sentence, a point that the Lord Chancellor made earlier.

The second purpose of sentencing is deterrence, but the effectiveness of deterrence is often exaggerated. The fact is that when they commit offences, most criminals, first, think that they will not be caught and, secondly, do not have much idea what the sentence will be if they are. Therefore, sentencing is not usually a matter that is firmly in criminals’ minds when they commit offences in the first place. There are many circumstances where the function of deterrence in sentencing is exaggerated. It is there, and it has a role to play. For example, after the public disorder last summer, there was a legitimate reason to believe that unless we made people realise that the offence of theft in the context of public disorder would be treated very seriously, there might be a failure to understand how the courts were going to deal with such matters. There was a deterrence aspect in that case, but there are many offences where deterrence plays no role at all, even though it is one of the legitimate purposes of sentencing.

That brings me to the third purpose of sentencing, which is punishment. Punishment is a wide concept, because it involves the community declaring that it rejects and abhors crime with all its harmful effects. We sometimes fail to understand that purpose of sentencing. One reason why people react as they might have done on reading in the newspaper about the case that the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) raised a moment ago is that they think the court has not demonstrated how seriously the community takes a crime of that kind.

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

I could not agree with my right hon. Friend more. Does he agree that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently in the other place, firmly demonstrates the Government’s commitment to that principle in relation to the crimes of sexual exploitation and paedophilia, by clearly saying that two thirds of a sentence must be served and that if somebody goes on to perpetrate another horrendous crime of that nature, they should receive a life sentence?

[Sir Alan Beith]

Yes, but there is also a public safety aspect to the kind of cases that the hon. Lady has described, in that they may involve criminals where the likelihood of their not reoffending is very low and where long, determinate sentences are therefore appropriate. However, the problem with this very necessary part of sentencing is that it can lead to a tension between society declaring very clearly that it will not put up with something and what would be likely to lead to that person not reoffending—I am not thinking of the kind of case to which she has just referred, but a much broader range of crimes.

Understandably, the public read about crimes and compare how different ones are treated by the courts; indeed, we all do that. We want to be sure that the worst crimes are taken the most seriously. Prompted by media reports in particular, the relative seriousness issue tends to be judged according to whether a sentence is a prison sentence and how long it is. Such sentences might not be the right answer for every case, however. The likelihood of reoffending could be greatly reduced in some cases by tackling a drug or alcohol problem, for example. If that is not done, it does not matter how long the person is kept in prison, because they will commit further offences when they come out, fuelled by their problem. The judiciary therefore has to bear in mind all the purposes of sentencing. Considerations of public safety, deterrence and punishment must all inform each decision.

In the light of those principles, we should also consider how the judicial processes work. We want them to enable the most effective sentences to be available and to be applied. As I mentioned earlier in a different context, however, we have a weak evidence base for allowing the judiciary to determine whether sentences have been effective. Few judges are able to tell how the sentences that they have passed have worked out in practice, or whether they have had the desired effect. The exceptions are those cases in which an offender comes back before the court. We need to deal with that evidence problem.

We have also seen a lack of effective management of sentencing and post-release provisions. The Government have set about improving that situation, and the Committee very much welcomes that. We have discussed in some detail the payment by results model and other ways in which the Government have sought to ensure that people coming out of prison have access to provisions that actually work. We cannot achieve that, however, if our prison system is in turmoil. A system in which people are simply shunted around in order to create spaces for other prisoners is the enemy of effective sentence management.

There is an institutional bias in the system in favour of the use of custody, regardless of whether it is the best option. If a judge or magistrate passes a community sentence, the first question has to be, “Are the necessary facilities available in this area?” That applies to residential provision for tackling a drug problem and to the various kinds of community disposal. We have to ask what is available. If a custodial sentence is passed, however, the prison van rolls up outside and the prisoner is taken away. The judiciary can be confident that that will happen, although it might not know where the prison place will be found. The system will find a place somewhere, however, and there is an institutional bias in the system in favour of such disposals.

Custodial sentences and non-custodial sentences are commissioned by different people. The commissioning of custodial sentences is a national function, carried out by the National Offender Management Service largely on a national basis. There is an attempt to provide prison places locally, but in practice, prisoners are often circulated and shunted around. Non-custodial sentences are commissioned much more locally. In the case of youth custody, we have seen how much more effective the process can be when it is handled locally. My Committee has regularly sought to interest this Government and their predecessor in the idea of more local commissioning of custodial and non-custodial disposals, so that a balance can be struck more locally. Clearly, there will still be a need for responsibility to be taken at national level for high-security prisons and other specialised services, but local commissioners could buy into that provision. In many areas, including the health service, this Government and the previous one have seen the value of a separation between commission and provision, and it seems strange that that is still not fully appreciated within the Ministry of Justice.

I want to refer to one of our Committee’s earlier reports, “Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment”, which was published not long before the general election in 2010. It was very well received and is still much quoted, which we find gratifying. The report identified a never-ending cycle of spending money on the punishment of offenders whose crimes we ought to have been able to prevent from happening in the first place. If we had spent the same amount of money on diverting young people away from criminality into positive activity, on education, particularly for those whom the education system has failed, on intervention to deal with problem families and on very early intervention for young children, we could have prevented some of the crimes. Instead, we are spending money on incarcerating the people who committed them.

I very much welcome what the Government are doing—particularly on the latter two issues I have mentioned thanks to the efforts of the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather)—in insisting that even in these straitened times, we must find money for early intervention and early access to education, especially for those in deprived circumstances. I welcome that commitment.

The theme of our report, which has sadly been overtaken in this respect by the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, was that there should be a real resources shift from the custodial system into crime prevention. On this issue, people often say, “You can’t do that because the crime has happened,” but if we do not start in some way to inject and invest money at the stages where people’s propensity to commit crimes begins, we will continue to have to spend more and more money dealing with the consequences of crime.

We had, of course, hoped that financial circumstances might allow the money to start that process moving to come from elsewhere, but they have not allowed that— except to the limited extent to which the Government have been able to invest in early years education. The Ministry of Justice has thus had to find from within its own budget money to spend on more preventive measures. It is not just a matter for the Ministry of Justice, because it also involves the Department for Education, the Department of Health and a whole series of Departments whose expenditure decisions will determine whether some of our constituents are victims of crime in the future. Only to the extent that they divert those most likely to commit crimes away from that course will we achieve the purpose of preventing crime and promoting public safety.

The purpose of the sentencing system, as viewed here from the perspective of parliamentarians, must surely be the protection of our constituents—keeping our constituents safe. We should spend public money on sentences that cut crime rather than on the grim and often devastating consequences of crime. That is the principle towards which I believe all Governments should work, and I hope that this Government will work towards it.

14:32

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Justice Committee. I agree with almost everything he said. Many lawyers are present, which is not unusual in the House of Commons, especially on a subject like this one. It is absolutely the right approach to highlight the importance of investing resources on prevention rather than at what happens at the end of the criminal justice system. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, that means early intervention—something that no Government seem prepared to do because it costs money up front, whereas at the moment, our system pays to keep people in prison at astonishing rates in order to punish them, but they often come out of prison and reoffend.

When the Solicitor-General winds up the debate—I understand that he is the Government’s spokesman at the end—I hope he will tell us whether Lord Justice Leveson is still chairing the Sentencing Council, even though he is also—[Interruption.] I am most grateful; the Solicitor-General no longer has to wait for the winding-up speech. We work quickly together, Madam Deputy Speaker, as he is my neighbour in Leicestershire, so we understand each other quite well.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Telepathy is difficult for Hansard to pick up and it is not easy for other Members in the Chamber. It would help if we made that sequence a little clearer.

[The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)]

To make it clear, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) meant that I, not Lord Justice Leveson, was his parliamentary neighbour. I say that in case that does not appear clearly on the record either.

[Keith Vaz]

In football terms, that was an instant replay. I am glad that Lord Leveson now chairs the important inquiry into the media. After that is completed, he will start the next inquiry. He must be an incredible chap to be able to chair the Sentencing Council and conduct all these other inquiries. I am glad that he is still there; continuity is important.

Let me go back to the intervention I made at the start of the Lord Chancellor’s speech. He said that the Government would be able to give us more information at the end of the debate on the case that I raised, which has been concluded in the courts. It concerns a group of four al-Qaeda-inspired fundamentalists who admitted planning to send mail bombs to their targets during the run-up to Christmas 2010. Their targets included the Palace of Westminster, the home of the Mayor of London, the Stock Exchange, and other buildings of that kind.

Those defendants participated in what is known as a Goodyear direction, which, as the Lord Chancellor and other Members will know, enables a trial judge to indicate the sentence that will be given if a defendant pleads guilty. I understand that the sentence that is indicated cannot be increased by the judge at the time when the defendants are sentenced.

[Rehman Chishti]

I have huge admiration and respect for the right hon. Gentleman. However, I dealt with Goodyear indications when I practised as a barrister, and I recall that a judge can refuse to give such an indication. He can say, “This is too severe. If the defendant wants to plead guilty, he can do so; otherwise he can stand trial.” A Goodyear indication can relieve a potential victim of the stress and the ordeal of giving evidence, but ultimately it is a matter for the judge: if he thinks that the sentence is too severe, he will not give a Goodyear indication.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced prosecutor, and he knows much more about these matters than I do. Perhaps, given the charges that were levelled against the individuals in the case that I mentioned, the judge ought to have refused the application, but the fact remains that two of the defendants, Mohammed Chowdhury and Shah Rahman, were effectively told by Mr Justice Wilkie that they would be out in six years, because that was what was indicated by the sentence of twelve and a half years that he proposed to give them.

I have raised that case because it came before the court yesterday, because we are debating this issue today, and because I think we should consider the severity of what would have occurred had the matter been brought to fruition.

[The Solicitor-General]

I do not want to rain on my right hon. neighbour’s parade, but I am afraid that I will not be answering questions of the kind that he has put to me when I wind up the debate. The matter is ongoing. It may well be that the judge has given a Goodyear indication, but he will be sentencing next week, and nothing that I shall say today, or that the right hon. Gentleman will say today, should in any way impinge on the judge’s discretion. The Goodyear direction system is there, and its conduct is circumscribed by fairly strict rules. While the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to make any point that he wishes to make about particular sentences, I think that—as my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said earlier—we would be better advised to leave that particular issue until the sentence has been promulgated. All sorts of implications may flow from that.

[Keith Vaz]

I am very happy to take the Solicitor-General’s advice. What I have sought to do is ensure that the issue is looked at, as I hope it will be in future when the sentence is finally determined.

Let me move from the specific to the general. I do not want us to reach a point at which we have plea bargaining in criminal justice, because I think that that would be wholly wrong. The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) mentioned the riots. I pay tribute to the way in which the criminal justice system operated throughout that period. I well remember going to Horseferry Road magistrates court at midnight and receiving a call from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), who welcomed me. I do not know how he knew that I was going to be there, but somehow he knew that I was looking at the 24-hour courts. Although there was something of a gap because both the practitioners and the defendants had to be brought from police stations, the courts moved very quickly at a time when it was necessary for that to happen.

Although politicians are very wary of trampling on the jurisdiction of the judiciary, the public, and even the Prime Minister, made known their views on sentencing during the riots. The result was that the courts issued sentences that were, on average, more severe than for similar offences committed outside the period of the riots.

I also pay tribute to the Lord Chancellor and the Ministry of Justice for providing my Committee with so much information. I do not think that we have had so much transparency before, as regards figures relating to the riots being made available. I think it was the Lord Chancellor who told us, in a Select Committee evidence session, that 76% of people who appeared before the courts for offences committed during the riots had a previous conviction. He also told us that for adults, the figure was 80%, and for juveniles it was 62%. It is important, as we look at sentencing and transparency, that figures are made available to Select Committees and Parliament, so that we can have informed views on the issues that we are deliberating.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who has left the Chamber, raised the issue of rehabilitation in her intervention on the Lord Chancellor. One of the most important issues that the Lord Chancellor has raised during his time in office is that of rehabilitation. As the Chairman of the Justice Committee has said, there is no point in just sending people to jail; if one convicted criminal in four reoffends soon after completing their sentence, something is wrong with the way we deal with rehabilitation. Of course people have to go to prison to be punished in certain circumstances, but the prison authorities need the time and space to start the process of rehabilitation.

We have been looking at the roots of radicalisation and will publish a report on the subject on Monday next week. We feel it is very important that when people are incarcerated, those who are able to detoxify—that was the word used in the evidence given to us, and I use it again today—people who have been radicalised have time to do that. One cannot do that in a short period, or without resources; it has to be done over a period of time. We need to ensure that when those people come out, the experience has made a difference to their lives, because at the end of the day it is our constituents who suffer if that is not the case.

This is a good debate, and I hope very much that it will not just be about tougher sentences, because as we all know, 83 of the 134 prisons in this country are classified as overcrowded. If we are to make sure that when people come out, they do not reoffend, we need a criminal justice system that is fit for purpose and able, in the end, to do the one thing that we want it to do: help in the reduction of crime.

14:43

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

These debates on criminal justice matters always resemble a lawyers’ dinner party; it is all very fascinating, but I am not sure that most of my constituents will be entirely impressed with the conclusions drawn from a lawyers’ dinner party. Once again, we have a cosy consensus in this place, and that usually precedes a disaster in public policy. There was the exchange rate mechanism, which all the parties fell over themselves to agree with, and which was, of course, an unmitigated disaster; and the Child Support Agency, which all parties thought was absolutely marvellous, but which, again, ended up a complete disaster. Today, all three parties are falling over themselves to agree on the merits of sending ever fewer people to prison. Once again, we face consensus, which is a disaster.

I am sometimes misunderstood, so I should say at the start that I think the Secretary of State for Justice is a great man. He would be a greater man, however, if he was in charge of a different Department. That should not be misconstrued as my lobbying for him to become the Minister for Europe, by the way, but I do think his talents would be better used in another Department.

We have had a sterile debate on this issue for far too long. I believe that the first duty of any Government is to protect the public. There has been a long-running debate in which people are characterised as belonging to one of two separate camps: the camp that believes in prison, and the camp that believes in rehabilitation. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) seemed to reinforce that view towards the end of his speech, and it is a false division. I believe in sending people to prison; I also believe in rehabilitating people while they are in prison, and I do not see why a difference should be seen between the two. We must have a more sensible and nuanced debate.

There are two myths about the criminal justice system—first, that we send far too many people to prison; secondly, that prison does not work—and I want to try expose them both. The liberal elite are always conditioning us to believe that we send too many people to prison, but according to figures provided by the House of Commons Library, for every 1,000 crimes recorded in the UK, we send 17 people to prison. That compares with 29 in Ireland and 31 in Spain—in fact, virtually every other country in the European Union sends more people to prison for every 1,000 crimes committed than we do. Of course, in America they send more than 200 people to prison for every 1,000 crimes committed. People may mock, but they have a crime rate that is less than half the UK’s.

I got the House of Commons Library to produce an interesting piece of evidence showing the prison population per 1,000 crimes committed, and the crime rate, in 45 different countries around the world. Obviously, there was not an exact correlation, but it was striking how close it was. The countries with the highest prison population also had the lowest crime rate. That really should not come as a great shock to people, because to be perfectly honest, most of the public would think it blindingly obvious that the more criminals we send to prison, the fewer we have on the streets committing crimes. It is blindingly obvious to everybody—apart, it seems, from the cosy consensus of the three major parties in this country.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made the case again today that crime goes up when we have an economic recession and down when we have a boom. I asked the Library to test that theory, too, and it produced a graph showing the crime rate, prison population and gross domestic product in this country since the war. There is a striking, remarkably close correlation between the prison population and the crime rate: as the former goes up, the latter tends to go down. There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between GDP and the crime rate, so that is an absolute myth. It might seem logical to think that such a comparison exists, but all the evidence from the Library shows absolutely no link whatsoever.

I would argue not that there are too many people in prison but too few. Of course, under the previous Government and the end of custody licence scheme, 81,578 prisoners were released early, including 16,000 violent offenders, 1,234 of whom went on to commit 1,624 new offences—including at least three murders— during the time when they would normally have been locked up. That is 1,624 unnecessary victims of crime as a result of having fewer criminals behind bars.

A district judge told me about a bizarre situation that arose. On a Saturday morning, he sentenced somebody to six weeks in prison for theft. Three days later, on the Tuesday morning, the very same person came before him, having already committed another crime, despite having been sentenced to six weeks in prison just three days earlier. I asked how on earth that was possible. The judge explained that only half such a sentence is served, which automatically brought the sentence of six weeks—or 42 days—down to 21 days. Everybody was being released 16 days early, so that brought it down to five days. The individual in question had spent five days on remand before his trial, so, despite having been sentenced to six weeks in prison, he was let straight out. What an absolutely farcical situation. It is an utter farce and then we wonder why nobody in this country has any confidence in the criminal justice system.

The Government’s policy is also based on a premise which we heard again from the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith)—the idea, which we are encouraged to believe, that it is so easy to be sent to prison in this country. A myth has built up that someone can commit a minor offence and will be mopped up by the police, marched straight to the courts and, without a by-your-leave, sent to prison. If only that were the case. I would love to live in such circumstances, but it is far from the case. In the real world, people commit crime after crime and go to the magistrates court where they are given community sentence after community sentence until, eventually, a magistrate or district judge gets bored and finally says, “I have no other option, I have sent you on every possible programme going and I now have to send you to prison.” That is what happens in this country despite what the right hon. Gentleman said.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman has a look at the evidence given by two ex-offenders who appeared before the Justice Committee during our probation inquiry, who both told us separately that their community sentences were extremely demanding, that they were fed up with them and that they had committed further crimes to get into prison, where they got three square meals a day and had much less to do.

[Philip Davies]

They must have had to commit an awful lot of crimes to get themselves into prison, because it is very difficult to get sent to prison in this country.

Let me emphasise the point. In 2009, according to the Ministry of Justice, 2,980 burglars and 4,677 violent offenders with 15 or more previous convictions were still not sent to prison. Today, the Secretary of State was saying that if someone commits a burglary they should expect to go to prison. In one year, however, 2,980 burglars with 15 or more previous convictions still were not sent to prison, which seems rather to defy the message that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is trying to give.

[Paul Maynard]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there are prisons, secure children’s homes and independent institutions where people, on their release, knock on the door begging to be taken back in? Those settings were the only place in which they received the care and support that they needed to be a meaningful member of the local community on their release. Does he share my concern?

[Philip Davies]

I share many of my hon. Friend’s concerns and I am certainly concerned that many people are anxious to get back into custody. There are an awful lot of reasons for that, one of which he has given. Some might argue that another reason why people are so keen to get back into prison is that their quality of life in prison is far better than their quality of life outside prison. When 4,070 prisoners enjoy the luxury of Sky TV in their cells—not even in a communal area—we know that something is fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system.

[Anna Soubry]

Could it not be that the quality of their life outside prison is so utterly miserable that even life behind bars is preferable to the dreadful life that they live in the community?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have this wretched organisation, HM inspectorate of prisons, the members of which come down from their nine-bedroom mansions in Oxfordshire, go around the prisons and say, “Oh, it’s jolly awful in here, isn’t it? Absolutely terrible.” If those same people came from the same crime-ridden estates that people in prison tend to come from, they would probably say, “It’s jolly nice in here.” There is rather a big disconnect between the backgrounds of the people in prison and of these do-gooders, the prison inspectors.

[Paul Maynard]

As one of those do-gooders—I realise that that might be a matter of concern to my hon. Friend—may I ask whether he has any proposals on how we could improve local authority accommodation for young people, for example, to ensure that the communities where they live are safer for them than a secure custodial setting? What positive proposals does he have in addition to his House of Commons research?

[Philip Davies]

My positive proposal appears to have escaped my hon. Friend. I think I am right in saying that he is a member of the new 301 group, which I thought referred to the number of seats we had to win at the next election; I did not realise it was the target for the number of people we should have in prison, which seems to be the approach advocated. What about the quality of life of many law-abiding people in this country? We talk about the rights of criminals, but what about speaking up for the law-abiding people who think that their quality of life would be improved if more people were sent to prison in the first place? Not only are all those people not being sent to prison, but we still have a system in which someone who goes to court with 100 previous convictions behind them is still more likely not to be sent to prison than to be sent to prison. How on earth can we have a criminal justice system in which that is the case?

[Mr Buckland]

I yield to no one in my admiration for my hon. Friend’s force of argument, but I query that last statistic. I have been looking at a sentencing survey that was conducted in relation to the Crown court for the six months from October 2010 to spring 2011, which says that 78% of offenders with 10 or more previous convictions were going straight into custody. That may not be the 100% he would like but it is a pretty hefty statistic by any reckoning, is it not?

[Philip Davies]

I think my hon. Friend is very good friends with Ministry of Justice Front Benchers and I suggest that he ask them some parliamentary questions, because those are the answers they have given. To be as helpful as possible, I will furnish him with the parliamentary answer that shows that people with 100 previous convictions behind them are still more likely not to be sent to prison than to be sent to prison. He might wish to take this up with his hon. Friends on the Front Bench.

I was shocked to receive a parliamentary answer showing the number of people who were given cautions for indictable offences, which are the most serious category of criminal offence and include murder, wounding with intent, abducting children and arson. That answer showed that 22 rapists, 24 people convicted of arson and 140 people convicted of unlawful intercourse with a girl under 16 have been given a caution. Bearing in mind the fact that cautions are given on admission of guilt, how on earth can we have a situation in which those people are not being sent to prison and are merely handed a caution? The Government are completely out of step with public opinion, particularly those highlighted in the Populus poll conducted by Lord Ashcroft, which showed that 80% of the public said that sentencing was too soft and that 70% called for life imprisonment to be made much harder.

There is this wrong idea that community sentences are far more effective at reducing reoffending and are also cheaper, but I want to point out that a Home Office survey found that the number of crimes committed per offender in the year before they were sent to prison averaged out at 140—or 257 for those on drugs. The typical cost calculated for those crimes was £2,000 each, which works out at £280,000 a year, in comparison with an estimated cost of £38,000 for a prison place, so perhaps we ought to think about what is most cost-effective.

In 2008, offenders who had completed a community sentence went on to commit a further 250,000 crimes in the 21 months following their sentence, 1,500 of which were serious offences including murder, rape and robbery. As I mentioned to the Secretary of State earlier this week, in 2008-09 some 6,600 people whom the probation service deemed to be high risk or very high risk were serving community sentences.

Then there is the myth that prison does not work. The reoffending rates for people serving short-term sentences is higher than any of us would like, but I have been to lots of prisons in the past 12 months, probably about a dozen—I even visited one in Denmark to see what they do there—and I argue that prison does work. It could probably work better but it does work. As I made clear in my earlier intervention, the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend. If prison itself was the problem, the longer people stayed there the more likely they would be to reoffend, but the opposite is true. I have given the figures: for people who spend less than 12 months in prison, the reoffending rate is 61%; for those spending 12 months to two years in prison it is 36%; for those spending two to four years in prison it is 28%; and for those spending four years or more in prison it is 17.6%.

Professor Ken Pease has used Home Office statistics to show that 13,892 offences resulting in conviction could have been prevented if offenders serving short sentences had been kept in prison for an extra month. That suggests an argument for sending people to prison for longer, rather than for not sending them to prison at all. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State complained, rightly, about the previous Government’s early-release programme that let people out of prison 16 days early, but the solution should not be not sending them to prison at all, which is what he seems to be advocating now.

When people are in prison we must try to rehabilitate them, but I do not understand why rehabilitation has to occur in the community. I have been arguing about this for quite a while with my Front-Bench colleagues. I should like a system modelled on the TBS programme that has been operating in Holland for many years. It treats prisoners with a personality disorder, of whom there are a large number in our prisons, and has achieved low reoffending rates. People are treated in prison, which is much easier because they do not have so many distractions—they cannot go off and do other things. In prison, they can be given proper targeted support, which is much harder when they are out of prison.

I very much support the Secretary of State’s promoting a stronger work ethic in prison. When I go round prisons, I am appalled by the lack of work ethic. Many prisoners are from families that have never worked; they are often the third generation who have never worked. Surely, one of the things we can do for them in prison is to get them into a proper disciplined routine so that they get up at a certain time in the morning and carry out tasks that get them into a work ethic. My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to do that.

A study by Frances Simon in 1999 followed 178 prisoners until five months after their release. She found that 75% of those who had not sought regular work reoffended compared with only 28% of those who were actively looking for work and 15% of those in regular employment. That shows that even the discipline of going out and looking for a job can make a big difference to reoffending rates. Prison has to be the prime place where some of those people are given the discipline of a work ethic.

I think the Government are making a huge mistake about indeterminate sentences for public protection. Earlier today, my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) cast doubt on Ministry of Justice figures, but I trust my hon. Friends on the Front Bench. According to those figures, by the end of the 2010 calendar year, 206 people serving indeterminate sentences had been released from prison. Of those, only 11 had reoffended—a rate of about 5%, from my quick calculation. The criminal justice system as a whole would give its right arm for a reoffending rate of 5%.

If the Government are so obsessed with reoffending—the Secretary of State has said that he is—why on earth do they want to give up the part of the criminal justice system that probably has the lowest reoffending rate? It goes to show that the Secretary of State is not really preoccupied with the reoffending rate; he is preoccupied with reducing the number of people he sends to prison. That cannot be the right course of action and it is certainly not something that my constituents want.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I am sorry to intervene just after my hon. Friend and I were warmly agreeing on the need to get a working environment in prisons. I can tell him that I had an excellent meeting this morning at the CBI, with leading figures from British business and the Prison Service, and we are making progress. On that we are totally agreed. With great respect, the figures my hon. Friend uses for IPPs are, unlike some of his other statistics, not very reliable. A tiny number of people have been released from IPPs, so to make a comparison between the very small sample he cites and the very large numbers he was using earlier is ever so slightly misleading. Most people imprisoned under IPPs have not been released and do not know when they will be released. There is an enormous backlog of cases for the Parole Board, which is wondering what to do with them.

[Philip Davies]

The figures my right hon. and learned Friend dismissed are the ones supplied by his Department. All I can do is give the figures as they are. They indicate that of the 206 people who have been released having served an IPP sentence, only 11 have reoffended. It is up to hon. Members to draw their own conclusion from those figures. The principle that we should not release people from prison until it is safe to do so strikes me and my constituents as a rather good one to have in the criminal justice system. His suggestion that we should release people from prison regardless of whether it is safe to do so seems rather bizarre.

[Paul Maynard]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will make some progress, because many other Members wish to speak and I want to draw my remarks to a close.

My final point is on the automatic release of offenders halfway through their sentence, which is one of the shameful things the previous Government sneaked through in the last Parliament. Prisoners are now not just eligible for release halfway through their sentence; they are automatically released. I think that that is a terrible situation. When I visited Denmark, whose criminal justice system is always seen as very liberal, I found that they do not have that system. They have the system we used to have, whereby prisoners became eligible for release halfway through their sentence. In fact, 30% of their prisoners were refused parole altogether and served the full sentence handed down by the courts, and they think that that is one of the major reasons why they had such low reoffending rates. I urge the Secretary of State not to have a system where we automatically release prisoners willy-nilly halfway through their sentence and irrespective of their behaviour in prison or their risk of reoffending. We should make proper judgments about people’s fitness for release before we agree to release them. I think that we can learn from Denmark in that regard.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

Having worked with and represented many victims of crime and their families, I know that what they find most upsetting and offensive is when a sentence that they feel is just or suitable for the perpetrator of a crime is halved, which they say is an extra insult. In the case of a family I represent, the halving of a sentence is a double blow on top of the murder of their child.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She does a great deal of work representing victims charities, such as Families Fighting for Justice, and should be commended for it.

With regard to transparency in sentencing, it cannot be transparent for people to be handed down a particular sentence when we know that in reality they will serve only half of it. I believe that honesty in sentencing should be introduced and that if someone is sentenced to 10 years in prison they should serve it. If I go down to my local pub and ask someone, “Did you hear that someone got 10 years in prison?”, the first thing they are likely to say is, “Well, they’ll be out in five minutes, and it’s a waste of time anyway.” That is one of the main reasons why people have so little confidence in the criminal justice system.

The primary role of the criminal justice system should be to achieve justice, not to find the cheapest alternative to sentencing or reduce the number of prisoners because prisons are reaching capacity. The Government’s job is to provide the right number of prison places for the people the courts deem it right to send to prison, not to introduce Bills designed to reduce the number of people being sent to prison in order not to exceed capacity. If the number of school children in this country increases, we do not say, “Well, this is the number of school places, so tough; everyone else can go to the local phone box to be educated.” No, we build more schools to provide school places, and the same should apply to prisons. If more criminals need locking up, we should build more prisons. The public need to feel protected, the perpetrators need to know that they will be punished properly and the victims of crime need to feel that justice has been done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made clear.

I fear that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State is taking our party and this country in the wrong direction. Notwithstanding his excellent idea about work ethic in prisons, I believe that his sentencing policy is in danger of single-handedly losing the party its hard-won reputation as the party of law and order. More importantly, it is in danger of creating more unnecessary victims of crime.

15:09

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I do not agree with every word he said, but he made some pertinent and correct points about honesty in sentencing. Perhaps I may add a further scenario to his list. I worked for the Courts Service, where I found that, for example, somebody could appear before magistrates on a Friday and receive seven days’ imprisonment for a fine default. However, as the sentence was automatically halved, and as the weekend counted in their favour and they could not be released during that time, the prison van would throw them out before they even got to prison. A person can be sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment and not spend a minute inside, and it is such dishonesty that, as my hon. Friend pointed out, angers many members of the public.

We all want consistency in sentencing, but we must recognise that we will never completely achieve that because it is impossible. No two offences are identical and there will always be differences in approach. As long as courts have discretion, there will be variation in how they deal with similar matters. If we remove that discretion, however, injustices will inevitably occur.

Members of the public view similar offences in differing ways, and we should not be surprised that often the judiciary will do the same. We want our judiciary to mirror the public, and just as the public have differing opinions about different types of offences, such variation can be reflected in our court houses. We need some consistency of approach, some basic similarities in decision making, and guidelines to help ensure that courts treat similar aggravating and mitigating circumstances comparably. We should never, however, be tempted to adopt a system that lacks discretion, flexibility, or the freedom to differentiate.

We need a degree of certainty, but not an over-prescriptive approach that removes a court’s discretion. For example, a defendant who has entered a guilty plea can expect to receive a reduction in their sentence of about one third. The court, however, should be free to increase or reduce that discount, as it deems appropriate.

In the magistrates courts, the principle of local justice administered locally has served us extremely well for centuries. Some offences are frowned on more in one area than in another, and local justices of the peace are best positioned to clamp down on an offence that is prevalent in a particular area. Although that system inevitably leads to an imbalanced approach across the country, in such instances a variable approach can be a positive thing.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley pointed out, justice must always be the primary goal in the judicial system. If we were to replace judges, magistrates and jurors with computers, we would have a more consistent approach—there is no doubt about that—but we would also have less justice. Whenever people deal with cases, there will inevitably be discrepancies in how they view the facts placed before them.

About 20 Acts of Parliament have changed sentencing practice over the past decade, and it is perhaps not surprising that our system is often confusing and unnecessarily complex. Perhaps an overarching approach is needed, not a series of ad hoc measures to amend the current system.

The system need not be unduly complicated. Sentences are normally straightforward, but the processes behind them are often baffling and confusing, and can lack the transparency that this debate is trying to find. The maxim that justice must be done and be seen to be done is as necessary now as it has ever been. Yet nowhere can the term “six months”, for instance, have so little correlation to that actual period as in a court of law. I have spent more than 20 years working in the criminal justice system, and I have lost count of the number of times I have seen defendants turn to their advocate as soon as they are given a term of imprisonment and ask, “How long is that? How long does that actually mean for me? I have been told it is 10 years, but how long does that mean?” Sentences should be closer to the term specified, and there should be far more transparency and honesty in sentencing. It undermines the courts, the police and victims if the sentence that a prisoner serves bears no relation to the term that he has been given in court.

There are so many early release schemes that I know of no lawyer who can accurately tell a defendant how long a sentence will equate to in actual time served. It is simply too complicated. When a formula is needed to work out how much of a sentence a prisoner will actually serve, we know that there is something wrong with our system. That is precisely what happens now. The discipline departments in prisons have to apply a formula to a sentence to work out what somebody’s earliest possible release date is. That highlights the problem in our current system.

Sentences are one thing, but there are many other things for the courts to consider. There is no merit in having an inconsistent approach to the enforcement of court orders. We should not have one criterion for enforcing community sentences in the midlands and another for the south, and fine defaulters should not be treated differently in one part of the country from another. Prison overcrowding in one area should not mean an earlier release for prisoners there than for those in other areas. However, for general sentences, we should allow some differences. We have to allow local courts to have a certain amount of flexibility. The message should go out from this House that this debate is not about controlling the courts but about delivering fairness for all. We should not micro-manage the courts but allow clarity to flourish more. Minimum sentences for gun possession have worked, not just because of the certainty and deterrence that they have provided but because courts retain an element of discretion.

In short, we need to get the right balance, and in doing so we need to strive for a court system that allows certainty in sentences, flexibility in process and fairness in outcomes to prevail.

15:17

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). I agreed with many of the points that he so ably made based on his experience. It is easy to joke about the profusion of lawyers taking part in debates such as this, but in reality many of us stopped practising only within the past two years, before we came to this place. We therefore bring with us an abundance of experience and knowledge, especially those of us who were at the criminal Bar and both prosecuted and defended, which gave us an insight into cases from both perspectives. That is a great feature of the criminal Bar and, I hope Members will concur, adds to our ability to bring real experience and hopefully insight to this important debate.

I shall put my cards on the table. I practised at the criminal Bar for some 16 years until my election, and I am very proud of that. I should perhaps not put this too strongly, but it was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable jobs I have ever done, for all manner of reasons. As a member of the criminal Bar I defended far more than I prosecuted.

I should like to put it on record that I find it most peculiar that the Labour party, certainly in my constituency, seems to think it should criticise me for standing up in the House and talking about the law, particularly the criminal law. Often, I speak in defence of not only my own profession but solicitors, who are suffering in a way they have never suffered before due to the reduction in legal aid. I find it perverse that the Labour party attacks people such as me in those circumstances. It professes to be the party of the poor, the repressed, the deprived and some of the most needy in our society, but it is those very people whom so many at the criminal Bar and solicitors have represented for a long time, often with very little reward.

When I joined the criminal Bar, somebody said to me, “You are going to be a social worker wearing a wig.” Those of us who have been at the Bar or worked as solicitors and who have defended criminals will know from experience how often we go beyond the fee—and it is not a very great fee. We know how often we have given a fiver or £10 to clients who have no money in their pockets so that they can get home when they find themselves in the fortunate position—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will despair at this point—of not going into custody when they thought they might receive a prison sentence.

I once gave a client £10 so that he could catch the train back to Worksop. This perhaps shows my naivety. I took him to Nottingham railway station and assumed he would spend the money I had given him on his ticket. In fact, he went off and bought a large amount of heroin and was arrested by the police. Hon. Members can imagine my reaction when I found out what he had done with the money.

I digress from the subject of the debate, but I want to make the point that the criminal justice system could not operate without the Bar and solicitors who often go that extra mile, often at their own expense, to ensure that it works properly. I fully understand and appreciate that the legacy we have inherited means we have no option than to reduce the amount that goes into the legal aid pot, which means that members of the criminal Bar are seeing a reduction in their fees—that is in the context of having had no genuine increase since 1997. I know the Government can do nothing about that at the moment, but when the time comes we must ensure that those who do legal aid work are properly remunerated. It could be said that I have diverged from the subject of the debate, but I wanted to make that point.

Consistency in sentencing can be truly achieved only when the following occurs. It starts at the beginning. To achieve consistency in sentencing, we must ensure from the outset that there is a proper and full investigation of the allegation. That means that witness statements must be properly taken and that all relevant evidence must be properly gathered. A constituent who has come to me has quite properly complained following an assault allegation—she was the victim. She suffered cuts that required stitching to her face and a broken jaw, but the police did not collect her medical records despite the fact that she had signed the right form. She has now been told that the police are going to make the charge “common assault”. On the basis that what she told me is true, it is clear that the charge should be either for wounding or for a section 20 offence, or perhaps for an even greater offence. It was not a common assault, and it is clear that the police did not do a proper job in their investigation and in ensuring that all relevant evidence was available, which is important not just for the progression of the case, but so that the sentencing judge can pass the right sentence. In order to do that, we need to ensure that there is a full and proper investigation from the outset and that the right charge is reached. We also need to ensure that witness statements are properly taken, which includes, if appropriate, a victim impact statement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said that the previous Administration were overly prescriptive and mandatory—a long-standing complaint of many of us about their conduct of the criminal justice system. I do not want police officers to go out with a checklist of all the things they must do when they take a witness statement. I want them to be properly trained to be able to rely on their own plain common sense. I do not want them to be overly prescriptive and certainly not stereotypical.

In his statement the other day, the Secretary of State talked about the changes we intend to make to the compensation scheme. This might be difficult to understand, but he quite properly mentioned the fact that not all victims of crime look at the crime in the same way. I have been burgled more times than I care to remember; in some instances, that did not have a particularly upsetting effect on me, and I would be the first to say that, but on one occasion it upset me greatly because my grandmother’s engagement ring was stolen. I do not know the value of the ring, and it does not really matter; what mattered to me was my sentimental attachment to that piece of jewellery. On another occasion when my home was broken into, I found it distressing that somebody had been through items of a very personal nature in my study. On another occasion, nothing much was particularly disturbed, so the trauma, or the effect, was not as great. However, we cannot say everybody will be the same, because, as we all know, crimes come in all different shapes and sizes, and they affect each and every one of us differently.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Did the hon. Lady welcome, as we on the Select Committee did, the fact that the Sentencing Council was prepared to treat burglary as an offence against the person, as well as against property?

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. If I may say so, there was so much I agreed with in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. From my short time on the Select Committee, I know he brings a huge weight of experience and plain, good common sense to his chairing of the Committee. I absolutely agree with what he says.

To be frank, I would never stand up and say we definitely want to keep the Sentencing Council. I know some of us disagree about this, but I always thought the Court of Appeal was a good place to determine the issues we are discussing, and I could see no good reason why that should not continue. However, we are where we are.

What we do know—this has already been mentioned—is that the sentencing judge will look at the aggravating and mitigating features in relation to every offence. It is therefore important that when the police go out and take witness statements, they make sure everything that should be in them is in them so the judge can pass the right sentence. If items of great sentimental value are stolen in dwelling-house burglaries, for example, that is an aggravating feature.

The same is true of trashing or ransacking the property, and of inducing fear in a particularly vulnerable person. One of the burglaries I suffered was at night-time, and my children were of an age where they were very frightened. They thought—this is common among children who have the misfortune to have their homes burgled at night—that the person would come back, and they were in fear of that. Such things must be in the witness statements so the judge can pass the right sentence. That will give us the consistency we want.

One of the things that is extremely annoying for somebody who has been the victim of a car crime is the fact that they lose their no claims bonus. There is also the huge inconvenience caused by the fact that their car has a broken window and that they will not be able to use it because it has to go off to the garage. Again, those are important aggravating features.

In offences of violence, there can be an assessment of the physical scarring that might remain, and of the pain and suffering the victim might have been caused, but their mental anguish must also be set out in detail so that the proper sentence can be passed.

I would go further and say that when police officers go out to get statements from witnesses, they should include in them the effect of a particular crime on the witness. The classic example is somebody who witnesses a fight in the street, which might be a particularly violent and unpleasant incident. That will have an effect on the witness, and if it does, it should be in the witness statement.

At the heart of good, consistent and transparent sentencing is an overriding and underlying belief in the fact that we should trust our judges. I say that with absolute certainty in one respect: if I had not come to this place, I would undoubtedly never have been made a judge. I am not, therefore, making these comments to curry favour with any judge. Hon. Members may not find this surprising, but the reason I would not have become a judge is that I fell out with so many judges.

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. Friend never fell out with me.

[Anna Soubry]

The Solicitor-General makes an unfortunate intervention, because I did indeed have the great pleasure of appearing in front of him—I was going to reference him slightly later—and we certainly did not fall out. No doubt, though, some of his brother and sister judges would say that that was because I appeared in front of him only twice, and that had I done so several times, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

One of the problems that occurred under the previous Administration was that they began not to trust judges enough, which was a terrible mistake. My attitude is this: I would give the judges the powers that they need and then leave them to exercise their discretion. At the end of the day, most judges come to the bench after many years in practice—usually in the discipline in which they sit in judgment. I said that I was going to mention the Solicitor-General, and I know that he has sat as a recorder in the criminal division, even though that was not his area of practice. I am not trying to curry favour with him, but the fact is that many recorders do not come from the criminal Bar and did not work as criminal solicitors but nevertheless have the great ability and skills required to act in just as brilliant a way as any other judge who was at the Bar for 15 or 20 years. [Interruption.] I am glad to see him nodding in approval.

The point is that with few exceptions our judges are outstanding, having practised at the highest level and coming to the position after years of experience on the basis that they have the ability to exercise good and wise judgment. That is why, with few exceptions, I trust them, and those of us who have practised know that if a judge makes a mistake, the case can be referred to the Court of Appeal.

Our judges have training, and I give full credit to the previous Government for something that I noticed at the criminal Bar: a huge shift in judges’ attitude towards what we call domestic violence—an unfortunate term, because it is normally violence against women by somebody with whom they are either in a relationship or have been in a relationship. Undoubtedly, when I returned to the Bar about 18 or 19 years ago, some senior members of the Bar and judges just saw domestic violence as a bit of a domestic scuffle and not something to be dealt with or viewed as seriously as it is now. I give full credit to the work undertaken by the previous Government in that respect. I certainly saw a sea change among the judiciary, which was no longer going to tolerate any man even slapping his partner or previous partner. I saw that on a regular basis in the Crown courts in which I had the great pleasure to appear, and I give the previous Government full credit for that. That should give us confidence that our judges are properly trained and are more than able to pass the right sentences, as long as we trust them and enable them to use their discretion.

That, of course, was one of the great failings of IPPs. These sentences, introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to deal with defendants deemed to be dangerous, sounded like, and were, a very good idea. What could be more sensible than providing that a paedophile who had sexually assaulted a child and who had done the same thing previously would not only be sentenced for the outrage that they had committed against a child but that there would be a report on him—invariably it was a “him” as opposed to a “her”—specifically looking at whether he would pose a danger even after completing the determinate part of his sentence? If the report revealed that he had delusions and fantasies of a particularly vile and alarming nature, it was thought only right and proper that he be in custody, in prison, not just for the offence that he had committed but for the protection of the public—in this case, children—at large, because he posed a clear and obvious danger to those children.

In theory, therefore, the idea was wonderful. Many of us approved and agreed with the theory; however, I do not think that the legislation was ever properly looked at—I fear I am criticising both sides of the House for that. Indeed, we talked about the idea in robing rooms at the criminal Bar, and as we thought about it more, and then as it was rolled out, we could see its profound shortcomings. Because it was overly prescriptive, judges effectively had no discretion, so people were sent to prison—quite properly, because they had committed a serious offence—but then found themselves in custody with no time limit on their sentences and no idea when they might be released, on the basis that they were supposedly dangerous. However, that was often because the judge had no alternative but to making that finding, when the offender was clearly not dangerous in the terms that they have should been, as the sort of offender that I have described. Not only did those in custody not know when they were going to be released, but there were no courses and no proper treatment available for them. None of the things that should have been done to drill down into their offending were done, so people were literally—and still are—languishing in prison. With great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, I find it perverse that Opposition Front Benchers should agree with that aspect. For a party that has always prided itself on the liberty of the individual and the rights of the prisoner, it is absolutely wrong to support a system that has people languishing in prison, year after year, without the treatment that they need.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am pleased to agree with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) when, on occasion, he is right, but I do not exactly follow the hon. Lady’s argument. Is she saying that she objects to IPPs in principle or only to how they are working? If it is the former, we have a disagreement; if it is that IPPs have not worked perfectly, I would say that we made omissions in that respect. I advise her to have a look at the Government’s response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill yesterday—which dealt with the point in detail—where the Government assert that they have resolved most of the problems with the administration of IPPs. If that is the case—and if she supports her own Government—why is she not now supporting them?

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful for the information, and I will go away and look at it, but IPPs have just not worked. The legislation was flawed. Indeed, it was so flawed that after its introduction in 2003 there was a huge growth in the prison population. What did the then Government do? Did they take an honest approach and revisit their legislation, or did they take a different, simplistic approach and say, “Goodness me! There are too many people in prison. How can we bring the numbers down?”? They effectively amended the 2003 Act with fresh legislation in 2008, which made the situation even more perverse and wrong. What the then Government introduced in 2008 was a system whereby a finding of dangerousness could not be reached for someone who would not have got four years for their offence. Let me set out what that meant. I know of a case, which I worked on myself, where the trigger offence that had brought the offender—a man who was clearly a paedophile—before the sentencing judge did not warrant more than nine months to one year. I will not bore hon. Members with the details, but the judge was able to the look at the various reports on that man, which clearly showed that he was a danger to children, and he rightly decided on an IPP. However, after the Government changed the law in 2008, somebody like that man would now serve four and a half to six months, when that is exactly the sort of person who should be behind bars for a very long time.

[Philip Davies]

I have some sympathy with the idea that people should not be languishing in prison, not doing anything for years and years and not knowing when they might be released. However, surely my hon. Friend would agree that it is far better to say to somebody, “You will be released only after you have done something to address your offending behaviour,” to give them an incentive to do so, as an IPP does, than just saying, “You’ll be released after a certain period halfway through your sentence, irrespective of whether you’ve done anything to address your offending behaviour or not.”

[Anna Soubry]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and agree with him in this sense. It is not right for people for stay in prison without courses or the assistance that they need to address their offending, so that they can be released when they are no longer a danger. That is absolutely right. The problem is that those courses were certainly not provided by the previous Administration. As for release halfway through a sentence, I am very much with my hon. Friend on that for a number of reasons that other hon. Members have already discussed. I would like us to reach a situation whereby the judge can make it absolutely clear when sentencing how long somebody will spend in prison, which might involve changing the wording. If a judge says, “I am passing a sentence of two years; you will serve only one,” it immediately undermines confidence, particularly that of the victim, in the criminal justice system.

I accept the difficulties that we have with the budget, but I would like us to be in a position in which a person is given a sentence and serves that sentence. Perhaps the parole board might see fit to release them early if they make remarkable progress while serving their sentence, as happens with community sentences. In those cases, if someone is making good progress, the probation officer can go back to the court and ask for the sentence to be shortened. The person can then be released from the sentence, because the job has been done. I would like to see that happening. The present situation is a hangover from the previous Administration. Judges have been told, “You’ve got to say this. You must say that. This is the formula.” It is all too prescriptive. I want to see greater consistency and greater transparency; we need to trust our judges.

I hope that I have made it clear that I support the Government’s reforms, including the abolition of the IPP, and the new system that we want to introduce. I also want to make this point on transparency. I will be absolutely frank: I have always been deeply cynical about the introduction of television cameras into courts. However, I have been persuaded otherwise by the Stephen Lawrence trial, as it is called. The judge had allowed members of the press to tweet from the press gallery in the court, and that allowed people to be informed in a very positive way. I have also been surprised by the number of my constituents who have gone to the trouble to read not only the sentencing remarks in full but a further interlocutory matter that the judge had dealt with in relation to the evidence. Reading that material from beginning to end had a profound effect on the way in which they have perceived the case and on their understanding of the sentences.

On the basis that any televising would cover sentencing only, and that it would involve all the remarks, not just the edited highlights—with great respect to the popular press, that practice has, as the Lord Chancellor has said, led to much disenchantment with the system—I have come to the conclusion that it would be right to have cameras in court. It would be good for transparency, and I agree with the Lord Chancellor when he says that it would restore trust in the system.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who is no longer in his place, talked about early intervention. Under this Government, we are bringing together different strands from various Departments, including the Department of Health, the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice, to look at this matter. We finally have a Government who are being tough on crime and particularly tough on the causes of crime.

15:43

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

It is a real pleasure and privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for whose work at the Bar I have great respect. I was a barrister for eight years. I prosecuted and defended at all levels, and I appeared at courts with my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) in our younger days. Having practised at all levels, including magistrates courts, Crown courts and the Court of Appeal, I want to stress that in any civilised society, there must be a right to a fair trial. That right is at the very heart our constitutional law, as set out in “Hood Phillips”. Related to that right is the issue of the competence of our judges. Having appeared before them at all levels, I can say that our judges—be they magistrates, district judges, Crown court judges, Court of Appeal judges or Supreme Court judges—are of the finest calibre. That supports the argument about consistency and transparency in sentencing.

Linked to that is the argument about checks and balances in our legal system. For example, I appeared at Maidstone Crown court many years ago representing a young defendant who was charged with six counts of supplying class A drugs, which one would have thought would get an automatic custodial sentence. However, taking account of the overall circumstances—the defendant was only 18, had been kicked out of home, had no job and no resources—it was decided that he got into supplying drugs as a runner in order to live day by day. In those exceptional circumstances, the Crown court judge ordered a community penalty and that he receive rehabilitation so that the young man could get somewhere in life rather than be stuck in a system in which he would go inside and come out as a hardened criminal. In that example, the checks and balances were clearly there. Within 90 days, the Attorney-General referred the case to the Court of Appeal, which then accepted the decision of the Crown court judge. It acknowledged that it was right and proper for the judge to show discretion in that case.

As I say, all the circumstances have to be looked at. As my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford and for Broxtowe rightly said, there is a sense in which not every case is a straitjacket. It comes down to having confidence in, and trusting, our judges. I made that point in my maiden speech, referring to the ability and the competence of our judges and the fact that they have to be trusted. Linked to that, I would say that rather than referring matters to the European Courts, they should be left to our Supreme Court and its judges—some of the highest calibre judges I have ever encountered.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend comment on cases where the judges might have got something wrong and what routes of recompense there are in those circumstances? I speak as chairman of the all-party group on retail and business crime. I hear a number of instances from independent retailers where judges have given questionable summaries, so these retailers are unsure whether the justice system works in their favour. Let me cite one quick example, where a judge said that because the perpetrator of the crime stole scratch cards rather than real money, a reduced sentence was appropriate. The shop was particularly upset by the judgment but had no way of securing recompense by getting the sentence increased or getting justice from the system.

[Rehman Chishti]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, which I was going to come on to later, but will address now. When it comes to a court decision or sentence that people feel is not right, there are checks and balances. As I said, the Attorney-General can refer the matter to the Court of Appeal if the sentence appears unduly lenient. In the example my hon. Friend mentioned, it is right and proper to have the victim impact statement at the outset. The incident might seem trivial in some people’s eyes, but not to the retailer in this case for whom the circumstances were very important. We must ensure that the gravity of the circumstances is properly taken into account.

We have discussed checks and balances from the prosecution angle. Here, I would say there are provisions in statute—the Criminal Justice Act 2003—where the previous Government got it right in respect of checks and balances. This deals with the prosecutor’s right to appeal a case through a terminatory ruling to the Court of Appeal. I was involved in one of those cases. In the case of R and R at Harrow Crown court, a Crown court judge felt that gloves with lead in the middle of them did not constitute an offensive weapon—the same as knuckle-dusters—accepting that they were used to drive a Harley-Davidson. It was argued that these could not be offensive weapons per se and that there was no intent to cause injury. In that case, it was right and proper to use section 58(2)(b) of the 2003 Act to refer the matter to the Court of Appeal. The judge’s decision was overturned.

That brings me back to the point about consistency in judges’ decisions and the importance of having checks and balances—for example, at the Crown court where the Attorney-General can apply them to unduly lenient sentences. On the other hand, if a sentence is manifestly excessive, that, too, can be referred to the Court of Appeal. I would say that the system works well for both sides, ensuring consistency in sentencing from judges who, in my view, are some of the finest in the world and who have exhibited consistency in the cases that I have been involved in.

Linked to that issue are arguments about the Sentencing Council, which the Lord Chancellor and other Members mentioned. The composition of the Sentencing Council is the important point for me. We have referred to senior judges on it and we have mentioned people from Victim Support. It is entirely right and proper to have sentencing guidelines where there is experience at all levels.

The other point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford was the need to ensure that there is consistency throughout the country. One member of the Sentencing Council, the hon. Mr Justice Globe, has practised on the northern circuit, while another, also an eminent member of the judiciary, has practised on the midlands circuit. There is a member from the Probation Service, and a member, Professor Julian Roberts, who is a leading academic. The integrity of this independent body is maintained when its members, including judges, convene from different parts of the country to ensure that the guidance that it issues reflects the views of its entire membership.

As I said to the Lord Chancellor, it is right for us to have a sentencing guidelines council. The fact remains, however, that these are only guidelines. At the time of the riots in August, I made clear my view that the firm sentencing of the judges was entirely appropriate, because those tragic events were not ordinary incidents. The Sentencing Council is there to set guidelines in relation to day-to-day offences, but I believe that judges are right to depart from such guidelines when they must deal with serious and extraordinary events.

We all remember the rhetoric of 1997: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” Ten years down the line, when half the total number of offenders were reoffending within a year, we looked for the key factor in terms of the causes of crime. I think that it was nonsense for the then Leader of the Opposition—subsequently Prime Minister in the Labour Government —to use the words “tough on the causes of crime”, given that events such as the London riots are often linked to causes such as the breakdown of the family and failure to provide the right support. The riots happened because society did not get it right and the Labour Government did not get it right. We know that alcohol is one of the key factors in crime, but the causes of crime were not dealt with in that regard. Instead, 24-hour alcohol licences were given out, which exacerbated the problem further.

I agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) about the automatic release of prisoners halfway through their sentences. Earlier this year, I submitted a written question asking how many instances of bad behaviour there had been in 2010. I was told that there had been 11,500. Did those who had been responsible for that bad behaviour have to stay in prison for longer? The answer was no: they came straight out. That is clearly reminiscent of the last Government, who got it completely wrong. I suggest to the Solicitor-General that we should seek to ensure that if people are released halfway through their sentences, good behaviour should be taken into account. Indeed, that point is often raised by a great many judges.

When I mentioned early release to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), his argument was, “It was only a few days here and a few days there.” It is good that he has accepted that early release went on, but it was completely unacceptable for 80,000 people to be released from prison early under the last Government, for a number of reasons. A victim has plucked up the courage to go to court. The police have done their part, obtaining statements and tracking down the person responsible. There is either CCTV evidence or circumstantial evidence. There is a prosecutor who has prepared a brief, and there is a judge who has done his job and has passed sentence. That sentence is then undermined if someone is released early, or released early on curfew. In that respect, the last Government completely undermined our criminal justice system and people’s confidence in it.

I strongly agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe. I strongly support what the Government are doing in not just looking at custody arrangements. Of course one has to consider custody when an offence is so serious that that is warranted, but it is crucial to look at underlying causes, and at skills and education. A lot of the people whom we are talking about cannot read and write, so it is no surprise that they go inside, come back out, commit a crime, and go back inside. We have to ensure that they have skills, so that when they come out, they can contribute to society; that is right and proper.

Linked to that is the issue of ensuring that people work while they are inside. I very much welcome the Lord Chancellor’s proposal that there be an offer of 35 hours’ work in prison; that is right and proper. The money that people earn in prison should go to the victim, so that when a judge makes an order for compensation at the outset of the sentence, the money is paid. That is better than saying to the victim, “I’m really sorry; the defendant is going into custody, and he has no money.” That is completely and utterly unfair to the victim. Under this proposal, the judge can give a sentence of custody plus compensation paid for through work carried out inside.

I very much welcome the reforms relating to knife crime and gangs—things by which all our constituencies have been affected, albeit at different levels; there might be more or less of them in different parts of the country. The Government are sending a clear message that knife crime will not be tolerated by introducing an automatic prison sentence for adults who use knives, or threaten to do so, and so endanger people’s lives. That is right and proper; it is what the public want, and I very much want the Government to introduce that.

I welcome the Government’s push towards ending the practice of releasing dangerous sexual and violent offenders halfway through their sentence without a Parole Board hearing. It is absolutely right and proper to protect the public—we have to do that—by ensuring that there is a Parole Board hearing and approval, so that we can be sure that the offender is no longer a danger to the public.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) has a detailed, lengthy argument to make; when I was at the Bar, I was taught that brevity is a virtue, not a vice, and I shall apply that principle. I have nothing more to say, other than that I very much support the Government’s proposed reforms to improve our criminal justice system and ensure consistency and transparency in our legal system.

15:56

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who, although a fellow member of my chambers, is a far more distinguished barrister than I have ever been. He speaks with great authority. However, I do not wish to declare that legal interest, particularly; I want to declare as an interest the fact that I have been a victim, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I have been burgled four times, twice in London and twice in Lincolnshire, and it has never been other than a completely traumatic, devastating experience. I apologise if that somewhat warps my judgment when it comes to burglars, but there it is. My experiences are similar to those of no fewer than 745,000 of my fellow citizens who, in 2010, were burgled and had their lives traumatised.

On the last occasion on which I was burgled, the burglars stripped some lead off the roof; fair enough, but they then came inside and stole the hot-water tank, without bothering to turn off the water—why should they? That would have been a kind gesture. The result was that the house was completely flooded. Everything was ruined, and my experience is not unusual nowadays. I do not accept the argument of the liberal elite—if I may use the sort of language used by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—that there are nice burglaries and bad burglaries; all domestic burglaries are absolutely horrible, and the public are completely fed up with them.

The deterrent is simply not great enough. In 2010, there was a statistically significant increase of 14% in domestic burglaries, so it is not surprising that 60% of adults feel that crime has gone up since last year. We heard earlier that the public do not necessarily understand what is really going on, and that they read the popular press, but I trust the public. When there are 745,000 burglaries, they start to worry, and they feel under threat in their homes. That ruins their lives. Vulnerable, older, and poorer people feel that even more strongly. They cannot live in gated communities.

I suppose that the police tried their best when I was burgled, but there was no evidence that there was any follow-up, or that they were taking intelligence. They seemed to be overwhelmed. All they said to me is, “You have to have a burglar alarm fitted and fit more locks.” However, the poor simply cannot afford this. It is the poor and the old who suffer. Judges and we in this House have a duty to defend our people from being victimised in this way.

[Philip Davies]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend is saying. Is it not all the more terrible that 10% of all crimes and 20% of all burglaries are committed by people on bail? Given that, should not the Government be doing something to tighten up the bail rules, instead of making it harder for courts to remand people in custody?

[Mr Leigh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I do not want to weary the House with too many figures, because then I will be accused of quoting statistics, which do not give the whole story. However, these figures are alarming and it is up to the Government to reply to them. As I have said, 48% of all burglars do not receive an immediate custodial sentence. Some 37% of burglars of private dwelling houses—the worst form of violation of our fellow citizens’ rights—do not receive a custodial sentence. Approximately 87% of custodial sentences for domestic burglary are for less than three years. In 2010, only 16% of those convicted of burglary were sentenced to more than 18 months in prison. In other words, only 16% were sent to prison, and a lot of them were out within nine months. We know that a house that has been burgled has a 20% chance of being burgled at least once more within a year.

Apart from the trauma and the violation of people’s rights and privacy, burglary costs insurers a staggering £370 million per annum. Members should not believe all those insurance adverts in which the kind insurance company comes in the next day and mends everything—that does not happen. As I and our fellow citizens know, it is hard going every inch of the way with these insurance companies.

What about the clear-up rate? The British crime survey shows that approximately 659,000 domestic burglaries were committed in 2009-10. Given that only 9,670 such offenders were convicted, the clear-up rate was a mere 1.4%. So, not only are many of the punishments derisory—someone who is convicted, if indeed they are convicted, will not go to prison for very long—but the clear-up rate is incredibly low and the police are obviously struggling to deal with the problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said—the point he made bears repeating—according to Ministry of Justice figures for a particular year, 2,980 burglars with 15 previous convictions were not sent to prison. I hope the Minister will reply to that point when he sums up the debate.

We had an argument earlier about current sentencing guidelines. I quoted various figures to the Secretary of State during interventions, saying that only 48% of burglars go to prison, and he said, “I’m sorry, but my position is absolutely clear: I believe that if you burgle a private dwelling house, you should go to prison.” The purpose of my speaking in this debate is to try, in my own small way, to convince the Secretary of State, the judges and the whole system that there is a widespread and strong belief and understanding among our fellow citizens that someone who breaks into and steals from a private dwelling house will go to prison, and I want to drive that message home. However, I was told that sentencing guidelines—my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe spoke with great authority on this issue—suggest a community sentence for first-time offenders. They may have been convicted for the first time, but how many burglaries have they actually committed? We have no idea. We are talking about a community sentence—no prison sentence at all.

Currently, for a category 3, lesser harm or lower culpability domestic burglary—I do not accept this language, which is that of the Sentencing Council—the sentencing starting point is a high-level community order. Our fellow citizens will be astonished to hear that somebody can commit a domestic burglary and get a high-level community order. The suggested range goes from a low-level community order to a mere 26 weeks' imprisonment, which, as we all know, is nothing like 26 weeks' imprisonment. On top of that, criminals receive a guilty plea discount. I am sorry to have to say that we are simply not doing enough to grip this.

[The Solicitor-General]

rose—

[Mr Leigh]

I shall give way in a moment, and I hope that the Minister will reply to this point. There are far too many domestic burglaries and people do not feel safe in their homes. The punishments are not sufficient and neither is the clear-up rate, and that has a major effect on the quality of life in this country.

[The Solicitor-General]

On my hon. Friend’s point about category 3 burglaries, is he suggesting that public policy should not allow any differentiation between domestic burglaries? For example, if in broad daylight the burglar puts his hand through an open window, steals a paperweight from the windowsill and walks off, should that be treated in the same way as a night-time domestic burglary in which an elderly couple are traumatised and frightened or—as happened in his case—the house is trashed? Is he saying that there should be just one category, burglary, and that the sentence should be prison full stop?

[Mr Leigh]

Of course I am not saying that and of course judges should have some discretion. There is a range of burglaries. It is not for me to lay down the law and to say that there should be a minimum sentence or what it should be. I want to drive home the point that there should be a general understanding among the law-abiding public that their homes will be protected, as there should be a general understanding among them and among the criminal classes of what will happen if someone commits any kind of domestic burglary. I do not accept the language, by the way. We have heard descriptions of burglaries before in which somebody puts their hand through a window and takes a paperweight, and we have to ask how many people are going around taking paperweights—I do not know. The language suggests that it does not really matter very much, but it does matter and it is important.

Of course, there must be differentiation, but my point is very important: I want a general understanding of what will happen if a person violates someone’s privacy and causes them trauma. I suspect that a lot of the time what is being stolen is not just a paperweight but something that is very personal and precious. It goes back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe said about her grandmother’s wedding ring. It might not be worth much, but the experience was traumatising. I want to drive home the point that if someone goes into somebody’s private house and takes something, they should end up in prison.

[The Solicitor-General]

rose—

[Mr Leigh]

I shall give way to the Minister and, if he gives me that reassurance, I shall sit down immediately.

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. Friend has sat down already, so that is all right. I am trying to extract clarity from him. I want him to make the best case he can, but unless he speaks clearly it is difficult to respond in a way that does his argument justice. That was why I asked him the question and he has provided me with an answer.

[Mr Leigh]

I thank the Minister. We are at idem and I hope that the Government will now make an announcement in accordance with what I have been arguing for the past 10 minutes or so.

I want to drive home the point that it is the poor and vulnerable who suffer. A family with a household income of less than £10,000 is more than twice as likely to be burgled as one with a household income of £40,000 to £50,000. As a House of Commons, we are right to have this debate today and to raise this issue. I understand that the Government will make an announcement this afternoon on spent convictions—I have been told by the media that that will happen, but I do not know whether that is right. At the end of this debate and over the next few weeks and months, I want to elicit a response from the Government that shows that they are seized of the problem and are prepared to put sufficient resources into clearing up domestic burglaries through the policing system and to encourage the courts to take seriously the crime of burglary, of all crimes, because that is one thing that our fellow citizens want more than anything else.

16:09

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I must apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for not being a lawyer but daring to participate in this debate. I hope he will forgive me. I must also apologise for not living in Oxfordshire or in a nine-bedroom mansion. I live in a two-bedroom ex-council flat; I hope that does not exclude me from this debate.

I represent the fourth most deprived Conservative-held seat in the country, and I hope that allows me to participate in the debate because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) has just pointed out, it is the poor who suffer most as a consequence of crime.

I should like to question some of the comforting nostrums that have been floating around the Chamber. Those who have read their New Statesman this morning might call it “reassurance” politics—saying things to make ourselves, rather than those we seek to represent, feel better. That is my primary concern. Language is crucial in this debate. We have to be judicious and proportionate in everything we say, but I sometimes fear that is rather difficult.

I also believe that victims have to have a crucial role in this process, not because I believe, as I fear some do, that victims will automatically demand the harshest judgment possible—far from it. We can all swap polling and survey evidence, but I want to highlight a survey I saw from 2009, which said that only 11% of the victims questioned felt that sending more offenders to prison would “do most” to reduce crime. That is not to say that people should not go to prison or that prison should not be unpleasant, but it does indicate that the comforting nostrum that all victims are slavering for the chance to see those who have caused them harm swing high simply is not the case.

I commend the Government for publishing more local, transparent data on sentencing. That is vital to improving not just transparency but public confidence in the system. I firmly believe that a transparent and consistent sentencing policy will be possible only if we start to reduce the prison population. Unlike some hon. Members here today, I do not believe we should seek to turn this nation into a gulag with as many people as possible crammed in.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend and I heard the interesting and often entertaining speech of our hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who mentioned the Netherlands. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) agree that if the Netherlands can close eight prisons because they do not have enough prisoners to fill them, and if their apparent crime rate and their apparent imprisonment rate are half of ours, on a population basis, we have a lot to learn from those who agree that we need to cut crime, cut the number of victims and cut the number of people in prison as well?

[Paul Maynard]

I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. I have always believed there should be a strong correlation between the amount of crime being committed and the number of people being sent to prison. If one is going in one direction, I fail to understand why the other is not going in the same direction, but it is not. There are now twice as many people in prison as when Michael Howard announced that “prison works”. I therefore believe that for certain categories of prisoner it is essential to look at alternatives to custody that are robust without being harsh and that have lower reoffending rates. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor pointed out that that was one of the crucial indicators he had placed at the heart of the Ministry of Justice’s work. In my view, that means we should start to focus not only on how many people reoffend after longer sentences but at what we mean by a short sentence and what is an appropriate sentence.

I might just about agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley that sentences of less than 12 months are almost decorative. People at the young offender institutions I have visited say that the most they can do is fix people’s teeth in that time, if they are lucky. Perhaps the shortest sentence should be 12 months, but that does not absolve us from trying to confront what we do in the community. I do not support the idea that anyone who is found guilty should be sent to prison, no matter what their crime. That simply is not the way to go. Within the youth justice system, there has been a 30% fall in the number of children in custodial settings without any increase in youth crime. That is an important example to which we should hold true. It is possible to reduce incarceration levels while keeping crime levels low. Once again, the two are not connected. Indeed, the Government have been able to cancel plans to build a new young offender institution at Glen Parva, thereby creating savings for the taxpayer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley was rather dismissive of my participation in the 301 project. I hope he is not similarly dismissive of our participation in “No Turning Back”; indeed, perhaps he is a fellow member. I hope he shares my concern for effective financial management and good stewardship of taxpayers’ money. One of my key concerns about the approach to criminal justice that he advocates is that it pays no attention to the cost to the public purse.

I make no apology for that consideration. Only yesterday, we spent time agonising over the Welfare Reform Bill and the deeply difficult cuts that we are having to make that will affect some very vulnerable people. Those are difficult decisions, which we do not take with any great pleasure. If we give that level of scrutiny to our welfare system, I strongly believe that it is incumbent on us to look with equal forensic attention at how much we are spending on our prison and criminal justice systems.

[Philip Davies]

I asked the Ministry of Justice what was the highest number of crimes that somebody had committed while still not being sent to prison—the number of previous convictions. The answer was 578. Somebody with 578 previous convictions was not sent to prison. That was 300 for shoplifting, 131 for drunk and disorderly behaviour, 79 for public disorder, 18 for breach of bail, 14 for criminal damage, nine for assault, eight for robbery, four for possessing an offensive weapon, one for actual bodily harm and 14 others. Does my hon. Friend agree that that person should still not have been sent to prison?

[Paul Maynard]

When I see my hon. Friend flicking through sheets of paper, I can always guarantee that a demon statistic is on its way to disprove the point being made by a hapless Back Bencher. Such is my lot.

The average cost of a year in prison is £45,000. Effective, intensive community sentences can cost as little as £5,000. I stress the word “effective”, because I accept that much of our community sentencing is not very good at all. It does not do what it is supposed to do and is regarded as a joke, but there are intensive alternatives that have been shown to work. That is where we should focus our attention, not just on banging up everyone who has ever looked at us askance. Indeed, in a world governed by my hon. Friend, I might fear for my own liberty. It would be deeply concerning to end up in the Shipley gulag.

If I understand the complex legal world correctly, a community order can comprise 12 different elements. Some of them are relatively familiar: for example, curfews and unpaid work, which make up slightly over 30% of many community orders. What concerns me is that the more technical, specialist and difficult aspects make up less than 1% of the orders that are issued. The mental health treatment requirement is used in less than 1% of community orders, yet 40% of the offenders we are discussing have been judged as having a mental health need. There are numerous problems with that component. A high threshold is set, which requires a psychiatric report that can often result in a wait of up to 16 weeks. That may deter many magistrates from imposing an order. It also requires the psychiatrist to offer a specific course of treatment, which may not be easy to arrange, thus again deterring a magistrate from employing the order.

What worries me more than anything else is that magistrates might not fully understand the range of disposals they can use. All too often people in the criminal justice system tell me that if only they had known about this or that type of order they could have given the offender a more appropriate sentence. If I have one incy-wincy, teeny-weeny criticism of the Government, it is that cuts in training for magistrates might make it harder for them to be aware of what is available in their local area.

There are particularly good models in existence, such as the North Liverpool community court where judges remain actively involved in the offender’s future post-sentence. They can see whether the sentence they impose actually represents punishment of the offender and solves their many problems.

I must also refer, as many Members have, to restorative justice, or youth conferencing as we have seen it in Northern Ireland. It demonstrates that there is innovation out there that can deliver better reoffending figures than a custodial setting. I want the Government to follow up their work on the intensive alternative to custody pilot that was run in Manchester. They published an excellent analysis of the pilot in July 2011, but it made it clear that it was very difficult to come up with robust reoffending figures for those who had gone through the system. As those of us who participate in these debates know, winning public confidence requires robust data showing that new, innovative methods of disposal actually work. It is difficult to provide robust figures for the intensive alternative to custody.

We need to understand reoffending rates far better, because these models can offer much greater cost-effectiveness. As I said earlier, we cannot look only at the criminal justice and public spending elements as if we are just warehousing criminals for two years or so for public protection, because they will just emerge ready to reoffend, and that will not provide the satisfaction—I use the word in precise terms—that a victim deserves.

Despite the fall in child custody, one in 10 prisoners are still in the 18 to 20 age group. Admittedly, this has spiked because of the riots, quite correctly in my view. However, the independent panel that looked into the riots identified the lack of support for young people moving from the youth justice system to the adult justice system as a contributory factor to the occurrence of the riots, which is worth bearing in mind. The Barrow Cadbury Trust found that almost half of those in the 18 to 20 age group were in local authority residential care and 40% had suffered some sort of domestic violence. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has stated in a Centre for Social Justice report that

“increasing penalties for offenders will do little to stop the next generation of prisoners and unlock the cycle of deprivation which so many young people are trapped in, unless it is accompanied by an attempt to tackle the underlying drivers of crime.”

That is why I am concerned that any model that focuses simply on imprisonment and increasing the number of prisoners will not solve the wider problem we face.

We all age physically at different speeds, but we also age emotionally at different speeds. The human brain is not mature until the mid-20s—I suspect that for certain Members it might be much older, but I do not dare to speculate. It is worth looking at the model used in Germany, where those in the 18 to 21 age group are assessed for maturity. If the individual has a communication delay or learning disabilities, for example, there is the option that they will be disposed of through the youth justice process. That has been shown to work well in solving individual problems.

It is also important that our political rhetoric in the Chamber, on both sides, is mature when we discuss criminal justice. The Prison Reform Trust—I declare an interest as a trustee—recently published a report examining the reasons for the decline in child imprisonment. It found that politicians had played no role in that at all. Indeed, the best it could say about us was that we did not impede the process. I welcome the fact that the Government and others are now rejecting the easy, knee-jerk options. The Mayor’s strategy on youth crime, for example, was notably mature and robust in how it sought to tackle the issue. Similarly, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has made great strides in the right direction, although I am sure that we would want to see some of them move more quickly. I commend the Sentencing Council for the judicious work it has done so far, and I congratulate the Opposition, empty though their Benches are, on having done the right thing in setting it up.

In conclusion, transparency and consistency in sentencing can be achieved only by clarity of purpose, and by an iron will not to use sentencing policy to demonstrate other supposed political virtues. We do not need to be harsh to be tough, and we must never forget that victims are humans and have needs. To be a victim of crime is more than a financial event; it is a deeply upsetting and emotional experience.

Equally, we must never forget that perpetrators of crime are also human beings. Often, they are perpetrators not because they are evil—and I do believe in evil, and that there are evil people who should be in prison—but because the state has failed them at multiple stages of their life, almost from birth, in residential care homes, education and many other settings. Those people are on the conveyor belt to crime because we in this House have failed them time and again. To put such people in prison and merely wash our hands of them is not a solution to the state’s failure to care for the most vulnerable in society.

16:26

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I rise with an enormous amount of insecurity because I am talking to so many learned friends on a subject about which I know so little—I feel a little like a woolly mammoth staggering into a law library. My speech is really a series of hints followed by guesses, with perhaps some questions about the relationship of the Sentencing Council to our constitution.

It strikes me that there is a danger with the Sentencing Council that I would love to hear the Government address. It seems—if I may use portentous language—to be a threat to the liberty of Englishmen. I say that deliberately because it does not, of course, apply to Scotland, and I would not presume to speak for Wales. The Sentencing Council is a threat to the liberty of Englishmen because despite its best intentions—we have heard wonderful stuff about predictability, transparency, consistency and public trust—it is attempting to step on sacred ground. It is going where the state and administrators should not go; it is trying to cross the threshold of the courtroom door.

We in Parliament are connected to many things that are to do with the law. We create the law, and we define crimes and the factors relevant to them. We can even state the maximum sentence—or, in exceptional circumstances the minimum sentence—for a particular crime. We should not, however, become involved—and I fear that the Sentencing Council is involved—with the exact processes and factors that operate within the courtroom itself, and in particular with the independence and power of the jury and the judge.

We have heard a certain amount about the independence of the judge, but the most important point concerns the jury, which has a direct interest in knowing the connection between its verdict and the judgment reached. It is difficult for it to see that connection, however, in the current world of the Sentencing Council, which is an astonishingly opaque universe that might appeal to a management consultant or to a Taylorist soap factory. For example, in the case of grievous bodily harm, the Sentencing Council attempts to define nine aggravating factors, three statutory aggravating factors and 25 additional factors, and then to churn the whole thing through a sausage factory of nine different steps until a judgment is produced through that complex algorithm. How is the jury expected to understand the consequences of its verdict on such a judgment?

Purists may say that such things are none of the jury’s concern, and that the jury does not need to know the sentence as its concern is merely with the verdict. However, that has never been true in English common law, which from the beginning has contained the notion of pious perjury—in other words, the jury’s ability not only to determine the verdict, but to have an influence on the sentence. That was important, of course, when the death penalty attached to basic crimes, and it is still important today when we consider issues such as assisted suicide. It is a very important part of our liberty that the jury retains the discretion to affect the decision.

The second set of problems with which we are dealing concerns the independence of the judge. The jury is the preservation of our liberty, but the judge also has two important hands that are manacled by the Sentencing Council. The first is his ability to reach a decision based on the complexity of an individual case. The algorithms produced by the Sentencing Council—the lists of nine or 25 factors—are simply, in its own words, “non-exhaustive” lists of the factors that a judge is supposed to take into account. He is supposed to recognise the individuality of the crime, and the nature and history of the criminal. Those are the things for which we employ a judge—the things that a human is better able to provide than a machine or some checklist produced by the Sentencing Council.

The deeper, bigger problem is that the judge is not simply involved in a forensic investigation. It is not simply a question of fact or the analysis of evidence; at its deepest level, it is a question of morality and philosophy. When the judge determines a sentence, he is supposed to take on board not simply the crime and the history of the criminal but all the issues that we have heard about today—deterrence, public protection and justice in its broadest sense. They are not instrumental or factual questions but normative questions of morality and philosophy. Those things cannot be outsourced to a Sentencing Council that wishes us to tick boxes.

The defence of the Sentencing Council—that the guidelines are not mandatory—is of course deeply disingenuous. It is only under the most exceptional circumstances that judges can depart from them. Let us therefore remember that the reason why we have for so long protected the independence of the jury and the judge in English common law from exactly that type of administrative state interference is that we are English, not French. Such interference is a very Napoleonic approach, implying that the administrative state, with its astonishing mathematical formulae and algorithms, can generate the appropriate sentence within the hallowed space of the courtroom.

We must fight against that, because from the very foundation of our jury system, the basic principle of English common law has pushed against the idea of learned experts with their technocratic micro-management and instead recognised, since the early mediaeval period, the importance of even semi-literate jurors. The qualities that we look for in justice are not those of mathematical precision and science but those of common sense, human relationships, understanding and fellow feeling. In the judge, we look not simply for his learned nature, but for his compassion, philosophical insight and morality.

I conclude with a small reference to Blackstone. However convenient the new methods of trial may at first appear—indeed, all arbitrary methods are convenient at their first appearance—let it be remembered that the delays and minor inconveniences in the forms of our justice are the price that a free nation pays for its liberty in more substantial matters.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Following remarks today by the United States Defence Secretary Leon Panetta that US forces in Afghanistan will step back from their lead combat role by the end of 2013, Downing street appears to have announced a similar policy for British troops at its press briefing this morning. Surely that should have been first announced to Parliament. Has Mr Speaker been approached by the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence or even the Prime Minister’s office saying that the Government wish to make a statement to Parliament either today or, at the very latest, on Monday?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, Mr Spellar, for forward notice of that point of order. I have not received any information that the Prime Minister or any other Minister intends to make a statement today. Should that change, Members will be notified in the usual way.

16:34

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart)—he is a most learned friend—who gave a great philosophical and moral insight into sentencing decisions and the factors involved.

This debate is long overdue and a range of views have been aired. I welcome the debate partly because it gives me an opportunity to commend the Government’s approach to their victims strategy. I have had the privilege of engaging with the Ministry of Justice on its “Victims Matter” policy, including through a ten-minute rule Bill I sponsored at the end of last year.

There is a degree of consensus in the House this afternoon that far more needs to be done to support victims in light of the consistency and transparency of sentencing, and, importantly, to rebalance the criminal justice system, so that there is not a disproportionate focus on the offender and so that due consideration is given to the victims of crime. It is obvious that the Government’s focus and what they have done are welcome and good steps in the right direction. Naturally, some of the Government’s proposals will need careful consideration. I hope Ministers and officials engage constructively with Victim Support and other organisations to ensure that victims services are improved and enhanced.

As has been said, sentencing is a part of the justice system in which victims are forgotten, yet sentencing is important to them. Victims of crime want offenders to face the consequences of their actions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) has said, there is balance. Offenders must take on the full consequences of their action through punishment, and we must ensure that sentences reflect the crime that has been committed while providing the offender with an appropriate degree of punishment and rehabilitation.

That is partly why victims of crime, and certainly those I have met through my constituency work and those I have engaged with through wider dialogue through, for example, the all-party parliamentary group feel frustrated, angry and disfranchised, which is a good word to use in respect of victims in the justice system. They feel that they are ignored and that the emphasis is placed far too much on the offender. Sadly, there are far too many examples of that. There has been much commentary this afternoon on the media reporting of cases, but I want to mention one case reported earlier this month. Josephine and Douglas Manwaring wrote a victim impact assessment to call for the criminal who brutally murdered their daughter 20 years ago to rot in prison. The case was harrowing, but the bureaucrats involved tried to censor their views from the Parole Board considering the murderer’s release. Those actions were totally unacceptable, and I trust that the Justice Secretary took robust action to ensure that those bureaucrats do not take it upon themselves to suppress victims in future. Victims must have a voice.

In another well documented case in Essex, victims of crime were completely circumvented and ignored in the sentencing of a prolific offender, Bradley Wernham. He was eventually apprehended after committing more than 600 offences, but when his case came to court, the victims were not given the chance to have a say. Instead, officials and the court refused to lock him up, and he went on to reoffend. The court decided not only to give him a community sentence, but to give him the usual benefits that come with it. It became a social experiment. Many of my constituents described his treatment as bribing him not to reoffend. Needless to say, the experiment backfired, and dozens of crimes later, he was eventually put behind bars. I emphasise that throughout the process, victims had no voice in the decisions and were never engaged.

The Justice Secretary and the wider Ministry of Justice team will share my concerns about such situations. Although the new reforms will take time to be effective, it is important that the Ministry reiterates to the courts, and to all those involved in the justice system, that victims must have a voice. They must be put first, especially in sentencing.

I want the Government to go further in keeping the public safe when persistent offenders are sentenced. In 2010, 651 offenders received between five and nine community sentences, while 10 offenders received between 10 and 14 community sentences. Those 661 offenders were given more than five chances to rehabilitate, but they still pursued a life of crime. In 2009, offenders subject to community orders committed more than 18,000 serious violent and sexual offences, including 172 sexual offences against children. Those figures are truly astonishing. They demonstrate that far too many criminals are being allowed to remain in the community, where they are reoffending and causing misery for their victims, when they should be locked behind bars to keep the public safe.

It is not just offenders on community orders who are continuing their criminal ways. Figures from 2009—again, Labour was in power—show that 21,000 criminals reoffended within one month of receiving a caution or an out-of-court disposal. I appreciate that there are strains on our prisons and that the previous Government left behind an appalling legacy, which this Government are seriously attempting to deal with, but when people are reoffending at such prolific rates, our courts must be empowered to imprison the most dangerous and persistent offenders. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill gives some reassurance that that can happen. In particular, I welcome the policy to remove some prisoners’ automatic right to be released after serving just half their sentence in prison. However, I urge the Justice Secretary to be firm with the judiciary over the protection of the public.

Some really shocking examples have come to my attention of criminals being let out early only to reoffend. I have a string of examples, and we have heard others today. The point, however, is that public protection should always come first. We have heard that our prisons are straining at full capacity and that we must do more on rehabilitation, and I completely support that, because the cost of reoffending has been far too high. Colleagues on both sides of the House recognise that the system is completely unsustainable, given the figures for reoffending, the cost to the public purse and the cost of the prison system and the criminal justice system. More has to be done to make sure that resources are targeted appropriately in prisons to prevent reoffending.

We have had plenty of figures, including Ministry of Justice figures—I hope they are reliable figures—indicating that a good degree of taxpayers’ money is being spent on prisoner education. That is, of course, welcome, but we should spend that money in a targeted way to ensure that we can turn around offenders’ lives. The rehabilitation revolution and the proposals in “Breaking the Cycle” are absolutely targeted at doing that.

I firmly believe that prison has a role to play as a strong deterrent. We must ensure that our prisons work and that they do what it says on the tin. The Government’s focus on reoffending and breaking the cycle of reoffending is absolutely key. We must make sure that resources are targeted in the right way to deal with the previous Government’s dreadful legacy in the criminal justice system. We must do what needs to be done, protect the public and start turning around the lives of many of these persistent reoffenders.

16:44

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

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

The sentencing process will always be imperfect and flawed because it comes at the end of a process that starts with a crime being committed, a wrong being done, resulting in damage, death or injury, and whatever the sentencing process contributes, that wrong can never be put entirely right: the family of the victim of somebody who has caused death by dangerous driving, sitting in court, will never be able to recover what they have lost; the partner and children of a householder murdered in the course of a burglary will never be able to recover what they have lost; the victims of a household burglary, examples of which we have heard today, will never be able to recover what they have lost.

It is wholly wrong, therefore, for legislators, judges or anyone else involved in the process to claim too much of the sentencing process or suggest that it can right the social ills of our country. It can never do that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) reminded us, its function is more limited but still important, bearing in mind the duty of the state and the Government to protect the public. That is one of the functions of sentencing. The others are to punish offenders; where appropriate, to offer the hope of rehabilitation to offenders; to reduce reoffending; and to deter others. Those are the functions of sentencing, and we lose sight of them at our peril.

To be fair to the previous Government, they enshrined those principles in law, through the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which was perhaps one of the few wise decisions that they took. It seemed to me, and many others involved at the heart of the system, that many of the previous Government’s decisions were based on precious little evidence or analysis. I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) as she explained, as she always does, the case for victims of crime. As someone who was part of the system, as a lawyer and part-time judge, I know that it is easy to overlook victims in the process, because it is the state taking action against the individual, with the victim a mere player—a witness, if you like.

Those old nostrums no longer stand the test of time, which is why there is much merit in what my hon. Friend said about the voice of victims. Hence, I am a passionate supporter of restorative justice. Having seen the limitations of the court system and understood the lack of control that victims feel, I see in restorative justice a chance for those victims to regain control of the situation. Only a few months ago, I heard from the victim of a double rape, who told me and a rapt audience of about 100 people in my constituency about the first time she gained control of the situation. Having been brutally raped, she gave evidence in a trial that resulted in a successful conviction, but—understandably, perhaps—she was told at the end of the trial, “Thank you, you were a brilliant witness. That’s all.”

It might have been all for the criminal justice system, but it was not all for her, because she had to live with the consequences of what had happened—her job over, her family broken up, her life changed utterly. She said that when she met the perpetrator of the rape in prison, for the first time she had control over events. She felt that she was in the driving seat, that she was dictating the process and that she, although never being able to obtain full closure, was for the first time able to explain to the perpetrator of this dreadful crime the effect it had had on her. That is why I believe in restorative justice, and why I am delighted that the Government are committed to rolling out and enhancing this aspect of our system.

The Sentencing Council has come in for a degree of criticism today, and rightly so. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border reminded us, most eloquently, that to reduce sentencing to a desiccated calculating exercise would be wholly wrong. Judges have to bring with them that element of humanity that is part of the human condition. When you sit in judgment on your fellow man or woman, Mr Deputy Speaker, you have to look them in the eye and judge them as one human being over another. Anyone who tries to rationalise that or limit those decisions to mere rationality does the system a disservice; indeed, they put it in danger. That is why we must never reduce sentencing to mere algorithmic calculation. However, that is the danger of the formulae that have been used in a number of guidelines issued by the Sentencing Council.

I enjoyed challenging Lord Justice Leveson about such matters when I described the new assault guidelines as the judicial equivalent of that game show “The Krypton Factor”—you may remember it, Mr Deputy Speaker, from some years ago—where hapless contestants had to crawl through an assault course and be challenged in a range of activities that seemed to baffle them and the presenter. My challenge was rebuffed, but I renew it in the Chamber today, because I firmly believe that the danger of guidelines is that because departing from them without proper explanation is a ground for appeal, they effectively fetter the discretion of sentencers. I have no problem whatever with trying to achieve a consistency of approach; and, to be fair to the right hon. Lord Justice Leveson, he agrees with that. He would be horrified if he thought that the courts system was somehow being reduced to mere arithmetic and calculation. However, the danger remains that with an over-emphasis on the guidelines—let us not forget that the court must, not “may”, have regard to the guidelines—we become over-prescriptive in sentencing.

[Rory Stewart]

Just to expand on that point, does my hon. Friend agree that, as the US Supreme Court found in the case of Booker and Fanfan, the distinction between mandatory sentencing guidelines and purely advisory guidelines is misleading and dangerous? As he is implying, what appear to be simply suggestions operate in practice as mandatory sentences.

[Mr Buckland]

That is absolutely right. We are often told that guidelines are not tramlines, but my worry is that as we develop the system, that will increasingly become the case, which is a matter of legitimate concern to us all. My hon. Friend rightly reminded us earlier about the historic role of the jury. In fact, it is interesting to remind oneself that in addressing juries, counsel will be enjoined not to talk to them about the likely sentence that may be passed on the offender, because that is to trespass not only on the function of the judge, but on the function of the jury. My hon. Friend is quite right to introduce into the debate that element of realism, common sense and public experience that juries bring to the court system. That is why they are there, why the system works and why we as parliamentarians support it, and vigorously so.

Having criticised some of the Sentencing Council’s functions, let me commend its research work. One of the better things that it has done is to start the process of looking at the decisions that are made in our Crown courts up and down the land, and to commission research on the attitude of the general public to sentencing. There are two reports in particular that I think the House would be interested to hear about, one of which I referred to in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). The report commissioned by the Sentencing Council and published in May last year by Ipsos MORI conducted a survey of just under 1,000 members of the public and interviewed offenders and victims of crime. Perhaps inevitably—but for the first time based on empirical evidence—the report quite rightly pointed out a number of key things, including that the public perceive the system as being too lenient, but that some of their concerns are allayed once they have a greater knowledge of the workings of the sentencing system. The points that have been made about greater transparency and awareness, and about the televising of proceedings, are all founded on the research that has been carried out. It is plain and simple: if we give the public a greater understanding of the system, they will give the system greater support.

I was fascinated by the public’s view on the reduction of a sentence in return for a guilty plea. They feel that we, the lawyers, are getting it back to front. They would understand and appreciate the system better if, instead of reducing sentences and giving people credit for pleading guilty, the court were to give longer sentences to those who plead not guilty and string the process out, only to be convicted at the end of a trial. They do not like the notion that offenders are somehow being rewarded for having admitted their guilt. That was a fascinating insight that we, as legislators, should bear in mind. Indeed, the Sentencing Council should also take it into account when it reviews the system of credit being given for a guilty plea.

[Anna Soubry]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the public perhaps do not understand that the courts give credit for a guilty plea because it spares the cost, and the trauma to the witnesses and victims, of a trial? Furthermore, if someone has admitted to having committed a crime, they stand a much better chance of being rehabilitated and helped, so that they will not go on to commit more offences.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right. The report found that there was an appreciation of the economic and emotional benefits of early guilty pleas. However, the public preferred the argument that guilty pleas spare the victims trauma; they were somewhat resistant to the economic, pounds, shillings and pence argument. That is quite understandable, given that members of the public view sentencing and the other criminal justice procedures with the utmost seriousness. To them, public protection through the criminal justice system is second only to military matters such as the defence of the realm—my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has arrived in the Chamber at just the right moment—and is a matter of the utmost seriousness.

Other work has been commissioned by the Sentencing Council, and it has caused a bit of angst among judges, because they have to fill in forms after every sentence—[Interruption.] I hear involuntary groans in the Chamber at that. For the first time, the courts in England and Wales are being asked to provide a wealth of evidence about what factors and influences are taken into account when those decisions are made. The first report was published in October 2011, and it covers the six-month period from October 2010 to the end of March 2011. The results bear close scrutiny.

The survey covered many hundreds of cases. When studying previous convictions, it found that 78% of offenders with 10 or more previous convictions taken into account by the court were sent to immediate custody. That is a significant and reassuring statistic. It also found that 59% of offenders with one to three previous convictions were also sent to immediate custody, and that 49% of offenders had no previous convictions taken into account when their sentence was determined. Those facts need to be stated. For the first time, there is an emerging body of evidence to show what influences judges and what is going on in our Crown courts.

On the subject of discount for guilty pleas, the survey found that 69% of those who pleaded guilty received a full discount; 12% received a discount of between 20% and 32%; 8% received a discount of between 11% and 20%; and 8% received a much lower discount. That shows, in my view, that judges are using their discretion within the guilty plea discount system and are not formulaically applying the guidelines as laid down by what I think was the Sentencing Advisory Council in a previous incarnation of the Sentencing Council. We have started to create a body of evidence, although we still have a long way to go in working out what decisions are made.

I finish where I started. This is a human system, and it will always be an imperfect system, but if we rob of the system of its humanity, we are doing a disservice to our fellow citizens.

17:00

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called to address the House on this important subject. I am minded of the observation of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that this debate might become a bit like a lawyer’s dinner. I have never been to a lawyer’s dinner because I am not a lawyer, so there will be no comments from me about the law. However, I think it is important to raise the issue of what people perceive to be going on in our systems.

Oddly enough, one of the first things I did when I became the Member of Parliament for Stroud was to campaign to save the magistrates court—and we successfully managed exactly that. I had to go to see what I was saving, and that was my first trip to a court. I do not expect to go to court in any capacity other than as an Member of Parliament showing interest. That magistrates court showed me just how detailed the thinking of the magistrates is when they decide how to deal with the people coming before them. I was impressed by the quality of advice they sought and by the advice they were able to give themselves. I was also impressed that young children regularly came to the court, as organised by Gloucestershire magistrates, to make them more familiar with the court and court processes.

That brings me to the first point I want to ram home. We need to understand that there are a large number of cases, that the public cannot know everything about any of them and that the public will certainly not have a proper grasp of the nature of the deliberations throughout a case. The Secretary of State for Justice quite properly acknowledged that point in his opening speech.

That leads us on to problems with the media and their gung-ho approach to sentencing, which can effectively mislead the public—not necessarily deliberately, but because they are sometimes so enthusiastic about making a general point. That does not help the debate. It is therefore important to recognise that the media can be damaging in this as in many other areas when they come out with relatively simplistic explanations of the circumstances they describe.

That is not to say that we should not encourage transparency. We certainly should do so, because the more we know about things, the better, particularly given the number of cases and the number of people who end up with custodial sentences. Information is important in the debate about sentencing and encourages people who are interested in the subject to talk about the issues in more concrete terms, with facts at their disposal. Transparency is absolutely necessary.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I have been listening to the debate in my office when I had the time. I have been on a RAF parliamentary scheme, but I wanted to come to the Chamber to make a simple point about transparency. In June 1986, I gave evidence at a trial in Belfast after the murder of 17 people. Five people were found guilty and were given life sentences. A few years later, I was informed that they had all been released. One of the things that I found upsetting was the fact that it was never explained why those people were released so early although they had killed so many. I think that the public would appreciate it if transparency operated in instances such as that. They would like to be told,“ These people have been released for the following reason, and that was the judgment of the court.” I appreciate that judges are very clever people and that they have sight of all the facts, but it would be nice if it could occasionally be explained why someone has been released early. I am sorry; that was a long intervention.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend. What he has said reaffirms my view that transparency is important. I do not doubt that the Secretary of State listened to that carefully as well.

The rule of law is essential to us as libertarians, as politicians, and as a country with common law at its core, and it is important to bear in mind that the separation of powers makes the rule of law work well if we respect that separation of powers. It is vital for us to recognise the independence of judges, to understand that—as the Secretary of State said—they are there to make judgments, and to understand that they are likely to be the best people to talk about a case because it is they who are judging it and know all about it. I think that politicians are heading into dangerous territory if they become too prescriptive about the way in which they think judges should be sentencing.

I also think it dangerous—this point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland)—to think in terms of a sort of toolkit that forces certain decisions to be made because of what we think is happening in a relatively abstract way. It is important to make the distinction between specific cases and setting rules, which is what we are talking about, and to respect the fact that the separation of powers is core to our way of proceeding.

Why do we give out sentences? Surely one of the most obvious purposes of sentences is to ensure that people stop misbehaving, and that is what we need to talk about in this debate. Several Members have referred to the number of individuals who are reoffending, and it is true—I have checked the facts myself—that 57% of short-term jail sentences result in reoffending within 12 months. That is completely unacceptable: it is not what we are doing the job for. We need to understand why there is so much reoffending. I think that many aspects of the problem are connected with the way in which prison operates. For instance, a number of my constituents have encouraged me to think about the standard of literacy in our prisons, and quite right too. Far too many people who end up in prison, especially the young, cannot read or write properly.

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for spelling out the appalling problems of reoffending in statistical terms. Does it surprise him to learn that 70% of young offenders in detention have some form of speech, language or communication disorder?

[Neil Carmichael]

No, it does not, because I was told that a few weeks ago. I think that the “toe by toe” approach in our prisons is an important way of lowering that figure. I urge the Ministry of Justice and the Secretary of State to think carefully about how we can improve literacy in our prisons so that those leaving prison can have a better chance of participating in society and employment.

Of course, the same applies to drugs: there are just too many people in prison taking drugs, too many people going to prison with drug habits, and too many leaving with a drug habit, which is completely unacceptable. It is important that we tackle that in a rigorous way.

A lot of people have talked about restorative justice. It is a great way of dealing with the victim relationship, and we should promote it. In my constituency of Stroud, a huge number of people want to support restorative justice, and there is a small campaign to promote it. I do not think that many of the campaigners know that it was introduced by Michael Howard, latterly of this House. It was persisted with by the previous Government and by this Government—and quite right, too.

Obviously, for a wide range of crimes, custodial sentences matter and are important; we have gone through all the figures in the past two or three hours. I do not think that many Members on either side of the House would dispute that crimes involving knives, and burglary, should attract custodial sentences. However, there are clear grounds for thinking about community sentences as well. I have taken the Secretary of State for Justice to my constituency and shown him an excellent scheme operated by REACH Gloucestershire, which is busy reconstructing a pathway along a very long canal. That is working, and people know it works. I have talked to people on the scheme; it is hard work, and they recognise that they do not want to do the same again. It is good for them to be given a job of work, and a form of punishment that makes them think carefully about how they operate in society.

Such community sentences are to be encouraged, but let me state clearly that there should be custodial sentences where appropriate. There should also be consistency; my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) emphasised its importance. However, that has to be matched up with the role of the judge, and his responsibility for making judgments. I come back to the central point that we cannot be too prescriptive. We should not go down the populist route of saying, “Hang ’em and flog ’em”; we should instead take responsible decisions to make sure that our judiciary, sentencing process and prisons operate in a way that is consistent with our values as a democratic nation, with our objectives of making sure that we deal with crime and stop reoffending, and with our fundamental belief in the rule of law.

17:13

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a real honour and a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who gave a powerful speech.

I hesitated to rise to speak on a subject on which I know so little—a fact of which I am particularly conscious in the light of the extraordinarily powerful remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry); she talked about my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who will wind up for the Government, and his appointment as a criminal recorder even though he had no knowledge of criminal law. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) thought that my hon. and learned Friend did so well that he subsequently gave me the same honour.

When my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor opened the debate for the Government, he referred to the critical importance of the independence of the judiciary, and precisely what it has delivered, in proper sentencing, proper trials in the criminal courts, and public confidence in the criminal justice system.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who opened the debate for the Opposition. He, too, recognised the quality of this country’s judiciary and what it has meant for the United Kingdom and our citizens in the delivery of proper justice. However, such judicial independence inevitably means that from time to time we in this House, as we are entitled to do, have to consider the sentences handed down, because our constituents rightly raise concerns about them, just as they raise many other concerns about the criminal justice system and other matters.

When the House discusses sentencing, certain tensions manifest themselves as a result of the doctrine of the separation of powers that is rightly in place in this, as in all democratic countries. There are the public expectations—or perceptions, at least—of the sentences that courts hand down, fuelled from time to time, as a number of Members have said, by journalists picking up on sentences that appear not to reflect the severity of the crimes of which a jury has found a defendant guilty. Those public expectations need to be recognised and met, and it is the function of this House and the Government in part to do that in setting the guidelines and framework within which the sentencing operation must take place.

However, in tension with that is the role of the judges. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor rightly recognised that it is a judge in a criminal court who hears the entirety of the evidence against a defendant when presiding over a trial, and such a judge is therefore best placed to determine the appropriate sentence to pass on someone convicted of a crime by a jury of his peers. My right hon. and learned Friend did say, however, that in all such cases the judge will oversee the entire case, but that is not always so. In many instances, a conviction is obtained by the Crown and the case is adjourned for sentencing; indeed, that is the usual practice. As a result, the sentencing judge often has to be re-educated about the precise circumstances in which the offence took place, in order that an appropriate sentence can be imposed. I encourage my right hon. and learned Friend—as I would encourage any Minister—to consider whether it is appropriate in most cases, if not all, to reserve sentencing to the judge who actually heard all the evidence. That would engender better respect for, and greater public confidence in, sentencing.

[Anna Soubry]

It is very rare that the judge who conducted the trial in a given case does then not make sure that they pass sentence, for precisely the reasons that my hon. and learned Friend has identified. However, my hon. and learned Friend makes the powerful point that, if at all possible, it would be much better if they retained sentence, even where pleas have been taken by judges, which is usually because they have read the papers the night before. Actually, it just makes things a lot simpler and easier all round, which must be to the benefit of justice and is much more cost-efficient.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about cost-effectiveness. If a different judge has to sentence, the papers have to be read and more work is done in court, thereby taking up court time, while the case is explained by the advocates for the Crown before the plea in mitigation is taken. Then, there is generally a further adjournment—certainly when I sentence, and no doubt when my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) sentences—when the judge retires to consider precisely what he is going to do. All of that could be avoided.

In my experience as a recorder—a role I continue to carry out for a few weeks a year—sentencing lists often include trials where there has been a conviction, and the case is not always reserved to the judge who heard the evidence. In my view, it certainly should be, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and his Front-Bench colleagues will look at that issue.

The first tension for the House when it considers such matters, therefore, is that between public expectation or perception on the one hand and the necessity for judges who hear cases to deal with sentences and impose them appropriately on the other. There is another tension, however, between the discretion of the judiciary to impose the appropriate sentence and the expectations of the public that sentences will reflect the gravity of the crime. That, of course, is a tension that manifests itself most clearly in the discretion afforded to judges in passing the sentences they impose for which they are criticised, from time to time, both in this House and in the press.

Let me echo some of the comments of other Members about the wisdom of this House second-guessing the judiciary in sentencing exercises. If we are to stand behind the independence of the judiciary, as I know my right hon. and learned Friend and other Ministers do, and to insist that the judiciary are responsible for sentencing and not the court of public opinion—as we have seen from time to time—we must be robust and stand up and say here that which is right. That which is right is that there must always remain a certain element of discretion in the sentencing exercise, notwithstanding the frameworks that this House establishes, within which the exercise itself must take place, and the guidance laid down by the Sentencing Council.

The debate therefore takes place in the context of those tensions. Any Member who thought that the tensions were unreal and that the public did not have such perceptions or, indeed, criticise judges from time to time, will find when they return to their offices and read their e-mails an e-mail from our frequent correspondent—by which I mean that of all Members of the House—who goes by the name of UK Patriot. Many Members might delete his e-mails, but I read them. He has sent us all an e-mail today about the “Big Ben bomb gang” who are, he says, apparently out in six years. He says:

“The fact that this has happened is outrageous!”

He tells us that they appear to have been treated by the courts as though

“they were naughty boys owning up to scrumping apples.”

He goes on in the same vein.

There is a common public perception that the judiciary are not imposing proper sentences. It is therefore important, in the terms of the motion today, that we consider both consistency and transparency and that the Government push that agenda as they carry forward their work on sentencing and consider reform of the criminal justice system.

I openly acknowledge that the advent of the Sentencing Council, formerly the Sentencing Guidelines Council, has ensured greater consistency in sentencing. Like the hon. Member for Hammersmith, I am pleased that the Government have not decided that, because of the current financial crisis—we will not touch today on who is responsible for that, although the hon. Gentleman knows my views—this body should be abolished.

[Mr Buckland]

I think that my hon. and learned Friend is grappling with the same issue as regards the Sentencing Council as many of us have in recent months. Does he think that there is a case for the Court of Appeal doing the job of the council with an additional resource function to carry out the research that I referred to in my speech?

[Stephen Phillips]

This is a rare area in which I might disagree with my hon. Friend. Before the Sentencing Guidelines Council was established, as my hon. Friend will know and as the House heard in the Front-Bench speeches, the Court of Appeal used to issue guidance in the form of judgments in particular cases on how judges should proceed in sentencing. That was worth while, and, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State made clear in his speech, the Court of Appeal retains that role. We saw it, as an intervention revealed earlier in the debate, in the riots last year. The Court of Appeal, essentially, was able to establish that as a matter of English law the context in which otherwise minor offences had taken place required much stiffer sentences to be imposed than would otherwise have been required either by previous guidance from the Court of Appeal or by guidance from the Sentencing Guidelines Council.

I can agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon to the extent that it does seem important that the Court of Appeal should retain that overarching ability to exercise its right to indicate to lower court judges what would be an appropriate sentence in particular circumstances. What the Court of Appeal never had and still does not have the opportunity to do is consult more widely, whereas the Sentencing Guidelines Council did have that opportunity, as does the Sentencing Council, which consults much more widely than the Court of Appeal ever could in a criminal case. In any case in which the Court of Appeal was handing down guidelines, it would receive submissions only from the parties to the case—and perhaps from the Attorney-General; I know not—but it would not be able to consult extensively with the public as the Sentencing Council can and does. If we are to encourage public confidence in the sentencing regime, it is very important that the public are consulted.

The only respect in which I might criticise the Sentencing Council—perhaps I am going slightly off the topic here—is in relation to its consultations on mandatory or discretionary guidelines on sentencing, which are not well publicised or well known. The representations it receives usually come from the Criminal Bar Association, other specialist associations and those who are particularly interested in the criminal justice system.

[The Solicitor-General]

Is there not another point to bear in mind? The Court of Appeal’s criminal division can look only at past cases and must have cases brought to its attention either singly or in groups in order to introduce thematic judgments on particular areas of criminal activity. The Sentencing Council, however, can proactively look at burglary, sexual assault and other areas of crime and give forward, rather than retrospective, guidance.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. and learned Friend makes an excellent point, as usual, which I had not thought of. No doubt that is why he is the Solicitor-General and I am two Benches behind him. He is absolutely right and I entirely agree with him.

I differ from my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon only inasmuch as although I think the Court of Appeal should indeed retain the overarching ability to indicate to lower court judges the framework within which sentencing must take place, I also consider the existence of the Sentencing Council to be important for the reasons I have indicated. The council’s guidelines ensure a large measure of consistency between sentences that are handed down for similar, if not identical, crimes across the entirety of England and Wales. For that reason, although I understand that there is a cost implication with the maintenance of that body and that it can be described, as it always is, as a quango—indeed, some would say it is a quango we should dispense with—it is a body that should continue to exist if we are to encourage confidence in the sentencing regime in England and Wales.

I hesitate, particularly given the time, to say very much about the hon. Member for Hammersmith’s spirited defence from the Front Bench of the sentencing regime and the way in which sentencing was treated by the previous Government, but it is right to point out that a large number of criminal justice Acts were passed under the previous Administration. If he were to go, as I recommend he should—perhaps he already has—and talk to those who had to use that legislation and were bound by it in their sentencing exercises, he would find a universal, or near-universal, level of criticism, particularly regarding the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Many of the measures that the previous Government introduced, such as custody plus, which was the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon, were never brought into being or had to be changed in subsequent Acts. The difficulty with the previous Government’s approach was that it sought to micro-manage the judiciary and to remove large elements of discretion so that the sentences that were passed did not necessarily reflect the offences of which the accused had been convicted or for which a guilty plea had been entered. Sentencing became, to a large extent, a tick-box exercise, which as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, at least by implication, and as other Members acknowledged, is a most unsatisfactory way of proceeding. I listened to the spirited defence from the Opposition Front Bench, although I sought not to intervene, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the approach the Government are taking in their reforms is the right one and I commend it to the House, as indeed I commend the motion.

17:30

[Mr Slaughter]

With leave of the House, I shall make a few comments about the debate. It was a good, intelligent debate—even enjoyable. That may say something about what lawyers find enjoyable, but it cannot often be said about five hours on a Thursday afternoon.

We began with contributions from not one, but two Select Committee Chairs. One may simply hear the bits one wants to hear in speeches and filter out the rest, but in the words of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who sadly has had to leave for another engagement, I heard echoes of what I thought I was saying in my opening speech about the importance of evidence-based and explicable sentencing decisions. As he said, sentencers should see the effects of their sentences—what does and does not work. He also mentioned the importance of early intervention and the work of the youth offending teams.

The right hon. Gentleman’s words were reflected in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs the Home Affairs Committee. His was a reasoned voice for early intervention and for rehabilitation.

Then we moved on to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I worry that I may find myself agreeing with him too often. I am not sure that I should lock up all the people he would lock up; in that case, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) said, quite a few people on the Opposition Benches and even one or two on the Government side might find themselves locked up at some stage. However, when the hon. Member for Shipley talks about the release of violent offenders who are still a danger to the public, about taking away the discretionary powers of magistrates and judges to remand or about the now abandoned policy of 50% discounts for guilty pleas, I think the Opposition are with him.

[Philip Davies]

As getting the hon. Gentleman to agree with me is already a red-letter day for me, I shall push my luck. In the last Parliament, his Government introduced a system whereby people who were tagged could have that time knocked off their prison sentence, in the same way as remand in prison would be. Will he repent of that measure and agree that the time people are on a tag should not count towards time knocked off a prison sentence?

[Mr Slaughter]

For this afternoon, it would be above my pay grade to start making policy on the hoof. I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman on that point. I am always keen to keep him happy, as is the Lord Chancellor.

We heard a measured contribution from the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). He talked about local discretion and variation, but also about consistency. I am not sure whether in the end he came to a different view from that expressed by other Members—that the Sentencing Council regime is to balance clear guidelines for consistency with judicial discretion.

I am always glad to hear from the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) because she brings much experience to bear. I am always grateful when I hear her defending legal aid lawyers and legal aid, and I hope we may see her vote accordingly when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill comes back from the Lords, hopefully in a substantially amended form. She gave a vote of confidence in the judiciary—all credit to her—and talked about the great advances in dealing with domestic violence offences. Perhaps she will also join the Opposition in condemning changes to domestic violence courts where they are being closed as a result of the court closure programme. I hope they will be replaced and the regime expanded. I note that she said that IPP sentences were a good idea in theory. If so, surely we should work towards making them more effective in practice, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I entirely agree with what the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) said about the judiciary, which as a practitioner he has much experience of, and about the Supreme Court—I am sorry that he is no longer in the Chamber. I agreed with him less when he was scoring points about the previous Government’s regime. It is convenient on these occasions for Government Members to forget the 43% fall in crime that occurred under the previous Government, and it is convenient for him to criticise us for the early release schemes but not address the IPP sentences or the 15% discounts when he says that he agrees fully with the Government.

I heard from the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) the voice of the victim, not the voice on behalf of the victim. His points were well made, particularly the fact that the victims of burglary and many other crimes are predominantly on low incomes and come from poorer parts of society. That is why the Opposition will do everything we can to see that punishment is appropriate and reoffending is prevented, and detection and sentencing are absolutely vital for that.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, who is now in his place, made a clear case, and one that should be heard in this House, for the reduction in prison numbers. I praise him for that, even if I did not always agree with him. I agreed absolutely when he talked about the need for effective community punishments and the previous Government’s record on reducing youth custody by 30%. He raised the subject of young adults and 18 to 24-year-olds in prison, which I know the Prison Reform Trust is currently looking at. It is a neglected area. However it is to be dealt with, whether it is through NOMS—the National Offender Management Service—or whether it is through the Youth Justice Board, it is an area to which we urgently need to turn our attention. I agree with him about cuts in magistrate training, but it is also about the sentences and orders that magistrates can commit to. The magistrates in my constituency, both those on the lay benches and the district judges, know their powers very well, but sometimes they find that they are simply not available to them, as is the case with drug treatment orders, which is a source of great frustration to them.

All I can say about the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) is that I enjoyed his speech very much—I will leave it at that. He talked about the constitution and fettering discretion, but he should also look at the increase in mandatory sentencing and the restrictions on the rights of sentencers in bail matters, because we regard those as worrying trends.

I enjoyed the speech made by the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), which was on behalf of victims and reminded us that the protection of the public is crucial to the criminal justice system. I also enjoyed the speech made by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), particularly when he talked about restorative justice, on which I think there is much cross-party consensus, with the caveat that it is not a soft option but must be properly resourced. His comments, and those of the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), offered the insider’s view on the Sentencing Council. It was interesting to note the points of difference, but they gave a fairly strong endorsement of many of the things that that body does, such as the research and work on consistency.

I thought that the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) gave a liberal—he almost used the word himself—speech, and there is no shame in that sometimes. [Interruption.] Well, we will see. He spoke as a non-lawyer with sympathy for lawyers and for courts, even saving a court himself, which is a rare thing to hear from those who are not lawyers, so I pay tribute to him for that.

We heard a warning at the end of the debate from the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham that interference in the sentencing process, which we sometimes hear from the tabloid press, is not a good idea. Against that, the influence on sentencing policy and trends that the general public, and even the press, bring from time to time, is welcome.

Just as with criminal justice more generally, all sides of the House need to state clearly that we should have no reservations about putting people in custody when that is necessary for public protection. Equally, however, we should look at alternatives that will provide punishment but might also provide better options for rehabilitation. When looking at sentencing policy, we should combine those two essential aims.

This debate is about transparency and consistency. I believe that the Sentencing Council is delivering that, together with the common sense and expertise of citizens and juries, and of the judiciary, who have been praised on all sides of the House today. If we have that balance—we have gone a long way towards achieving it—it will be an area in which there can be consensus, and we can feel assured that at least in that area of the criminal justice system, we are achieving a system that the public want. The public can then feel confident that we will deliver solutions to crime that are just, fair and, when they need to be, punitive.

17:40

[The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)]

I think that I am the 16th contributor to the debate, and it is not surprising—indeed, it is welcome—that although the debate is entitled “Transparency and consistency of sentencing”, and we are required by the motion to have

“considered the work of the Sentencing Council and the transparency and consistency of sentencing”,

contributions from right hon. and hon. Members have dealt with a number of wider issues within the criminal justice system. I congratulate the two Deputy Speakers who have chaired our debate on permitting such a liberal approach to the terms of the motion, which has allowed a number of informed and informative contributions.

I confess I thought that at some stages in the debate, the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) who, at least this afternoon, speaks for the Opposition on such matters, had been sentenced to a period of solitary confinement. For considerable periods he was the only Labour Member who thought it appropriate to remain in the Chamber. He, poor fellow, had no liberty and no discretion about whether to sentence himself to time in the Tea Room or somewhere else. It was a pleasure to see him sitting there silently for much of this afternoon. He has assisted us greatly with two contributions. Many people will no doubt find assistance from reading, with great care, what he had to say, in tomorrow’s Hansard. His praise for our judiciary and the criminal justice system was of considerable value, and the sentiment was shared across the House. I think he said that there was no room for complacency. If he did say that, he was right to do so.

From listening to the speeches of Government Back Benchers, I think it is fair to say that while there is universal acceptance of the high quality of our judiciary, from the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, to the lay magistracy, there is no room for complacency and plenty of room for public comment. There is plenty of room for Members of Parliament—indeed, there is a duty on them, when it is appropriate—to make stinging comment, often in offensive terms. It is the right and duty of a Member of Parliament to speak up for his constituents or for a particular group of citizens who have strong views. It is right that my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) come to this place not to agree with everything that goes on, but to disagree and explain why they disagree. The Government and the Opposition can make judgments about their contributions and reach a rational conclusion about whether to agree or disagree with them. I am grateful to both of them, and indeed to all Members who have taken part in the debate.

As I said, it is not surprising that our debate has been spread widely. We have considered the work of the Sentencing Council and whether it is a constitutional abomination that is interfering with the freedom of Englishmen. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) that in some senses I hope it is interfering with the freedom of Englishmen who commit crimes and deserve to be sentenced to terms of imprisonment or, if their offences are not so hideous, to non-custodial disposals.

I know that my hon. Friend is a man who thinks a great deal about a great many things, and it is clear that he has thought a great deal about the difficult constitutional issues that are revealed in any discussion of the separate roles of Parliament, judges, juries and the Sentencing Council. None the less, I disagree with his conclusion if it genuinely is that the Sentencing Council is an affront to the liberty of Englishmen.

During the passage of the legislation that the last Government introduced setting up first the Sentencing Guidelines Council and then the Sentencing Council, I expressed the view that there was a danger that those bodies would interfere with the discretion of the judiciary. I said that both as a Member of Parliament and as someone who has sentenced people—until I came into government in 2010, I used to sit as a Crown court recorder, like my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips). I think if my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border were to sit either as a spectator in the public gallery or alongside the judge—or even, dare I say it, if he were to imagine what it must be like to sit in the dock and hear a judge promulgate a sentence—I do not think he would be in any doubt whatever that our judiciary is not fettered in the way that I feared it might be, and the way he perhaps implied it was, by the guidance of the Sentencing Council.

Time and time again as Solicitor-General, I have appeared in the Court of Appeal criminal division referring what I consider to be unduly lenient sentences to the Court for review. I remind the House that I do that not as a member of the Government but as an independent Law Officer protecting the public interest. When I do so, I am constantly reassured that the Court of Appeal reminds the judiciary and the public who are in court that the sentencing guidelines are simply that—guidelines. When it is just to depart from them, the judiciary must do so. When it is just to show mercy, it is right and proper that the court should do that.

In cases such as the riots, to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State referred, it is right that sentencing judges in London, Birmingham, Liverpool or Manchester can go beyond the range of sentences recommended in the guidelines for affray, robbery, burglary of shops, arson or whatever it may be. The Court of Appeal and the Lord Chief Justice have said that given the context in which the crimes were committed, it was entirely proper that the sentencing judge should go beyond the sentence that might normally be expected for, let us say, the theft of three bottles of water, a cardigan or a pair of trainers from a shop.

It seems to me that we need to bear in mind the context in which the Sentencing Council does its work. Yes, the situation has changed from what happened 20, 30 or 40 years ago, when we relied only on the Court of Appeal to set out guidelines. However, now that we have the council I am, if not an enthusiastic convert, a convert who is prepared to say that its work, and previously that of the Sentencing Guidelines Council, has demonstrated its worth.

I should like to echo those who thanked Lord Justice Leveson—I am thinking particularly of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Justice Committee. Lord Leveson’s work on sentencing is in addition to his ongoing inquiry into the press and his work as an ordinary member of the Court of Appeal. He has to fit in sitting days in the Court of Appeal and deal with the work of the Sentencing Council in addition to his work on the Leveson inquiry, so I hope it will not be suggested that that judge, let alone any other judge at that level, shirks in his public responsibilities. He is working extremely hard and producing good work.

However, the fact that the council produces those guidelines does not mean that we must agree with them. Members of Parliament can disagree with them, as can members of the public who read about sentences in their local or national newspapers. We can form our own views, but as my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said at the outset, Members of Parliament must be a little careful when we express such views, because the public expect us to have opinions based on fact, not simply on conjecture or rumour, or on a bad report of a case that we read in the newspaper. When Members of Parliament disagree with a sentence that a Crown Court judge has arrived at, we are under rather more of a duty than the young reporter or the ordinary member of the public to do our best to find out the facts.

One good way of finding out the facts is to ask the House of Commons Library to do the research for us. Another good way of increasing our knowledge of what the Crown Courts and other sentencing courts do is to go and sit in them, which I did in opposition. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends and the few Labour Members in the Chamber to go to their local Crown court to see what happens. Friday is a very good day to do so because it is often the day when the sentencing lists are dealt with.

I take what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said about cases sometimes being dealt with by one judge at one instance and then being referred to another judge, but by and large, I like to think that happens only when they are dealing with cases in which there is a guilty plea followed by a sentence. The sentencing judge on a guilty plea is in just as good a position as the judge that received the plea. The important thing to bear in mind—this is a piece of advice that the Court of Appeal constantly gives, and my right hon. and learned Friend and I constantly give it to the Crown Prosecution Service, which we superintend—is that the factual basis on which the plea is made is established. Sentencers cannot sentence in a vacuum. It is essential that the facts of the case as admitted or as found by the jury are clear, so that the sentencer knows precisely on what basis he is sentencing.

[Mr Buckland]

Will the Solicitor-General reassure the House that the basis of pleas are reduced into writing—that they are court documents? Transparency is an important part of that process, as has been emphasised by all courts, including the Court of Appeal, for some years now.

[The Solicitor-General]

I am sure my hon. Friend is right about that—he will know that from his experience both as an advocate and as a sentencer. It is utterly frustrating to have to analyse sentencing remarks that are based if not on conjecture, then on a total lack of knowledge of the facts. Advocates—those who appear for the Crown and the defendant—have a duty to ensure that the court is given the facts.

Advocates also have a duty to ensure that the court is advised about the relevant sentencing law and powers. One of the problems, or unintended consequences, of the raft—I was going to say the flood—of legislation passed by the Labour Government was that those Acts had something to do with amending the criminal justice system. The previous Government were not so silly as to call every one of those 64 Acts of Parliament a criminal justice Act, but I can assure the hon. Member for Hammersmith that 64 pieces of legislation passed between 1997 and 2010 affected the way the criminal justice system worked. It is completely—I will not use an unparliamentary expression—confusing to have to sit there and try to work out which piece of legislation deals with which type of offence and whether that legislation is in force, not yet in force or out of force.

Let me take the example of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which is almost as thick as this great tome—the wonderful “Vacher’s Parliamentary Companion”—in my hand. Before this Government came into office, I asked a parliamentary question of the previous Government, and it was quite clear that they had simply mismanaged the conduct of that piece of legislation. About a third of it was repealed before it even came into force. Another third was not in force by the time the previous Government left office. Individual bits of the remaining third were brought into effect, and we are now having to repeal them—I am talking, for example, about the IPP legislation. Other bits were also brought into force by the previous Government, but they then realised they needed to repeal them.

What we require from the House, therefore, is an understanding that legislation needs to be thought about. We need, of course, to consult—this is what the Sentencing Council does—the people who have to apply it and the people it will affect. We need to work out what we will get if we pass what I call early-day motion legislation—expensive appeals; judges telling my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor that statutory construction is hell; and a huge lack of public confidence and satisfaction in the justice system.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. and learned Friend may remember—I wonder whether he agrees with this—that, in March 2006, Lord Justice Rose, speaking of the 2003 Act, which most of the judiciary consider to be the worst criminal justice Act of all time, said:

“Time and again during the last 14 months, this Court has striven to give sensible practical effect to provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a considerable number of which are, at best, obscure and, at worst, impenetrable.”

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it was not the high point of Labour’s justice policy?

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. and learned Friend is too kind. I will also say this: Lord Justice Rose is a very great man.

[Rehman Chishti]

On that point, does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the 3,000 new offences brought in by the Labour Government had little effect in reducing crime? It was simply a case of legislation being made for the sake of making legislation, rather than making a real difference to people’s quality of life.

[The Solicitor-General]

I do agree. We made the same points during the passage of the 2003 Bill, as it then was, and subsequently.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[The Solicitor-General]

The hon. Gentleman has been very lucky—he has been allowed two goes. I have two more minutes, so he will just have to sit there and wait.

In the final minutes remaining to me, I want to thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith for his contributions, which were utterly valuable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed contributed thoughtfully and with all the experience he has gained as the Chairman of the Select Committee. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has now gone. I am afraid that I had to cut him short because I thought his remarks were straying into an area we should not stray into until the case he wanted to talk about is completed. I mentioned the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Gainsborough. I am sorry I do not have time to deal in detail with the points they made, but I commend them on the forceful way in which they put them across. It is important that Members of Parliament do not just sit there like lemons, but get up and speak for their constituents.

Furthermore, if Members have particular experience —my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and I have both been victims of several burglaries, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—we should use that personal experience. However, we should also use our professional experience, and a number of lawyers have brought to the House their experience as lawyers and as Members of Parliament. Their work as Members of Parliament is all the better for it. I am thinking of my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and for South Swindon, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham. I apologise for not commenting in detail on the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael). I also wanted to comment on the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—

18:00

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Carers and Online Banking

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Vara.)

18:00

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

These days, we seem to talk a lot about banks and banking, and for many in the House it is nice that there is a profession slightly less popular than ours. Since notice was given of this debate, I have had right hon. and hon. Members ask me what it was about, and when I explained it, many of them gave examples of similar problems raised with them by their constituents. I am glad, therefore, to have been able to secure this debate.

All Members on both sides of the House value, and know the value of, carers in this country. There are almost 6 million carers in the United Kingdom—a staggering one in 10 people—and according to Carers UK over the next 30 years their number will increase by 3.4 million. That is about a 60% increase. Some 1.25 million carers care for more than 50 hours a week. Indeed, carers are estimated to save the Government between £67 billion and £87 billion a year, and a 2011 report by the university of Leeds for Carers UK estimated that the economic value of the contribution made by carers in the UK is £119 billion per year. Bearing in mind our current deficit, those are staggering figures.

Before being elected, I worked in the hospice movement, and time and again I would see carers’ hard work and dedication. I remember one father saying that if he got up for his child eight times in a night, he would think that he had had a good night’s sleep. As MPs, we know the value of carers and the challenges that they face, whether from those who visit us in our surgeries or from the visits that we make to organisations representing them.

Being a carer is about long hours and hard work, and because they are often caring for loved ones, it is sometimes deeply emotional. They are an army of people whose dedication and compassion we should cherish. It is in that vein and spirit that I asked for this debate. In a decent country such as the UK we should do all that we can to help improve the lives of carers and make things as easy as possible for them. I am delighted, therefore, that the Government have committed an extra £400 million to supporting respite support for carers, and I looked forward to that money reaching the people who need it.

A few months ago, two constituents of mine, Mr and Mrs Dransfield, came to one of my surgeries. It was their story and the fact that their experience is not isolated that persuaded me to raise this issue today. Annie Dransfield is the full-time carer of her 32-year-old son, who suffers from cerebral palsy and mental health issues. Like carers up and down the country, she helps and supports her son to manage day-to-day activities that I, for one, am fortunate enough to be able to do unassisted. For her son it is different. Annie has to help around the house, sort papers out and deal with other household issues. She also has to take management of his finances. In February 2009, she applied to be her son’s deputy through the Court of Protection. This was duly approved, and as a consequence she was given access to her son’s bank account at the local Halifax branch. The arrangement helps her son to be financially independent, as the money that he is given is paid into his account and she merely ensures that it is managed correctly.

As we all lead increasingly busy lives, so our daily activities have had to change. As a consequence, many of the services offered by various institutions have maximised the use of new technology to help us. Online banking is a good example of that; indeed, it is something that I have come to rely on. So it was that Mrs Dransfield decided to use online banking for her son’s account. She has explained why it is so important:

“As a carer, the ability to access my son’s accounts online is invaluable. It means I don’t have to make the journey to his bank to give him his money each day and it also gives me peace of mind. If he loses his money, or does not realise how much he has spent and has nothing to get home with or buy food with, he can call me and in less than two minutes I can transfer some extra cash into his account so that he can get home safely or get something to eat”.

To give him some independence and responsibility, Mrs Dransfield’s son has a cash card account that she keeps topped up from his current account. That helps him with his daily routine, giving him the motivation to get up, go out and walk to get some cash.

That arrangement worked extremely well, until one day Mrs Dransfield tried to access her son’s account and found that she was blocked from doing so. The cash machine also retained his card when they tried to use it. Naturally, she contacted the bank, only to be told that it was illegal to have two online usernames, despite Mrs Dransfield’s having the authority to manage her son’s account. This started a long and time-consuming battle with her bank to have her access reinstated. The bank refused to back down. As a result, the case was referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which concluded that Annie was correct. In November, the FOS ordered the bank in its adjudication to reinstate her online access. The ombudsman found that the bank has obligations under the Equality Act 2010 to make “reasonable adjustments” and that the fair outcome would be for the bank to restore her online banking in full. In addition, the ombudsman said that the bank should pay £300 for “unnecessary distress” and that the only thing preventing access was the bank’s policy and systems. I am sure that we would all agree that that was a sensible verdict.

Staggeringly, the bank ignored the Financial Ombudsman Service’s verdict. Feeling desperate, Annie found that her only option was to turn to the media. Thankfully, The Mail on Sunday took up the story. It was only then that the bank took action and permitted her access to the account again. However, what is shocking is that, as I understand it, that resolution is not being rolled out to other carers: the actions that the bank took to authorise a second log-in will not be replicated for other customers who desperately need the service.

Of course, I am highlighting what has gone wrong—I am aware there are great examples of things that banks do—but this issue is clearly causing a problem to many carers around the country. I therefore wonder whether the Government might be able to raise the issue with the banks, to ensure that they act responsibly and provide an accessible service to all customers. They should remember that those customers are accessing their own money, and it is their legal right to do so. The practice of not allowing such access is bordering on discrimination, in not recognising the Equality Act 2010, in accordance with the FOS ruling. Carers spend hundreds of pounds going through the legal process of gaining power of attorney, or similar authority. Therefore, it seems illogical that the same legal document permitting access to a person’s bank account does not allow access to the service online.

The case that I have raised is not just an isolated incident. Even though Annie has resolved the issue with her bank, she has been told that it was a special allowance for her. She has therefore not stopped campaigning for the facility to be rolled out to other carers in similar situations. I have spent the afternoon with her and her husband. They are a great couple and have fire in their belly when it comes to their campaign—that is a warning shot to the banks, but perhaps also to my hon. Friend the Minister. Annie is also a member of the Carers UK Leeds branch and a governor of the mental health trust, so to say that she knows what she is talking about would be an understatement. As such, she has heard of hundreds of similar cases around the country. Changes to the current practice would have a huge impact on carers and the people they care for. It would be wonderful if a bank took the lead in creating a better system for carers and customers, but I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue in the House today, in the hope that the Government can assist. Carers should not have to spend their valuable spare time, when they are not looking after the people they care for, going through a complex bureaucratic complaints procedure.

In conclusion, banks should make better provision for carers and take into consideration the needs of their customers. They should therefore ensure that arrangements are in place to assist customers with mental health issues, and that staff with specialist knowledge of these requirements are available to assist when necessary. There seem to be a lot of good words coming from the banks, but carers up and down the country are still facing many serious problems. I believe, unless the Minister can tell me otherwise, that what we need is a stronger code of practice to assist carers. It would also be most helpful if he would be willing to meet a delegation to discuss this matter. After all, time is precious for all of us these days, but it is particularly so for carers.

18:11

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

I should like to begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for securing a debate on this issue and for setting out so clearly the circumstances that carers face and the problems that might exist with the banking system. I am also grateful to him for setting out the difficulties that Mr and Mrs Dransfield have faced and telling us of their determination to address them. I sympathise with the difficult circumstances that can be faced by many carers, who make an increasingly important and valuable contribution to our society by supporting those who may be less able, for various reasons, to live an independent life.

The Government are committed to improving access to financial services, and in particular to bank accounts. It has been amply demonstrated that having a bank account is an essential aspect of modern life for any individual. My hon. Friend set out those circumstances clearly in the context of his constituents. It is clear that many individuals might need the assistance of a carer to help them manage their money, including people with a disability as well as the elderly.

I hope that it will be helpful if I briefly set out the regulations that apply in this area. Banks’ and building societies’ treatment of their customers is governed by the Financial Services Authority in its banking conduct of business sourcebook. The sourcebook includes a general requirement for firms to provide a prompt, efficient and fair service to all their customers. That includes older people, the disabled, and those who lack capacity to manage their account on their own. In addition, like all service providers, banks and building societies are bound, under the Equalities Act 2010—which my hon. Friend mentioned—to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people in the way they deliver their services. This may include allowing for a carer or deputy to act for the disabled person.

It is of course right that banks and building societies have put in place measures to protect their customers and themselves from fraud. They clearly need to satisfy themselves of their customers’ identity, both for commercial reasons and to meet their obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007. Before a bank or building society can let someone manage the account of another person, it must have proof of the name and address of the account holder and of the person who will have legal responsibility for managing the account. It must also see evidence of that person’s authority to control the account holder’s money. When a carer has been given formal authority to manage another person’s finances through a power of attorney or court order, or by acting as a deputy, this can be proven through official documentation. However, when a person does not lack capacity to take decisions about their affairs but requires assistance to access their account, the situation can be more difficult. I accept that the case described by my hon. Friend falls into the former category.

It is worth noting that most banks offer their customers a range of channels through which to access their bank accounts, including by telephone or in a branch. It might well be that these channels are better suited to allowing access to a bank account via a deputy carer or other representative. I also note that the British Bankers Association has provided on its website information on banking for those with less capacity.

I nevertheless agree with my hon. Friend that older people, the disabled and their carers should be able to benefit from the convenience of an online service. With online banking, it is even more important that security measures are in place to prevent unauthorised persons from accessing consumers’ accounts. There is no opportunity for a member of the bank staff to verify the identity of a carer or representative acting on behalf of a customer. Customers have a duty to protect the security details they are given in order to minimise the risk of financial crime. This may preclude sharing their log-in details with their carer.

My hon. Friend set out the unique difficulty faced by those who need the assistance of a carer to access their bank account. As with the application of identity checks more generally, there is a balance to be struck between maximising security for customers and facilitating access for customers who need the help of a carer. The services offered by banks and building societies are evolving all the time, and I would urge the industry to ensure that account is taken of this issue in the development of online services.

I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey once again for bringing this issue to the attention of the House and the Government. I have taken note of his comments about the campaign on this issue. I am sure this is not the last we will hear of this matter either from my hon. Friend or, indeed, from others. I, for one—and the Government as a whole—would be interested to hear from individuals facing some of these difficulties and from banks and building societies about how, in the course of improving their services, they are approaching the issue of permitting access for those who require the assistance of a carer. Treasury officials will pick up in their discussions with current account providers the very points that my hon. Friend has made this evening.

I am sure that our hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, who leads on these matters but is unavailable today, would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend, Mr and Mrs Dransfield and others as the matter develops to look at proposals to address this concern. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that we will continue to monitor this issue in the context of improving access to banking more generally and in the context of the Government’s actions to support carers.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. He has set out clearly and very well the concerns of his constituents. I assure him that his words have been heard clearly by the Treasury, and I am sure that they will have been heard clearly by banks and building societies as well.

Question put and agreed to.

18:19

House adjourned.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

Thursday 2 February 2012

[Mr David Amess in the Chair]

Backbench business

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

Network Rail

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

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

14:30

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Amess, for what I am sure will be a lively and engaging debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for providing the time and all colleagues who added their support to the proposal for the debate when it went before the Committee, in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary rail group the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) and many others.

The debate is timely and much needed. Many colleagues have expressed concern that Network Rail has been failing on so many levels. It has failed to deliver a successful, well-run system that is value for money, transparent, accountable, open to scrutiny and fit for purpose. Network Rail has been subjected to serious criticisms in a recent Select Committee on Transport report and in the media. The White Paper expected in 2011 has been delayed, the McNulty report in 2011 raised major issues about Network Rail and I, too, have expressed concerns over failing performances on dozens of occasions in the House. As I said, the debate is topical and, indeed, overdue.

It is a simple premise that to deliver an efficient, mobile work force, we need a decent, well-run and affordable rail transport service. People of all ages expect a rail service fit for the 21st century. The travelling public are being asked to pay ever more for their rail fares, and we must ask serious questions about the services they are experiencing up and down the country. In my constituency of St Albans, passengers are heartily fed up, because commuters pay the highest fares in the country and routinely experience a dismal, erratic service with regular delays. In January 2010 the service was appalling, prompting me to call for an urgent question in the House. Without notice, overnight and at a stroke, the timetable was cut by 50% because the rail company could not deliver a full service schedule. Much of the problem was directly attributable to Network Rail which was leaving trains stranded south of the river and not investing in dealing with frozen rails and overruns. My constituents were angry, and it was a miserable time. Things have improved since, but they still receive a service that falls far short of what they deserve. Commuters tell me that, at a rail cost of 30p per mile, they are seriously considering going back to their cars, and who can blame them?

Sixty-four per cent. of delays to my service over the past year were directly attributable to Network Rail and its failings, with a massive impact on the passenger experience. According to recent data, the overall customer satisfaction on my First Capital Connect line, FCC, was the lowest in the country, including value for money, punctuality, sufficient room on trains, satisfaction with the stations and how the train operating companies, or TOCs, dealt with the delays. As I am sure many other right hon. and hon. Members present do, I monitor the rail service and its failings in my constituency, and I am in close contact with my train operator, FCC. I get updates, which do not always make good reading. Almost weekly, I get e-mails from FCC and from my constituents about signal failures and other problems associated with Network Rail once again causing severe delays to the line. The train operators are not without blame but it is impossible to improve a service substantially if Network Rail is at the root of so many delays and overruns—as I said, 64% in my case alone.

On a related issue, rail freight company HelioSlough is trying to cram a strategic rail freight terminal on to my green belt, in a highly contentious proposal. Numerous concerns were expressed about whether the east midlands line could cope and had the capacity. At the inquiry, my TOC asserted that the proposal would decimate passenger services; FCC illustrated its point with comprehensive data, showing that it was highly questionable whether the freight paths would truly be available, in particular after the implementation of the high-speed Thameslink project. FCC chose to attend the inquiry for several days to outline its engineering and logistical concerns, and its representatives were cross-examined by the inspector, who was extremely knowledgeable about rail. Network Rail, however, did not bother to send anyone to the inquiry or subject itself to any cross-examination of data, but just blithely asserted in a short letter—only one side of A4 paper, I think—that everything would be fine. The inspector said that he and indeed FCC must take those at Network Rail’s word for it—as “the experts”.

I wish to put on record that if the decision that currently rests with the Secretary of State is for a rail freight terminal to go ahead, the project will devastate my constituency with all the heavy good vehicles accessing the site through village roads. Network Rail did not even have the confidence to appear at the inquiry and to defend its views with the back-up of data, which I suspect would not have stood up to rigorous scrutiny or to the questioning of the inspector as experienced by my TOC. Network Rail presides over a shambolic railway, misses most of its targets for both passenger and freight and yet is still regarded as “the experts”. As the Member of Parliament for St Albans, I urge the Secretary of State, even at this late hour, to reject the unsubstantiated assertions of Network Rail on the project. They are not to be trusted. Network Rail has told me that, if enough paths for freight cannot be found, it will of course prioritise passenger services, so I should not worry. That would still leave St Albans with a massive road-to-road freight depot in my green belt, and my constituents deserve better from a body funded with taxpayers’ money.

We must ask whether there is a better way to run the railways. The debate has the simple title of “Network Rail”, and colleagues may focus on different aspects of Network Rail and its impact in their own constituencies. The areas of concern that the debate should cover, however, include costs, executive pay, the total lack of accountability, the role of the Office of Rail Regulation, and service failures and their impact on the TOCs. I hope we will then hear from the Minister about a way forward for our railways.

Network Rail accounts for 28% of the Department for Transport’s budget until 2013-14. Network Rail is a chimera, basking in the notion that it is a private company, but it is dependent on massive handouts from the British taxpayer. It was described by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) in the Select Committee as

“neither fish nor fowl...neither a private business...nor…a public business.”

Network Rail has a financial indemnity in place, so its debt is entirely supported by the Government. As of 2009-10, that debt was £23.8 billion, and it is set to rise to £31.5 billion by 2013-14. Network Rail’s debts, however, do not appear on the Government’s balance sheet. Somehow, it is classified as a fully private company, a private firm simply backed by Government, but many would question that classification. It has no shareholders and pays no dividends, but it pays itself very well. The Government seem relaxed about that debt, and the Secretary of State for Transport said in July that it was a matter of “complete indifference” to the Government whether Network Rail’s debt came on to or off the Government’s balance sheet. The taxpayer might beg to differ.

The structure is highly questionable; it was, sadly, devised under the previous Government, and it has allowed a culture of high pay and large bonuses to prevail for many years. Network Rail is reliant on the public purse but lavish with executive remuneration. One has to ask why the previous Government did not choose to tackle the issue since it created the monster. Network Rail was apparently set up with no mechanism in place to control the level of financial rewards or bonuses, which is topical, because there was a question today for the Leader of the House on that very matter. The situation is a disgrace and should be rectified.

We must now look to the future and ask for changes to be made. If we are to be seen as a Government wishing to tackle fat cats, their bonuses and lavish pay in what I believe to be the public sector, Network Rail must come under scrutiny. Until this year, the chief executive of Network Rail was the highest paid public sector employee, earning over 10 times more than the Prime Minister. In 2009-10, Iain Coucher, the chief executive at the time, had a salary of £613,000, a bonus of £641,000 and a pension payment of £178,000. I believe that he was extremely overpaid, despite delivery of poor performance; I cannot think of a bigger reward for failure.

The new chief executive of Network Rail, David Higgins, receives, according to an article in the Evening Standard—it has been hard to track down the exact figure—a salary of £560,000. However, only three days after publicly apologising for the failings of Network Rail that contributed to the deaths of two teenagers, Mr Higgins and other top executives appear to be going to their board to ask for a six-figure bonus. For Mr Higgins alone, that will be £336,000. For 2010-11, board members were all receiving salaries above £300,000 and up to £440,000, with what are deemed incentives ranging from £62,000 to £91,000. In light of such poor—indeed, abysmal—performances, one may ask what those incentives were for.

Network Rail presides over a shambolic, poorly delivering system. Top executives appear to be comfortable in the knowledge that they will collect annual bonuses regardless of poor performance. Does the Minister think it appropriate, in light of their performance, that Network Rail should pay large bonuses to top executives? If not, what mechanisms can we put in place to stop that happening?

Given the amount of taxpayer support, it would be reasonable to assume that we could know how the money is being spent, whether we are getting value for money, what the project costs are and whether they are reasonable. However, Network Rail is currently not subject to the National Audit Office, freedom of information requests or even market forces. It has been asked whether it will endure such scrutiny. The new Network Rail chief executive, David Higgins, said that he would welcome freedom of information requests. However, he also said:

“That is a decision for Ministers, and I think it is on hold until after the value for money and the White Paper…it is not a decision of Network Rail, but it is a decision that the Government and Ministers need to make. If they…do it, I welcome it. I have operated under FOI for years and I don’t have any problem with it at all.”

I am so pleased to hear that. I hope that the Government are considering taking the decision to subject Network Rail to freedom of information requests if it is in their ownership to do so. Will the Minister tell us at the end of the this debate whether he intends that Network Rail will be subject to freedom of information requests?

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

On that issue, when Network Rail fails a train operating company, it has to pay compensation to the train operating company. The train operating company does not pass that compensation on to the passengers who are in turn being failed. When we ask Network Rail for the figure, we are told that we cannot have it because it is in confidence. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in her request.

[Mrs Main]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The passengers are compensated to an extent, but it is a very limited form of compensation. Believe me: First Capital Connect was paying out tons of it as of 2010. As my hon. Friend will hear me go on to say, it is our money paying the fines. That is ridiculous. I hope that freedom of information requests will be allowed. It seems that that is within the Minister’s gift.

Network Rail is not audited by the National Audit Office. It is audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, but that is simply to check whether the accounts are in order. It is not audited on the basis of value for money. The National Audit Office remarked that the Department’s

“understanding of the relationship between cost and value was weakest in rail”.

It also says that a

“lack of transparency on Network Rail’s costs is consistent with our past reports on the Department and the Office of Rail Regulation.”

That has been highlighted for a significant period; there is a long-standing concern about a lack of transparency on costs. Can the Minister tell us today whether we can expect Network Rail to be subject to auditing by the National Audit Office? I ask that because I would like clarification. The National Audit Office is saying that it cannot gain an understanding of the position because Network Rail’s own figures are vague. Will the Minister clarify that we can strengthen the role of the National Audit Office?

The Public Accounts Committee has been especially damning of Network Rail’s accountability. In a 2011 report, it said:

“Network Rail has no accountability to shareholders, nor does the National Audit Office have full access, so Network Rail is not directly accountable to Parliament.”

It went on to say that it

“unfortunately won’t be able to give a clear opinion on the whole-of-Government accounts

until Network Rail’s status changes. That could well be the crux of the debate: how we change the status of Network Rail. Does the Minister accept the need to change the status of Network Rail? Does he share the concerns of the Committee that Network Rail is not accountable to anyone, particularly its paymasters in Parliament?

The Office of Rail Regulation is not holding Network Rail to account in any meaningful way. Anyone who watched the “Panorama” documentary last month will have seen Cathryn Ross, director of railway markets and economics for ORR, giving her responses. She confirmed that ORR has to be given the information by Network Rail in order to regulate it. However, as we have seen with the National Audit Office, getting any detailed information out of Network Rail is well nigh impossible. When pressed, she appeared totally unable to detail in any meaningful way any scrutiny that had been carried out on behalf of the regulator. Does the Minister find it unsatisfactory that ORR must rely on information supplied by Network Rail in order to act?

Only this week, Network Rail has been found guilty of serious failings that led to the tragic deaths of two teenagers—Olivia Bazlinton and Charlotte Thompson. There were not only failings in health and safety, but suggestions of a cover-up within Network Rail at the highest levels, aimed at concealing its mistakes. The families said in the media that they felt “lied to”, so can we really rely on Network Rail to give accurate information to anyone, even ORR?

The rail regulator is looking to expand its role. Given its mixed record on regulating Network Rail alone, its expansion is highly questionable. Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said in December:

“Train companies recognise they need to be held to account but plans to expand the ORR’s role to include more oversight of operators must be rigorously tested. The regulator needs to continue focusing on doing a better job of holding Network Rail to account, particularly on performance and cost-efficiency, before taking on new responsibilities.”

The Public Accounts Committee said in relation to ORR’s performance that

“we do not believe that the Regulator exerted sufficient pressure on Network Rail to improve its efficiency, and that there is an absence of effective sanctions for under-performance in the system...We doubt whether the Regulator is able to exert sufficient pressure on Network Rail’s performance”.

It has also said:

“The Office of Rail Regulation does not have a grip on Network Rail’s efficiency and appeared remarkably relaxed about the continuing gap in performance between Network Rail and international comparators.”

Those are hugely damning observations; they are damning in so many different areas. They question the ability of ORR to deliver on any meaningful level. Should the Government be allowing ORR to expand its role when it so obviously cannot do the role that it already has? Does the Minster share those concerns? Will he consider ways to improve the rigour of ORR’s role?

Network Rail can be financially punished by ORR through fines. However, Network Rail is financially supported by the Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) pointed out, fines go to the Government from Network Rail, which receives Government money. That is a ludicrous circle. Highly paid executives are paying for failures with public money.

ORR can also impose enforcement orders on Network Rail if it misses its targets, which it does on numerous occasions. That may sound impressive, but it amounts to Network Rail having simply to suggest plans to meet targets. We have spoken about the current targets. There is already an admission that Network Rail is highly unlikely to meet the new targets. That is disgraceful. The organisation is a toothless tiger. That has to change.

The “members” of Network Rail, the stakeholders, are also meant to hold Network Rail to account, but they, too, rely on Network Rail’s own disclosure of the figures to do that. We keep coming back to the fact that no one can hold Network Rail to account unless Network Rail wishes to hang itself with its own figures. It simply chooses not to do so, or puts them in such a way that it is impossible for anyone to hold it to account.

The question that must be asked, and the real point of the debate, is this. What incentive is there for Network Rail to improve? I argue that, under the current system, there is none. Does the Minister believe that he can put in place mechanisms to oblige Network Rail to deliver significant improvements? I hope that today he will be able to outline some of those for us.

We have the highest track-access charges in Europe. Those costs are inevitably passed on to the travelling public. Sir Roy McNulty said in his report that running the rail network here was 30% more expensive than in comparable European countries. I admit that I do not know how that figure was arrived at, but I have not noticed anyone saying that it is inaccurate or giving a different figure. Does the Minister agree with the 30% figure, and what can his Department do to make Network Rail bring down its track access costs and other costs? On reading the details surrounding that figure, it could as easily be higher as well as lower.

The scale of the problem that faces Network Rail, which it recognises but chooses not to deal with, is illustrated by the fact that it employs 600 delay attribution staff. If anyone has talked to their own train operating company, they know how important it is to be able to attribute blame for a fault because it makes a difference as to who pays the bill. If the delay in operations is Network Rail’s fault, the fines are paid by Network Rail. If it is the fault of the train operating company, it goes on the performance data of the TOC and it has to pay the fine. As Members can imagine, the squabble can be pretty unedifying. Network Rail spends its entire time, and our taxpayers’ money, divvying up the blame and fee penalties among the train operating companies, and then using taxpayers’ money to pay the fines for any delays.

You could not make this up, Mr Amess. I am amazed that we have all decided to accept this appalling situation for such a long period of time. Network Rail has presided over a litany of high-profile failures. Some have resulted in criminal prosecutions. I do not wish to go into too much detail here, because the hon. Members representing those areas may be present in the Chamber. However, the Virgin train derailment near the Cumbrian village of Grayrigg was one such incident. Such failures are causing deaths and significant injuries, and Network Rail’s declining performance has put it in breach of its licence. Despite being “the experts”—as I said earlier, Network Rail’s expert opinion is heavily relied on—Network Rail has presided over a system in which rail freight delays are 32% worse than the end-of-target year. Long distance punctuality stands at 87%, which is well below the target of the Office of Rail Regulation. Delays have risen, which proves that the network has become less resilient to disruptions. That is important. Some workers have said to me, “I don’t want to lose my job, but I have serious concerns about the work that is being done by Network Rail on maintenance and oversight of engineers.” That is a serious issue. People within the industry feel that they must keep their mouths shut about the things that they can see not being done correctly. Network Rail does not give the travelling public any confidence that its rail service is as safe as it should be.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case, which many of us sympathise with; my constituents certainly will, too. She says that we need to consider new models. Does she agree that we should be really bold and radical in tackling this problem, which is a legacy of some of the mistakes of privatisation compounded massively by a botched renationalisation under the previous Government? In my own region of East Anglia, rail has a crucial role to play in driving a rebalanced economy, innovation and investment. Does she think it might be sensible for us to consider—possibly in areas such as East Anglia—putting track and train operating company back together, thereby creating a regional rail company that has full integration, a long-term franchise and the ability to invest and plan for future services?

[Mrs Main]

That is an extremely valuable contribution. This debate is not simply about reading out a list of failures and then going away and allowing the situation to continue. If we were to do that, we would be failing the public again and again. Indeed, some of those tragedies that have occurred may happen again somewhere else. We must be radical. I do not wish to take up too much time at the beginning of this debate saying what we should be doing. My hon. Friend is absolutely right though. There are innovative methods. One thought is to have 10 regional areas operating on a system of alliancing. That is a phrase that I had not heard before, but it means having a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the train operating companies. Such a system relies on companies having longer franchises. Many ideas should be considered. None the less, significant issues need to be tackled. We are left with a structure that is patently not fit for purpose. I would like us to say that we will not accept a tinkering around the edges with this. I do not want us to say, “We will just remove one chief executive and stick another one in.” If we do that, we are basically left with all the same people, in the same place, presiding over yet another set of failures. Radicalisation is the only way forward. I am sure that we will hear different suggestions from hon. Members today. We need to sweep out the Augean stables of Network Rail. There are no two ways about it; we are talking about not tinkering but a fundamental change.

I wish to give other colleagues a chance to speak. As I have said, the list is long and damning. Network Rail has been fined for so many project overruns. On “Panorama”, we heard about the major investment in Reading. It is impossible to find out what the project was supposed to cost in the first place to know how much it has overrun.

Chiltern Railways wanted to have a station built. Network Rail estimated the cost at £13.2 million. Chiltern managed to build it itself for £5.2 million. One has to ask how Network Rail carries out its costings. One has to ask whether there is money washing about in the organisation in what can only be described as a negligent way. There are people who should stand before the Government to justify how they are spending our money, because it seems to be highly questionable.

I want to give other colleagues a chance to speak. As I have said, the list is long and damning, and I am sure that Members will add to it. I hope that we will explore all of the issues, including the way forward, because we need a way forward. I look forward to hearing answers to some of the questions that I have posed to the Minister.

14:56

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate. She raises some extremely important issues. I know that the points that she has made will be repeated by other hon. Members who have similar experiences.

This debate takes place at an interesting time. Although we are focused on Network Rail, we are awaiting the Government’s proposals on the future of the whole rail system. Network Rail is an intrinsic part of that system; it has to enable the train operating companies to work and ensure that there is safety on the line and that trains are punctual. None the less, it cannot be considered entirely in isolation from the whole rail system. We must therefore look at how the train operating companies operate and at the role of the Department for Transport.

We must not forget that, over the past decade, rail has been a success story. More and more people use rail, which brings its own problems of overcrowding and how to address increased capacity. We want to encourage more freight on to rail. Again, that leads to discussions about how more capacity can be provided and whether that can be done without crowding out much-needed passenger services as well.

There can be no dispute over the fact that the rail system costs a lot more than it should. The McNulty report is the latest one to draw attention to that. It says that our rail system as a whole costs around 30% more than comparable European rail systems. Much—not all—of that can be attributed to Network Rail.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to expand that point. Not only is access more expensive, but the licences are more expensive for the train operating companies and they pass on the cost to the travelling public. Network Rail’s high costs mean that passengers are paying too much.

[Mrs Ellman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. She is correct. However the service is organised, it is a public service and it has to be so run. Whatever money is in the system ends up costing the taxpayer or the fare payer. Over recent years, there has been a shift in who pays for using the train. I am talking about the shift from the taxpayer to the passenger. Whatever money is in that system eventually comes out in the cost of the ticket, which is causing so much concern at the moment.

Network Rail says that it is addressing the McNulty recommendations, looking at being more competitive and reorganising itself. It is far too soon to say whether that will be sufficient, or indeed whether it will address the most important issues that have been raised. Some action has been taken in relation to the train operating companies. There will be longer franchises. For example, the franchise for the west coast main line will be for a much longer period. That could be part of the solution, but we need to see the Government’s proposals and vision for the whole rail system before it can be considered.

The hon. Lady referred to this week’s court case when Network Rail admitted its liability for two tragic deaths in 2005, when Olivia Bazlinton, aged 14, and Charlotte Thompson, aged 13, were killed on a level crossing. It emerged only last year that Network Rail had had a risk report in 2002 recommending the installation of new gates that would lock automatically when a train approached. That in itself is bad enough, but it seems that the documents had been suppressed and not made available to the police previously. Network Rail has now admitted liability. It is being charged, and it has admitted guilt. Those tragic deaths should not have happened. They were terrible, as was the cover-up afterwards. I hope that in its statement now Network Rail is more open and that it will change to a new approach.

The Office of Rail Regulation strongly criticised Network Rail and is considering whether lack of punctuality and more late trains have been a breach of its licence. It has already raised safety issues, particularly the lack of adequate reporting of safety incidents on lines. Network Rail points to cable theft as a reason for delays, and that is a factor, but it is not the only one. Only last week, the Transport Committee published its report on cable theft on the railways, and said that Network Rail could do more to make such thefts more difficult, so it has some responsibility there.

The hon. Lady made many valid points about Network Rail’s accountability. However, I recall how Network Rail came to be set up. I remember clearly that it was preceded by the conventional private sector company, Railtrack, which went into administration. It collapsed after absorbing endless amounts of taxpayer’s money and paying out bonuses to its private shareholders while letting the nation down. Structure and ownership are relevant, and we must remember that the wholly private sector company did not deliver. We must consider how the present company operates and how it could operate better.

There has been much criticism about lack of accountability in Network Rail. It has a board of around 100 members, which is not a good way to secure accountability. Efforts have been made to change how it is organised to introduce more accountability. For example, the Co-operative party’s people’s rail campaign is trying to involve more members of the public and users of the service with a much smaller board to which Network Rail would have to answer. That is one option. Certainly, the way in which it operates now is not satisfactory and must be re-examined.

The next spending period is 2014 to 2019, and we will know in July what rail projects have been proposed or agreed for investment. There are long lists of necessary investment projects from different parts of the country, including the northern hub, which is badly needed, the electrification programme and many others. If we do not secure value for money from investment, we will not receive the maximum investment in rail. That is extremely important.

The Transport Committee invited the new chief executive of Network Rail, David Higgins, to the Committee when he was first appointed, and we asked him questions about value for money, accountability, safety and other matters. We intend to repeat that, and to recall him in the near future, when we will raise issues of accountability, value for money and how Network Rail invests in the public interest. We will certainly take note of the points made today by the hon. Lady and other hon. Members.

[Mrs Main]

I am extremely pleased that the Select Committee will call David Higgins back. During his “Panorama” interview last month, he said that he would release more figures and data by the summer to show Network Rail’s transparency. Is she aware of that, and will she be recalling him before or after that?

[Mrs Ellman]

A date has not yet been fixed, but all the issues will be taken into consideration. It is important that hon. Members recognise that, whatever an organisation’s structure, Select Committees perform an important role in trying to bring accountability to people who are in charge of public services. We have stated that we think that Network Rail should be subject to freedom of information requests. We will pursue matters of public concern and matters that hon. Members raise today and on other occasions, and we will do so to the best of our ability.

15:06

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for St Albans (Mrs Main), for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) on securing this important debate. I apologise, Mr Amess, that I must leave the Chamber slightly early due to some child care issues that have arisen today.

Thus far, we have heard some valid criticisms of Network Rail’s performance on punctuality, delivery of long-distance and freight services through its operators, value for money and inefficiency, to name but a few issues. First Great Western, which serves my constituency, reports that 60.4% of delays are due to factors within Network Rail’s control. That figure includes 18 incidents of overrunning engineering work causing 1,053 minutes of delay, and 347 incidents of infrastructure failure causing 21,270 minutes of delay. The result is passenger inconvenience and frustration. Specifically in the Thames valley, which covers my constituency, Network Rail has caused a total of 2,976 hours of delay. That is not very good, to say the least, and considerably adrift of the targets that it was set.

The Office of Rail Regulation has said that Network Rail must improve on that, and two enforcement orders have been issued, which is highly embarrassing for such a company. I have spoken to First Great Western, and it is keen to emphasise that this is not a blame game, but a plea to work better with Network Rail to address problems that cause so much grief for so many of its passengers and our constituents. This is a long-standing plea and I had hoped that matters were improving, but it seems that I was far too optimistic about the moves that have been made to try to deal with some of the problems. Network Rail can and must improve on the terrible figures, but no organisation is perfect and we must see what can be done, and what improvements can be made.

As an organisation responsible for operating 20,000 miles of track and infrastructure, 40,000 bridges and tunnels, 18 major stations, 2,500 leased stations and 8,200 commercial properties, Network Rail has a huge responsibility. At this time of economic challenge, we need a railway infrastructure fit for purpose to keep Britain moving.

The McNulty report recommends a number of improvements, some of which have been covered in the debate and some of which will perhaps be covered later. I would like to draw from my experience of working with Network Rail on a range of issues on behalf of my constituents. That experience should not detract at all from anything in the powerful speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, but all I can say at the outset is that my experience has been very positive.

Reading is a major transport hub in the south-east and Reading station is among the busiest stations on the country’s rail network. Every day, 700 trains pass through the station, which handles 14 million passengers each year. An £851 million redevelopment of the station is well under way, and its express aim is to provide more trains, to reduce delays and to provide a much better station overall for passengers.

In my first term in Parliament after 2005, I brought key stakeholders together to breathe life into a project that was drifting and even failing. It could not get off the ground, but I am pleased to say that Network Rail got onboard—if you will pardon the pun—and was very responsive to my requests, always positive and keen to get the job done. I am also pleased to report that to date the work has been delivered on time and on budget—although I take my hon. Friend’s point about “Panorama”. For such a large and complex project, that is welcome indeed, but it is also impressive considering that it must fit around a busy operating schedule. The Reading station redevelopment thus far stands as an example of Network Rail’s ability to deliver on ambitious plans for major rail improvements. Network Rail has shown me and my constituents that it employs good project management in this case, and has some very good people working for it.

In Reading, Network Rail is changing the track layout and building new platforms and entrances to the station to tackle congestion and to improve passenger journeys. Given the price my constituents pay for tickets—I am led to believe that it is the most expensive railway line in Europe—any work to improve passenger experience must be welcomed. New tracks and platforms mean that incoming trains will no longer need to queue outside the station, as they do now, which I am sure anybody who lives in the west country and further afield will welcome. Sitting delayed outside Reading station almost every day of the year is very frustrating, and a particular problem for passengers to the west of Reading. Network Rail engineers are building a new viaduct to the west of Reading, which is designed to take fast main lines over freight and relief lines. That work will enable the railway to cope as demand for train services increases in the years to come—a point well covered in the debate and a necessity that we cannot afford not to address.

Since 2008, I have been impressed by the emphasis that Network Rail has put on dealing with local stakeholders, ranging from myself as a local MP to Reading council and community groups. Its engagement strategies have helped stakeholders to shape the designs, not only for the station, but for the layout of the platforms and so on, and its work to keep local people updated has minimised disruption ahead of works. Thanks to its careful preplanning, a 10-day closure during the 2010 Christmas period meant that it was able to reduce—yes, reduce; I can see that there is surprise at that—the overall timetable for the project by a year. It was originally planned to be a six-year project and it will come in a year earlier than that, which is a big achievement.

The rail performance watchdog, Passenger Focus, has given positive feedback on the works to date. To Network Rail’s credit, in this instance an acceptable balance was struck between short-term disruption and a long-term reduction in the overall disruption caused by the project. Of course, there is huge room for improvement, but those efforts have been thorough and deserve a fair mention—credit where credit is due, after all. More recently, Christmas 2011 saw the completion of another major new bridge and new platforms to serve electrified southern lines. There too, Passenger Focus has given positive feedback on the works.

I am also pleased to say that all that work was completed to Network Rail’s published timetables, and I hope that that continues through to the project’s completion in 2015. If the project management at Reading station to date is anything to go by, I am confident that that can and will happen. My constituents in Reading East are ambitious for public transport services, and so am I. I am therefore pleased that, in my experience of the Reading station redevelopment, Network Rail has helped to deliver on that ambition.

I would like briefly to cite another example of my positive experience of working with Network Rail. Last month, I chaired another meeting of an ambitious group I have put together with Network Rail, BAA, London Heathrow airport, the Department for Transport and First Great Western. Our aim is to provide extended western rail access to Heathrow airport for Reading and beyond. In these tough economic times, such a link will improve business conditions in Reading and further afield, providing much needed connectivity with Europe’s busiest airport. That is important because Reading is home to many large employers and first-rate firms, such as Microsoft and Oracle, and the lack of a direct link leaves little alternative to lengthy and costly car and taxi journeys from Reading to Heathrow, which are estimated to cost local businesses £10 million a year in transport.

Reading, like other business centres, faces stiff competition regionally, nationally and internationally. We need to remain competitive, and in doing so, we must address the lack of a speedy link to Heathrow. A direct rail link is essential to our local economy over the next 20 years, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and her predecessor, now Secretary of State for Defence, for their critical support in getting such efforts off the ground. Network Rail deserves our thanks too, because following my bringing together key stakeholders and establishing the group to drive the project forward, Network Rail has proved to be an enthusiastic team player and, again, has shown itself to be a good project manager. I commend it for that.

I hope that Network Rail’s chief executive, Sir David Higgins, and his directors will take some positives from the debate, despite the many criticisms that they must hear and take onboard. I, for one, can give the Network Rail projects and people with whom I have dealt a thumbs up, and I hope that proposed improvement changes will mean that right hon. and hon. Members can give Network Rail a thumbs up in future.

15:17

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on a first-class speech. I agreed with almost every word she said, but I am afraid that I do not share the rosy view of Network Rail that the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) expressed.

[Mr Wilson]

It was my experience.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

It is not my experience. I have had many contacts with those who have worked in the rail industry over the past 15 years and before, and I have heard a stream of criticism from people fearful of being exposed because they would be victimised if their names leaked out. To illustrate that point, I deliberately forget their names, but I have heard a lot of very disturbing details.

I have a passionate interest in railways and have supported them since I serviced the TUC transport committee in the 1970s. I have been a rail commuter on Thameslink for 43 years, and have travelled through St Albans in that time. I have always believed that railways are the transport of the future, which was not the view of the Department for Transport until recently—quite unexpectedly as far as it is concerned, there has been an enormous surge in rail passengers in recent years. Despite higher fares and travel problems, people have chosen to use the railways, which confirms my view that they are the transport mode of the future. There has been much investment over the past 15 years, which has been expensive, but we need a lot more of it.

Privatisation has been a hugely expensive mistake. Indeed, a Department for Transport official was heard to say privately at the time that privatisation was intended to facilitate the decline of the railways. That was the Department’s view then. It was thought that the railways were a diminishing form of transport and that eventually we would all move to our cars. The great mistake, of course, was to divide the railways between Network Rail and the train operators—to separate track and train. No other country in Europe has chosen to privatise their railways. They have seen the mistake that we made, and the problems that that caused. There have been accidents and there are serious safety problems, even now, and of course there has been a massive increase in costs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Select Committee Chair, said, Railtrack was an appalling organisation. In the foyer of its headquarters it had an electronic indicator showing its share price. That is what it was concerned about—not serving the public, or safety. Eventually, of course, the previous Government were forced to abolish it and to come up with another solution. I understand that a private conversation took place in Downing street for several hours, between Stephen Byers, Tony Blair and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Tony Blair got bored after a certain time and walked out, saying “Well do what you have to do, but no nationalisation.” So they came up with the strange beast called Network Rail, which is neither nationalised nor privatised, and has no effective accountability at all. We have had not just privatisation but fragmentation—but that fragmentation was based on some economic theory, which was once explained to me by an economist. I said, “Costs were supposed to go down, but they went up massively.” “Yes,” he said, “our theory didn’t work.” Well, why do they not just reverse what they did and reintegrate and renationalise the railways?

There has been a massive increase in costs, in both public subsidy and fares, and, as Sir Roy McNulty concluded, at one point, our railways were up to 40% more expensive than continental railways. I have said in the Chamber, and to Sir Roy, whom I have met twice with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), that the big difference between continental railways and ours is that the continental ones are publicly owned and integrated, while ours are privately owned and fragmented. I do not think that he was listening to me, because he clearly had his card marked, “Whatever you do, no public ownership: find another solution.” One of the things that he has done, which I completely disagree with—the railway unions have made the point—is to consider staffing cuts. The staff on the front line have apparently been judged very efficient. They are not the problem, or the ones who cause the costs, but they are the ones who will have to pay the price, because in place of a challenge to what Network Rail does, there will be cuts to staff in stations at night.

Network Rail is a dysfunctional organisation. It is expensive and bloated, and is a law unto itself. I have met David Higgins a couple of times, and I have a high regard for him. He is a decent person, but he has taken over an organisation that is out of control. He has had great difficulty in penetrating that appalling organisation. Network Rail is a rogue organisation, and impenetrable. I have described it as an entrenched management mafia. I understand that within the organisation David Higgins suffers a degree of hostility, because every time he tries to change anything he is resisted. That is not just within the management structures; even at board level he suffers from those problems. It is down to the Government to back him up when he wants to do things, and to break the stranglehold of the corrupt management that has been there so long.

The vice-like grip of the old guard stems back to Railtrack days, and even though it was abolished some of the same people—and the same practices and culture—carried on. As I have said, I have had dozens of conversations over 15 years with staff and former staff, and they are all fearful of being whistleblowers, and I can understand why.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point. Some people have said to me that Network Rail is just Railtrack by another name, but with a large bung from the Government.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Indeed, and without any proper accountability. As the hon. Lady has said, there is no means to control it.

The bullying culture in the organisation was appalling. Anyone who stood out against, challenged or criticised it, or said that things could not be done, was sorted out by a head of human resources, who has, I think, recently been paid off with a substantial sum, rather than sacked. For years he was protected by senior management. On several occasions he sacked people and, when threatened with a tribunal, settled out of court, eventually. Just to pay off staff whom he had sacked cost many millions of pounds. Eventually he was paid off to go elsewhere. He was symbolic of a culture that was about control and bullying, and making sure that individuals looked after themselves within the organisation.

[George Freeman]

I did not want to interrupt the flow of the hon. Gentleman’s interesting description, but he appears to be giving the impression that we should simply return to the days of old—of British Rail and an integrated national system. Many of us in the Chamber will remember British Rail, which was hardly a paragon of efficiency, investment or good service. Is that indeed what he suggests?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Indeed, I shall come to that shortly. In fact, British Rail was starved of money and did a remarkably good job in the circumstances. Those are not my words. That is how it was put by Tom Winsor, the former rail regulator, who said that British Rail worked miracles on a pittance, and that when it was handed over to the privateers it was “in good order”. A Catalyst report some years later made comparisons between British Rail and continental railways and found that British Rail’s productivity was the highest of all the European railways. That is not true of our railways now, but it was then. However, British Rail was starved of money because there were several Governments, and a Transport Department, that did not believe in railways. They thought that they were dying and did just enough to keep British Rail alive.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Apart from the Catalyst study, most recently Christian Wolmar demonstrated that rail now has three times the subsidy that British Rail had, so there has been a tripling of subsidy and an increase in inefficiency, with higher fares.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and of course that includes paying for the bloated, self-interested mass of people at the heart of Network Rail.

I like to think that David Higgins is possibly the right man for the job in the appalling organisation we have, but he has a difficult job at the moment. During the time in question there have been the accidents at Grayrigg, Potters Bar and Hatfield. There has been pressure for prosecutions, but Network Rail has constantly said “Not our fault.” It has tried to escape and avoid blame. As to the recent accidents on level crossings, it is interesting that just in the past couple of weeks David Higgins personally apologised to the parents of the two girls who were killed. That is a different attitude from that of previous Network Rail management.

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

I do not quite have the same memories as the hon. Gentleman of British Rail, but I shall let that go and take up a more positive point, about the role of the regulator. We have got that totally wrong. It is ineffective. Is not that where we need action to help David Higgins?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

That is another point I was going to make: regulation. At the time when Tom Winsor left the Office of the Rail Regulator, there was talk in Government circles, which leaked out, that the Government—the Treasury and, indeed, the Department for Transport—wanted light-touch regulation. They did not want the ORR to regulate too hard, because that might damage profits. It might make privatisation less popular. If a regulator of any kind is told “Light-touch regulation”, they will either go along with it and take the money, or say “I am not going to be blamed for things that go wrong,” and stand down and do something else. I suspect that that might have been the case with Tom Winsor, but there we are.

The Government must take hold of the matter. The speech today by the hon. Member for St Albans has started, I hope, to move the tectonic plates. Governments and Network Rail management have refused for years to face the problems, and the costs have been massive. If the Government want to save money, one way to do it would be by sorting out Network Rail. I suggest that they should first make it a proper public corporation again: one that is transparent and accountable—ultimately to Parliament through the Secretary of State—and subject to freedom of information inspection. There are inherent problems of cost, but those are caused by the contracting culture. Track maintenance was taken in-house when it became incredibly costly. Time and again I raised with the Secretary of State, under the previous Government, the question why track maintenance costs are four or five times higher than they were in British Rail’s day. The simple answer was that it was about contracting. There was contracting, subcontracting and sub-subcontracting. There were costs at every level whenever the work was contracted out, and of course there were project managers and lawyers negotiating contracts at every level. People were filling their pockets with public money.

British Rail directly employed its own staff at every level, from the engineers who designed and controlled the work to the track layers at the grassroots level. They were all employed in particular areas, so that they had possession and ownership of their own area of track. If things went wrong, it was the engineer’s fault. He was permanently employed and he was accountable. He knew that his life was in the railway industry being employed by British Rail and he had to get it right. In the case of subcontracted staff, perhaps from overseas—they might have signed on as subcontracted staff or contract staff from elsewhere—they disappear after the work is done. Nobody knows who has done the work, and of course there is no sense of accountability and no sense of loyalty. They are just doing a job for the money. That is quite different from the type of attitude that British Rail engineers had. They believed in railways and they were passionate about their work.

There are still many of those BR engineers about today, but they are being abused and rubbished by this appalling organisation called Network Rail, where they are employed as consultants. Network Rail has to depend on them, because they are the only people who know how to do the job, but Network Rail does not inspire loyalty and commitment to the industry. People love railways—I love railways—and when they work inside the industry, they devote their lives to it. It is like loving a work of art. They have those attitudes, which is exactly what we want. We want people back in the industry who are permanently employed, who are responsible for sections of track—their track, and if it goes wrong, it is their fault and they feel totally responsible.

We have an expensive operation. Some years ago, the Department of Transport held an internal seminar on project management and its costs. It invited Don Heath, the manager who had been the guiding light and chief engineer in charge of the east coast main line modernisation and electrification, and it called in the west coast main line privateers. Don Heath was asked how much of his total budget was spent on project management, and he said 1%. The privateers were asked how much of their budget was spent on project management, and they said 50%. It was 50 times more. Direct employment by a dedicated engineer working for BR compared with a mass of private companies and subcontractors speaks for itself.

We want the direct employment of engineers; engineers in charge; engineers who care about the railways; and engineers who are permanently employed and have a life in the railway industry and believe in it. We want committed and responsible people in charge, not fly-by-night subcontractors.

I must not take too long, but I want to raise a few more issues before I finish. I put down an early-day motion a year ago to register my opposition to the use of agency and subcontracted labour. My EDM is quoted in our debate papers. It stated:

“further notes research undertaken by the RMT union and academics demonstrating that the complex network of contractors and subcontractors means there are tens of thousands of rail workers employed by a multitude of companies undertaking renewals and that substantial savings could be achieved if renewals were instead carried out in-house as was the case before railway privatisation”.

I made that point a year ago, and it is still true today.

The Office of Rail Regulation has recently found that Network Rail is in breach of its licence and that

“major asset failures, congested routes and poor management of track condition”

contributed to poor performance of the rail network in 2011.

Standardisation has collapsed as a result of the fragmentation of the railway industry. We have chaotic technical standards imposing massive costs and building up problems for the future. We have trackside land reserves being sold off—asset-stripped for profit—so track is no longer accessible for essential repair work, because the land alongside the track has been sold off. We have blue-sky contracts being issued whereby contractors are paid according to emerging costs. In other words, they can charge what they like; we will just pay the bill at the end of the day. All this needs fundamental change. With the right people at every level in the industry, we can do that, but it depends on Ministers, on Government and on the Department for Transport taking hold of Network Rail and transforming it into something that is fit for purpose.

15:35

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Thank you for your forbearance, Mr Amess, as I had to remove myself from the debate earlier. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate. I will declare an interest, because I used to live near my hon. Friend’s constituency when I lived in Radlett, which is close to St Albans. When I first started my working career, I used to commute along the line that she referred to, so I know exactly how expensive it was then, as it is now, and I know how unreliable it has become. I am grateful to her for securing this debate today, because in my constituency in Witham and in the county of Essex we have many problems with Network Rail, as well as with our train operating companies, so I welcome the opportunity to discuss the prospect of reform and improvements in relationships with Network Rail. We have heard a vast range of different experiences of Network Rail’s entrenched attitudes and lack of accountability to consumers. I hope that we will see improvements in the next few years, particularly with the change in management at Network Rail.

From a constituency point of view, I am now focused on the new long-term post-2014 franchise agreement for Greater Anglia. That follows the two-year franchise that has just been secured by Abellio, my new train operating company, which will run from this month until 2014. The longer franchising agreement—I hope the Minister will look into it going forward—is of real significance, because we are looking for greater integration, whoever the operator is, and a good relationship with Network Rail. Frankly, the two have been separate for far too long, and there has not been enough accountability and co-operation. National Express had the Greater Anglia franchise until 31 January.

We want improved relationships, partly because commuters in Essex and in my constituency pay a lot of money. My constituents pay more than £4,000 a year for their season ticket into Liverpool street, and £5,000 if it includes zones one to six. The service was appalling under National Express, but we have had much wider issues and challenges because of Network Rail. Our train line goes into Liverpool Street, which means we also go through Stratford. The Minister will be aware that Stratford has been going through significant changes, with welcome improvements in the line over the past few years for the great Olympics, which will be coming to our great capital in the summer. However, my commuters have been disproportionately affected. All the commuters along the Greater Anglia line have been badly affected, and that has to be addressed.

Rail services in Essex, in my constituency and along the Greater Anglia line need improvement to cope with the increase in rail travel as Essex faces a significant growth in population. It is currently 1.4 million and is set to rise by more than 14% over the next 20 years, and yet there has been no investment in our rail infrastructure, in the tracks that go through Essex and Suffolk, all the way up to Norfolk. The Minister will be aware that MPs from along the line have come together to consider how we can work to secure long-term improvements in the relationship with Network Rail and our new franchise holder, and hopefully influence how we can get proper inward investment in our line.

It is fair to say that there are regular delays consistently across the line because of signalling problems, engineering works and congestion, particularly around Stratford and Liverpool Street, as I have already said. For my constituents, these journeys are nightmare journeys. Most of my constituents work in the City of London, so for them delays obviously have an economic effect in terms of their employment and what they contribute to our economy. We have severe issues with overcrowding, lack of seats and poor facilities. With the likes of National Express and Network Rail, the general customer satisfaction rating is abysmal, which is not sustainable. It must change and improve.

[Mrs Main]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that High Speed 2 is being sold to the public on the grounds that people will be able to work on the train, which will be of benefit to the economy, and yet it sounds as though her constituents, like mine, regularly travel in cattle-truck conditions, and they certainly cannot work on the train? There could be an argument for putting the investment that is going into HS2 into improving our existing railways.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for making very valid points. I am all for investment in our railways, which obviously comes at great cost to the public purse. I am also all for getting “bang for buck” for taxpayers—there is no doubt about that—but it seems somewhat disproportionate that we are spending a vast amount of money on one particular project when there are certain lines and services that need investment. They are crying out for investment right now.

In the south-east and in the eastern region of the country, we contribute a hell of a lot to the economy. Our commuters also pay a lot in rail fares and it is now incumbent upon the Government to listen to some of these points from across the wider rail network and to start securing some long-term and strategic investment because, as I say, our constituents contribute a lot to the economy.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is also a desperate need for a third line between London’s Liverpool Street and Broxbourne? Those of us who travel between those stations, including those of us who use the Stansted Express, know that, for 17 miles, commuters are faced with intolerable delays, which is holding back investment in new housing, new infrastructure and business?

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I absolutely agree with him. My constituency is 15 minutes away from Stansted airport and I am very familiar with that line, in terms of people who use it and come into Stansted airport. Investment must be made.

I come back to the need for a strategic vision. It is all very well investing in HS2, but there must be a long-term strategic vision for our railways in this country that addresses the existing lines and services, as well as the growth areas. Let us face the fact that, although we are an island nation, our population is growing and we all have housing pressures in our areas. As a result, even more commuters will be coming on to the railways, which is something that Network Rail will have to address, along with the Department for Transport.

The existing train operating companies and the companies bidding for the franchises in the future must wake up to the fact that they cannot just take over and think they can inherit a service that is okay, when in fact it is not okay. They must be ambitious for our commuters and our constituents, and look at making long-term improvements. As I have already said, we need “bang for buck” for our commuters, because they are spending a lot of their hard-earned money on travelling on the railways. That is a vital consideration.

Rail and other transport infrastructure must be modernised to reflect the significant challenges from increasing demand across the country, including in the county of Essex and the rest of the eastern region. My constituency, the rest of the county of Essex and the rest of the eastern region are all particularly attractive locations for people to live and, obviously, to travel from in order to work in London. However, we desperately need the investment in infrastructure that I have talked about.

We must also sort out issues of reliability. As I have said, in my constituency we have had a change in franchisee to Abellio. Network Rail must improve its public relations and start to engage with consumers—the commuters—directly. It cannot hide behind the faceless organisation that it has become; it must become far more accountable. It receives huge public subsidy and it also likes to spend taxpayers’ money on staff bonuses, the levels of which have been inexcusable.

This issue is about railway services now and in the future. Commuters are paying more for their travel and they deserve to see significant improvements to services. They should be able to hold organisations such as Network Rail to account. There must be more avenues for commuters to gain redress, and there must be better consumer information. At the end of the day, Network Rail, the Department for Transport and the train operating companies must take a much more strategic approach to consumer services and to rail infrastructure as a whole.

I seek reassurances from the Minister that there will be a much stronger vision. The previous Government failed completely. In my part of the country, there has been no investment in our railways for so long now, and that is simply unsustainable. A long-term vision is absolutely required now. We have congestion pinch-points along our entire network, which must be addressed by Network Rail. We need the introduction of passing loops and the dualling of tracks. They cost money, but they should all be part of a long-term strategic vision, both for my part of the country and, crucially, for our overall rail network.

15:45

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I also congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate. I know that offering such congratulations is usually done as an element of politesse in these debates, but I genuinely congratulate her. This debate has been really helpful, and having heard from both her and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) there is not much more to be said really.

I am really pleased that the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) had that wonderful experience with Network Rail, and I hope that that experience is transposed to other constituencies, because it is very rare that we receive such a report about Network Rail. I am also sure that he will want to pay tribute to former Members who have lobbied on behalf of Reading—for example, Martin Salter—to gain the project that he described and bring it to fruition.

I want to address a limited number of health and safety issues, as so much else has already been said about other matters. Before I do so, however, I want to talk about the issue of bonuses. Way back in 2009, I tabled an early-day motion on bonuses, which was a reflection of how unaccountable Network Rail was. On that occasion, I think 51 Members of the House signed that early-day motion, and it seemed to have cross-party support. It urged Network Rail not to go ahead with the payment of bonuses that year, because it was laying off 1,500 track maintenance workers at that time. My understanding is that the bonuses were paid, on some scale.

May I draw Members’ attention to another early-day motion—early-day motion 2681—that has been tabled on Network Rail annual bonuses? So far, 28 Members have signed it. It would be very helpful if that early-day motion was supported. It is worded on a cross-party basis and draws attention to the statement by the Secretary of State for Transport in The Daily Telegraph on 19 December 2011 that

“Passengers would be extremely surprised if Network Rail attempted to award bonuses next year in the light of this action by the ORR”.

I urge hon. Members on a cross-party basis to sign that early-day motion, as well as noting the expressions of concern that have been made today about the bonus situation at Network Rail.

I am interested in rail because in my constituency we have a railway estate at Hayes. It was constructed by the old Great Western Railway and then taken over by British Rail, and it was built to house railway workers. It still is a railway estate, although most of the properties have now been sold off. Nevertheless, it still houses railway workers and their families, so I have taken an interest in rail for the past 30 years, based on the practical experiences of my constituents as they report them to me.

I must say that, tragically, my interest in rail also results from what happened under Railtrack. One of my constituents was one of the drivers killed at Paddington as a result of the tragic accident there, and there was the accident at Southall, which is literally one mile down the track from my constituency, where people were also killed. That accident also involved some of my constituents. So, I have taken a particular interest in health and safety matters on the rail network as a result of those incidents and the dialogue that I have with my constituents who are represented by their unions, the RMT, TSSA and ASLEF.

With regard to health and safety, I want to raise the issue of crossings. A number of Members have waged a campaign over many years to ensure that we rid ourselves of the crossings that we have, which are so dangerous. We heard this week about the findings against Network Rail as a result of the tragic deaths at Elsenham in 2005. Network Rail made a statement—I think it was made in early January—that it is proceeding to eliminate the crossings that it has. It says:

“Network Rail has closed 500 level crossings across Britain since April 2009 and intends to close a further 250 by 31 March 2014.”

My view, and that of many Members, is clear, and it reflects the views of the industry’s workers: the programme for the elimination of crossings must continue, and all high-risk crossings that we have identified must be removed, particularly those on high-speed rails. Replacing them with underpasses and bridges is the only way to ensure people’s safety. All other level crossings should be reassessed, with the ultimate aim of removing them also from Britain’s rail network. Although Network Rail has made its statement about the pace of change up until 2014, I urge it to consider how to increase that pace, to eliminate the risk.

The health and safety risks that resulted from privatisation, particularly from contracting out, are well documented. With Railtrack, there was contracting out—subcontracting—and then there was subcontracting of subcontracts, which meant that there was a failure to manage and monitor the quality of work. That was combined with cuts, particularly in front-line staff, even though there seemed to be a flourishing of management levels of bureaucracy within the company, which resulted in a high risk to workers on the tracks and the trains, including the drivers, and also, importantly, to the passengers. Track maintenance was brought back in to Network Rail, which was a major breakthrough, but we seem to be going down the same path as before, with a combination of a drive for cuts—it is argued that they are efficiency savings, but I would like to evidence that they are direct cuts—and potentially more contracting out. We seem to be replicating Railtrack’s mistakes.

In the current control period, 4, Network Rail is looking for the same level of efficiency savings as McNulty has called for, of about 30%, and they seem to be coming from direct cuts to staff. I shall read out some of the concerns that individual workers and groups of workers around the country have raised, via the RMT. I have met groups of staff as I have held meetings with union representatives. The signals and telecom teams in Scotland

“have been reduced from three to two workers, resulting in a large backlog in maintenance work, leading to the company offering 12-hour overtime shifts in an attempt to clear that backlog.”

That was a criticism we had of Railtrack. Front-line staff numbers were cut and teams reduced, and therefore to achieve cuts and savings long hours of overtime were worked, which had an impact on staff’s ability to maintain safety levels.

Another current concern is that maintenance gangs:

“in Scotland are faced with vacancies being left unfilled. Furthermore, cover is not being provided when gang members take annual leave, are on long-term sick or undertake extended periods of higher-grade duty.”

Again, we had those same problems under Railtrack, with gaps in front-line service provision. The workers also report that budgetary constraints have meant that signals and telecoms teams

“from Carlisle and Warrington are filling vacancies by working overtime. The effect is that gang members are working long and arduous hours with potentially serious consequences for both health and safety at work and the integrity of the infrastructure itself.”

In the north-west of England

“track inspections are now taking place every two weeks rather than the previous once a week inspection regime.”

Members might recall that under British Rail there were track inspections three times a week, so we have gone from that to once a week, and now to once every two weeks. In some of the recent reports, the accidents have been specifically connected to the track, and the lack of adequate inspection.

I can remember the debates in the House about another problem:

“RMT inquiries into the cause of the disastrous overruns over Christmas and New Year 2007/08 found that in the Overhead Line division vacancies were being left unfilled for long periods of time…the Doncaster OHL depot had a staff compliment of 40, however at that time there were 7 vacancies that had been unfilled for some considerable time. This represented a staff shortage of almost 18%.”

Yet another concern is that in

“the Anglia region S&T Teams have also been reduced to 2 workers. Where work is planned and risk assessed in advance this can on rare occasions be an acceptable practice”

because at least management can assess the work that the signals and telecoms team is going to undertake. However, in a rapid response fault team the workers do not know in advance what they are going to face, and when or where they will have work on the track, and that results almost certainly in risk but also in further delays in the work being done properly. Also in the Anglia region there are further reductions in the rate of track maintenance inspections.

What I am trying to point to is that sometimes we need to talk to the people on the very front line of the delivery of the service, which is what a number of us have done. Reports are coming back from around the country that because of the pressure under control period 4, which is looking for 30% cuts—and under the McNulty recommendations they will roll into control period 5—front-line staff are being cut and the number of inspections reduced, which will inevitably lead to the same problems we had with Railtrack, which resulted in one of my constituents dying.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I support everything my hon. Friend has said about inspections and track. A little over 10 years ago, in the last days of Railtrack, I was asked by a friend from inside the industry to look at the track north of Hadley Wood tunnel, which is not far from where I live. It is a significant bit of track. My friend was seriously concerned, and wanted me to raise the matter with John Prescott, who was then responsible for railways. I did not manage to get down with my camera because I was too busy. Just north of that track are Potters Bar and Hatfield. I think that the two might be connected.

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

[John McDonnell]

I can only state as baldy and starkly as I can that what my hon. Friend has just said is that we have been here before, under Railtrack, and that we seem to be replicating the experience under Network Rail. Everyone wants to look at the drive for efficiency and the reduction of costs, but all the reports we have seen so far are not about the lack of efficiency of front-line staff. The increasing costs are a result of the fragmentation of the industry, the division between rail and operations, and the lack of co-ordinated management across the network. My hon. Friend spelt out very clearly in his speech that that is where we fail in comparisons with the rest of Europe, where there is an integrated railway system that enables those efficiencies and economies of scale to be made. Network Rail is looking for savings and efficiencies in the worst possible way, by reducing front-line staff and increasing the pressure on specialists working on the ground, which results, I think, in increased risks to the health and safety of workers and passengers.

Will the Minister clarify when the Government’s White Paper is to emerge? I hope that we can have a genuine debate on the document and that we can go at it with a blank sheet of paper, a tabula rasa for putting our ideas back in. I hope that we do not have prejudices against public ownership, but that we look at what will work. The lessons from Railtrack, and now from Network Rail, are about investment in front-line services and about ensuring that if we are looking for savings we do so by overcoming the fragmentation. We must support those people working at the front line under the tiers of bureaucratic management we have had for decades, under both Railtrack and Network Rail.

Those are just reports collected from across the country. One exercise we could do during the discussions on the White Paper—I know we have done this before—is an extensive consultation across the country with the trade unions that represent front-line workers to get a feel for what is happening on the ground. Ultimately, it was the workers on the ground who exposed what was happening within Railtrack and eventually forced the change. Tragically, that change came too late for a number of my constituents, one of whom was killed in the accident at Paddington while others were seriously injured at Southall. I hope we have learnt the lesson from that and that in the White Paper discussions, we will look to the longer-term future of investing in an integrated system in which workers and passengers have much more democratic control and say.

16:00

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, newly come as you are. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on obtaining the debate and on her speech. As many contributors have said, this is a vital debate. I hope that many of her comments will be recognised by the Minister and acted upon, because action is needed.

I pay tribute to those hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. By the nature of their contributions, I know that they take the subject seriously. I want especially to congratulate the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who has a long interest, massive enthusiasm and great knowledge of the subject. It is always a pleasure to listen to him, because he always speaks in such a friendly and good manner, which is a lesson to us all. I welcome this opportunity to discuss Network Rail, which is vital to the nation’s economy and well-being. That underlines the importance of the debate.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Northampton rail users group. Consequently, I will contain my remarks to issues specifically affecting my constituency. On that basis, I wish to explore three themes: the factors that make rail travel from Northampton increasingly unbearable, the urgency with which the rail industry must get a grip on its cost base—a matter that has been mentioned on a number of occasions—and the pressing issue of capacity and the need to face up to what must be done to relieve that pressure, especially for my constituents in Northampton South.

That leads me to the west coast main line, which is the nation’s most important rail artery and has the ability, given supplementation, to add enormously to our economic well-being, especially in Manchester, Leeds and the areas north of Birmingham. The current daily capacity crunch is intolerable for the west coast main line’s users and will become increasingly so as the months and years go by. Network Rail’s most recent assessment is that the line will be full to capacity by 2024. Some expert railwaymen—a number of whom sit on my rail users group, I am pleased to say—would argue that that capacity might be reached quite a bit earlier. So we are talking about an important matter.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman is again making a very effective speech. Two possibilities could alleviate the problem of capacity on the west coast main line fairly quickly: we could develop and improve the line from Paddington to Birmingham Snow Hill to make it an express route, and we could develop a dedicated freight line to free up the west coast main line for more passenger traffic.

[Mr Binley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution, which I am sure the Minister has noted. My particular favourite is to ensure that High Speed 2 comes into being and is taken further, to Manchester and Leeds, because there is no doubt that transport systems cannot operate efficiently under the current pressures. That is one reason why we have the problems that we do, and it is one reason why the track is constantly in need of maintenance and repair, which makes the hold-ups even worse. We simply have to relieve that pressure. That is why I am a major supporter of High Speed 2. I argue that we should do our best to bring it forward as quickly as possible. I do not want to see High Speed 2 up and operating in 2030; I would much rather hear the Minister say, “We can make a target of 2024.” If the Chinese can put up a hotel in 14 days, we can do a little better than 2030.

I pay tribute to London Midland, because it has achieved a modicum of success, but that needs to be seen alongside the pressure. I feel for London Midland. I think it has many faults, but it is battling against a difficult situation. I make the point again that Rugby has been a problem in recent months. Rail travellers hate to get off at Northampton to circumvent Rugby by bus or, equally, to circumvent Milton Keynes going the other way.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I am distressed to hear my hon. Friend describe Rugby in such terms. We have a brilliant rail service and a fast-growing town, so I hope that he would look a little more kindly upon my constituency.

[Mr Binley]

We are on the other end of your line, mate, and I can tell you that the service is not as good as you argue. Otherwise, all my constituents would not be as up in arms and as dissatisfied as they are. My hon. Friend knows very well that we use quite a bit of the same line, and I do not believe that two towns so close together can have such differing views on the quality of rail transport in their area.

I turn to the problems specific to Northampton. The Government wish Northampton to be a growth area and have said that they want Northampton to build 56,000 extra houses by 2026, which will mean a population increase of 120,000—a 50% growth—yet where those people will work is a major question. Many of them will come from the south-east, especially London, thus alleviating the housing problems of that area. Consequently, commuting will become even more important. My guess is that there will be at least another 12,000 to 14,000 regular commuters on the link from Northampton through Milton Keynes down to Euston.

Commuting is becoming prohibitively expensive for the people of Northampton. As I have said, we will have 120,000 additional residents, at least 12,000 of whom will commute to London for work, yet the cost of an annual season ticket from Northampton to London is now £4,756, and a staggering £5,628 for those who need to go further on the underground. That does not take into account £815 in parking charges. All that is more than a quarter of the disposable income of a person on a £30,000 salary.

Many people will ask whether they can really afford to look to London to continue to provide them with employment. Many of them might even decide that it is not worth being employed at all, given the cost of commuting to a job in London. The major reason why people are moving to Northampton to fill the houses that I have talked about is that they cannot afford houses in London and the south-east. These people are the service workers of our great city. They provide vital services, but they are not highly paid. They do not work in the City, making millions on small money transactions—by small, I do not refer to volume, but to the difference between buying and selling. They are not those sort of people; they work in our restaurants, retail outlets and offices. Although £30,000 is a reasonably good salary in Northampton, if people have to pay a quarter of that to travel to their job, that is a pretty bad deal that needs to be looked at seriously.

Let me turn to the problem of the McNulty review. It seems that the Government for ever think that rail increases are a battle between the taxpayer and the consumer, but there is a third element: the service provider. McNulty was open about his concerns about the cost base of the rail providers and talked about prices being 30% more expensive per passenger kilometre than other rail systems in a comparative group. They ought to be out of business, for God’s sake! No business can operate effectively at a 30% higher cost base and expect its consumers to continue to support it. Usually, they would simply go to another supplier, but therein lies the problem.

[Mrs Main]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the real conundrum? How can it be regarded as a private company when no private company could possibly operate in such circumstances?

[Mr Binley]

Of course, that is right, but because Network Rail is a monopoly in some respects, it needs the Government and the regulator to be its friend and ensure that it operates competitively, but we know from McNulty that it does not. McNulty has also said that there is a subsidy of 31p per passenger kilometre at present, so there is 30% more cost and 31% subsidy. What would happen if those costs were reduced? In addition to the taxpayer and the consumer, there is a third factor in cost setting and cost payment—the train operators. Let a message go out loud and clear that they have a duty and a responsibility to care for their customers in a much more efficient way than at present.

I am concerned about Network Rail’s supply chains and the way in which it bids for jobs. When I was a managing director and wanted to get work done for my business, I would talk to a number of suppliers and ask, “What’s the best way of doing this? How do I achieve the most efficient answer for this job at the most efficient cost?” Are Members aware that Network Rail does not do that? It decides internally what it wants done and then goes to people to tender on the basis of its own decisions about how best to undertake the job. We have talked about the quality of middle management in Network Rail. No wonder that costs are so high when middle management is poor and does not even look for ways to be more efficient by talking to suppliers who know what they are doing in relation to a given task.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman is making yet another strong point. One of the problems in Network Rail is that contractors are required to work rigidly to specifications, even when those specifications are wrong. In British Rail’s day, the engineers locally would find out whether things were wrong and correct them as they went along.

[Mr Binley]

The hon. Gentleman talks some truth. I have never known a business man say that he wants an end product, only to ignore the supplier and say, “I’m not bothered about what you tell me is the efficient way to do it. This is how we are going to do it, because we know best.” But we do not know best—that is the reason why I would get a supplier in the first place.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is the blame culture that has developed at various points in Network Rail’s history?

[Mr Binley]

I do not know about that, but I have been interested in running efficient businesses all my life and I know that this is not efficient. That is what I am bothered about, and that is why I say to the Government that it is their job to make sure that it is efficient. If there are bad practices of this kind, it is the Government’s job to change things. The Minister represents all the consumers. They look to him as a kindly father who looks after their interests, and I am sure that he will do so.

I restate my full and enthusiastic support for high-speed rail. It is not about speed, and the nonsense about getting to Birmingham 20 minutes sooner is not the reason why it is important either. Of course, if we are to build a new railway, it must be the best that it can possibly be. Therefore, it must be the quickest and most efficient that it can possibly be. The real reason why high-speed rail is important, however, is capacity. My good friend the hon. Member for Luton North will tell us that we can only get so many trains on a line in a given hour. High-speed rail is about slots on the line and capacity. Rail will be oversubscribed by 2024—some people believe sooner—which is why high-speed rail is so vital.

Let us not have facile arguments about whether it is worth paying more to get to Birmingham sooner. That is not the point. The point is whether we get to Birmingham at all. Let that be a lesson to those who oppose High Speed 2. I know people who live in Manchester, Leeds and other such areas who know that there is a blockage in Birmingham. They know that it is increasingly difficult to go by rail through Birmingham and down to London and the south-east and then to the continent. They are looking to this Government to ensure that their part of HS2 is completed. I repeat that it is a massively important investment for the country in economic and social terms, and in ensuring that our children and grandchildren are employed on a good salary. I recommend that the Minister bring it forward to 2024. That is a target to set and, if he accomplishes that task, he will deserve a knighthood.

16:18

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing the debate, because, following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), the activities of whichever body is responsible for the management of our railway network have a significant impact on many of my constituents in Rugby, not only those who are commuters, travellers and users of the network, but those who live close to the railway. I shall talk about issues affecting that latter group in a moment.

The railway is important to the town of Rugby and its surrounding villages. The west coast main line runs through it. Our 50-minute service to Euston is operated by Virgin, and other trains, which take slightly longer and stop more regularly, are operated by London Midland. I do not have as much experience in the House as many other Members present, so I cannot outline history in the same way, but I intend to address three matters that affect the railway in Rugby that have been drawn to my attention in the 18 or so months since I became a Member of Parliament, two of which relate to the upgrade of the west coast main line that started in 2003 and was completed in 2008. Many of my constituents have told me about the massive disruption that they have experienced throughout that period.

I want to talk first about one of the major projects that Network Rail ran: the improvements at Rugby station that took place between 2006 and 2008. After listening to the account of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), it seems that his constituents are going through much of the disruption and uncertainty that my constituents went through over a period of two years. The improvements that have taken place are highly welcome. Notwithstanding the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South, the first impressions of Rugby have been transformed. It no longer seems to be an ugly, unattractive town where arrivals have to pass down a dark and dingy tunnel. People now arrive at a modern and vibrant building that exemplifies all that is good about the town of Rugby as a go-ahead and positive location for business.

[Mr Binley]

May I confirm that Northampton is on a loop line? Although the main line from Rugby works very well indeed, the loop line from Rugby through Northampton and down to Milton Keynes does not. If my hon. Friend could pay a little heed to that, I would be very grateful.

[Mark Pawsey]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend will expect me to stand up for my constituents who receive a good service. It is very important that we maintain that service, whether or not high-speed eventually takes place.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans referred to the accountability of Network Rail in the costing and management of its projects. Although we have a great new station at Rugby, there are very serious questions about how much it cost to deliver. Some of those questions were aired on the BBC “Panorama” programme on 16 January, when reporters were advised by the Office of Rail Regulation that soaring costs were an oversight, but that it was not possible to determine by how much the project had overspent. Our local newspaper, the Rugby and Lutterworth Observer, spoke to a member of the Rugby rail users group who talked about setbacks in the construction process leading to train services being stopped simply because Network Rail was unable to complete its work on time. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) drew attention to that issue.

We have got a new station, but the second matter regarding the changes at Rugby is the noise nuisance from the new track that has arisen since the works upgrade on the west coast main line. I have met Network Rail staff and approximately 25 residents to try to resolve that matter. In most cases, we are talking about residents who have lived in the area for many years. They had got used to living with the railway before the upgrade and were familiar and comfortable with the noise.

Many of the works that took place in Rugby were intended to enable trains to pass faster through Rugby station. Of course, the faster that trains travel—the higher the speed that they run at—the more noise is generated. In the district of Hillmorton, there are two separate noises: first, the absolute noise that the trains make; and secondly, a distinctive one-off thud is heard each time a train passes. I will come to that in a moment.

On major noise levels, my constituent Peter Bayliss invited me into his garden to listen to the noise. He showed me hand-held sound meter readings of between 89 and 90 dB for trains passing through at great speed. That was not previously a problem because, under the old alignment, trains slowed down to pass through the station. There appears to be no resolution to the issues faced by Mr Bayliss and his neighbours.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The M1 goes through my constituency and I have persuaded the Government to build noise barriers, which have made a considerable difference. Would noise barriers help in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency?

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his advice. We are continuing to talk about the problem, but we are effectively being stonewalled by Network Rail.

The thud has been the subject of correspondence between me and Mr Higgins, the chief executive, who has been mentioned. My most recent letter from Mr Higgins in that regard was dated 27 January. I was invited into a resident’s upstairs room, so that I could understand the impact of that noise disturbance. I will not detain hon. Members by telling them which room the lady constituent invited me into, but I was able to hear a very distinctive thud each time a train passed. The lady told me that the noise wakes her regularly in the morning. I use the line regularly, and as a passenger, I can identify the sound. The noise comes from something that I understand is called a switch and cross, which is a device that allows trains to maintain their speed. In his letter, Mr Higgins tells me that there is absolutely no fault with the equipment. That is something my constituents will have to live with.

In both instances, my constituents had come to live with the railway over many years and were comfortable with it. There has now been significant change. I do not think that Network Rail has taken that on board. There is little prospect of remediation for my constituents.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am sorry about that. Another suggestion is a floating slab track, whereby the track is insulated from the source of the noise and the vibration is taken out of the ground. That is another very good method of noise reduction.

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his advice and guidance, but I would have hoped that Network Rail would refer those things to me when I presented the problems to it. In each case, neither remedy has been proposed. Network Rail should be more responsive to a broader group of people, not only those who use the railway and its operators, but those who live by it. As a result of the improvements to the west coast main line, those people have had their quality of life significantly impaired.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South referred to his enthusiasm for HS2. Those who live close to the line or who are disrupted by the building of high-speed rail will be massively compensated for the disturbance and there will be all sorts of remedial measures. Unfortunately, I am talking about an upgrade to an existing line and my constituents will not receive those benefits.

The third issue that I should like to raise is access to the west coast main line during construction of the Rugby western relief road by Warwickshire county council. That long-awaited road, which was designed to relieve traffic pressure in our town centre, eventually opened to traffic on 10 September 2010. The works required the demolition of a road bridge at Parkfield road and the construction of a new bridge on a different alignment. For a variety of reasons, the history of that road’s development shows that it was not a successful project. The costs rose from the original estimate of £36.5 million to a final out-turn of around £60 million, with a substantial delay in delivery.

A report prepared by the county council draws attention to the reasons for both the increased cost and the delay. A substantial reason given was that problems arose in gaining access to Network Rail land to get necessary works done. There was some difficulty in getting—again, this is a technical term—forms A and B approved by Network Rail. That led to uncertainty in predicting when certain works could start, which, in isolation, added a cost of £2.3 million to the project. In addition, the reprogramming of some work in the diversion of a 25 kV power supply added £635,000 to the project.

The entire issue was the subject of a letter from the leader of Warwickshire county council to the then Secretary of State for Transport dated 5 September 2011. That letter refers to the need for a works agreement with Network Rail before any work can be carried out and to the delays in getting that agreement. I understand that a template is being negotiated by the County Surveyors Society. In this instance, gaps have been left that have led in turn to issues of contention.

The problem is that Warwickshire county council felt obliged to accept the terms imposed on it by Network Rail, which was the dominant partner in the arrangement. The county council certainly believes that Network Rail was less than constructive in enabling the bringing forward of a project that would give broader economic and community benefits. The county council has called for a review to establish more equitable terms, with regard to the wider public interest. Will the Minister comment on that? I raise the point today to support such a review.

Rail connections are very important in my constituency and, as we have heard, in the whole country. We clearly need efficient management of our track. I hope that the issues raised today will lead to improvements in how we operate and maintain this essential public service.

16:30

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

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I was delighted to secure the debate, led by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). On behalf of us all, I would like to ask the Minister to pass on our best wishes to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport, who has responsibility for rail, who has sadly had an accident. I understand that she is back on her feet. I hope that she makes a swift recovery. I know she is very resilient, but I hope she gets the rest she needs to make a full recovery.

Network Rail is 10-years-old this year. We all know how, why and when it came into existence. It is timely and appropriate to have this debate, especially as just over a month ago the Office of Rail Regulation served a notice of breach of licence to Network Rail on two fronts: on long-distance rail and on freight rail services. I have a particular interest in freight rail, which I will come to later in my speech.

One point that has been well expressed—I will try not to repeat too many points that have already been made—is that there has been some progress with Sir David Higgins. However, that does not mean that his job already requires significant six-figure bonuses. I am sure I am not the only person whose eyebrows were raised on understanding that that would be the case. I encourage the remuneration committee of Network Rail to consider carefully—having received those two breaches and considering the ongoing challenges that our constituents face—whether that bonus would be appropriate. I have no problem at all with rewarding success, but I cannot say at the moment that there has been great success on our rail network.

Since the debate was announced, I have had a very quick response from Network Rail. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, because I understand that she would not meet with Network Rail until the debate had taken place. I did meet people from Network Rail. It was fantastic that my original query from last summer, which I followed up in October and again in January, was finally answered—good news. It also gave me the opportunity to meet Dave Ward, who has been put in charge of the East Anglia region. He talked about some of the changes that have already happened, and what he plans to do. I will give praise where praise is due: I like some of the changes that have been proposed. However, the proof will be in the pudding.

I want to mention briefly factors beyond control, which have been talked about. Perhaps this is degenerating the debate, but Network Rail has often been called “Not work rail” or “Network fail”. The wrong kind of leaves and the wrong kind of snow—these factors are difficult and I accept that. Extraordinary incidents will happen; for example, burst water mains. Cable theft has been a growing problem. The Government have responded. That response perhaps took longer than everybody wanted, but they have done the right thing in tabling an amendment on tackling metal theft, which will include aspects of cable theft. Network Rail could have done more itself to assess the security of its own lines, whether through technology, or through the good old-fashioned use of people to check what is going on. Indeed, Mr Ward suggested to me that he is spending £2 million on security patrols to try to ensure that such theft does not happen, or at least that it is reduced, and I welcome that.

I also want to mention two Members who cannot be here today. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who also helped to secure the debate, is opening the wing of a hospital, or something like that, in Ipswich. I pay tribute to his relentless work in trying to improve and secure investment for the greater Anglia area. My hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) has already spoken about the challenges for that line, so I will not repeat them. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich has also been working with my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) on the Norwich in 90 and the Suffolk in 60 campaigns, bringing together MPs from across all three counties to ensure that we get a better service.

The other hon. Member who cannot be here is my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney). He also has to meet constituents today, and he wanted me to plug the fact that he is fed up with Network Rail. Anyone who has ever been to Lincoln will know that the railway line dissects it. He believes that the latest proposals for freight will mean that the level crossing will be closed for 40 minutes in every hour in daylight hours. He does not think that that is acceptable, and that is a fair point.

On issues of cost and time, we have heard some interesting ideas about what the right thing to do is. Is the right thing to go back to integration, or is it to introduce more competition? My first interaction with Network Rail came about after we lost the hourly service, which had been agreed before I became the Member of Parliament. Passengers had to change trains—there was no through train all the way to Lowestoft and they had to change at Ipswich. That meant that passengers who were not so mobile, or those with heavy luggage, had to be escorted across the tracks. On a very tight connection time of perhaps less than six minutes, that did not always feel very safe or ideal. In fact, passengers ended up going outside the canopy and out into the open elements. Wet or icy weather added to the problem.

Network Rail was supposed to build a footbridge and lifts. It did so, but they were several months late and cost £2.7 million. I understand that £1 million a lift is the going rate, which leads me on to a general point. Everything from Network Rail seems to be costed in units of £1 million: do we want a level crossing? “Yeah, that will be £1 million.” A new academy school building is being built and more children will use a particular route on the way to school. Network Rail has lodged an objection in respect of Runnacles Way, because children walk across there. A bridge is required, which might cost £1 million, or it might cost £2 million. Meanwhile, someone who has been doing some contracting work for the Environment Agency—which used to have the same problem in my view; everything was very expensive—reckons that he can build the bridge for approximately £150,000.

We should not accept that everything costs £1 million or more. That is why I was encouraged by the changes—I think it is called the devolution principle—that allow directors to take control of their regions. The Network Rail group that currently does a lot of small projects will be opened up. Pilots are being conducted to find out whether other firms can bid for tender. Indeed, Abellio, the new franchisee that comes online within the week, has said that it would strongly consider doing that; it does maintenance projects in the Netherlands. That presents an opportunity, but without the complexity that adds cost through procurement, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said. However, we need to do something about value for money. We should not accept that the cost of everything is in units of £1 million. Network Rail pulled its finger out with the floods in Cumbria and rebuilt a station in three days, which was fantastic. I would love to see that happen everywhere.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Lady is making a strong point about cost. British Rail used to have cash-limited projects that worked within cash limits. The engineers and the directly employed people said, “How do we do this as cheaply as possible? We have to work within the cash limits and we want to do the best job possible.” That actually worked, and is one of the reasons why cost was low in BR’s day.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman has more experience than me on those matters. Some interesting ideas are coming out today—I am sure that the Minister will take note of them—about building not just to spec, but being part of the design solution, and about other activities being constrained within a budget.

I should like to thank Network Rail, Suffolk county council and the Government for putting aside the money to ensure that we get the Beccles loop, which will reintroduce an hourly service all the way through to Lowestoft, as opposed to our only getting trains every two hours beyond a certain point. That improvement should be in by the end of this year.

Level crossings are a big challenge in my constituency. I respect the ambition of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) to see no level crossings at all, but I do not believe it is feasible. I live in a rural area with nine stations and 50 crossings, but many of those are bridges built a long time ago, back in Victorian times. Of the 27 level crossings in my constituency, only 11 have automated barriers. Eight have to be opened by hand. People drive up, get out of their car and walk to the gates, use the phone, open both gates, drive over, and then come back and close the gates. Those are the examples we could find; we have been doing a bit of research. I have used such a crossing and, as hon. Members can imagine, I have avoided using that route again.

In eight places there are just lights, with no barriers at all. Two of those are on A roads, one with 15,000 traffic movements per day. There have not been that many accidents, but I am not sure whether that is due to the design or people’s patience. It is such a crossing that I have been chasing Network Rail about—the one that will cost £1 million for installing two barriers—and I am delighted to say that I was told that it would be done by 2013. I am delighted that Network Rail has committed to doing that, but its challenge is to try to do that more cheaply. I want the response paper to contain something about how we are going to tackle some of those matters. The example that I have mentioned is not the only level crossing that is needed.

In a rural area, I would rather have routes than roads blocked off. If there were an insistence on there being no level crossings at all—just an underpass or bridge—quite a lot of mobility within rural areas would be compromised. It is about taking a risk-based approach and seeing whether we can do something about some of the crossings where people have to get in and out of their cars, and so on.

I welcome the change in who can bid for work, which will be piloted. I understand that Anglia will be part of that pilot. However, it is critical that there is transparency. I want Network Rail to report on how many projects are internal and external. Starting to show value for money and the percentage, or value, of work being done externally would be a useful barometer.

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. When I was looking to research this debate—I did not want to get too involved—I was amazed, in respect of contract tendering, that Network Rail’s costs for a job seem to be padded out with all the worst-case scenarios and it comes up with a massive figure and adds a bit on top for good luck. If everybody operated like that, nobody would be awarded the tender. Network Rail would be forced to produce a better set of figures if others were allowed to tender as well.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes another important contribution. I worked at the BBC for a short while, so I recognise that contingency can be a big part of any project cost. I also recognise that things sometimes go wrong and that people have to react quickly. I mentioned earlier an analogy with the Environment Agency. Some works were done by the internal drainage board. Funnily enough, the framework contractor for the Environment Agency cost about three times as much as other contractors. We do not want to fall into the trap of—I had better use my words carefully—the establishment figures being the only ones that end up doing the work, because they are almost part of the same circle. I think that that is the best way of saying it.

I welcome the closer collaboration. Abellio will be involved. There is a challenge for the industry. Things are already happening as a result of the McNulty review, before the Government have published the Command Paper. I am delighted about that.

Other things are useful, too, including technology. My remarks at this point may answer some points raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, who mentioned checking activity. I understand that things can be added to train roofs so that, instead of a visual check happening however often, a constant check can be made every time a train goes up and down a line. Simple ideas such as that one, which may cost a bit of capital—I get that—will build in some resilience. Instead of people being paid, frankly, to walk up and down—I am not saying that that should be got rid of entirely—such technology could be used to judge more intelligently the schedule of maintenance that needs to be done.

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly what the teams do now. They are not just walking the track; they are mobile and use new technology as well, but even teams that use new technology have been cut back recently.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for adding that point. Such technology has not been put on to the East Suffolk line and East Suffolk trains, so that is news to me, although clearly not news to him.

Hon. Members have already mentioned the finger-pointing. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) made an interesting contribution about whether alliances are enough or whether there should be mergers in respect of this whole operation, having train and track together. Let us challenge the way that Network Rail is structured and ask whether it is fit for purpose to deliver ongoing improvements and what we need.

On structure and governance, we have already talked about the complex structure that was devised in 2002. The coalition agreement specifically says that it will make Network Rail more accountable to customers. We look forward to the Government’s move on that. It would be useful to do something radical with Network Rail’s board and, instead of the 100 members, move to a 12-person board, for example, with a passenger group focus as part of that. Trying to manage that complexity is difficult. Hopefully, such a new process would allow for more focus.

I call on the Office of Rail Regulation to be focused on that in regulating Network Rail. The possibility of it going into train operating companies and other companies may be in the coalition agreement, but I would rather it stuck to the knitting and got that right before going into other matters. Passengers are clear when they are not happy about services. One way to try to regulate that matter would be to build it into the franchise or something similar.

I encourage Network Rail to stick to what it is good at doing. I was disappointed to hear—it has gone off the idea, thank heavens—that it considered setting itself up as a broadband operator. It is a clever idea to use things alongside the tracks to carry fibre, and similar, but the thought of its being in competition with BT Openreach was bizarre. Working with somebody who knows something is fine, as is becoming a conduit, but thankfully the idea that it would be the rival to BT Openreach went away.

Why am I interested in freight? Felixstowe, the leading container port, is in my constituency. It has rail terminals and a new one is going to be built. Putting freight on to rail is an important part of trying to reduce the percentage of freight on our roads. The Government are keen to do that, because it is good environmentally and it reduces demand on the key arterial roads throughout the country.

I encourage Network Rail to work with Hutchison at the port of Felixstowe so that it puts dualling in earlier. Due to the economic challenges that Hutchison said it was facing, it secured permission from Suffolk Coastal district council to delay that activity and had its planning permission extended, but it would make sense to do it now.

Some work has already been agreed—certainly, the consultation is starting—on the Ipswich chord, which, for hon. Members not familiar with Suffolk, would just add a bit of extra track, but means that, instead of many freight trains going into London and then out again to get to the north, those can go straight up towards Nuneaton. That makes a lot of sense and will free up a lot of capacity. To give Members a view of the costs, a 1 km stretch of track will be £41 million. Admittedly, that is not only for the steel on the track but for all the complexity of the other aspects. That is another example of the eye-watering amounts of money required for what one would like to think of as straightforward—perhaps I should not say that—key projects.

I also put in a bid for work at the Ely North junction, which would help freight traffic as well as certain passenger routes. Network Rail has a tough time with freight when connecting seaports; if Felixstowe or Liverpool close down, because of wind, rough seas or whatever, there is a bit of a problem. Dare I say it, however, the Network Rail people are paid a lot of money to solve difficult problems, so they must build that resilience into their timetabling and capacity building. The answer is not to do what happened to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, who suddenly had half the number of trains, because that is not acceptable.

Network Rail is a fascinating organisation. It is a case study of what can go well and of what can go wrong. However, the constituents of Suffolk Coastal and, more broadly, people throughout the country are fed up of being left waiting. It is vital that the Government grab the chance offered by the McNulty review and the Command Paper to put passengers and businesses first. Network Rail can be made to work, potentially, but the proof will be in the pudding, and I suggest to Sir David Higgins that, if we do not see much change within another year, we must question whether he has the capacity to make the changes necessary.

I thank all Members who have spoken so far. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans will be winding up. I have enjoyed the debate and I genuinely think that there have been some fresh ideas that the Minister will absorb.

16:51

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I add my congratulations on securing the debate to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and her colleagues. I echo the words of the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) in that, while it is always a delight to face the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), we hope that the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), has a speedy recovery, hastened by not watching the debate and getting some rest.

The debate has been good and has included a number of powerful and well-informed contributions. I particularly enjoyed the Punch and Judy performance between the hon. Members for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for Northampton South (Mr Binley). On this occasion, I will resist the temptation to make another contribution about High Speed 2, leaving for another day the thuds that can be heard from the upper room of a home in the constituency of the hon. Member for Rugby.

The debate has rightly had a repeated focus on the performance and accountability of Network Rail. As hon. Members have pointed out, the debate is particularly timely given that, shortly before Christmas, the Office of Rail Regulation said that it considered Network Rail to be in breach of its licence for reliability in the freight sector and likely to be in breach for long-distance passenger services. In both sectors, performance is declining at a worrying rate. End-of-year targets for 2011 were missed and ORR remains to be convinced that Network Rail is doing all that it can to improve reliability. A striking fact that should be re-emphasised is that Network Rail has already admitted that it will not meet its 2012 target for punctuality, and yet we learn that that organisation believes that this is the right moment to put forward a fresh reward scheme worth up to 500% of salary over five years.

To state the blindingly obvious, the reliability of train service leaves a lot to be desired in so many parts of the country. The statistics are clear. In 2011, more than one in 10 long-distance services was more than 10 minutes late. Such underperformance is frustrating for passengers, damaging to business and, potentially, a real and significant drag on overall economic performance in the country and the regions. We need a railway that performs better, not least because hard-pressed passengers are being asked to pay fares that have recently risen by up to 13%.

The figures on the causes of delay are clear. A more reliable railway will require better performance from Network Rail. When our constituents complain to us about a delayed journey, the train operator as the shop front for the railway system tends to get it in the neck. Many operators, indeed, need to up their game, but month on month, year on year, the majority of delays are the responsibility of Network Rail. In the most recent period for which figures are available, the organisation was responsible for 646,000 minutes-worth of delays to trains, representing 59% of the overall total.

No one is pretending or should imagine that there is an easy solution. Network Rail, or whatever organisation or structure might be put in its place, is charged with operating a complex, extensive rail network that has seen differing levels of investment over many decades. There is more demand for rail travel now than in any peacetime period since the 1920s. Yes, some of the delays ascribed to Network Rail are largely outside its immediate control. In particular, as mentioned in the debate, cable theft has risen fast up the agenda in recent months. To dwell a moment on that, we now know that rising global metal prices have triggered an unprecedented level of theft of the more valuable metals, from the railways as from electricity suppliers, communications providers and, most despicably, churches and memorials. The theft of even a short stretch of signalling cabling from the railway can lead to the shutting down of huge sections of the network for hours on end, as we and our constituents have seen, causing immense disruption. In the current financial year, passengers are on course to suffer almost 7,000 hours-worth of delays because of cable theft, which would be a record.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point. Such cases are deemed to involve force majeure, however, and something over which Network Rail has no control, unless it was derelict in its duty to police the railway line. As such, Network Rail would not be seen to be failing, but I believe that it is failing on things over which it has control.

[John Woodcock]

That is an interesting point. We should examine repeatedly how such incentive mechanisms work.

In the case of cable theft, increased action and a tougher regulatory system are needed to enable Network Rail to perform better. Of concern is that it took so many instances of main lines and major stations coming to a halt before the Government were spurred to what we hope is greater action. Even though Ministers now seem prepared to legislate for a ban on cash sales of scrap metal, at the moment their actions fall short of what is required to end the scourge of thefts. Cashless transactions alone may prove too easy to circumvent. We need a licensing system for scrap metal dealers, strengthened police powers to enter premises that they suspect of selling stolen metal and to close such premises down if necessary, and a requirement to show verifiable identification, recorded at the point of sale, for all transactions.

Ministers still have an opportunity to put more comprehensive measures in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. They would have cross-party support in doing so. I am talking about measures that would genuinely put an end to the spiral of delay, disruption and extra cost being experienced by passengers and freight customers across the network. I hope that the Minister will outline whether he is prepared, from a transport point of view, to put pressure on his Home Office colleagues to go further on the matter.

There is a need for improved performance from Network Rail in areas over which unquestionably it has control. Those areas include the reliability of signalling systems and better management of planned shutdowns to limit overruns having an impact on the next day’s passenger services. Performance is highly variable across the network. Far more needs to be done to ensure that good practice is learnt from by all Network Rail regions.

There is real scope to improve performance by reforming the artificial barrier between track and train—one legacy of the botched privatisation of the railways. However, there remains real confusion about where the Government are heading on that. Originally, Ministers proposed handing over infrastructure to the private sector, raising questions about whether they had truly learnt the lessons of the Hatfield crash. Will the Minister make it clear whether they have abandoned those plans? In the absence of the much-delayed Command Paper, the confusion drags on, so will the Minister tell us when we can expect to see that Command Paper?

We also have concerns about something that has so far not been brought to the House but on which newspapers have been briefed, which is the Minister’s new idea about creating single management companies out of Network Rail and train operating companies, starting with a potential partnership with South West Trains. The Minister needs to say how a level playing field will be ensured when such franchises come up for renewal. How will other train operators, both passenger and freight, that use that part of the network fit into the alliance? How does the balance between a for-profit train operator and the not-for-profit Network Rail work in that context?

Hon. Members are right to focus on the need to improve efficiency. As part of that, we need to make procuring and building improvements more efficient without compromising safety. I have spoken to train operating companies, and a number of them have expressed concerns that having to use Network Rail to procure improvements to the non-safety-critical parts of the railway system, such as station buildings and car parks, significantly pushes up the costs of and delivery timeframes for those improvements. Will the Minister expand in his winding-up speech on plans either to allow TOCs to procure such works independently, or to ensure that Network Rail improves its processes?

A number of hon. Members raised, quite rightly, the issue of investment in various parts of the rail network. However, the way in which we currently manage investment in the railway system and, indeed, across the transport network needs to change. We need longer-term thinking that goes beyond artificial five-year horizons. We have a reasonable idea of where the pinchpoints in the system will be in decades to come, the capacity challenges and the emerging markets for new or faster services. We have had, for example, welcome albeit piecemeal announcements of funding for electrification. So far, that applies mainly to schemes developed by the previous Government. However, the five-year horizon of planning means that the Government are hindered from creating greater certainty about a rolling programme of electrification, which, at its best, could guard against the resources and skills employed by schemes such as the Great Western and north-west wiring schemes being lost at the end of those programmes rather than being moved to the next area, such as the midland main line or the Great Western route through to Swansea.

Labour is not calling for extra spending on rail in this comprehensive spending review period, but we do want the five-yearly assessment of what is affordable to be part of a longer plan for what is desirable and likely, so that industry can plan and British manufacturing can have the best chance of winning contracts.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend is rightly emphasising costs, but a lot of the costs have to do with the method of contracting and sub-contracting that has been in use since privatisation. The contrast with British Rail is extreme, but there is also the contrast with costs abroad—other railway systems on the continent of Europe. Is that not something fundamental that we have to look at to bring those costs down, not just marginal changes to improve efficiency a bit, because we are talking about a multiple of costs?

[John Woodcock]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right to say that we need to look across the board at all options for improving efficiency. Avoiding inefficient procurement decisions, without returning to the days of the railway system that existed before the botched changes were made, which was not in itself operating efficiently, is the challenge and would be the challenge for any Government seeking to produce real, lasting and effective reform.

The deficit of accountability and transparency has rightly dominated speeches today. They have been powerful and well directed, but before I say more about where we share concerns in that respect, it is important to stress how far we have come since the days of Hatfield. Network Rail’s unusual structure was forged in response to the failure of its predecessor, Railtrack. The Labour Government were right to take action to bring the management of our rail infrastructure back under control, but the simple fact that we are in a relatively better place today does not mean that we can or should ignore the problems and shortcomings that beset the organisation a decade on.

The unusual nature of Network Rail has created a deficit of accountability. It does not have shareholders and does not respond directly to elected politicians, as has been demonstrated today. Most importantly, it is not properly responsive to the passengers who use the railway system. That can leave it unable properly to serve businesses, passengers and communities alike, and allow inefficient practices to continue. It has given rise to the alarming allegations that hon. Members have aired today and on which I hope the Minister will comment in his winding-up speech. [Interruption.] He still has 20 minutes.

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

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) has to speak again.

[John Woodcock]

I will be brief. We want a railway that provides value for money for and is accountable to the taxpayer and the travelling public, a railway where passengers and freight customers can rely on the timetables and a railway that can plan strategically for the long term. That is why we are listening, as part of our policy review, to a wide range of ideas for improving the accountability of Network Rail, such as the Co-operative party’s proposals for mutualisation of the company. I therefore hope that the Minister will tell us where his plans to review the ownership and accountability structures of Network Rail to make it better able to serve the public have got to and whether they will include improvements to transparency.

Finally, I come to the issue of bonuses. Network Rail’s accountability has been brought into focus today by the news that Network Rail’s senior management will next week seek to award themselves a new bonus and incentive scheme. We understand that that will include an annual bonus of 60% of salary and, in addition, a five-year reward scheme worth up to 500% of salary. The public will be staggered by such proposals. Network Rail is currently in breach of its licence. It must recognise that times have changed and that bonuses on top of salaries need to be for exceptional performance and not the rule.

There is a responsibility for Ministers here, too. Network Rail’s articles of association make it plain that the Secretary of State has a clear remit over pay and bonuses. She has a right to attend the remuneration committee and the board meeting that decides these schemes, or to appoint a special member to represent her. Despite the coalition’s pledge to make Network Rail more accountable, the Secretary of State has failed to take up that right. She still has the opportunity to do so. The Minister will be keen to know that Downing street seems to take a relaxed view on this matter judging by the lobby briefing this afternoon. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman agreed that there was a vote, but said that the decision rested with the Secretary of State. In his winding up, will the Minister say if his boss or he will attend the board meeting on 10 February to make it clear that such a package is unacceptable? Warm words about accountability are not enough—

[Mr Binley]

On a point of order, Mr Rosindell. I want to hear the Minister speak and time is very limited.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise his point of order, but I am in my last paragraph.

The Government need to get a grip on the organisation and its future, and they must start with this unacceptable bonus culture.

17:11

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

I shall have to give a high-speed reply to get through the various points that have been raised by Members this afternoon. It has been a very good debate, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for introducing it.

The coalition Government are delivering the biggest and most ambitious rail upgrade programme since the Victorian era. I would go so far as to say, without hyperbole, that this is the most pro-rail Government that we have had for decades. Despite pressure on budgets, we have made a strategic choice to increase capital investment in those parts of the infrastructure that best deliver sustained and sustainable economic growth, including rail. That is why £18 billion was allocated in the 2010 spending review to deliver an ambitious programme of investment in rail infrastructure and rolling stock.

Our problem now is success: there are more people on the railway now than at any time since 1929, with a network about half the size. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) is absolutely right; this is all about capacity, which is why we must get on with High Speed 2. We will try to deliver it as soon as we possibly can, and if we can, we will bring it forward, but we will not over-promise on what we can do on that or on anything else.

Many projects are going ahead, including Thameslink and Crossrail. I will not bother listing them all. Suffice it to say that we have a progressive programme of electrification that involves not simply one or two schemes. We want progressively to electrify the entire network and have already announced schemes that were not envisaged by the previous Government.

As Sir Roy McNulty found in his independent analysis of the value for money of the industry, our railway is the most expensive to run in Europe. It is up to 40% more expensive than some on the continent. Taxpayers and fare payers have shared the burden of inefficiency through some of the highest fares in Europe and some of the highest public subsidies, but this high-cost status quo is no longer an option. It is bad for passengers and bad for taxpayers, and we intend to deal with it.

Alongside our commitment to modernise and improve the network comes an equally crucial commitment to drive down costs and improve the efficiency of the railway, which was the third choice to which my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South referred in his contribution. In large part, that involves addressing the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans and others have raised about Network Rail’s accountability and performance.

Sir Roy concluded that efficiency savings of up to £1 billion a year could be achieved by 2018, without radically restructuring the industry, cutting services or compromising quality or safety. However, that will require all parts of the industry to focus attention on driving out waste and driving up efficiency. If they do that, we can have the long-term growth future for the railway that I for one want to see. We also want to end the era of above-inflation fare rises and the RPI plus 1% formula that was introduced and happened year on year under the previous Government.

Hon. Members have asked about the Command Paper. It will be published shortly—I think that “shortly” is an official word in civil service speak—and will build on the findings made by Sir Roy and set out a blueprint for rail reform. Developing the role of Network Rail will be at the heart of the Command Paper. Although Network Rail is not perfect, it is not Railtrack, and Sir David Higgins is not Iain Coucher, so I hope that hon. Members can take some comfort from that.

The railway needs an infrastructure operator that is responsive, accountable and able to deliver the best possible results for operators, fare payers and the wider population who fund it through the public purse. Equally, Network Rail must be better incentivised. Reform of Network Rail’s structures and governance is therefore a key part of the Government’s rail agenda. Let me give this absolute assurance to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell): we are determined that no changes should be made that would jeopardise the impressive improvements in safety and punctuality made by Network Rail and the rail industry in recent years.

We know about the tragedy of Grayrigg in February 2007. I am not being complacent when I say that that was the last tragic event in which a passenger died. It is worth pointing out that there were four deaths at level crossings in 2010-11. That is four too many, but it is the fewest such deaths that we have had for a decade. Efficiency does not mean compromising safety.

[John McDonnell]

On Grayrigg, the ORR said:

“the company’s failure to provide and implement suitable and sufficient standards, procedures, guidance, training, tools and resources for the inspection and maintenance of fixed stretcher bar points”

was a key issue that caused that death. The same depot responsible for that stretch of line has just had a 15% cut in its budget.

[Norman Baker]

The fact that efficiency savings or reductions in numbers take place does not necessarily mean that safety is affected. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman’s point has been well made, and I will take it back with me. Network Rail today is a significantly improved body from what it was in February 2007. None the less, we share the Office of Rail Regulation’s concerns about certain aspects of the company’s recent performance, such as punctuality over the past 12 months, some weaknesses in safety culture and poor implementation of integrated train planning under certain conditions.

The Government look to the Office of Rail Regulation to hold Network Rail to account and to continue to drive improved value for money from the company. As part of that process, the ORR has set Network Rail a requirement to make efficiency savings of 21% in its 2009 baseline by 2014. It will continue to produce annual reports benchmarking Network Rail’s efficiency against its international peers.

The Office of Rail Regulation’s latest annual report states that Network Rail has made progress against its efficiency targets, but that it has more work to do to justify all of its claimed savings. When Network Rail delivers on its current commitments, the ORR expects it to have closed around two-thirds of this efficiency gap by 2014 and the rest by 2019.

A key part of the McNulty review is to see much closer working and alignment of incentives between Network Rail and the train operators. A number of Members raised that, and it is something that the Government are focused on and it will feature in the Command Paper.

We welcome Network Rail’s regional devolution initiative to focus its business down to the route level and to work closely with train operators. David Higgins is taking forward work on structural reform to form closer alliances with the train operators. Moves towards asset management concessions and improved supplier engagement are vital.

We recognise concerns that Network Rail’s governance has not, so far, provided adequate mechanisms for holding the company’s board to account. That has been particularly apparent in respect of bonuses. The Secretary of State for Transport has been rightly firm on that matter, as indeed has No.10, despite what we have heard this afternoon. We expect bonuses to be dealt with in a responsible and a sensible manner by Network Rail, as we do by others. However, the Government’s powers, which we inherited from the previous Administration, to deal with those bonuses are extremely limited. Let me remind the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) that in 2009-10, under the previous Government, Iain Coucher received a bonus of £348,184, and the top seven directors together clocked up £1,347,000.

[John Woodcock]

The Minister will be aware that the previous chief executive waived his bonus in the 2008-09 period when he was asked to do so by the then Secretary of State, Lord Adonis. When the former Secretary of State for Transport, the now Secretary of State for Defence, raised the issue of those bonuses to Iain Coucher, he was completely ignored.

[Norman Baker]

The fact of the matter is that we have not inherited powers to deal with those bonuses. This is the Network Rail structure that we inherited, and we are now trying to sort it out.

Let me deal with Network Rail’s performance, which comes within my portfolio. It is not as good as it should have been, and passengers are rightly unhappy when their train is delayed or cancelled, especially when that happens regularly. To be fair to Network Rail, we must put that performance in context. In 1997-98, the annual public performance measure was 89.3%. After the accident at Hatfield in 2000, it fell to 74.2%. Since then, it has risen progressively, and punctuality today stands at 91.7%. I am not saying that that is good enough, but it is not the catastrophic case that is sometimes presented. It is certainly not true that, as the Labour party spokesman said, performance has been declining at an alarming rate. It has not; it has been improving. It has not met the targets, but it has been on an upward trend.

The current high level output specification for the railways specifies a further improvement to 92.6% during the period to 2014, and that is what the Department is focused on, as is the ORR. There is still a lot to do. I am concerned that performance over the last year has been iffy for various reasons, including the previous two exceptionally severe winters and an increase in the number of external events, such as cable theft. What is happening about cable theft is not the full range of the Government’s response, and it is inaccurate to present it in that way. We are simply using existing legislation to do what we can. Further measures will emerge as and when we can take them. In addition to cable theft, other issues have affected Network Rail’s performance that I am told were within its control.

Remedial plans have been put in place to enable improvements by the end of the current year, and plans are being developed for the remaining two years of the current rail control period. I am happy to tell my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans that a great deal of work has gone into much better winter resilience, including third-rail heating to prevent the sort of problems that occurred in previous winters, to which she rightly referred. I hope that she will be reassured by the fact that I meet Network Rail and the train companies monthly to examine performance with a specific analysis to ensure that they are keeping up to scratch with their plans.

As has been said, the ORR has published enforcement orders requiring Network Rail to take further steps to improve performance, particularly for long-distance passenger services and freight services. Hon. Members will know of the letter written by the ORR to Network Rail—it is fair to say that the train companies also have responsibility to do their best to ensure that punctuality and performance are maintained—and I simultaneously wrote to the train companies about their responsibilities to ensure that they are doing what they can to maintain performance at their end.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans referred to the National Audit Office. Network Rail is officially a private sector company. That classification is determined not by the Government, but by the independent Office for National Statistics, and that is what it has decided. I am not aware of any precedent for the National Audit Office having jurisdiction over private sector companies.

Under the terms of the Railways Act 1993, as subsequently amended, Network Rail is subject to scrutiny and regulation by the ORR, which has access to information that it needs from Network Rail, properly to assess the company’s performance and efficiency. The ORR is part of the public sector, so it is subject to National Audit Office scrutiny. The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have recently undertaken audits of the Office of Rail Regulation, taken evidence from Network Rail and others and produced reports on the regulator’s effectiveness.

We note and endorse the conclusions that the ORR must take steps to ensure that it has the capability that it needs properly to hold Network Rail to account and to drive it to close the efficiency gap with leading European comparators. I have sought assurances from the ORR that it will take such steps. Hon. Members have referred to the consultation that is taking place on the ORR’s powers. Any plans to expand the ORR’s role take account of its performance to date and its future capability, as well as comments that are received as part of the consultation process.

As a private sector company, Network Rail is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, nor could it be without primary legislation. However, Network Rail has promised that it is in the process of developing a voluntary information rights code, which will mirror many of the provisions in the Freedom of Information Act. We welcome that initiative and believe that, if properly implemented, it will provide an alternative to legislation. We expect the company to introduce the code alongside a broader package of Government reforms later this year.

My colleagues and I in the Department for Transport, including the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers)—I am grateful for the comments about her accident, and I am happy to say that she is recovering well—will keep the matter under close scrutiny.

Hon. Members raised a number of specific points, but I must give my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans time to respond properly. If there are any points that I have not dealt with, I will write to the relevant hon. Members.

17:25

[Mrs Main]

I thank the Minister for his rather rushed response. I accept that he was under pressure of time. I look forward to seeing his written response to any other points that were raised. This has been a valuable and conciliatory debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) said, it is not about a blame game; it is about ensuring that we have the railway service that our constituents deserve and that the country deserves for its prosperity and future.

We have the weird scenario of a private company supposedly supported by taxpayer’s money. I hope that we will end up with something better in future, but I am not sure what the eventual and, we hope, better child will be following privatisation, then full access to public funds and now the chimera that I described earlier. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) was very defensive about Network Rail and praised it, but he started his speech by saying that 60.4% of delay attributions were its direct responsibility. He was very kind to Network Rail, but he recognised that it has some things to answer for.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South made a powerful speech. I understand his passion for HS2, but he made a powerful business case for things to be much better than they are. I think that all hon. Members agree with that.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for her incisive view, particularly of level crossings. My mind was boggling that someone might have to walk through them and shut the doors after them.

Hon. Members today have raised serious concerns about Network Rail. I was concerned when the Minister said that the Office of Rail Regulation has been expected to do more, given that the Public Accounts Committee said in 2011 that it doubted whether the regulator could exert sufficient pressure on Network Rail’s performance. The Minister is optimistic and I am sure that he will be sitting on its back and beating it up when necessary, but the public’s perception is that it is a toothless tiger. I suggest that he does not give it too long to get its house in order. If it is not delivering, something else must be put in its place quickly. We cannot expect Network Rail to carry on as it is.

It was apt that bonuses were referred to; they were also referred to in the House, and I gather that there is a statement on them today. It may not be possible to prevent the directors of Network Rail from receiving bonuses, but they could stand shoulder to shoulder and decline them. I suggest that, if they are arguing vociferously for a new structure that awards bonuses of 500% of their salaries, they think again after this debate and the Prime Minister’s statement, which I cannot anticipate, but I know the views of many colleagues in the House and those who supported the early-day motion. I also know that the public are disgusted by reward for failure. If Network Rail turns itself around within a short period, the directors could expect to apply for bonuses, but now is not the time, and they should stand shoulder to shoulder with the travelling public and decline bonuses. Although they can have them, they should say that they do not want them.

This debate has been valuable. I look forward to the White Paper, and I hope that we will see a way forward for our rail services in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

17:29

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Written Statements

Thursday 2 February 2012

Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (Schedule 7)

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Written Statements

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Paragraph 38 of Schedule 7 to the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 requires the Treasury to report to Parliament after each calendar year in which a direction under the schedule is at any time in force. This report provides details of the Treasury’s exercise of their functions under schedule 7 during the calendar year 2011.

The Schedule 7 powers

Schedule 7 provides HM Treasury with powers to implement a graduated range of financial restrictions in response to certain risks to the UK’s national interests. The risks it addresses are those posed by money laundering, terrorist financing and the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.

Direction given under the powers in Schedule 7

The Financial Restrictions (Iran) Order 2011 (“the Order”) came into force on 21 November 2011. The Order contains a direction by the Treasury requiring all UK financial and credit institutions to cease business relationships and transactions with all banks incorporated in Iran, including all subsidiaries and branches of such banks, wherever located, and the Central Bank of Iran.

The direction was issued on the basis that activity in Iran that facilitates the development or production of nuclear weapons poses a significant risk to the national interests of the UK. Iranian banks play a crucial role in providing financial services to individuals and entities within Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Any Iranian bank is exposed to the risk of being used by proliferators in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

The Order was approved by the House of Lords on 12 December 2011 and by the House of Commons on 13 December 2011.

Licensing

Under paragraph 17 of schedule 7, the Treasury can exempt acts specified in a licence from the requirements of a direction requiring the cessation or limiting of transactions or business relationships between UK and Iranian banks.

In operating the licensing regime in respect of the Order, the Treasury’s aim is to minimise the impact of the restrictions upon third parties, without compromising the objective of the direction.

The Treasury issued six general licences on 21 November 2011:

General Licence 1 permits existing and new transactions involving transfers of under €40,000 for humanitarian purposes;

General Licence 2 allows personal remittances under €40,000;

General Licence 3 permits existing or new transactions related to the provision of insurance permitted by EU Regulation 961/2010;

General Licence 4 allows UK banks to continue to hold accounts for asset-frozen Iranian banks and credit payment to those accounts in accordance with EU Regulation 961/2010;

General Licence 5 allows UK banks to continue to hold accounts of non-frozen Iranian banks, although they cannot process any transactions on these accounts; and

General Licence 6 provided a seven-day grace period to allow payments in progress under existing contracts to be completed.

Applications that fall outside the scope of the six general licences are assessed on a case-by-case basis. In making the decision to issue a licence, the Treasury upholds the objective of the restriction while seeking to minimise the impact on third parties.

Between 21 November 2011 and 31 December 2011, four licences were granted and none refused:

Two were granted to facilitate banks exiting their relationships with Iranian banks in accordance with the restrictions.

Two more were issued to enable payments due under contracts agreed before the restrictions came into force to be made:

one allowed a UK business to receive payment owed under an existing contract for the delivery of goods; and

the other enabled an existing loan to be repaid.

British Embassy (Liberia)

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Written Statements

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

In March 1991, at the outbreak of over a decade of civil war, Britain closed its embassy in Liberia. In 2003, a UK-based political officer began work again in Monrovia, reporting to and supervised by our High Commissioner in Sierra Leone. Today, I am pleased to announce the reopening of our embassy in Liberia.

This follows the successful presidential elections at the end of last year, the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in January, and my meeting with her in June 2011.

Reopening a British embassy in Liberia strengthens our voice at a critical time and enables us to support the process of peace-building and national reconciliation in this important African country. Since the closure of our embassy in 1991, our influence in Liberia has been limited. A fully accredited ambassador will be able to work closely with President Johnson Sirleaf’s Government as they work to push forward her programme of reform and national reconciliation.

The resources of a full embassy will enable us to provide more systematic and effective support to British trade and investment. Liberia’s economy is growing at over 6% per annum. The oil, mining and agriculture sectors are all set to expand rapidly over the next few years.

This decision sends a strong signal of British diplomatic re-engagement with Liberia and the wider region. It follows the upgrading of our political office in Côte d'Ivoire to the status of a full embassy.

As I said in Parliament on 11 May 2011, there will be no strategic shrinkage of Britain’s diplomatic influence overseas. I remain committed to extending the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s global reach and building up British diplomatic influence in key regions of the world. Reopening the embassy in Liberia is part of that commitment.

The reopening of the embassy will incur a marginal cost over and above the cost for a political office. This would be around £35,000 in the first year and £15,000 per annum after that. A limited consular service will be offered in Liberia. Our High Commission in Ghana will continue to provide a visa service as well as more substantive consular support when necessary. A fully accredited resident ambassador will take up residence in Liberia in autumn 2012.

European Union Act 2011 (Section 5)

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Written Statements

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

A parliamentary statement has been laid before the House today, 2 February. This has been made pursuant to section 5 of the European Union Act 2011 as to whether the treaty concerning the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union falls within section 4 of the EU Act.

Copies of the parliamentary statement are available from the Vote Office and Printed Paper Office. Copies of the treaty have been deposited in the Library of the House.

Undercover Policing

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Written Statements

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

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary (HMIC) has today published its review into undercover policing entitled “A review of national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest”.

The review was initiated by HMIC following revelations about the activities of Mark Kennedy, a police officer working undercover for the then National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), that led to the collapse of the trial of six people accused of planning to shut down a large power station in Nottinghamshire.

The report acknowledges that intelligence provided by undercover officers of the NPOIU enabled the police to prevent acts of the most serious violent nature.

The report examines the systems used by NPOIU to authorise and control the development of intelligence and the oversight of the activities of individual undercover officers. The report found that NPOIU undercover operations were not as well controlled as those of other units that deploy undercover officers such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Security Service and the FBI. This was especially so in the case of Mark Kennedy.

The report makes four recommendations to improve the controls and effectiveness of undercover policing of criminality associated with protest. The recommendations are as follows:

Recommendation 1

The arrangements for authorising those police undercover operations that present the most significant risks of intrusion within domestic extremism and public order policing should be improved as follows:

(a) ACPO should give serious consideration to establishing a system of prior approval for pre-planned, long-term intelligence development operations subject to the agreement of the OSC.

(b) The level of authorisation for long-term deployments of undercover police officers should be aligned with other highly intrusive tactics such as Property Interference, as defined by section 93 of the Police Act 1997, (subject to the legal requirements and the agreement of the OSC).

In the interim:

(c) Either a collaborative agreement should be entered into between police forces and MPS that allows one authorising officer within NDEU to own undercover operations from start to finish, or these operations should be managed in police forces by authorising officers that are:

a. Properly trained and accredited. In particular this training should cover the concepts of necessity, intrusion, proportionality, disclosure and risk management.

b. Fully briefed with all the relevant information.

In making these changes, consideration will need to be given to ensuring the police have some flexibility to deploy covert resources at short notice where operationally necessary, and to minimising potential impacts on covert human intelligence (CHIS) work and police collaboration with partners.

HMIC makes a number of further recommendations to improve the NPOIU’s management of the risk associated with intrusion (see recommendations 3 and 4 below).

Recommendation 2

In the absence of a tighter definition, ACPO and the Home Office should agree a definition of domestic extremism that reflects the severity of crimes that might warrant this title, and that includes serious disruption to the life of the community arising from criminal activity. This definition should give sufficient clarity to inform judgments relating to the appropriate use of covert techniques, while continuing to enable intelligence development work by police even where there is no imminent prospect of a prosecution. This should be included in the updated ACPO 2003 guidance.

Recommendation 3

The positioning of both public order intelligence and domestic extremism intelligence within the NDEU needs to be reconsidered. There will need to be an incremental transfer to any newly created hub for public order intelligence.

Recommendation 4

In recognition that undercover operations aimed at developing intelligence around serious criminality associated with domestic extremism and public order are inherently more risky, additional controls should be implemented as follows:

(a) MPS and ACPO leads should adopt a practical framework for reviewing proposed operations or their continuation.

(b) Authorising officers should conduct a thorough review of all undercover operations that last longer than six months. This review will be in addition to an independent review by the Surveillance Commissioners.

(c) Subject to reconsideration of the public order component (see recommendation no.3), domestic extremism operations should continue to be managed within the existing regional counter-terrorism unit structure, and there should be oversight by an operational steering group representing a range of interests and agencies. External governance could be provided using arrangements similar to those employed by the counter-terrorism network.

(d) The rationale for recording public order intelligence material on NDEU’s database should to be sufficient to provide assurance that its continued retention is necessary and justified given the level of intrusion into people’s privacy.

(e) Exit plans should be an addendum to the risk assessment and should be reviewed by the authorising officer, and they should be considered by appropriately trained police cover officers and police-employed psychologists collectively, alongside risks to the operational strategy and welfare of undercover officers.

(f) In order for safeguards to operate effectively consideration should be given to undercover officers waiving their right to confidentiality allowing the psychologist to brief managers of any concerns.

(g) The 2003 ACPO guidance needs urgent revision taking account of the findings of this and other reviews.

With the police, the Government will consider carefully the recommendations to ensure enhanced control of these undercover police officers in the future. Indeed, steps have already been taken to address some of the concerns. For example, the Metropolitan Police Service runs the National Domestic Extremism Unit (which now carries out the functions of NPOIU) on behalf of the police forces in England and Wales. This new arrangement came into effect in early 2011 and simplifies the scrutiny of the NDEU as it will be subject to the Metropolitan Police Service governance and accountability arrangements.

I am grateful to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary for his review. A copy of this report will be placed in Library of the House.

Justice and Home Affairs Post-Council Statement

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Written Statements

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

Attending on behalf of the United Kingdom were my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice, the Scottish Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs Roseanna Cunningham MSP and myself. The following issues were discussed at the Council:

The first plenary session focused on solidarity in immigration and asylum, considering the need for Council conclusions on a common framework for solidarity; the trigger for solidarity measures; whether the agencies should have a strengthened role; whether there should be intra-EU relocation of refugees; and whether a framework should include Schengen and third-country co-operation. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that the starting point for all should be to meet existing obligations, alongside burden-sharing. Within the EU joint asylum processing and voluntary relocation would be welcome, while there was a need for external action to strengthen resettlement and develop regional protection pilots. There was also a need to ensure that improved management of migration at the borders was sensitive to the needs of refugees and asylum seekers.

The Commission said that assistance could be provided within the framework of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) but solidarity was also about keeping one’s own house in order. Commissioner Malmström supported a soft-law framework plus the early warning system, but any mechanism should be on the request of the member state with consideration by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the Commission. She noted that the EU agencies could only work within their competence and co-ordination could only be done by the Commission. She also urged support for the voluntary relocation scheme and noted there was a link between Schengen and solidarity, against which evaluation of the former needed to be strengthened. The chair of the European Parliament (EP) Civil Liberties Committee emphasised the need to keep international protection distinguished from migration. They had consistently made the case for internal relocation and wanted the European Parliament to be informed at the earliest stage of early warning systems.

Many member states intervened to emphasise that solidarity depended on trust and should not detract from responsibility, which included investing in appropriate systems to manage changes in migration flows. The UK agreed that the need to have a functioning domestic system was the basic building block, without which real solidarity was impossible. The UK also expressed caution over EASO’s role being further developed at this stage and would not support an extension of relocation beyond the Malta pilot project, at least before it was evaluated. The UK said that relocation simply moved the problem around Europe rather than addressing the underlying problems. The UK also welcomed the presence of Turkey at the Council, with whom it supported strengthened co-operation. The majority of member states’ interventions supported the creation of a framework for solidarity in the form of Council conclusions and supported the inclusion of co-operation with third countries and consideration of Schengen within the proposed framework.

The presidency concluded that solidarity was dependent on trust and that a framework would be useful as a supplement to an early warning system. There was support for including components related to Schengen and co-operation with third countries and there was a place for strengthening the agencies. They noted there was not support for relocation. They committed to preparing draft conclusions in March which they hoped would unlock negotiations on the Dublin regulation. The task would then be to turn them into results by June. They noted it was closely linked to better political management of Schengen which would go to the March JHA Council.

In the light of the review of the family reunification directive, over lunch Ministers discussed the challenges facing them with respect to family reunification.

The next plenary session focused on the financing of passenger name records (PNR) under the proposed directive on the collection and sharing of PNR between member states. The presidency noted that, while the starting point for the implementation of EU policies was that member states took the cost of implementation, the EU could sometimes meet set-up costs. The Commission said they were willing to co-finance set-up costs in this case but could not finance running costs or all set-up costs. They had allocated €50 million (£41.76 million) for 2012 and fully intended to finance it in the future, via the new Internal Security Fund, currently under negotiation. The UK reiterated the importance of an EU PNR system for fighting terrorism and organised crime. Given its benefits the UK hoped the finance issue would be resolved and offered its own experience to assist others in helping to reduce their costs.

The majority of member states intervened to support funding from the EU financial instruments, with most supporting an explicit reference in the text of the new Internal Security Fund instrument. The European Parliament said that the issue for it was not cost, but noted that cost could affect them. The European Parliament believed that excluding EU internal flights from the scope of the directive would be cheaper. The presidency concluded there was general agreement to use the Internal Security Fund for funding for PNR, but member states needed reassurance that substantial financial support would be available. Discussions on the directive and Internal Security Fund will continue at expert level.

The Justice day commenced with a discussion on the Brussels I regulation, where the presidency invited delegations to discuss the proposed rules of jurisdiction in cases involving defendants in non-EU member states. The UK did not see any evidence of practical problems with the current arrangements, whereby national rules applied to such cases. Most other member states thought there was no need to extend the rules of jurisdiction in Brussels I to such cases. The presidency concluded that further work should be taken forward on basis of maintenance of the status quo.

This was followed by a discussion on criminal sanctions in the context of the current proposal for a directive on insider dealing and market manipulation. Ministers were asked to consider whether a provision for minimum levels of maximum penalties should be included in the proposed directive, and whether there should, as a rule, be provision for minimum-maximum levels of sanctions in future criminal law directives. The Commission stated that there must be respect for subsidiarity and proportionality and that there was no need for such a rule in the directive. The UK supported the Commission’s approach and felt that the first priority was for some criminal provision to be in place so that it was clear that the conduct would be treated as a serious offence. The UK also stressed the importance of enforcement and that having the options of both a criminal and civil approach would aid prosecutors, bearing in mind that criminal offences were harder to prove. The presidency concluded that the majority of states considered that having no specific minimum-maximum sanctions would be the right approach and that the question of sanctions in future instruments should be considered on a case by case basis.

During the ministerial lunch there was a discussion on the transfer of sentenced persons and social rehabilitation. Member states reviewed implementation so far of the framework decision on transfer of sentenced persons. Most states are in the process of implementation. There was widespread agreement that additional legislative measures to facilitate implementation were unnecessary, but that practical measures to activate the process must be addressed. The UK supports the framework decision so that foreign national offenders are able to serve their sentences in their own country to facilitate their eventual reintegration into the community in which they will live.