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Oral Answers to Questions
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
1. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
4. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
6. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
9. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
16. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
We have ambitions to deliver a step change in the amount of work done in prisons. By making use of the lessons learned from the prisons that are already delivering full working weeks, we will work with the public and private sectors—including commercial customers and partners—and through the prison competition system to make our ambitions real.
Matthew Hancock
The Secretary of State will know of the great work being done in Her Majesty’s prison Highpoint, in my constituency, which is one of our biggest category C prisons. Enabling third sector, private and other providers to work with prisoners before they are released has improved their chances of finding accommodation and work on release. What further action is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that that is replicated throughout the country?
Mr Clarke
As I have said, we are building on the great work that is already being done, not least in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The purpose of prisons, it seems to me, is first to punish for crime, and secondly to reform as many criminals as possible. The second aim has been neglected in recent years, but the kind of work that my hon. Friend describes ought to be replicated as much as possible throughout the system, and that is the end towards which we are working.
Richard Graham
I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments. He knows about the existing business in Her Majesty’s prison Gloucester, where prisoners repair bicycles which a charity then sends to Africa. It is a not-for-profit business. How does my right hon. and learned Friend think we could ensure that if the business were profitable it would not undercut businesses outside the prison, bearing in mind that paying the minimum wage might set a precedent in regard to other rights for prisoners?
Mr Clarke
One of the things about which we try to be scrupulous is ensuring that work in prisons does not undercut the work done by businesses employing honest employees outside. We would not be able to persuade organisations such as the CBI and our private sector partners to work with us if they thought that we were undercutting British competitors. We will not pay the minimum wage, because the taxpayer would find that he or she was footing the bill for it all. However, the costs of running a business in prison are considerable because of the security that is imposed. We intend to ensure, by means of a code of practice, that fair and proper competition is maintained and that we do not undercut ordinary honest businesses.
Esther McVey
Given that, at present, 47% of offenders are receiving out-of-work benefits two years after their release from prison, I fully support what the Secretary of State is doing. What plans has he to ensure that there is a smooth transition from work preparation in prison to actual work outside prison?
Mr Clarke
Along with the Department for Work and Pensions, we have just embarked on a system whereby people who are released from prison go straight on to the Work programme. Their receipt of benefits is tied to a programme aimed at getting them back to work if that is at all possible, as it would be for anyone else. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend: all the evidence shows that having a job is one of the main factors that determine whether someone stops returning to crime, and it also stops the taxpayer having to pay benefits to such a high proportion of ex-prisoners.
Mr Evennett
If my constituents are to have faith in work in prisons, it is vital that inmates not only learn to work, but learn to become used to the routine of work. How much time per week does my right hon. and learned Friend expect to be assigned to prisoners for work?
Mr Clarke
Just the routine of working is very important. I believe that 13% of prisoners have never had a paid job in their lives, and about half have not been in a paid job in the last month before they arrive in prison. We aim to have a 40-hour week whenever possible, consistent with the other demands of the prison regime. Apart from skills and training, just getting people used to the daily routine of a working day is good preparation for an honest life in the outside world.
Fiona Bruce
Many people hope that inmates will take advantage of work in prison so that they can pay something back to society and victims. What levels of compulsion will the work schemes involve, and what will happen if some prisoners choose to refuse to work?
Mr Clarke
Although some very good work is being done in prisons at the moment, and although there always have been one or two prisons in which a fair amount is happening, we will not be able to provide work for all prisoners for quite a long time. Our aim is to get a much higher proportion into work, and for that reason employees in prison will be volunteers. That is welcomed by private sector partners who like to have a say in their work force, and who want a properly motivated work force consisting of people who are trying to get themselves into a better state to go straight when they leave.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor will know that 51% of those who enter the prison system have a drug dependency. What programmes to assist them will he have in place to enable them to undertake this work?
Mr Clarke
Actually, an even higher proportion than that have abused drugs in the month or two before they arrive in prison. We are currently opening the first drug rehabilitation wings in prisons, and we hope to have drug-free wings, too. We are upping the effort to deal with the drugs problem, which is a very large cause of the criminality of many of the people in our prisons. Obviously, it should be given a much higher priority than it has sometimes had in the past.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
How many companies on the outside does the Secretary of State expect to be linked to prisons in the next 12 months, so that those companies, such as Timpson and some utilities companies, that already have workshops and bases in prisons can help people through the door and into jobs on the outside?
Mr Clarke
There is growing interest, and I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to those companies, such as Timpson and one or two utilities companies, which have been pioneering this initiative for quite a long time. Shortly before Christmas, a letter was sent to the newspapers that was signed by companies including National Grid, Cisco and Marks & Spencer, and the CBI helped organise a day for us with outside companies. We have not put a target on the number of companies we want to be involved, but many companies want to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility by taking part in this programme, and some will find that it is a very useful way of recruiting and training staff for their businesses.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will know that many inmates have mental health problems, including schizophrenia, which can make work in prison and, importantly, the transition out difficult, especially if they do not have anyone to monitor whether they are taking their medicine at the appropriate time. What steps is the Department taking, alongside the Department of Health, to ensure that appropriate medicines, including longer-lasting medicines such as injections that last a month, are part of the process, thereby helping people to have a smooth transition phase?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Lady has listed almost all the measures to which we are giving the highest priority in trying to make prisons reforming institutions. We have addressed work and drugs. Alcohol has not yet arisen, but mental illness is also a very serious issue. We are well advanced, in co-operation with the Department of Health, in making plans for diversion services for those who ought to be diverted out of the criminal justice system and given secure treatment for mental illness elsewhere. Through the Department of Health, we are also greatly improving the treatment facilities for those who have to stay in prison. Mental health must be tackled, especially if it is the real root of the criminality of someone in prison—and, indeed, some such prisoners should not be in prison at all.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State have any plans to adopt the Policy Exchange report recommendation that prisoners should be paid, but in turn should use their wages to pay for perks such as televisions, Freeview boxes and gym equipment, just as the rest of us in the outside world have to do?
Mr Clarke
Prisoners pay for some of those things already, although the innovation we are putting in place is to make provision from the earnings of prisoners for payment to victim services and to dependants outside. I agree that we are not just giving prisoners pocket money. We are giving them money from which they should, perfectly properly, make payment for those things for which they ought to be paying, including some reparation to their victims.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
We have only to look at the Order Paper to see how keen the Secretary of State is to talk about work in prison. It is a shame that the Government are not more interested in the benefits of paid work for those who have not committed a crime.
There are merely two paragraphs on women offenders in his “Making prisons work” report, and there is no detail whatever on how his initiative will make a difference to them. Is it not true that this Government are showing no leadership on women in the justice system, and that there is a very real danger that all progress will be lost?
Mr Clarke
It is my Parliamentary Private Secretary’s enthusiasm for the policy of work in prisons that is exemplified, in part, by the Order Paper, together with the enthusiasm of all my hon. Friends who have asked questions on this extremely valuable policy, which is an innovation compared with the neglect of this subject by the previous Government.
We are giving a high priority to the needs of women in prison, and we will continue to address the matter. The previous Government were doing quite good work on women in prison, and we have not reversed anything; indeed, we are building on the Corston report. On work in prisons, we certainly intend that female prisoners should have the same opportunities of work and training as men, and we are thinking of what special arrangements we should make to ensure that such facilities are available and suitable for female prisoners.
Mr Speaker
We are immensely grateful to the Secretary of State. I call Priti Patel.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
2. What plans he has to improve support services for victims of crime.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
13. What steps he is taking to promote and protect the rights of victims in the justice system.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
15. What recent progress he has made on his proposed changes to support for victims of crime; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
On 30 January, in a statement to the House, the Justice Secretary launched a three-month consultation, “Getting it right for victims and witnesses”, on our far-reaching proposals to improve the support provided to victims and witnesses of crime.
In addition, as was enthusiastically pre-announced by my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities when responding to the debate on international women’s day, I can now formally announce the next five new rape support centres to be developed by the Ministry of Justice and the voluntary sector. Over the next 12 months, the MOJ will provide nearly £600,000 in funding to develop new centres in mid-Wales, Northumbria, Leeds, Southend and Suffolk.
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and I welcome the focus that the Government are putting on victims. Will he join me in paying tribute to the excellent charities that help victims of crime and their families, including Victim Support, the National Victims Association and Support After Murder and Manslaughter Abroad? Importantly, will he ensure that their representations on the victims strategy will be fully considered by his Department?
Bill Esterson
Government cuts have hit women and children harder than any other group. Fiona Weir, the chief executive of Gingerbread, has warned the Government that, as a result of their changes to legal aid:
“The majority of domestic violence victims will not be able to provide the evidence required to access legal aid.”
Will the Minister ensure that cuts to legal aid are not another cut that hurts vulnerable children and women more than other groups?
Helen Jones
Does the Minister accept that moving from a national system of provision for victims to one of local commissioning, as he is suggesting, will have a particular effect on vulnerable victims of crime, who often have to move home? What does he intend to do to protect them in the new system he is introducing?
Mr Blunt
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, because she raises an issue of considerable importance to Victim Support, the principal organisation providing victims services at the moment. Of course it is the Government’s view that these services would be better commissioned locally by the new police and crime commissioners. We are consulting on our proposals, and I will take her views into account as we consider the responses to that consultation.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
May we have a positive drive from the Ministry of Justice to ensure that, for as many victims as possible, both victim impact statements are completed and compensation orders are lodged with the court, so that victims can get the redress due to them?
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Once police commissioners are in place, we could have 41 different standards of victim support across the country. The service that someone living, working and travelling across the midlands receives could depend on one of four or more areas, depending on where the crime is committed. Given the real concerns being raised by victims groups about the potential mess that could arise as a result of the Justice Secretary’s policies, will there be an individual—[Interruption.] Perhaps the Minister would care to listen to the question before deciding to heckle from the Front Bench. Given the real concerns being raised by victims groups about the potential mess, which he should be aware of, will an individual or an organisation be charged with enforcing a minimum standard that victims of crime can expect, regardless of geography—a newly appointed victims commissioner perhaps?
Mr Blunt
The hon. Gentleman has pointed out the problems that can come with enfranchising people at a local level, but the Government believe in localism and it is our view that police and crime commissioners will have the best appreciation of the victim services that are required in their local area. We look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution to the consultation to see precisely what his view is. We have noticed that he is against a localist approach, but this Government are not.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
3. What his proposed timetable is for legislation to allow broadcasting of selected court proceedings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
We are planning to legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows to permit broadcasting of selected court proceedings as part of our commitment to increasing transparency in public services. Initially, we will allow broadcasting of judgments in the Court of Appeal, and we expect to extend this to sentencing remarks in the Crown court in due course.
Mr Buckland
I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he confirm that information will be the watchword, not sensationalism, and that any conditions imposed will have that very much in mind?
Mr Djanogly
Yes, I can assure my hon. Friend that we will not allow our courts to become places of public theatre. Victims, witnesses, defendants and jurors will not be filmed.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
The Minister just said something very important when he said that witnesses will not be filmed. Will he repeat that guarantee, because a court appearance is a very traumatic process for a witness or victim? We need a red line that cannot be crossed not only by current Ministers but by Ministers in the future, so that witnesses are protected.
Mr Djanogly
As I said, that is our position. We will be consulting—and are—with a wide range of stakeholders, including broadcasters, victims groups and others, to ensure that appropriate operational arrangements and safeguards are in place.
Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)
5. How many prosecutions have been brought in respect of illegal encampments involving vehicles on public parks in the last 12 months.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
In 2010, there were 38 prosecutions for offences under sections 61, 62B and 77 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Figures for 2011 are not yet available and the data do not show what proportion of these prosecutions related to unauthorised encampments in public parks or whether vehicles were involved in each case.
Mike Weatherley
Will the Minister consider a review of the powers of local authorities to prosecute trespassers effectively and/or to charge occupants fees so that there is an effective deterrent against uninvited encampments and so that some of the costs associated with unwelcome activity can be recouped?
Nick Herbert
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concern, which is widely shared, about illegal encampments, whether they are on private land, thereby attempting to subvert the public planning process, or ruining people’s enjoyment of public parks. A range of powers are available to the police and agencies, and we are strengthening them through the latest legislation, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, to allow local authorities to attach the power of seizure to their byelaws. We want to ensure that the new powers are used effectively.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
7. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect of his proposed changes to legal aid on the number of cases concerning benefits requiring early stage legal advice.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
No such discussions have been held, as the withdrawal of legal aid would have no impact on the number of cases concerning benefits requiring early stage legal advice. The need for advice will be determined by decision making at the Department for Work and Pensions, not the availability or otherwise of legal aid. Of course, I recognise that many people find that the type of general advice concerned is useful in resolving their problems, which is why the Government have announced additional funding for the not-for-profit sector.
Jessica Morden
Two people a day will become homeless over the next few months according to Shelter. Does it not now make sense to invest more in homeless advice, not less?
Mr Djanogly
As I said, there is a difference between legal advice and general advice. We are investing in general advice.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
Charnwood citizens advice bureau works very closely with my office in Loughborough on benefits matters. Will the Minister, when he has such discussions, tell the Department for Work and Pensions that it needs to simplify the benefits system as that would be of great assistance in helping to keep some cases away from the legal system and administrative tribunals in the first place?
Mr Djanogly
I agree with my hon. Friend and can confirm that we are working very closely with the Department for Work and Pensions as part of its wider welfare reform programme to improve the quality and effectiveness of initial decision taking.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Lord Newton of Braintree, who was the Secretary of State for Social Security in a Conservative Government in the 1980s and early 1990s—in the days when the Conservative party won elections in its own right—said last week that 81% of all cases heard in the first-tier tribunals relating to benefits are to do with disability benefits. In 2009-10 an appellant at the first-tier tribunal who received advice before going to the tribunal was 78% more likely to win their appeal than an unadvised appellant. The advice that citizens advice bureaux, law centres and advice agencies give to their clients is very important. These are not fat-cat lawyers or litigious clients. Will the Government now accept the votes passed in the House of Lords over the past week, which will not only save taxpayers’ money in the medium to long term but will also avoid unnecessary misery and suffering for some of the most vulnerable in our society?
Mr Djanogly
I have to say that the Government are disappointed by the position taken in the Lords and we will return to the issue when the Bill comes back to the Commons. We remain of the view that these cases are primarily about financial entitlement and as such do not raise the fundamental issues involved in cases concerning liberty or safety. I can say to the right hon. Gentleman that the user-friendly nature of the tribunal means that appellants can generally present their case without legal assistance.
Sadiq Khan
If that is the case, why is the success rate 78% higher for those who do receive advice before they go to appeal? We have said from the outset that we agree that savings need to be made to the legal aid budget. If we were in government, we would be making cuts as well, but our values and connections with ordinary people mean that our priorities would be very different. Figures from the Ministry of Justice say that by the end of this Parliament, criminal legal aid provided largely by well-paid QCs, barristers and solicitors will be cut by 6%, whereas family legal aid will be cut by 29%, but social welfare legal aid, which is delivered by CABs, law centres and small voluntary organisations, at which some of the lowest-paid advisers and lawyers work, will be cut by 53%.
Sadiq Khan
Will the Minister explain why the cuts are being made to the most vulnerable instead of to areas where cuts can be made more fairly?
Mr Djanogly
We simply are not doing what the right hon. Gentleman suggests. Social welfare law will still receive £50 million in legal aid and we are redirecting the money we spend on legal aid towards helping the most vulnerable. When it comes to advice on benefits, people do not currently receive legal aid for representation. Before people go to appeal they will still be able to receive advice for many such cases from a general advice practitioner such as their local CAB.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
8. What discussions he has had with the Lord Chief Justice on the potential effect of his planned changes to legal aid on the number of litigants in person.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
10. What discussions he has had with the Lord Chief Justice on the potential effect of his planned changes to legal aid on the number of litigants in person.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Substantial numbers of cases already involve litigants in person, so the courts already deal with this situation. The Government recognise that the changes to legal aid are likely to increase the number of litigants in person. The evidence appears to show that some cases featuring litigants in person are resolved more quickly, whereas some cases take longer.
Mr Clarke
Well, we have just discovered that the Labour party’s policy is to make substantial cuts in criminal legal aid. If the Government had made that proposal, that would no doubt have led to amazing attacks on our disregard for the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty and to comments about the high risk of injustice in criminal trials. On the savings we are making in the cases to which the hon. Gentleman refers, the fact is that courts already deal with litigants in person. Any judge or tribunal knows that they have to pay particular attention to make sure that people are not disadvantaged by not having legal representation, but as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), has just explained, we have tried to identify cases in which the informality of the tribunals means that applicants should not be at any particular disadvantage if they do not have a lawyer there in any event.
Heidi Alexander
What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the additional cost that will be incurred by the legal system overall as a result of the increased numbers of litigants in person?
Mr Clarke
We are not persuaded that that will give rise to any increase in costs. Everybody accepts that cuts need to be made to legal aid. It is just that the Labour party is against every single cut that we suggest in particular. This cut is perfectly straightforward and will not give rise to the difficulties that the hon. Lady points out—[Interruption.] I can only say to the Opposition spokesman that he is obviously so discommoded by realising that he nearly gave out a policy on the subject a moment ago that he is getting rather carried away. We have carefully selected cuts in legal aid concerning less serious cases where cuts can be made without any risk to justice whatever.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The president of the family division gave evidence to the Justice Committee and said that he did not think that when a parent was disappointed not to have got legal aid for a contact or residence case, the parent should just say, “Well, never mind. Let’s forget about the child. I’m not going forward.” That person will go to court alone, taking twice as much time as a person represented. That will waste the judge’s and everybody else’s time, it will be hurtful for all concerned and it will damage the children as well.
Mr Clarke
In family justice we are placing much more emphasis on mediation, which should be much more comfortable for all the clients and will lead to a much easier and less traumatic resolution of many disputes. We are putting more money into mediation and more money into training for mediation. We should remember that the purpose of this public service is to resolve disputes with the minimum of cost and time and to take all the emotion out, so far as is possible, of these difficult family cases. Access to justice is access to the most civilised way of resolving disputes. Access to justice does not depend only on how many lawyers the taxpayer pays for to go into adversarial litigation on every such issue.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
11. What recent representations he has received on the treatment of victims of domestic violence in the criminal justice system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
Improving the treatment of victims of domestic violence is a high priority for the Government, and I encourage organisations providing support to victims of domestic violence to give us their views in response to our consultation document, “Getting it right for victims and witnesses.”
Mr Cunningham
Does the Minister agree that victims of domestic violence need safe refuge, an effective non-privatised police response and access to free legal aid advice? Are not his Government failing on all three?
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
12. How many people in the London borough of Havering have been convicted of offences in connection with the public disorder in August 2011.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
Data available on 1 February show that six people from Havering were convicted for their part in the public disorder of 6 to 9 August last year.
Andrew Rosindell
As the Minister knows, many of our courts worked extra long hours last August to ensure that many of those who engaged in the riots were dealt with very quickly. What lessons have the Government learned from that to ensure that our courts are more efficient in future?
Nick Herbert
We certainly were impressed by the speed with which the criminal justice system responded to the disorder, and we are grateful for the efforts of those working in it. Cases were dealt with in a matter of hours and days, rather than the routine, which can be weeks and months. We seek to learn the lessons from that and we will shortly come forward with proposals for how we can ensure that we have a justice system that is swifter and more sure.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
14. What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill on victims of domestic violence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is designed to protect victims of domestic violence. It protects funding for advice and representation in private family matters for victims of domestic violence, as well as public funding in respect of protection orders for victims of domestic violence. We will also continue to waive financial eligibility limits in these cases.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Minister for that response, but he will be aware that when the matter was debated in another place, serious concerns were raised that genuine victims of domestic violence would not receive the legal aid support and ability to take action that they need, because of the legislation that the Government are bringing through. Organisations such as Refuge have expressed similar concerns. Will the Minister assure us that all victims of domestic violence will receive the help and support they need?
Mr Djanogly
Again, the Government were disappointed by the position taken by the Lords and will return to the matter when the Bill comes back to the Commons. We are very concerned about the victims of domestic violence. Indeed, it was because we are removing legal aid for private family law that we realised there will be certain categories, such as domestic violence, that will not be suitable for mediation, which is why we are concentrating on that area.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is widely recognised that specialist domestic violence courts have been very successful, but 23 of them are due to close. Will the Minister assure me that the expertise and multi-agency working that have been a feature of their success will continue in this changed landscape?
Mr Djanogly
It is important to point out that those specialist domestic violence courts are closing not because of what they do, but because the courts in which they are based are closing. I am pleased to say that those specialist courts will be moving to other courts, so no specialist domestic violence courts will be lost.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
17. What recent progress he has made on his plans to reform libel laws; and if he will make a statement.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The Government’s response to the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Defamation Bill was published on 29 February. It set out the Government’s position on all the key issues. A substantive defamation Bill will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Dr Huppert
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer and hope that there will be time for the Bill in the Queen’s Speech. The Joint Committee recommended that qualified privilege should be extended to
“peer-reviewed articles in scientific or academic journals.”
Does he agree that it is in the public interest that scientists and other academics should be able to publish bona fide research results without fear and that, unless their publication is maliciously false, they should be protected from defamation actions?
Mr Clarke
One of the main reasons for publishing the draft Bill and looking at the law in that area was the fear that genuine academic and scientific debate was being stifled by the use of the defamation laws. We propose that peer-reviewed research should be protected and are now considering the draft of the final Bill in the light of the Joint Committee’s report. I will not anticipate the Queen’s Speech, but if we can include a defamation Bill, one of its principal objectives will be to deal with the very serious problem that the hon. Gentleman has identified.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
18. What his policy is on reform of the European Court of Human Rights; and if he will make a statement.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
When the Prime Minister addressed the Council of Europe in January, he set out our priorities for reform and how we intend to achieve them. We want reform to allow the Court better to fulfil the purpose for which it was intended: upholding human rights under the European convention on human rights and tackling serious violations of human rights across Europe.
Simon Hughes
I declare an interest, as I used to work for the Council of Europe and trained there. The coalition Government are absolutely right to prioritise reform of the Court’s procedures, because the backlog of cases and the skills of the Court need to be dealt with, but does the Secretary of State agree that we must continue to say that it is vital for this country, and all European countries, that we have a strong Court which can ensure that the rights of all European citizens are upheld, and upheld outside their own countries as well as within?
Mr Clarke
The convention applies, and the jurisdiction of the Court extends, to 47 member states, where we want to entrench the principles of liberal democracy, and it is in all our interests that we do so. The aim of our proposed reforms is to strengthen the Court and enable it to concentrate on the most serious cases requiring adjudication at international level. At the moment the Court is not functioning well because it has 150,000 cases in arrears, it take years to get a hearing and it has to deal with cases that are trivial, repetitive or have been properly dealt with at national level.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I seem to remember promising the electorate that we would bring in a Bill of Rights that would enable us to disregard some of the more barmy decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. Would the Secretary of State like to update us on our progress towards fulfilling that important commitment?
Mr Clarke
Different Conservative candidates put forward the campaign in different terms at the last election, and not for the first time, as you will know from your experience, Mr Speaker, and as I do from mine. As usual, I am sticking firmly to the policy of the Government of whom I am a serving member. The reasons we are reforming the Court were set out clearly in the terms of reference of the commission looking at the matter and in the Prime Minister’s speech to the Council of Europe, which I think coincide with my own views.
Mr Speaker
We are grateful to the Secretary of State, as always, for telling us what he really thinks.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
19. What his policy is on prisons being run by a charity; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
Charities can apply to qualify as tenders in prisons competitions, but it is unlikely that they will have the financial strength to take the legal and commercial risks of running a prison. None is on our current list of framework providers.
We are actively encouraging the participation of subcontractors, small and medium-size enterprises and voluntary and community sector organisations within the supply chain of custodial services. Fifteen such organisations attended the launch of the current round of prisons competitions.
Guy Opperman
I thank the Minister for his answer. Clearly, there are very good examples of charities working within prisons, and I urge him to work with some of them to see whether it is possible for them to take over a community-run prison that provides a local setting and a local response to offenders’ needs.
Mr Blunt
I am obviously delighted to recognise the valuable work of charities and of the voluntary sector in supporting the rehabilitation of offenders. It is the area of our society in which, if we can engage the voluntary sector in such work, we will find that there is significant extra capacity for people who want to do the right thing to help some of the most damaged and damaging people in society to go straight. We have to ensure that those links work and that people can do the work. As I have said, there will be concerns about whether a charity has the financial resources to underwrite the running of a prison, given the commercial and other risks concerned, but I welcome the general tenor of my hon. Friend’s remarks.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
20. What his policy is on the use of community service sentences; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
It is for the court to determine whether an offence is serious enough to warrant the imposition of a community sentence. When a community sentence is imposed, we want to ensure that it is effective in stopping offending behaviour escalating to the point at which prison becomes the only option.
Diana Johnson
Hull Crown court recently found Lee Bates guilty of illegal moneylending, or loan sharking as most people call it. At least 17 victims and their families suffered from his exploitation, and he got 180 hours’ community service for pleading guilty, but surely such criminals should go to prison, should they not?
Nick Herbert
I cannot comment on that particular case, but in general we certainly believe that serious offenders—those offenders who have committed repeat offences—should be sent to prison, and that option remains for the courts. We believe also, however, that community sentences, when they are imposed, should be more rigorous and have a more punitive element, so that we can stop the escalation of offending which results in a custodial sentence. It is that escalation that we seek to avoid.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
21. What assessment he has made of the deterrent effect of sentencing on the incidence of metal theft.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
We have not concluded a specific study on the deterrent effect of sentencing on the incidence of metal theft, but on Report in the other place we will table amendments to the Legal Aid, Punishment and Sentencing of Offenders Bill which would see unlimited fines for the more serious metal-dealing offences and raise the maximum penalty for more minor offences from level 1 to level 3. We also propose to prohibit cash payments for scrap metal.
Mr Spencer
I hope that the Minister is aware of the intensive campaign being run by Nottinghamshire trading standards and Nottinghamshire police to clamp down on metal theft, but can he reassure the House that he will take steps to ensure that the sentencing of those who deal in stolen metal is severe enough to put them off and reduce the market?
Mr Blunt
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the advice on Nottinghamshire. I confess that I was not aware of that work, although I am aware of very good practice in the north-east, for example, and elsewhere in the country. But, of course, we do not propose those changes to the sentencing regime for that offence except to send a very clear message that it is an offence that can do very serious damage indeed.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
22. What discussions he has had with the Lord Chief Justice on the potential effect of his planned changes to legal aid on the number of litigants in person.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I thought that I had already answered this question, which was grouped with Question 10. I said that a substantial number of cases already—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just very gently say to the Secretary of State that he might have intended to group it but that, I am afraid, he neglected to do so? I know that the House will, however, enjoy hearing once again his mellifluous tones.
Mr Clarke
The courts already deal with litigants in person, and they are very used to dealing with that situation. We accept that the legal aid changes currently before the House of Lords will increase the number of litigants in person, but the evidence on the issue is very mixed, indicating that some cases are dealt with more quickly and others take longer. In fact, many such cases do not require legal representation at all.
Mr Jones
The Justice Secretary is clear that the number of litigants representing themselves will increase. In drawing up his cuts in legal aid, did his Department make any assessment of increased costs, given that the Lord Chief Justice is concerned that courts could be swamped and that the cost to the taxpayer could be higher as a result of those cuts?
Mr Clarke
We see no evidence at all that this would give rise to increased costs. It is extremely difficult to anticipate precisely the effect of there being more litigants in person because the evidence is so mixed. We are concentrating, particularly in the family division, on dealing with more cases by way of mediation. Adversarial litigation is not always the best way of resolving problems; there are many better alternative ways of resolving disputes in suitable cases. We are putting more money into mediation and less into taxpayers paying for lawyers.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
While I would like to argue that my right hon. and learned Friend owes a duty of care to our joint profession, does not experience tell us that people are not necessarily happiest when in the hands of lawyers?
Mr Clarke
I am sure that they are very happy when being advised by my hon. Friend or by me, but I have encountered examples of dissatisfaction in other cases. Most people dread a dispute in which they are involved having to go to court through the full legal process. Most disputes are settled by negotiation, but if the parties cannot do that, mediation is a very good way of resolving them, particularly in emotional family disputes. The whole justice system should be seen as a public service. We are seeking to resolve disputes in the quickest possible way at the least possible cost to the parties involved. It is too often thought that access to justice means that the taxpayer has to keep paying for more and more lawyers to take part in longer and longer litigation. That is not always the best way of resolving many things.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
23. When he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to allow television recording and broadcasting of court proceedings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
As soon as parliamentary time allows, the Government plan to legislate to remove the ban on cameras in courts. We are working closely with the Lord Chief Justice, the judiciary and the broadcasters on achieving this.
Henry Smith
I very much support the broadcasting of court proceedings because of the transparency that it will bring, but will my hon. Friend confirm whether a fee will be charged to broadcasters for the use of the material so that the cost does not fall on to the taxpayer?
Mr Djanogly
I can assure my hon. Friend that the negotiations that are being conducted with broadcasters are taking place on the basis that they will be paying for the service.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Today is the fifth anniversary of the Corston report, which called for radical change in the way that women are treated throughout the criminal justice system. I am sure that the hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) will be pleased to hear me say that there have been real improvements in the five years since the report, including significant investment in women’s community centres to address the underlying causes of women’s offending, such as drug and alcohol addiction, mental health issues, and often long histories of abuse. We are fully committed to addressing women’s offending, for their own good and that of the public. The National Offender Management Service has committed to an additional £3.5 million each year to continue to fund 30 women’s community services. Women offenders will also be included in two payment-by-results pilot areas to link productive work to reducing reoffending.
Mr Ellwood
In these tough economic times, more people are borrowing money, getting into debt and, sadly, having to deal with the bailiffs, who are, on occasion, aggressive and intrusive. What is being done to ensure that creditors and debtors are aware of their rights and responsibilities?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
The Government are clear that aggressive bailiff activity is unacceptable, and we are committed to bringing forward effective proposals that protect the public and ensure that such action is proportionate. We have made a start by publishing our updated national standards for enforcement agents, and we have followed that up with a consultation paper issued on 17 February on a new, legally binding regulatory regime for bailiffs.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Before the contract with Applied Language Solutions for court interpreting started this year, the Minister was warned that it would fail by almost every qualified interpreter, by Labour Members, by Back Benchers of all parties in a debate here last November, by the Lord Chancellor’s own constituents at his surgery—so they tell me—and even by ALS itself. The contract has failed, so why did he decide to risk £300 million of public funds with an untried, small-time company?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
Even in the spendthrift days of the previous Administration, it was noticed that there was something wrong with the cost of interpreters in the justice system. The previous Administration began the process that led to the contract being awarded to ALS. It is not a small company, because it is now backed by Capita. There was a pilot over six to eight weeks in the north-west, which gave no indication of the problems. Within two weeks of the national roll-out, when the problems became clear, the Ministry of Justice procurement people were across the problems at ALS and measures were put in place to put right the problems. Some of the problems, strangely enough, came from the interpreters who, on finding that under the new payment regime they could no longer earn six-figure salaries, as they could under the previous Administration, did not co-operate. They are now doing so.
Mr Slaughter
In his staggering complacency, the Minister fails to grapple with the fact that every day, when ALS interpreters fail to show up, defendants are being remanded in custody or released with no consideration of the evidence, trials are collapsing or being postponed, and the potential for miscarriages of justice is huge, as is the loss of public money, which dwarfs the alleged savings. Will he suspend the contract and order an immediate investigation into how this disaster happened on his watch?
Mr Blunt
I would be slightly more inclined to take lessons from the hon. Gentleman if he was even vaguely on the money. Within two weeks of the contract going nationwide, the Ministry of Justice was right across the problems and put in place an action plan to address them. The idea that we are not interested in the matter, when we are making £18 million of savings in the provision of interpreters under a process that was commenced under the previous Administration and after interpreters had been grossly overpaid and had taken advantage of the system that was in place under that Administration, is beyond belief.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
T5. The Secretary of State will be aware that the Prime Minister said on 25 January of the European Court of Human Rights that,“we are hoping to get consensus on strengthening subsidiarity—the principle that where possible, final decisions should be made nationally.”Does the Secretary of State agree with me that subsidiarity should start and end with votes for prisoners in this country?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The statement that my hon. Friend just read out is the basis on which we are negotiating with the other members of the Council of Europe on reform of the Court in Strasbourg, which everybody agrees needs reform urgently. The principle of subsidiarity is very important. We are not negotiating on existing judgments on any subject. Obviously, we are trying to comply with the obligations of the European convention on human rights in a more effective manner, which I think the courts in this country usually do in their judgments.
Prisoner voting is an entirely separate matter, which the House has already considered. The latest stage is that the Attorney-General has been making representations on behalf of the British Government in an Italian case on which we are awaiting a judgment. The issue is therefore still under legal review.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
T2. Will the Justice Secretary say when decisions on the Green Paper on justice and security are likely to be taken? Will he confirm that the devolved Administrations will be fully consulted on those decisions, particularly in respect of aspects that will affect devolved functions?
Mr Clarke
We will come forward with a Bill as soon as parliamentary time arises. We will, of course, respond to the consultation before that. We are liaising and consulting closely with the devolved Administrations, because there will be implications for them. We will make progress in the fairly near future.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
T7. There are considerable concerns about the proposals for elements of court hearings to be heard in private. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that one of the reasons for that solution is that it will safeguard national security by protecting information that comes from our foreign allies?
Mr Clarke
Yes, I can. The aim is to combine that purpose with getting a proper judicial decision on disputed cases, in which allegations or claims are made or in which matters have to be inquired into, that is better than the conclusions that we get currently. There is no system in the world in which spies give evidence in open court, naming their sources, describing their techniques and giving the full facts that the intelligence service has at its command to the public at large. At the moment, all that happens when such evidence is relevant is that it is not given and no satisfactory conclusion is ever reached. We have addressed that in the Green Paper that we have published.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
T3. The Lord Chancellor will know that the ALS interpreters’ contractor has been an unmitigated disaster, and I can provide specific examples of cases in my constituency. If it is about saving money, will he tell us how many hearings have had to be adjourned or postponed due to the fiasco?
Mr Blunt
There will be a full presentation of all the statistics and evidence relevant to the matter. I assure the hon. Gentleman that matters are in hand and that ALS’s performance is improving significantly. Particular problems remain with two nationality groups of interpreters, who are causing difficulties, but plans are in hand for them, too. [Interruption.] I do not wish to name them at the moment. The matter was in hand within two weeks of the system’s going live. There are weekly reports to me and daily management oversight from the Ministry of Justice. The matter is improving.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
T8. Until now, prisoners who were on the run often managed to stay on the run because the authorities were unable to name them. That is an obvious barrier to their recapture, so will the Minister outline his plans for improving that state of affairs?
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
We were concerned that there was a belief that it was not possible to name offenders on the run for reasons of, for instance, data protection or human rights. When offenders are unlawfully at large, it must make sense for there to be a presumption that they can be named by the authorities. The Government will take steps to ensure that that is made clear and that there will be such naming unless there are specific operational reasons why that would not make sense.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
T4. The Office for Judicial Complaints has been investigating the poor performance of the Teesside coroner since August but, seven months on, we still have no indication of when the investigation will conclude. Has the Minister set a finish date for the investigation? When will matters improve? Has he merely kicked the subject into the long grass?
Mr Djanogly
I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that we have not kicked the matter into the long grass. It is a judicial investigation and it must take its course.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
T10. Last year, the Government found it necessary to close several smaller courts because of low utilisation rates, particularly in rural areas such as Norfolk. Will the Minister update the House on the effect of those closures on court efficiency in the remaining courts?
Mr Djanogly
The efficiency of the courts is being improved because of the closures. We have now closed 130 of the 142 that were on the closure list. In all cases, the closures have gone very well and magistrates have all transferred to local, surrounding courts.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
T6. It is clear that the ALS contract is a disaster, but I would like to question the Secretary of State and Ministers about the impact on the deaf community. The resulting poor employment conditions have forced British sign language interpreters into other work, contributing to a trend of recruiting BSL interpreters who may not be fully qualified, which may lead to a miscarriage of justice. What safeguards are in place to ensure that deaf people—a protected group with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010—and their officially recognised language, BSL, are afforded proper regard, enabling them to have fair and proper access to justice?
Mr Blunt
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I undertake to look into any actions that are happening with regard to deaf people. However, there are not necessarily comparisons and precise parallels to be drawn between ordinary language interpreters and translators for the deaf. I will consider her points and come back to her.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
With a senior CIA official stating that there has been no drop in the intelligence exchange between the US and the UK, with the current inquest system providing greater certainty than the proposed alternative that families will find out why their loved ones died, and with closed material proceedings introducing, according to Lord Kerr, untested evidence into court, will the Secretary of State explain why we need the Green Paper on justice and security?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
When we share intelligence with other friendly countries, we do so on the basis that we will not disclose that intelligence to the outside world. The moment doubt is aroused about whether or not intelligence remains secure once it is given to the British intelligence community, there is a damaging effect on the willingness of other intelligence communities to share information with us. I have no control over the American intelligence service or any other, and we have to respond to reality in this extremely difficult world. As I have already said, in the case of inquests or civil courts and sensitive material that cannot be given in public, the alternative is that the evidence is not given at all, and everybody remains dissatisfied by the outcome.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is always a pleasure to hear the Secretary of State, but on account of the level of demand, I am afraid that he has to be subject to rationing.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
T9. I am sure I will not be the only Member of the House to have been dismayed by the Secretary of State’s last answer. Yet again the Government seem to think they know better than the Royal British Legion and service personnel on this matter. Service families want justice done in the open for loved ones killed in action. Why will he not listen to their rejection of the secret inquests he has proposed in the justice and security Green Paper, or will he answer again that the Government know best?
Mr Clarke
I am sorry that the British Legion seems to be getting carried away with another campaign, this time based on “secret justice” conspiracy theories that are being put around. I am not normally attacked by people for, or accused of having, an ill-regard for the principles of justice or for my reactionary views on closing things off from the public. The fact is that military families, like everybody else, understand that military intelligence officers, for example, cannot always give full evidence in open hearing about all their activities. However, the particular difficulties of inquests and other hearings are addressed in the Green Paper on which we are now consulting. We must strike the right balance in the very rare cases in which intelligence that puts national security and individual safety at risk is involved. One part of that balance is the undoubted needs of open justice, which should be done wherever it is remotely possible.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
This splendid Secretary of State has always been open to novel ideas to solve important problems. Has he looked at my Bill that would allow us to withdraw temporarily from the European Court of Human Rights to deport terrorists? Does he think it might have some merit?
Mr Clarke
I am glad to know that my hon. Friend is, as ever, on the side of moderation—he suggests not necessarily leaving or remaining, but temporarily withdrawing, which is obviously in his opinion the middle path. I am awaiting the advice of the independent commission that we have appointed, which I have not interfered with at all, and which is seeking to get to some conclusions. I am also awaiting the results of negotiations with 47 other countries that are signatories to the European convention on human rights.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Does the Justice Secretary agree that, no matter how much sympathy we have for the personal suffering of our fellow men and women, only Parliament can change the law of murder and permit someone to take their own life by their own hand or to be assisted in doing so by doctors or others?
Hostage Rescue Operation (Nigeria)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the attempted rescue of Chris McManus and his colleague, the Italian national Franco Lamolinara, who were, very sadly, killed by their kidnappers during the operation on Thursday 8 March. I will give the House as much information as I can on the background, the events leading up to the rescue attempt and the operation itself. However, the House will understand that I will not be able to say anything that might compromise intelligence sources or jeopardise future operations. I should also inform the House that there will be a coroner’s inquest into the cause of death of Christopher McManus, and my statement today must not in any way prejudice the course of the coroner’s inquiries.
But first, Mr Speaker, I am sure the whole House would wish to join me in expressing utter condemnation of the murder of these two innocent people, and in offering my heartfelt condolences to the families of both Christopher McManus and Franco Lamolinara.
Chris McManus and his colleague were kidnapped by armed men from Birnin Kebbi, in north-west Nigeria, on the night of 12 May 2011. In the early days of the kidnap, it was not clear who had taken them or what their motives were, but as the days passed and no demands were received, and as the tempo of terrorist activity in Nigeria increased, we concluded that, unlike other kidnap cases in Nigeria, this was not a straightforward criminal kidnap, and that Chris and Franco had most probably been abducted by terrorist extremists linked to Boko Haram and calling themselves AQ in Nigeria.
Boko Haram was founded in the early 2000s. From 2010, the group launched an increasingly aggressive campaign of violent attacks. The House will be aware of the appalling toll that the group has inflicted on Nigeria over the past year or so—through attacks against churches on Christmas day 2010, with over 30 deaths, to the co-ordinated attacks in Kano on 20 January 2011 that resulted in nearly 200 deaths. Boko Haram has murdered hundreds of Nigerians over the past two years. Attacks have also been launched against international targets. In an attack on the UN building in Abuja on 26 August 2010, 23 people were killed. Sadly, the violence continues. Attacks against a church in Jos and police stations in Kano and Maiduguri over the weekend have added to the terrible toll.
Following the kidnap, cross-Government crisis management teams were established in our high commission in Abuja and in London. They began work to identify who had taken Chris and Franco, and to locate them. The Nigerian Government have supported our efforts throughout and worked closely with us. We also worked closely with the Italian Government throughout the period through intelligence and diplomatic channels in order to keep them abreast of developments and informed of our efforts.
From the outset of the effort to find Chris and Franco, our objectives were clear and focused: to secure their safe release while continuing the long-standing policy of successive British Governments not to make concessions to hostage takers or to pay ransoms to terrorists. To do otherwise would serve only to increase the threat to UK nationals. Where terrorists are involved in kidnapping, payment of ransoms is illegal under UK law.
During Chris and Franco’s captivity the Government’s emergency committee, Cobra, met regularly to review progress and discuss steps to secure their safe release. During their captivity the kidnappers made threats, through a video and by direct contact with Chris’s family, that they intended to kill Chris and Franco, but at no time during their captivity did the kidnappers make any coherent demands.
Throughout the 10 months of Chris and Franco’s captivity, we worked very closely with the Nigerian Government to track down their kidnappers and identify the location where they were being held. The close working over that period included preparation for the possibility of a hostage rescue. The Prime Minister discussed the case with President Jonathan during his visit to Nigeria in July 2011, and as a result agreed a package of UK support for Nigeria’s counter-terrorism efforts. As part of that package, a sustained operation was conducted to identify members of the group responsible for the kidnapping. Earlier last week a number of them were apprehended, and during debriefing late on 7 March, credible intelligence was obtained identifying the probable location of the hostages at a house or compound in Sokoto, northern Nigeria.
The Foreign Secretary briefed the Prime Minister that evening, and at his request chaired a meeting of Cobra at 8.15 on the morning of 8 March to assess the situation. Following that meeting, the Prime Minister received a full briefing. In the hour or so that followed, the location was confirmed, although we still did not know if the kidnappers and their victims were inside. On the ground, the Nigerian army had secured a cordon some distance around the property and an assault group, including UK support, was in place.
The assessment on the ground was that there was a significant possibility that the kidnappers, if present, were already aware that their security had been compromised, and if not, that the level of military activity in the town meant that there was a real risk of them developing that awareness. The military judgment was that the hostages were facing an imminent and escalating threat and that, although an immediate rescue attempt would inevitably involve risk, it represented the best chance of securing the release of Chris and Franco alive. The Prime Minister was briefed by military and national security advisers, and gave his authorisation for an operation to release the hostages to go ahead with UK support. As soon as possible afterwards, our ambassador in Rome informed the Italian authorities that an operation was getting under way.
The Nigerian security forces, with UK support, launched the assault on the compound last Thursday at 10.58 am London time. UK personnel encountered and killed one armed kidnapper almost immediately on entering the compound. As the assault teams moved into the compound, UK personnel found the bodies of Chris and Franco, already dead, in a room at the rear of the compound. Early indications are clear that both men were murdered by their captors with automatic gunfire before they could be rescued. Three further guards of the hostages were killed by Nigerian forces during an operation that lasted approximately an hour and a half in total. None were taken alive.
Following the operation the Prime Minister called the McManus family to tell them how sorry he was that we had not been able to bring Chris home safely. He also spoke to Prime Minister Monti to pass on his condolences, and to President Jonathan to express his thanks for Nigerian support. This was a difficult operation that it was judged had to be carried out at speed, in view of the risk to the lives of Chris and Franco. One Nigerian soldier was wounded in the rescue attempt. I wish him a speedy recovery from his injuries, and I want to express our gratitude again to the members of the Nigerian forces, along with our UK personnel, who risked their lives in the attempt to rescue Chris and Franco.
The deaths of Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara were a terrible tragedy. But let us be clear that the responsibility for their deaths lies squarely with the people who kidnapped them, held them, threatened them and then murdered them in cold blood. Terrorism and kidnapping can never be justified. Many of the group responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Chris and Franco, including its senior leaders, are either dead or have been detained—an important achievement in reducing the threat of future kidnapping. However, violent extremist Islamist groups remain active in Nigeria, and so long as they do, we will work with the Nigerians and other allies to fight the scourge of terrorism wherever it manifests itself.
Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, a copy of which was handed to me as he started speaking, as he knows. Our thoughts are rightly with the families and friends of Mr McManus and Mr Lamolinara. Both were killed in cold blood, and those responsible for their abduction and murder, as well as those who provide support for them, must be pursued.
The Defence Secretary rightly paid tribute to the vital role that British special forces play around the world, and the entire country agrees with that sentiment. They are increasingly central to counter-terrorism operations. We rely on their expertise, discretion and courage. It is right, therefore, that we maintain the sovereign operational autonomy of our special forces in future. In that light, and in the light of everything we know about the operation, we believe that the Government took the right course of action in seeking to rescue two innocent captives.
It is, however, concerning that the Italian President—who is, by general agreement, a measured man—called Britain’s action “inexplicable”, while Prime Minister Monti has asked the UK Government for a “detailed reconstruction of the events”, and that the Italian Government have demanded the “utmost clarity”. Such discord suits no one other than our enemies. In the interests of that clarity, can the Secretary of State offer further details of the contacts with the Italian Government? The Prime Minister’s spokesman stated on 9 March:
“We contacted the Italians yesterday as the operation was getting under way,”
while the Foreign Secretary has said that the Government were
“constrained how much we were able to consult others”.
Downing street also stated that a possible rescue attempt had been raised with the Italian Government beforehand and no objections were raised. In what was a substantial statement, the Defence Secretary gave little detail of the interaction with the Italian Government. Will he detail his contacts with the Italian Government in advance of the operation? More widely, were assurances given to the Italian Government that they would have the right to sanction any rescue attempt of one of their citizens?
On the specifics of the rescue operation, the Ministry of Defence has said that this was a Nigerian-led operation with the UK Special Boat Service in support. Will the Secretary of State share with the House as much information as he can about the rules of engagement that were agreed with the Nigerian authorities, bearing in mind his earlier comments about the need to protect intelligence?
There have been various separate reports of ransoms being paid in full or in part to the hostage takers. The UK Government have a clear policy on ransom payments, as the Secretary of State has reminded us today. The reports claim that approximately £1 million was paid to the captors as a down payment on a potential £5 million ransom. I would like to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to confirm that no British official or Minister had prior knowledge of, or agreed to, any payment being made by a third party or foreign Government for the release of a British national.
Turning to the wider context, Nigeria is one of the countries not mentioned in the Government’s strategic defence and security review, but it is a nation that will require our collective attention. It is west Africa’s predominant power, Africa’s most populous country and the world’s 11th largest producer of oil. The UK has a positive diplomatic relationship with Nigeria, and a vibrant diaspora community that enriches our country. However, Nigeria is a country in which roughly two thirds of the people live on less than £1 a day, and in which one in five children die in infancy before the age of five, and 12 million are not in school. Those are the conditions in which radicalisation can fester.
The hostage takers, Boko Haram, have been referred to as the Nigerian Taliban and are accused by the head of Nigerian armed forces of having ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The group is particularly active in Saharan states and was responsible for the bombing of the UN headquarters. The US embassy recently warned staff about its activity, and the head of US military’s Africa command has said that Boko Haram might be expanding because of an alliance with al-Qaeda. What assessment have the UK Government made about the links between Boko Haram and al-Qaeda? It has been reported that the National Security Committee discussed the hostage crisis on 20 separate occasions. If that is the case, it is a welcome reflection of just how fiercely the UK Government focused on this crisis, but will the Secretary of State share with the House his assessment of the continuing threat to British nationals and interests in Nigeria and the wider region?
I look forward to hearing the Secretary of State’s response. This tragedy is another painful reminder that the UK must retain the ability to act across the globe. It is also a reflection of the vindictiveness of our opponents and the valour of our forces. My final request today is to ask the Defence Secretary to convey the appreciation of Parliament as a whole to the commanders of the Special Boat Service for their remarkable efforts and bravery.
Mr Hammond
First, may I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for what turned out to be the non-delivery of my statement prior to my standing up to deliver it? I knew that he was going to get it late, but I did not know that it was not going to arrive at all. I apologise to him for that. I am also extremely grateful to him for his support. He and most of his colleagues on the Front Bench have been in government, and they understand the difficulty involved in making these fine judgments and decisions, often under extreme time pressure constraints.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the information that had been given to the Italians, and about the nature of the contact with them. He will understand that the contact was not conducted by me; it was conducted through the Foreign Office. Throughout the process, a regular dialogue was maintained between the security services and their Italian counterparts, on a day-to-day, business-as-usual basis. Last Thursday morning, Her Majesty’s ambassador in Rome visited the Italian authorities as soon as he was able to do so after the completion of the Cobra meeting to pass to the Italians the information about the operation that was getting under way.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we had agreed that the Italians would essentially have a power of veto over such an operation. I find that question slightly strange, in view of his earlier remarks about the importance of retaining the sovereign capability of our forces. I have to tell him that we did not agree that the Italians would have any power of veto over a rescue operation involving a British citizen, but of course we consulted them throughout the 10-month period. They were well aware of the direction in which the operation was moving.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the rules of engagement. Of course this was a Nigerian-led operation on Nigerian soil; the area was secured by Nigerian forces, and was under the overall command of a Nigerian commander. Appropriate arrangements had been agreed with the Nigerian authorities to ensure that any UK personnel involved in lethal activity would be protected from any redress under Nigerian law. I am happy to be able to reassure the right hon. Gentleman on that front.
I, too, have read the reports of ransom payments, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. The UK’s policy is clear: we do not pay ransoms to terrorists; no UK officials or Ministers were involved in any discussions about the payment of ransoms to terrorists; and we are not aware of any ransom having been paid or indeed any ransom having been demanded.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the importance of Nigeria as a country. When the defence engagement strategy is published—it will not be too far in the future —he will see that Nigeria plays a very prominent part in that document and in the agenda going forward. We have a strong relationship with Nigeria—a strong military to military relationship—and we provide ongoing counter-terrorism support to the Nigerians; and we have one of the largest bilateral aid programmes with Nigeria, precisely to address the underlying causes of discontent in the poverty to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.
The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, right to be concerned about Boko Haram and its links to al-Qaeda. Our understanding is that it is not directly linked to AQ in the Islamic Maghreb, but that factions of Boko Haram have started to refer to themselves as AQ in Nigeria. The linkages between the organisations are somewhat tenuous and not well understood by us, but it is absolutely clear that we should be concerned about this development.
To answer the right hon. Gentleman’s other questions, Cobra—not the National Security Council—met 33 times during the period of captivity to discuss this particular kidnapping. As for the threat to UK nationals, of course there is a threat to them and others from the ongoing extremist terrorist activity in northern Nigeria. I would say this to the right hon. Gentleman, however. While the action taken last Thursday did not, sadly, have the outcome we all hoped for in the safe return of Chris and Franco, it has undoubtedly reduced the threat to UK nationals by demonstrating to would-be kidnappers that the UK is willing and able to react robustly when our nationals are put at risk.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
It is the case, is it not, that the difference between success and failure in these operations is often a very narrow one? While it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that those who may be asked to carry out such operations are properly trained and equipped, it is necessarily the case that when Government authority is sought for these operations, the Government have to rely on the advice, judgment and experience of those on the ground.
Mr Hammond
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. Throughout the critical period last week, we were being advised by UK personnel on the ground and UK senior military personnel here in London. The Prime Minister quite rightly challenged and questioned the advice he was given, but was of course strongly guided by the professional judgments.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Having, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), had to make similar difficult and urgent decisions in such dire circumstances—sometimes with equally unhappy consequences—may I fully endorse the decisions that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister had to make in this situation? May I just press the right hon. Gentleman a little more on the position of President Giorgio Napolitano? I happen to know him, and have done since he was the Interior Minister when I was Home Secretary 15 years ago. He is extraordinarily cautious and measured in his language. It is plain that he felt blind-sided. Will the Foreign Secretary say what high-level efforts are being made to assuage his concerns at this stage?
Mr Hammond
I am sure that the Foreign Secretary could, but as he is not here, I will have a go instead. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there have been extensive contacts with the Italian Government and authorities since the expressions of unhappiness that we heard on Thursday and Friday, and I think it fair to say that the situation has been clarified to the satisfaction of all parties.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
In these very difficult operations, surprise is vital. I have not yet seen the statement because it has not been distributed, but I believe that the operation began at 10.58 am, and that the area was secured by the Nigerian army. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend is allowed to answer this question, but was the timing of the operation precipitated by the fact that security had been breached and we were forced to go in? Will he confirm that the timing was not of our choice?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is right. The judgment was that, first because of the apprehension of members of the group earlier in the week and secondly because of the presence of significant numbers of Nigerian troops not very far from the compound in question, it would be taking too great a risk to defer the operation. The military judgment was that despite the risks involved, there was a greater chance of rescuing the hostages alive by acting immediately.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
These are always the most difficult decisions to take. Our condolences must go to the families of the two men, and our profound thanks must go to our special forces, who acquire and are then prepared to use skill and bravery to carry out operations of this kind. We must be enormously grateful to them for doing so.
May I return to the issue of the unfortunate discord between us and the Italian Government? Is the Secretary of State able or prepared to say anything that would explain some of the complexities that would arise from a nation’s attempts to embed another in the kind of decisions that would be necessary to keep them completely and absolutely as one in such circumstances?
Mr Hammond
I think it fair to say that throughout the long months of captivity there were very good and full discussions and exchanges of views with the Italians, and that they understood very clearly our direction of travel and the way in which we sought to advance our understanding of the situation and then bring it to a close. The circumstances that arose on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning represented an accelerated closing of a time window which simply made it impossible to consult as fully as one might ideally have liked. I am assured that information was continually being transmitted between intelligence agencies, as is the norm between allied agencies, but that there was not enough time for the discussions at Government-to-Government level that we might have had if a further day, or even 12 hours, had been available to us.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend and others have said, this was an extremely difficult operation, and one in which the odds were increasingly stacked against us. Does my right hon. Friend agree that while we commend the courage and professionalism of our special forces, it is extremely important that any examination of the details of what took place does not in any way compromise the necessary secrecy of the methods that they employ?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The operational security of our special forces remains paramount at all times, which is why we never comment on their operations and, indeed, never confirm or deny their involvement in any particular operation.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
Christopher McManus was one of my constituents. I have been in touch with his family regularly both before and after his untimely death, and I want to pay a very real tribute to their unceasing efforts to secure his release—in conjunction with the Foreign Office, which was extremely helpful—not just in the most recent period, but throughout nine or 10 nerve-racking months.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, but may I ask him to say a little more about the exact nature of the intelligence that was collected in the raid on Boko Haram in Kaduna, which indicated that precipitate action was necessary to save the hostages’ lives? May I also ask why such expressly urgent action was needed that the Italian Government could not be consulted before a final decision was made, because the life of one of their citizens, as well as of Chris McManus, was at risk?
Mr Hammond
First, may I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the McManus family? I attended a significant number of the Cobra meetings that have been held on this subject since October last year, and whenever there were reported contacts with the family, comment was made on how engaged they had been with the process and how focused they were on getting the result we all wanted. They were under tremendous pressure, but they conducted themselves with remarkable dignity and co-operated very well with the authorities throughout the process.
The right hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot go into the details of the intelligence that was available, but what he has to understand is that there was a fast-evolving situation. On Tuesday evening, some people were arrested. During the course of their debriefing on Wednesday, several of them provided information that gave us a credible fix on where the hostages might be being held. Later, additional intelligence was available to corroborate that. So the level of knowledge and understanding was ratcheting up, and at the same time the deployment of Nigerian forces into the area in question raised a significant risk that the hostage-takers would become aware that the operation was under way.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
As chair of the British-Italian parliamentary group, I have been closely following reports in the Italian press. Saturday’s La Stampa stated that the Italian secret services had been informed in the morning, and Saturday’s Corriere della Sera reported that the two countries’ secret services spoke to each other at 10.15 am on Thursday, when the operation was imminent. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we, and all our counterparts and friends in the Italian Parliament, should stand in solidarity in facing threats from terrorism, hostage taking and piracy, and that rather than allowing critics to divide us, we should continue to work together against terrorism and hostage taking?
Mr Hammond
I very much agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment, and I can assure him that that has been the nature of the relationship between the UK authorities and the Italians throughout this process. We have worked closely together and it has been a relationship of close collaboration and close understanding. On the question of communication, I can only repeat what I have already said: my understanding is that there was regular, day-to-day communication between the intelligence agencies, including on the morning of last Thursday.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Mario Monti and his Government are doing a tremendous and very difficult job in repairing the damage done by the Berlusconi regime, and they are our natural allies on many issues, not least in the European Union, so can the Secretary of State assure the House that he, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister will make every effort to address the apparent grievance felt at the highest level in the Italian Government about some elements of the way in which this operation was handled?
Mr Hammond
I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s sentiments. We have extremely good relationships with the Italians, including on military and defence matters. I repeat what I said earlier: I believe that the conversations that have taken place over the weekend have very substantially defused the situation. On Thursday, there will be an operational visit to brief the Italians on military and intel channels, and I am told that the Foreign Secretary intends to visit Italy later in March.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
For the reasons outlined by the Secretary of State, there can be no doubt in my mind that the Prime Minister took the right decision—the only question is whether that decision was communicated quickly enough to the Italians. According to what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) cited from the Italian press, it would appear that the decision was communicated quickly but that it perhaps did not then reach up into the Government in Italy as quickly as it should have done. Will the Secretary of State confirm that we did convey the information about the decision as quickly as we could, and that there was no question of our deciding not to do that because of doubts about the information leaking, the Italians wanting to pay ransoms or anything of that sort?
Mr Hammond
I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend that there was no question of information being withheld. There were two clear, separate channels of information. The intelligence agencies were communicating on a regular basis, and the British ambassador in Rome went as soon as he practically could to deliver the information to the Italian Government, once the operation had got under way.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State will know, a number of foreign nationals are still being held as kidnap victims in Nigeria and many British citizens work in Nigeria. I hope that this is not seen as the end of support for the Nigerian Government. Will he confirm that if President Jonathan asks for more support to help with counter-terrorism, it will be forthcoming from us?
Mr Hammond
I thought that I had already said that the package of counter-terrorism support that we put in place after the Prime Minister’s visit this year will continue. So long as the Nigerians are facing a threat from extremist Islamist terrorists, we will support them, as we support other allies in the fight against terrorists.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Members of this House who serve on the all-party group on global education for all spent half-term week in Nigeria, and the spectre of the burnt-out United Nations building in Abuja will stay in our minds for a long time. The question raised by the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs is crucial, not least because we have so many excellent Department for International Development officials and people from the voluntary sector working in the sensitive area of education, particularly in the volatile northern states. What hope can the Secretary of State give those officials that sufficiently robust security arrangements are in place for those important workers?
Mr Hammond
The Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien) tells me that we have taken all necessary steps to protect UK personnel in Nigeria who are working on aid programmes, and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) tells me that we have taken the appropriate steps to protect Foreign Office personnel, too.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman has talked about the security support being provided to President Jonathan and the Government of Nigeria. Does he or the Foreign Secretary have any plans to visit Nigeria to cement that relationship further and offer any further support that the Nigerian Government may require?
Mr Hammond
The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk has just informed me that he will be in Nigeria next week. I am not aware of the Foreign Secretary’s forward travel plans, but, as I said to the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) a few moments ago, when we publish our defence engagement strategy shortly, Members will see that we are placing very great importance on the defence relationship with Nigeria. Defence Ministers will be responding to that document by pursuing the deepening and strengthening of those relationships.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I join colleagues in paying tribute to not only our special forces, but our intelligence services, for their professionalism and dedication, and for the unique global security reach they give our country. In particular, I welcome the message that this operation sends—tragic though the final outcome was—which is that in such a situation, the UK leaves no one behind and leaves no stone unturned in looking after the interests of our citizens abroad.
Mr Hammond
I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. That is absolutely our position: when a UK citizen is deprived of their liberty, wherever in the world, we will deploy all the resources available to us to seek their safe return.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I worked as an engineer in Nigeria for several years, and I can only pay tribute to the courage of Mr McManus and his colleague in facing captivity for so long. I welcome the assurances about working with Nigeria to address the challenge of terrorism, but many British engineers do go abroad to work, partly because of a lack of opportunities in this country, so will the Secretary of State work with his colleagues across government to ensure that these people are well informed about the threats they may face, and that we are well informed of the numbers working abroad and the work they do? We must properly value their contribution.
Mr Hammond
The Foreign Office maintains travel advice to UK travellers in respect of all countries and will, of course, update it, but I take on board the hon. Lady’s comments about engineers and people working in similar professions, who of course play a very important ambassadorial role for the UK as they go about their daily business. We seek to understand where people are although, of course, we do not have formal registration requirements in any sense.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
My right hon. Friend suggested that the heightened level of military activity in Sokoto might have alerted the kidnappers that their security had been compromised. Was there any way in which that military activity could have been reduced or was it absolutely essential to the conduct of the operation?
Mr Hammond
The control of the wider area was under the command of the Nigerian military authorities and the approach that they determined was appropriate—they, after all, are in the best position to judge—was that a cordon at some distance needed to be placed around the area. Our concern was that a number of events, starting with the arrest of members of the group on Tuesday evening through to the movements of Nigerian military into the area overnight on Wednesday, could have given the kidnappers an increasing awareness of what was going on and therefore put at increasing risk the lives of the hostages.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May I associate myself with what the Defence Secretary and the shadow Defence Secretary said about the operation itself? The Secretary of State gave us some detail about the timeline of events, but he did not give us the exact time at which our ambassador in Rome informed the Italian authorities that an operation was getting under way. What was that time?
Mr Hammond
I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman the exact time, but the Cobra meeting broke up just before 9 am and the responsible officials undertook to go away and contact the British ambassador in Rome immediately and to ask him to go as soon as was practicable to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome to provide the information to them.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Having established the absence of a power of veto in this case, what could Mr Monti possibly have said had he been consulted in advance, as apparently he wished to have been, that would materially have impacted on the decision matrix and, ultimately, the course of events?
Mr Hammond
I do not think that the course of events would have been changed in any way. In fairness, if the boot was on the other foot, UK Ministers would undoubtedly feel the need to know what was going on with an operation that would impact on the life of a UK citizen. I do not think that the Italians’ concern is in any way unreasonable, I just think they need to understand—I believe that they do, now—that, as regards the pace at which the operation developed, they were informed as expeditiously as possible. As I have said many times already this afternoon, the lines of communication between the intelligence agencies were pretty much continuously open.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
The House will recall the tragic cases of Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan, who were killed by their captors in Iraq some years ago, as well as the steps taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) to ensure that the families received adequate ongoing support. May I press the Secretary of State to say what ongoing support will be given to the family of Mr McManus?
Mr Hammond
The Foreign Office has a well-established way of dealing with those issues after such an event. I know that Foreign Office officials have been in continuous contact with the family and will continue to provide support to them.
Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
Last year, the Economic Community of West African States warned the international community about the amount of former Libyan weaponry that was crossing the border straight into the hands of Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab. Given our financial interests in the area, what pressure are the Government putting on the international community to address that in order to prevent further UK kidnappings?
Mr Hammond
I am not sure that I see a direct link. There are two separate issues here. First, there is the lawlessness in Nigeria and the threat it represents in terms of the kidnapping of UK citizens, and I have outlined the support we are giving to the Nigerians to maintain their counter-terrorism effort. Secondly, there is a real and serious concern about unaccounted-for weapons, which tend to be heavier weapons such as shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles. The UK has been involved with the US in a major operation in Libya since the end of the conflict there to try to identify, track down and secure weapons that have become unaccounted for.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I want to associate myself with hon. Members’ comments sending sympathies to the families of Christopher McManus and Franco Lamolinara. I also thank our British forces for their sterling efforts out on the field. Boko Haram is a ruthless, murderous terrorist organisation that kills at will—some 200 people have been killed, 400 churches have been burned down and thousands have been displaced. It is trying to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria. What military and financial assistance does the Minister feel that the British Government and their allies could give to Nigerian authorities to rid Nigeria of Boko Haram once and for all and to enable Nigeria to be a stable influence in Africa?
Mr Hammond
As I have said, DFID is providing one of our largest packages of bilateral aid to the Nigerian Government. Following the Prime Minister’s visit last year, we are providing a counter-terrorism support package and will continue to provide that support to the Government of Nigeria in their struggle against Islamist extremism in northern Nigeria.
Point of order
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The written version of the Minister’s statement was not available to Members until 24 minutes into the statement. Is it possible, through your good offices, to remind Ministers of the importance of providing written versions of their statements to Back Benchers in a timely fashion?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I do not think we need to labour this point and I am sure that he would be the last Member of the House who would seek to take any opportunity to do so. The Secretary of State apologised for what I think was an inadvertent error in failing to supply the shadow Secretary of State with a copy of the statement until after he had come into the Chamber. I think that the general expectation that Ministers will do their best is understood and I feel sure that the Secretary of State is as assiduous in discharging his responsibilities as anybody else.
Football (Financial Transparency)
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require a football club playing in the top four tiers of English and Scottish professional football to disclose the identity of its owner, the identity of the owner of its home playing ground, training ground, any intellectual property associated with the club or a third party stake in its players and the identities of outstanding creditors; to require all creditors of a football club to be compensated equally should the club go into administration; and for connected purposes.
I want to introduce this Bill to give the House a chance to have its say on the wide issues associated with the financial failure of many professional football clubs in England and Scotland. The Bill proposes measures that would provide an early warning to the football authorities to take action and stand up for the interests of the communities that the clubs serve. Some might say that that is all well and good but is surely a matter for football and not a concern for Parliament. I believe we should be concerned when communities have to stand by powerless when their club is stripped of its assets and left drowning in a sea of debt it can never hope to repay. I believe we should be concerned when taxpayers lose millions in unpaid taxes when clubs go into administration, and when local businesses are left out of pocket and at risk of financial failure as a result. I believe that we should be concerned when, in a global game, millions of pounds are passing in and out of this country to buy clubs and players and we cannot be sure of the source or destination of that money. I believe we should be concerned when players can effectively be trafficked around the world under the control of the third-party interests who control them.
Let me say a little more about each of the areas of concern I have outlined and how the Bill is designed to help address them.
First, fans should know who owns their club and that these people pass the fit and proper person test that has been designed by the football authorities. I have no problem with foreign ownership of clubs, but we need to know who the owners are. In the case of Leeds United, fans went six years without knowing, until Ken Bates assumed control of the club from the future sports fund trust, which was registered in Nevis in the West Indies and administered from Switzerland. We do not know how much he paid for it, or whom he paid, and if we believe his testimony, he did not know whom he had paid either. The sale of the club was not advertised—rather strange if one is selling an asset and trying to get the best price. Many people believe that the only way he could have pulled off this deal was if he or close associates or family members had effectively controlled the club all along.
Last year I made inquiries with the Football League about the identity of the owners of Coventry City football club, and was told that it did not know who owned the club either. The letter that I received from Nick Craig, the director of legal affairs, went on to say:
“We have for some time expressed our concerns as regards investment vehicles (often offshore) and the issue of the lack of transparency surrounding ownership of them. Indeed we have previously sought assistance from DCMS”—
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—
“and HMRC”—
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—
“in that respect but to no avail. We are left in a position where we can regulate and seek to require clubs to comply but are reliant on self-declaration with no official means of independent verification. The proliferation of offshore investment trusts means we will never always be 100% certain in all cases but we continually assess the appropriateness of our rules in a changing environment.”
How can we apply a fit and proper person test to football club ownership if we do not know who the ultimate owners are?
On Friday last week the football authorities published their joint response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on football governance. The report proposed the establishment of a Football Association regulatory authority. The role of the authority would be to co-ordinate the enforcement of rules between competitions and to step in if it feels that the Football League or the premier league in particular are not following through on their duties.
This is a welcome step forward, and certainly the premier league seems to have taken a tougher stance on ownership issues than the Football League in the case of Leeds. However, I believe we need to go further by requiring fuller declarations on behalf of club owners, with the authorities having the right to check this information with the club’s bankers. That is why the Bill calls for a public declaration from anyone owning any stake in a football club and its major assets, such as its playing and training ground, and for the football authorities to have access to a full list of the creditors of the club. The authorities should have the right to determine the source of funds, as well as the legal entity responsible for them.
Also, as part of the football club licensing scheme proposed by the Select Committee and accepted in principle by the football authorities, there should be some oversight of a club’s financial performance to ensure that it has the funds it requires to complete the playing season. Early intervention should be normal when, for example, clubs fall behind with their tax payments. This is now a requirement for clubs playing in the English premier league. It should have happened in the case of Rangers, a situation that should not have been able to get as bad as is it did. The double tragedy here is that Rangers’ financial failure may take down other clubs, such as Dunfermline, which had entered into agreements with Rangers in good faith and is left being owed large sums.
These are issues of concern not just for football fans, but for the law enforcement authorities. A report published in 2009 by the Financial Action Task Force, based on research across 25 countries, including England, highlighted the fact that because football is an international cash business with many assets controlled offshore, it is vulnerable to approaches from criminal organisations. The desperate financial state of many clubs may also mean that an approach from a would-be sugar daddy could be too good to resist, and without too many questions being asked.
The report indentified more than 20 cases of money laundering through the football sector, ranging from simple cases of smuggling large amounts of cash that seemed to have been derived from illegal transactions, to complex international money laundering cases. The report noted:
“Football clubs are indeed seen by criminals as the perfect vehicles for money laundering.”
It went on to say that
“the targets are frequently clubs in financial trouble looking for ‘lifesaving’ sponsors”
and that
“the lack of regulation or control over legal structures and the ownership or control of football clubs means that they are easy to acquire.”
We have to ensure that the measures proposed in this Bill can be enforced to restrict these practices and send a message out to the world that the owners of a club in England or Scotland cannot hide their identity or the source of their funds.
I shall touch briefly on third-party ownership of players and the football creditors’ rule. Third-party ownership of footballers is banned in the UK, but not in many other countries in Europe and around the world. There is already an established practice of player ownership funds buying the controlling interest in a player at a club in, say, South America, and moving him on to a European club, with a view to a further transfer to a top club at a time of the ownership fund’s choosing. Even if third-party ownership is banned in the final destination country, this financial interest could be hidden by agreements to pay agents, or for payback clauses to the selling club and then back to the player fund, depending on the number of appearances a player makes, or indeed whether he is ultimately sold on again.
In a recent survey conducted among players in eastern Europe and the former USSR by FIFPro, 40% of footballers said that their salaries were not paid by the club they played for. That is why the Bill calls for a register to be available to the football authorities for any financial ties third parties have to players in a club. That is also at the heart of one of the big problems in football: some people make money simply from the margin they take on buying and selling the assets they control and the value they can get someone to pay. For those people, that is how they make money from the game and ownership of a club is simply a means of accessing and influencing the market.
Finally, the Bill would provide for the abolition of the football creditors’ rule. The rule means that when a football club goes into administration, people in football to whom it owes money, such as players and other clubs, receive their money in full but other creditors, such as a local printer who prints the match programmes, the St John Ambulance or a local builder who works on the ground, receive just pence in the pound. In the case of the administration of Leeds United, the club also left £6 million in unpaid taxes. Even the chairman of the Football League has admitted that he
“cannot defend the morality of it”.
I believe that getting rid of the football creditors’ rule would encourage football clubs to have greater openness in their dealings with each other, as there would be an element of shared risk. A club would really want to know if another club to whom it was selling a player could afford the transfer fees it was asking. Getting rid of the rule would also give the football authorities an even greater stake in ensuring that clubs do not go into administration during the season, which compromises the competition as they are forced to sell players and severely weaken their squad.
The issues I have touched on today affect English and Scottish football, but not exclusively; they affect football right around the world. In the absence of firm leadership from FIFA on these important matters, I believe that it is important that we take a stand and do our bit to clean up football in our country and give our fans a proper say and stake in how their clubs are run. These are the reasons why we need the Bill, which I commend to the House.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I rise to point out briefly a fundamental flaw in the Bill, but I commend the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for the work he has done in this field and through the Culture, Media and Sport Committee—its reports are excellent and we look forward to the report on racism in football. He identified a particular problem that is dear to my heart: the opaqueness of the ownership of Leeds United football club, a club I have supported throughout my life. Indeed, I have attended many hundreds of the club’s matches over the seasons—I appear to be the only Member of the House who regularly attends. I therefore have a great deal of sympathy for the principles and detail of what he is putting forward.
However, we are coming to the end of a parliamentary Session and I know that the hon. Gentleman will be considering resubmitting the Bill in some way after the Queen’s Speech. The Bill’s fundamental weakness is the fact that it would deal only with the top four leagues. I have another love in my life, another football club, and the world’s fourth oldest: Worksop Town football club. As a non-league club, Worksop Town would not be covered by the Bill, yet the non-league clubs across England and elsewhere have suffered far more than the professional clubs as a result of the problems of opaqueness and the asset strippers who have come and taken the clubs away. Some 33 current English league teams of the 92 have been in administration since 1992 and the Sky deal and the establishment of the premier league. Far more non-league clubs have gone into administration, and a considerable number have been liquidated. Whether in Worksop, Halifax, York, Wrexham, Crawley, Salisbury, Boston or Lincoln, non-league football across the country has been plagued by the problem of people buying clubs, asset-stripping and attempting to develop the land. It is a fundamental problem.
I shall not push the Bill to a vote, but should the hon. Gentleman come back to the House with it after the Queen’s Speech, I urge him to incorporate non-league clubs into what is a very worthy proposal.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Damian Collins, Dr Thérèse Coffey, Philip Davies, Thomas Docherty, Paul Farrelly, Louise Mensch, Penny Mordaunt, Steve Rotheram, Mr Adrian Sanders, Jim Sheridan, Mr Gerry Sutcliffe and Mr John Whittingdale present the Bill.
Damian Collins accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 April, and to be printed (Bill 316)
Opposition Day
Health and Social Care Bill
(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:29 - The House divided: - Ayes: 260 / Noes: 314 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:44 - The House divided: - Ayes: 258 / Noes: 314 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Speaker
We come now to the main business and to the Opposition motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. It might be helpful if I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of Mr Andrew George.
Just before I call the shadow Secretary of State to move the motion, may I remind the House that in the light of the extensive interest in this debate I have imposed a five-minute limit on individual Back Benchers’ contributions? There is no formal limit on contributions from the Front Benchers, but I feel sure that the shadow Secretary of State and Secretary of State will tailor their contributions in order to facilitate their Back-Bench colleagues’ participation.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the e-petition signed by 170,000 people calling on the Government to drop the Health and Social Care Bill; and declines to support the Bill in its current form.
I do so on behalf of the 170,000 people who have signed the e-petition calling on the Government to drop the Health and Social Care Bill.
The petition was initiated by Dr Kailash Chand, a distinguished general practitioner in the north-west of many years’ standing, and I pay tribute to him today. He has united patients who depend on the NHS and professionals who have devoted their lives to it in this simple but sincere call on the Government: “Drop the Bill”. Today, their voice will be heard in this House, as it is entitled to be. We will not let them be silenced, even though attempts were made to stop this debate taking place.
That takes us—
Andy Burnham
No. I have been listening to the strictures from the Chair, and I want to get into my speech so that Back-Bench colleagues have a chance to contribute.
That takes us straight to the heart of the predicament in which we find ourselves. There is huge concern in the country about the Bill, but the Government and Parliament—
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Andy Burnham
I will in a moment.
There is huge concern in the country about the Bill, but the Government and Parliament are seen simply not to be listening. I give way to the Secretary of State, and I hope that he might prove us wrong.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but before we move beyond that point will he confirm that Dr Chand is an adviser to the Labour party, which inspired the petition? Further, given that Dr Chand has called on the British Medical Association to take strike action against the Bill, does the right hon. Gentleman share that view, or will he disown him?
Andy Burnham
Dr Chand is not an adviser to the Labour party, and the Secretary of State, in seeking to inject that party political note so early on in today’s debate and to claim that the petition of 170,000 people is a political petition, continues, it suggests to me, to misread the mood of this country on his unnecessary Bill.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Andy Burnham
No, I will not.
We have arrived at a dangerous moment, not only for the NHS but for our democracy. To recap, this is a Bill for which nobody voted at the general election and which does not have a mandate, a Bill ruled out by the coalition agreement, and a Bill that has been so heavily amended in another place that in effect the unelected Chamber has written a new legal structure for the national health service that we are being asked to rubber-stamp. Yet despite all that, it could be rammed through this House in just seven days’ time, in defiance of an outstanding legal ruling from the Information Tribunal and in the teeth of overwhelming professional and public opposition.
This is an intolerable situation, and it is no way to treat our country’s most valued institution. Far-ranging changes to the NHS of the kind proposed by the Secretary of State can be made only by public consent and professional consensus, and it is plain for all to see that the Government have achieved neither of those things.
Andy Burnham
No, I will not.
To proceed as planned risks profound damage to the relationships of trust that underpin a successful health service and risks a further erosion of trust in our democratic process that this House can ill afford.
Today there is one final chance for this House to ask the Government to step back from this dangerous course and reflect the feeling that there is in every single constituency in England. In introducing this debate, I have a bigger responsibility than speaking for Labour Members. The call to drop the Bill is not a narrow Labour campaign, as was claimed just now and in Gateshead at the weekend—it is a new coalition for the NHS that has brought together patients, professionals and people of all political views, including, I dare say, some of those in the Secretary of State’s own party. People who have signed the petition will be watching our proceedings closely. They will be hoping against hope that somehow we will put the NHS first, put aside the customary clash of party politics, and find common ground that can help the NHS.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I have here a letter to the Prime Minister from Dr Clare Highton and Dr Haren Patel, the chairs of City and Hackney clinical commissioning group, who say that they want
“to add our voice to the call for the Bill to be withdrawn.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree that that underlines his point about the wide range of people who want it to be dropped?
Andy Burnham
I think that Government Members are misjudging the mood of the country, and particularly of health professionals, who have not given a knee-jerk political response to the Bill but have given it careful consideration since it began as a White Paper and then proceeded on its tortuous path through Parliament. They have come to the conclusion that it is better, even now, to abandon it and work back through the existing legal structures of the NHS rather than proceed with the new legal structure and all the upheaval that that entails.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
Yesterday I was at a meeting with people with diabetes who expressed grave concern that they do not know what services would be available if the Bill were to go ahead. Is not that another good reason to take a pause and decide to drop the Bill until all these problems can be resolved?
Andy Burnham
I am aware of the concerns expressed by Diabetes UK and, indeed, by many other organisations representing people with long-term conditions, who have not been given the clarity that they need in order to give their support to these changes. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says “Rubbish”, but I am afraid that those questions have not been answered, and that is not good enough.
Andy Burnham
I will not give way.
As I said, we need to see whether we can find common ground and put the NHS before party politics. That is the test that I set for the debate, and it is the spirit in which I wish to frame it. Today is not just an Opposition day but Merseyside derby day. Usually both occasions put me in a highly partisan mood, yet despite having double reason to be in tribal mode, I am going to take the unusual step of urging Labour Members not to vote for our motion but to consider the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and his Liberal Democrat colleagues. We will listen with interest to what he has to say. The amendment sets out a sensible way forward that we can all unite around. It sends out the simple message that the importance of the NHS to us all and to our constituents should trump any tribal loyalty. It is important to say that, because I fear that sheer gut loyalty, political pride and the need to save face are the only forces driving a deeply defective Bill towards the statute book.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
I had the great privilege of working in biomedical research in and around the NHS for 15 years before coming to the House. Is it not the case that the challenges of an ageing population, the explosion of new biomedical treatments, diagnostics and devices, and the aspirations of modern patients demand reform? Did not the Labour party use to be the party of reform? Is not the right hon. Gentleman’s partisan posturing simply an illustration that Labour is no longer fit for Government?
Andy Burnham
Those factors demand service reform. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he stood at the election for a moratorium on such reform, which was a dishonest pledge that would have prevented the NHS from making the changes that it needs.
The NHS model that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues seek to break with the Bill is judged to be the most efficient health care service in the world. The Secretary of State says today that that model is simply unsustainable in this century, with the ageing society and all the other pressures on it. I put it to the hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State that that model is not the problem but the solution to the challenges of an ageing society, because it is proven to be the most fair and cost-effective way of delivering health care to the whole population.
We need to be honest with ourselves today. I mentioned the fact that it is just political pride and gut loyalty that are driving the Bill towards the statute book. Those motivations, however understandable and human they are and however familiar to politicians of every stripe, do not justify inflicting a sub-optimal legislative structure on our most cherished public service and making the already difficult job of health professionals even harder as they struggle to make sense of Parliament’s intentions.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is ideology, not evidence-based policy, that is driving ever greater competition in health care markets? Does he agree that the evidence suggests that that is the way to undermine our NHS, not to improve quality and equity?
Andy Burnham
I agree with the hon. Lady. It is that ideology that the NHS and health professionals are rejecting. They want to work in an essentially collaborative health service. They do not accept the vision that pits hospital against hospital and doctor against doctor.
Barely anybody has a good word to say about this busted flush of a Bill, which has lurched from one disaster to another. The unprecedented pause did not address the real concerns, but simply added bureaucracy and complexity. The 1,000-plus amendments are not a sign of improvement, but of confusion, complexity and contradiction. They have left a mess of a Bill that even the Health Secretary cannot recognise as his own. If that was not bad enough, an unfolding communications disaster has alienated the very people the Government are depending on to implement their Bill. A Downing street summit was called to discuss the implementation of a reform that is about clinical leadership, but doctors’ and nurses’ leaders were shut out of Downing street. It was hard to see how the situation could get any worse, but it just has.
First, on Friday, the Information Tribunal ruled against the Government and in favour of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I pay tribute to the assiduous way in which he has pursued his principled case. The tribunal ruled against the publication of the strategic risk register, but in favour of the publication of the transition risk register, vindicating our position and dismissing the Prime Minister’s claims against my actions as Health Secretary.
Let us be clear about what that ruling represents. It is an incredible state of affairs for any Government to suffer such a serious legal reversal at this stage of a protracted parliamentary process. It is an indictment of the judgment, or lack of it, of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and others in the Department, in their handling of the Bill. Where is the Minister’s good grace in defeat? It is simple: my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne won and the Government lost. What are they waiting for? They must publish the risk register today and give Parliament the courtesy of knowing all the relevant information on Ministers’ plans before they ask us to approve them. Instead, what do we get? Silence and playing for time. They are hoping to string it out until after 20 March. That is simply not good enough.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is, as ever, making the case for the NHS, not for the privatisation that the Tories and their Lib Dem friends are pursuing. We are talking about the future of the NHS, so let me quote Victoria Roberts, a student nurse from Merseyside, who starts her training in two weeks. She says:
“I am a student nurse due to start my training in 2 weeks. This is not the NHS I want to serve or work in, but rather will help only those who can pay the most.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree with that assessment of where the Tories are taking the NHS?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We must have shorter interventions. A lot of people want to speak and we have got to get on with it.
Andy Burnham
I wish the Government would listen to voices such as the student nurse that my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) quoted—people who want to dedicate their lives to the NHS. Frankly, their views are brushed aside by an arrogant Government.
It gets worse as the Bill enters a new crisis, with one of the coalition parties formally withdrawing permission from its peers to support the Bill. It is not at all clear what happens now—whether Lib Dem peers will defy the wishes of their party or their leader. Given the developments of the last few days, it is simply inconceivable that the Government can continue on their current course and present the discredited Bill here in seven days. The only responsible thing to do is listen to what Lib Dem Members are saying and support what the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for St Ives seeks to do. I will deal with that shortly.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Just so that the right hon. Gentleman is clear, the motion that the Liberal Democrats passed on Sunday did not tell the Lords that they should or should not support the Bill. It simply reserved our party members’ judgment until we see the work that the Lords are continuing to do. That is our position. I think that that is sensible and fair for the NHS and our party.
Andy Burnham
I am afraid that I cannot read all the intricate smoke signals of a Lib Dem conference, but to my simple mind, removing permission from the motion for peers to endorse the Bill is a pretty clear signal that that permission has been withheld.
Before I deal with the amendment that the hon. Member for St Ives has tabled, I want to tackle directly the charge of scaremongering that has been levelled at Labour Members, and draw the House’s attention to evidence already emerging that supports our central concerns about the effect of the reorganisation. We have consistently said that it is the wrong time to reorganise the NHS—indeed, it is the worst time imaginable. The Government are asking the NHS to do too much. It is facing its toughest ever financial challenge. Combining that with the biggest ever reorganisation was a catastrophic misjudgment. The Government dismantled the existing structures of the NHS before the new ones were in place, leading to a loss of grip and focus at local level just when that was most needed.
We have now had two lost years in the NHS. When the system should have been getting to grips with the financial challenge, it has been distracted and destabilised by reorganisation. Information is now emerging that bears that out. The Nicholson challenge is a huge task for the NHS, but after only six months, we hear that it is already falling behind. New information provided from the Department to the Health Service Journal in response to a freedom of information request reveals how two out of three—68%—non-foundation trust acute trusts missed their savings targets for the first six months of the Nicholson challenge. At least five have made less than 20% of their planned savings for the year 2011-12. Overall, at the half-year point, the non-FT acute sector had a net deficit of £135 million. That is a real warning sign, which suggests that the Government are storing up huge problems for the future.
That is not conjecture. There is evidence that a destabilised NHS is losing its grip on finances and operational standards. For the tenth week in a row, the NHS last week missed the Secretary of State’s lowered standard for accident and emergency, with fewer than 95% of people seen within four hours. That is the main barometer of pressure on NHS hospitals. The figures clearly tell us that hospitals are not coping with the pressure that they are under, and that job losses and staff shortages are having a real impact.
Andy Burnham
I will not.
Rather than just reel off statistics about elective waiting times, I ask the Secretary of State today to address A and E performance. Why does he think the NHS is missing his relaxed target and what steps is he taking to address that?
Another of our central concerns—
Andy Burnham
Just one second. I have said that I want to give hon. Members a chance to comment in the debate, and that is what I am going to do.
Andy Burnham
No.
The Opposition have said that the plans will bring huge variation and a postcode lottery writ large, which is what we are beginning to see, with random rationing decisions across the system. Minor operations are being restricted, generic drugs are being prescribed, and procedures, for instance to remove varicose veins, are being withdrawn from patients.
More worryingly, we have seen the emergence of a new trend: trusts are restricting access to treatment and surgery based on body mass index levels or lifestyle factors such as smoking. Those have been dressed up as initiatives to improve public health, but many people see them as crude attempts to save money. It seems to me that that is a straightforward breach of the NHS constitution, and indeed of its founding values. Treatment should be according to need, not according to judgmental decisions by unaccountable health professionals. I put it to the House that that is a dangerous departure. Treatment according to need must mean what it says. There is no sign of Ministers intervening to say that that is unacceptable and that they will reverse those decisions. That is a worrying glimpse of the future, in which the NHS becomes a huge postcode lottery and people have limited chance to challenge decisions, and it takes us to one of people’s central worries about the Bill: that there is no longer a duty on local commissioners to provide comprehensive health services.
There is other evidence around the system of the concerns that the Opposition have raised. There is evidence of fragmentation, not integration, as clinical commissioning groups are ordered to run an “any qualified provider” tendering process on three community services; of damage to the doctor-patient relationship; and of hospitals, such as St Helier, which is in the constituency of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), being destabilised by the effects of the emerging market, as clinical commissioning groups begin to withdraw services.
Those are not invented risks or scaremongering; they are there in black and white in local and regional risks registers, which Opposition Members have highlighted. We are now seeing those risks begin to materialise on the ground, which is why the difficult judgment that so many royal colleges have reached is that, even now, as difficult as it is, it is safer for the NHS to work back through the existing legal structures of the system than to proceed with the introduction of a new one.
I want to assure the House that “Drop the Bill” is not pure oppositional opportunism. I have always balanced the “Drop the Bill” call with the words, “And we will work with the Government to introduce GP-led commissioning.” I have never had any objection to doctors being more able to shape services, nor to more control and choice for patients, but the simple truth is that the Government did not need a new Bill to introduce those things. Indeed, the very fact that they have arrogantly already introduced those changes in advance of the Bill makes the argument that the Bill is simply unnecessary.
The Bill is a huge exercise in futility, but the reason we have one is that the Government want to go further on a misguided mission to rewrite the entire legal structure of the NHS to facilitate more competition and a market-based system. That, more than anything, is worrying people and why they are withholding support. That is the Government’s problem. They were not open and honest about those plans at the beginning, and have openly extolled the competition argument only in more recent weeks. That is why people are worried by the hidden agenda they see behind the Bill.
The amendment from the hon. Member for St Ives offers a way forward that can bring politicians and professionals back together, but, in urging the Opposition to support it, I wish to make something very clear: in supporting the amendment, the Opposition are offering no endorsement of the health policies in the coalition agreement. We are simply saying that if the Government were to stick to the precise terms of the coalition agreement, and specifically to the clear pledge of no top-down reorganisation, that would be a better position for the NHS and would represent real progress.
The talks could take as a starting point the stability plan proposed by the Faculty of Public Health. GP-led commissioning could be delivered by the clinical commissioning groups that the Secretary of State has created. Furthermore, to build confidence among clinicians, I offer to agree with him some principles by which important service change in the NHS could be introduced without every hospital being used as a political football at a local level. That is because the NHS needs service change, not structural reform. If we continue to play politics with hospital changes, we will do the NHS the ultimate disservice of condemning it to an outdated service model.
In conclusion, I am in politics to protect the things I care about, and the NHS comes top of that list. This is not about politics, as was claimed at the weekend. To be honest, it suits our narrow political objectives for the Government simply to plough on. The great irony is that dropping the Bill would be the right political decision for both coalition partners. Nevertheless, we desperately want them to do that, because if they do not, the damage to the NHS will be profound and possibly irreparable.
We have called this debate both to reflect the views of the e-petitioners and to try to find a way forward around which people can coalesce. We are ready to play a constructive part in that process. But I need to be clear with the Secretary of State: it would be a constitutional outrage were he to bring his discredited Bill back to this House in seven days. Put simply, he does not have the permission of the people of this country to proceed with his plans for the NHS. He is wrong to say that the NHS model we have known for 63 years is unsustainable in the face of the challenges of this century.
The NHS is the solution to those challenges, not the problem, having been judged the most efficient and fair system in the world. Those are truly great strengths, and my plea to the Secretary of State is to build on them, not throw them away. However, if he will not listen, the House can still intervene. Time is running out for the NHS. Tonight we have a final chance to put the NHS first and party politics second. The country wants us to do that. Let us rise to the occasion. I commend the motion to the House.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
As a learned man, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will recall that Plato said that
“empty vessels make the loudest sound”.
The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) has been a study in this: as his arguments have diminished, so his tone has become more strident. By the end of his speech, he was simply shouting slogans. I listened carefully to his speech, but in vain, for evidence of an argument, still less of an Opposition policy.
I ask the House to reject the motion, which is a desperate ploy from a desperate party. The House scrutinised and approved the Bill, with amendments. following a substantial and highly constructive engagement right across health and care services and with the independent NHS Future Forum. We accepted all their recommendations. The chairman of the British Medical Association Council said at the time that the recommendations
“address many of the BMA’s key concerns”.
Dr Clare Gerada, the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that
“we are reassured that things are moving in the right direction”.
Yes, things have moved in the right direction, including, apparently, Dr Gerada, encouraged by her council.
In the other place, things have moved in the right direction, too. We have had hours of constructive debate leading to further positive amendments, including amendments to put beyond doubt the Secretary of State’s responsibility and accountability with respect to a comprehensive health service, and a duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to the NHS constitution; amendments to make it clear that Monitor will have the power to require health care providers to promote integration of NHS services, enabling Monitor to use its powers to support integration and co-operation in the interests of patients; and amendments conferring new responsibilities on the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups to play an active role in supporting education and training, and requiring providers to co-operate with the Secretary of State when exercising his duty to secure an effective education and training system. All those amendments were positively accepted in the Lords.
Mr George Howarth
The Secretary of State quoted Plato earlier. Does he recall the advice that Cromwell gave to Members of the Long Parliament—that they had stayed in their place for too long and to no useful purpose? Is that not advice that he might take?
Mr Lansley
I do not think the right hon. Gentleman should quote Cromwell to a Cambridgeshire MP; I think I know more about Cromwell than he does. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I might also tell him—
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
What do you know about the health service?
Mr Lansley
What do I know about the health service? I have been at the Government and Opposition Dispatch Boxes for nearly nine years speaking on behalf of the national health service. Before that I was on the Select Committee on Health, looking out for the interests of the health service, and before that my father was working—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Front Benchers need to be a little calmer. A lot of Members want to be called, and we want to hear the Secretary of State.
Mr Lansley
Let me just say this to the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. There may be many things that we can debate in this House, including the policies, but I deeply resent any implication that I do not care about the national health service. I believe that I have demonstrated that I do; and his hon. Friends—and, to be fair, the right hon. Member for Leigh—have made that absolutely clear, time and again. Dr Clare Gerada, on behalf of the Royal College of General Practitioners, has said clearly that she recognises the Prime Minister’s and my passion and commitment and that of the Prime Minister to support the national health service.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State said some moments ago that the Bill had all been debated in this House, but of course it has not. Possibly the most damaging aspect financially to the NHS outside England is the increase in usage of the private sector in the NHS in England to 49%. That has never been debated in this House, has it?
Mr Lansley
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. The private income cap for foundation trusts was debated fully in Committee in this House, and it has been debated again in another place. The reason for the so-called 49% was simply that Members in another House said that they wanted to be absolutely clear that the principal legal purpose of foundation trusts is to provide services to the NHS, and therefore that, by definition, a foundation trust could not have more of its activity securing private income than NHS income, hence the 49%. But in truth, the safeguards that are built in make it absolutely clear that, whatever the circumstances and whatever their private income might be—from overseas activities or overseas patients coming to this country—foundation trusts must always demonstrate that they are benefiting NHS patients. That is why, I remind the House again, the foundation trust with the highest private income—27%—is the Royal Marsden, which delivers consistently excellent care for NHS patients.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my absolute astonishment at Labour Members’ collective amnesia when it comes to the 13 years of mixed-sex wards and rising levels of MRSA and C. difficile that they presided over, along with a failed patient record system that has cost billions?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come to some of those points. However, I might just say that, in the space of the last few days, we have had an opportunity to demonstrate that Labour signed up to an enormous, centralised, top-down NHS IT scheme that was never going to deliver, was failing to deliver and was costing billions.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr Lansley
No.
In the space of under two years, my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department and I have delivered a reduction approaching £2 billion in the cost of the NHS IT programme. That will enable us to empower services right across the country to be better users and deliver better IT systems.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Further to the list of changes to the Bill that the Health Secretary has outlined, will he confirm that it no longer imposes reviews by the Competition Commission on the NHS, therefore ensuring that it is not treated in the same way as any private industry would be?
Mr Lansley
That is indeed true, and my hon. Friend will also be aware—the Future Forum was clear about this—that the NHS benefits from the transfer of competition powers. The Bill does not create any new competition powers in the NHS; it transfers the exercise of competition powers from the Office of Fair Trading to Monitor, as a sector-specific regulator, as we agreed in the coalition agreement. That is what the Bill does, and that is a better protection for the NHS compared with what would otherwise be the application of competition rules, and before—[Interruption.] Labour Members mutter, but it has become apparent over recent weeks that in 2006, when the right hon. Member for Leigh was a Health Minister, it was their Government who received legal advice that demonstrated that their changes had introduced the application of EU competition rules into the NHS.
Simon Hughes
Will the Health Secretary amplify his answer to our Scottish National party colleague, the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), and make it quite clear that both Government policy and, now, the construction of the Bill not only prevent private sector activity from going out of the health service in terms of finance, but restrict the method of expanding private sector activity? The controls are now in the Bill, even if they were not at the beginning.
Mr Lansley
There is absolutely nothing in the Bill that promotes or permits the transfer of NHS activities to the private sector. Of course, NHS trusts are technically able to do any amount of private activity at the moment, with no constraint. The Bill will make absolutely clear the safeguard that foundation trusts’ governors must consent if trusts are to increase their private income by more than 5% in the course of one year, and that they must always demonstrate in their annual plan and their annual reporting how that private activity supports their principal legal purpose, which is to provide services to NHS patients.
Labour sought to oppose the Bill in another place, but its motion was defeated by 134 votes. We have reached a stage at which the Labour party, and the right hon. Member for Leigh in particular, having embraced opposition —for which they are well suited—now oppose everything. They even oppose the policies on which Labour stood at the election. Labour’s manifesto stated that
“to safeguard the NHS in tougher fiscal times, we need sustained reform.”
The trade unions have got hold of the Labour party in opposition, and it is now against reform. Its manifesto also stated that
“we will deliver up to £20bn of efficiencies in the frontline NHS, ensuring that every pound is reinvested in frontline care”.
I remind Labour Members, who are all wandering around their constituencies telling the public that there are to be £20 billion of cuts to the NHS, that that £20 billion was in their manifesto. Now they are talking about it as if it were cuts; it is not. We are the ones who are doing it, and they are the ones who are now opposing it. They scare people by talking of cuts—[Interruption.] They do not like to hear this. Actually, this year, the NHS has an increased budget of £3 billion compared with last year, and in the financial year starting this April there will be another increase of £3 billion compared with this year. The Labour manifesto also stated:
“Foundation Trusts will be given the freedom to expand their provision into primary and community care, and to increase their private services”.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned reform. In 2009, he said in this place:
“Organisational upheaval and reform do not seem to correlate well.”—[Official Report, 19 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 225.]
What did he mean by that?
Mr Lansley
We know that it is necessary for us to reform in order to deliver the improvements that the NHS needs, as well as the sustainability that it needs. We are not even speculating about this; we can demonstrate that it is happening. This is in contrast to what the right hon. Member for Leigh said. He said that he was not scaremongering, then he got up and did just that. He scaremongered all over again. He went to a completely different set of data on the four-hour A and E provision, for example. He went to the faulty monitoring data, which are completely different from the ones that we have always used in the past—namely, the hospital episodes statistics data, which demonstrate that we are continuing to meet the 95% target.
When we look across the range of NHS performance measures, we can see that we have improved performance while maintaining financial control. The monitoring data from the NHS make that absolutely clear, and that is in contrast to what happened when the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the Department, when Labour increased the NHS budget and lost financial control. That happened when the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) was a special adviser in the Department. Now, we have financial control across the NHS and we have the NHS in financial surplus.
Let me return to the Labour manifesto—[Interruption.] Labour Members do not like to hear this. It stated:
“Patients requiring elective care will have the right, in law, to choose from any provider who meets NHS standards of quality at NHS costs.”
Yes—choice and any qualified provider are in the Labour manifesto. We are doing what Labour said should be done in its manifesto—and it is now opposing it.
Let us find out what it is that the right hon. Member for Leigh opposes in the Bill. I did not find that out in his speech; I heard generalised distortions, but I genuinely want to know. Let us take some examples. Is it the Secretary of State’s duty in clause 1 to promote a comprehensive health service free of charge, as now? No, he cannot possibly be against that. Is it that the Bill incorporates for the first time a duty on the Secretary of State to act to secure continuous improvement in quality—not just access to an NHS service, but putting quality at the heart of the NHS? Is he against that? No, surely not. Anyway, that approach began with Ara Darzi, and we have strengthened it.
Mr Lansley
Let us try this one. For the first time the Bill introduces in clause 3 a duty that embeds the need to act to reduce inequalities firmly within the health system. After 13 years of widening health inequalities under Labour, surely he cannot be against that—or is he? No. Well, what about clinically led commissioning, with doctors and nurses who are responsible for our care given the leadership role in designing services? We heard earlier about one CCG, but 75 leaders of clinical commissioning groups wrote to The Times a fortnight ago. Let me quote them, because it is instructive of what is happening. They said:
“Since the…Bill was announced, we have personally seen more collaboration, enthusiasm and accepted responsibility from our GP colleagues, engaged patients and other NHS leaders than through previous ‘NHS re-organisations’”.
They continued:
“Putting clinicians in control of commissioning has allowed us to concentrate on outcomes through improving quality, innovation and prevention”—
precisely the things that the NHS needs for the future.
Now the right hon. Gentleman says, “Oh, yes, we can do GP commissioning”, but let us recall that in 2005, practice-based commissioning was in the Labour manifesto, and that in 2006, he said he was in favour of it. He said that he was
“introducing practice-based commissioning. That change will put power in the hands of local GPs to drive improvements in their area”—[Official Report, 16 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 861.]
Mr Lansley
I will give way in moment. The right hon. Gentleman said he was in favour of practice-based commissioning. In 2010, he was the Secretary of State and was in charge of the manifesto, yet practice-based commissioning disappeared out of the Labour manifesto —it was not there at all. After the election, he pops up and says, “Oh, we are in favour of it again”. The truth is that practice-based commissioning was always the right idea: the Labour Government did not do it; the primary care trusts suppressed it. The Bill makes it possible for clinical commissioning groups to take responsibility and for doctors and nurses to design and deliver better services. Because of this Bill, it will happen—and it will not be suppressed by a top-down bureaucracy.
Andy Burnham
I made the Secretary of State an offer in my opening remarks. I said I would work with him to introduce his vision of clinically led commissioning, but he seems strangely silent about that and is pursing a very partisan tone. Will he confirm that he could introduce GP-led commissioning without any need for legislation—and without all the upheaval that is coming with his reorganisation?
Mr Lansley
The short answer to that is no. If one wishes to arrive at a place where the clinical commissioning groups have responsibility for budgets and proper accountability—including democratic accountability for what they do—legislation is required to get there. That is why we are putting legislation in place to make it happen.
Angie Bray
I thank my right hon. Friend for that, and I thank him, too, for coming to Acton last week and spending a long evening in a room full of health professionals—doctors, dentists and pharmacists. Does he agree that there was a real desire in that room to engage constructively in discussion on the reforms rather than to turn their back on them, as the Labour party would?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her initiative in bringing doctors, dentists and nurses together to have that conversation. I really appreciated it, and I thought that it illustrated exactly what I have found—that, although not everybody in the room agreed with the Bill—[Laughter]—many did. Contrary to what I see on the Labour Benches, they all wanted to design better services for patients. They cared about patients and engaged in a proper debate about how to achieve that.
I am still trying to find out what it is in the Bill that the right hon. Member for Leigh is against. Is it the fact that the Bill strengthens the NHS constitution? He should be proud of that; he introduced it. For the first time, however, the Bill requires the Secretary of State to have regard to it and the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups to promote it. He is not against that, I presume.
What about the fact that, for the first time, the NHS Commissioning Board and commissioners will have a duty to promote integration throughout health and social care? Is the right hon. Gentleman against integrated care? I do not know. Let me try another question. What about the prohibition in clauses 146, 22 and 61 of discrimination in favour of private providers, which is in legislation for the first time? The right hon. Gentleman may be against that, because when his party was in office, that is what the Government did. They discriminated in favour of private sector providers, and we ended up with £250 million being spent on operations that never took place and the NHS being paid more for operations when it was not even allowed to bid for the work.
What about the creation of a strong statutory voice for patients through HealthWatch? The Labour Government destroyed the community health councils, they destroyed patient forums, and they left local involvement networks neutered. When they were in office, they were pretty dismissive of a strong patient voice. Well, we on the Government Benches are not, and the Bill will establish that patient voice. Is the right hon. Gentleman against all trusts becoming foundation trusts? The Bill will make that happen, and will support it—oh, no, I forgot: according to the Labour party manifesto, Labour wanted all trusts to become foundation trusts.
Let us keep moving through the Bill. Is the right hon. Gentleman against directly engaging local government in the commissioning of health services, integrating health and social care, and leading population health—public health—improvement plans? I ask the question not least because Labour local authorities throughout England are in favour of that. They want to improve the health of the people whom they represent. Is the right hon. Gentleman against local democratic accountability? The list could go on. Is he against the provision of a regulator—Monitor—whose duty is to protect the interests of patients by promoting quality, stopping anti-competitive practices that could harm patients, supporting the integration of services, and securing the continuity of services? Is he against that? It is in the coalition agreement, but I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is against it or not, because he does not say.
Is the right hon. Gentleman against statutory backing for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to support its work on quality? I do not know; we have not heard. Is he against developing the tariff so that it pays for quality and outcomes, not for activity? He knows that that has to happen, and he knows that it has been the right thing to do for the best part of a decade, but we have no idea whether he is against it now.
I cannot discover what the right hon. Gentleman is actually against. He sits there and says that he is against the Bill, but he is not against anything that is in the Bill. He is against the Bill because he has literally made up what he claims it says. He says that it is about privatisation—
Mr Lansley
All right, I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman one more time. Come on, then: let us find out what he is against.
Andy Burnham
I will tell the Secretary of State what I am against. I am against the rewriting of the entire legal structure of the national health service to plant market forces at the centre of the system, and to pit doctor against doctor and hospital against hospital. That is what I am against, it is what 170,000 people signed a petition against, and it is what the overwhelming consensus of health professionals is against. Would the Secretary of State not do well to listen to them for once?
Mr Lansley
So now we know, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is sheer invention. There is nothing in the Bill that creates a free-for-all. There is nothing in it that creates a market of that kind. The Bill means competition for quality, not price. It gives patients choice—and the Labour party’s manifesto was in favour of giving patients choice. Competition is not being introduced to the NHS by the Bill; it is being channelled in the interests of patients to support quality throughout the NHS.
The Opposition talk about privatisation. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), there is nothing in the Bill that allows any privatisation of NHS services. There is nothing in it that promotes such a privatisation.
The left-leaning papers talk about privatisation at Hinchingbrooke hospital because Circle is an independent mutual organisation. That is interesting, because the process for the franchising out of the management of Hinchingbrooke was started by the right hon. Gentleman when he was Secretary of State. So there we are: the only secret Tory plan that Labour can find turns out to be a Labour plan.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
The real issue in the debate is between long-termism and short-termism. Is not the reality that the Labour Government went aggressively down the route towards private finance initiatives, burdening so many of our foundation trust hospitals with debt that was unnecessary?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. When Labour Members talk about the private sector in the NHS, they leave out of account the fact that not only did they give the private sector a sweetheart deal to get it into the independent sector treatment centres, but they have left us with 102 hospitals that were built by the private sector and £67 billion of debt to the NHS. They wandered around the country saying, “Look how we’re spending all your money to build all these new hospitals,” but they did not spend the money to build the new hospitals. They have left the NHS to have to deal with it now, which is why I am having to support hospitals that have unsustainable private finance initiative debt that the right hon. Member for Leigh and his colleagues did not deal with.
What do we have? We have policies that the right hon. Gentleman disowns, and we have nothing to replace them with. We have political opportunism, distortions dressed up as arguments, and a shameful campaign to scare people about a Bill that, in reality, is about strengthening the NHS for the benefit of patients.
Of course, if we want to see what Labour would do, we only have to look at the situation in Wales. I have to hand a Wales Audit Office bar chart; I shall hold it up so Opposition Members can see it. One bar shows rising real-terms expenditure on the NHS in England, and the blue bar shows rising real-terms expenditure on the NHS in Scotland, while the green bar shows the rate for Northern Ireland, where the rise is lower. Another bar, however, shows a very large real-terms cut in NHS spending in Labour-run Wales. Labour in Wales did not just agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it would be “irresponsible” to increase NHS spending; Labour in Wales went further, and cut spending.
In order to see the result of that, we must look at performance. In England, 91% of patients are seen and treated within 18 weeks, compared with just 68% in Wales. In England, only 1.4% of patients waited over six weeks for diagnostic tests; in Wales, 29% waited over six weeks. In Wales, Labour says it wants to insulate the NHS against reform. It ought to adopt it, however, because all that is happening in Wales is that the Labour party is, once again, putting politics before patients.
It is patients who should be at the heart of the NHS —patients and those who care for them. This Bill is simply the support to a far more important set of changes, which make shared decision-making with patients the norm across the NHS, which bring clinical leadership to the forefront of the design and delivery of health and care services, which make local government central to planning for health and care, which strengthen the patient voice, and under which the NHS is open about the results we achieve and how to improve those results so we genuinely match the best in the world. We will continue to work with the royal colleges, and others with an interest in the future of the NHS, to implement our plans, so that we provide the best possible care for patients. The right hon. Gentleman’s motion and speech gave no credit to the NHS for what it is achieving, but I will.
We are proud of the services we deliver for patients: the lowest ever number of patients waiting over six months for treatment—[Interruption.] Labour Members do not like to listen to this, but it is the reality. Average time spent waiting for treatment is lower than at the last election. The number of patients waiting over a year for treatment has more than halved since the election. MRSA and C. difficile are at their lowest ever levels. There are more diagnostic tests—up by 300,000 over a year. There is more planned care, and there are fewer unplanned emergency admissions to hospital. Some 11,800 patients have benefited from the cancer drugs fund, and 990,000 more people have had access to NHS dentistry, while mixed-sex accommodation is down by 95%.
Mr Lansley
No, because I am going to tell the right hon. Gentleman what he did not admit. Reform is going ahead. We are delivering efficiencies across the NHS.
Mr Lansley
All right, I will give way, but the right hon. Gentleman might like to explain why in the year before the election the administration costs of the NHS rose by 23% and he added more than £320 million to the administration costs of primary care trusts and strategic health authorities, but in the year since, we have cut those costs. Absolutely contrary to what he said—because he was completely wrong—we are on track to deliver the Nicholson challenge. We delivered £2.5 billion in savings in the first six months of this year, having delivered £4.3 billion in savings during the course of the last financial year. Come on: explain that one.
Andy Burnham
I should just point out that the Secretary of State is trading on the successful legacy he inherited from Labour: the lowest ever waiting lists; the highest ever patient satisfaction. Let me leave that to one side, however. We on the Opposition Benches have noticed that he has not once mentioned his tribunal defeat on the NHS risk register, and all the achievements he just reeled off are at risk, are they not, because of this misguided reorganisation? I ask him to answer this point today: will he now comply with the ruling of the Information Tribunal, publish this risk register today, and let the public know the full truth about what he is doing to their national health service?
Mr Lansley
I was right, was I not, that the weaker the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, the stronger the tone? My noble Friend Earl Howe answered a private notice question in the other place yesterday, and the position is absolutely as he described it: we were right to go to appeal, as the appeal demonstrated, because the tribunal agreed that we should not publish the strategic risk register. The decision of the tribunal was that it took the view that we should publish the transition risk register, but it did not publish its reasons. Given the simple fact that there is considerable overlap between the strategic register and the transition risk register, I find it extremely difficult to know what the tribunal’s reasons are, so we will see what its reasons are.
Mr Lansley
I will not give way.
Let me just make it absolutely clear that reform is happening and it will be supported by the Bill: nearly £7 billion has already been saved to reinvest in front-line care; we have 15,000 fewer non-clinical staff; we have 5,800 fewer managers and 4,100 more doctors—since the election, we have had more qualified clinical staff; there are 890 more midwives since the election and a record number in training; we have 240 clinical commissioning groups covering England, leading on commissioning from April on up to £60 billion-worth of services; and the ratio of nurses to beds in hospital has gone up.
Labour’s motion is politics masquerading as principle, and it is synthetic anger. I would take the right hon. Gentleman’s campaign more seriously if his own leader could have been bothered to turn up to his NHS rally, rather than taking a Rolls-Royce to a football game. This is empty rhetoric from an empty vessel; this is no policy, only politics; and this is a leader who treats his party’s campaign with disdain. The House should have no truck with them, and I ask it to reject the Labour motion.
David Miliband (South Shields) (Lab)
I rise today to make a simple point to Ministers and their supporters: however acute the embarrassment of giving up on the Health and Social Care Bill at this stage, it will pale into insignificance compared with the embarrassment, never mind the trauma and cost, of ploughing ahead with this health reform and making it the template for health policy for the rest of this Parliament.
The Bill has achieved a remarkable feat since we contributed to the Second Reading debate. First, it has taken the Government hostage. It is the political equivalent of the Stockholm syndrome: falling in love with your captor. The Prime Minister insists, in one breath, that he must have the Bill to save the NHS and, at the same time, at Prime Minister’s questions, he insists that 95% of the country has already had the benefit of the reforms that he claims the Bill will put through.
Secondly, in the real world—many miles from the claims of Ministers that they wanted an unprecedented consensus between politicians and professionals—this Bill is without friends. Even more remarkable, and shocking to me, is that it is a Bill that has lost friends at each and every stage of its passage through Parliament. Every compromise, every “concession” and every retrofit has cost the Bill coherence, cost the Bill support and raised levels of anxiety about the Bill.
The reason for that is simple: the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the Deputy Prime Minister have made it their calling card to say that the choice is between this Bill and inertia. I know that tactic, as I have written those speeches and those articles, but in this case the problem is that that is not true. The Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Secretary of State for Health have put forward practical proposals to achieve some of these aims that are shared across the House.
The Secretary of State will recognise that more reform is going on in the English health service than in any other health service in the world at the moment—that is the product of what was done under the previous Government. That is perhaps one reason why it is improving faster than those anywhere else. The choice is between good reform and bad reform, and this Bill is bad reform: it gives reform a bad name. In fact, it threatens to set back the cause of reform for a generation, and I want to explain why.
As amendment has been piled on amendment, the Bill has gone from being wrong to being the most half-baked, quarter-thought-out shambles that the NHS has ever seen. I want to give three examples that go to the heart of the issues raised by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in their speeches to launch the Bill. The first and most important is managing service change. That is most important, because everyone agrees that the health service has to change to deal with the challenges of demography, drug costs and medical technology, and that means changing in the way in which services are organised. Yet in its hatred of planning and confusion about competition the Bill makes change at a local level not more likely but less. Why? The levers of change have been neutered. Clinical commissioning groups are too small and weak as replacements for primary care trusts, the NHS Commissioning Board is too remote and gargantuan and, as the Palmer study of reorganisation in south-east London shows, market forces on their own will not reconfigure services in a coherent way.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
This weekend I met 80 women from Walthamstow who are desperately concerned because we do not have a sexual health service there, so we have very high levels of teenage pregnancy and repeat abortion, as there are doctors in the constituency who will not provide contraceptives. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the changes could make dealing with such problems harder, not easier?
David Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Far from driving the health service towards a coherent vision of the future, the Bill promises frenetic gridlock as professionals try to make the best of the bad job they have been left by the Health Secretary.
The second example is promoting efficiency. The Select Committee on Health stated:
“The reorganisation process continues to complicate the push for efficiency gains.”
It is, of course, right. The story today that senior GPs are spending four days a week coping with reorganisation rather than treating patients is, I predict, only the first step on that road.
The third example is accountability. If there was a germ of an idea in the original Bill presented by the Secretary of State, it was to align clinical and financial responsibility. In May last year he said that the key question was to
“put the right people in charge”.
After a year, it is completely inexplicable who is in charge: not GPs, because they are overseen by the greatest behemoth of them all, the national NHS Commissioning Board; not hospital trusts, because they are answerable to Monitor and the competition authorities; not the sectoral replacements for strategic health authorities, because they are only temporary; not the managers, because they are being sacked just before they reapply for their old jobs, which now have new names; and not the clinical senates, because their purpose has not yet been defined.
In truth, the new system hardly deserves the title of a system at all. It is not just that people do not support what the Government are doing, but that they simply do not understand what the Government are doing. I warn the House that the real danger for the NHS is a perfect storm of rising costs, rising demand and opaque and inexplicable decision-taking structures.
The Government promised clarity but have delivered complexity. They promised devolution but have had to create the biggest quango of them all. They promised efficiency and they have delivered bureaucracy. The result is that at the end of this Parliament we will once again be back in a debate that I thought we had buried for ever, about whether a tax-funded health service free at the point of need could deliver for the whole population of Britain. That is the last debate we should be having, but it will be the product of the shambles now being created.
I believe the Secretary of State when he says he supports the NHS passionately, but by the end of this Parliament, when the structural flaws of the plan are clear, he will not be around to defend it. That is the true danger of this misconceived and unloved Bill, and that is why this Secretary of State, in his last act of kindness to the NHS, should kill the Bill.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) and it was notable that his hon. and right hon. Friends were listening to his words, rapt, possibly reflecting on what they had missed out on. The kernel of his argument for this side of the House appeared to be the offering of advice to us about where our party advantage lay. He will forgive me if I say that I think we should look elsewhere for advice about where our party advantage lies.
The right hon. Gentleman was raising a voice for Blairite reform of the NHS, and that is a theme to which I want to return. Some opponents of the Bill can claim the virtue of consistency. Some opponents of the Bill can claim that they always opposed the development of structures in the health services that encouraged flexibility and encouraged a focus on the patient voice and on general practitioners and the wider clinical community as an effective voice for patients in the health service.
Some can claim that they have always opposed having a health service open to private and independent sector provision alongside the national health service provision—that they have always preferred a centrally planned, state-provided service. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), who is not in his place, can claim the virtue of consistency on that argument, but the shadow Health Secretary cannot claim that consistency because he, like the right hon. Member for South Shields, was once a Blairite. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has shown with the quotations he gave from the shadow Health Secretary when he was at the Department, the shadow Health Secretary used to be an advocate of the policies that underlie this Bill. The Bill will deliver effective practice-based commissioning —a policy that the shadow Secretary of State used to espouse.
Andy Burnham
If this Bill simply continues our policy, why does it rewrite the entire legal structure of the national health service over 500 pages?
Mr Dorrell
The right hon. Gentleman knows that there is room for more than one view about the extent to which there is a need to rewrite the full statutory basis of the Bill, but that is not the issue now. The question is how, if we went down his route, had a summit and talked for another 12 months about what the institutional structure of the health service should be, that would serve the policy objective that he seeks to espouse, of greater clinical engagement in commissioning. How would it serve the policy objective of which he says he is in favour, of engaging local authorities and the wider political community in decisions that shape the future of the health service?
One issue that the right hon. Gentleman did not mention in his speech is the shift of public health out of the relatively narrow interpretation that is implicit when it is located in the national health service. Instead, public health can properly be understood as being part of the wider range of local government. Those changes do not justify some of the more ambitious rhetoric being used in support of the Bill but they certainly do not come close to justifying the rhetoric being used against it. If half the things being said about the Bill by Opposition Members were true, I and most of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and certainly my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, would not support it.
Dame Joan Ruddock
In answer to a recent parliamentary question I asked about waiting lists, Ministers told me that they had no information on waiting lists for private patients. How does the right hon. Gentleman think it will be possible for NHS patients to believe that their waiting times are consistent with their need for treatment when there are no figures to indicate what happens in the private sector?
Mr Dorrell
One of the effects of the Bill will be to integrate the private sector more fully in the delivery of public sector services in order to meet better standards for the national health service patient whose services are commissioned by the NHS commissioner. I should have thought the right hon. Lady would welcome the fact that there was greater opportunity for the national health service patient to enjoy the benefits that have previously been available on too exclusive a basis to the private sector patient. With a proper, open-minded commissioner, those benefits ought to be available, as the Blairite doctrine advocated when the Labour party believed in it, to all patients, including, pre-eminently, the vast majority of patients who rely on the national health service.
It is claimed by the Bill’s opponents that it is in favour of privatisation, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says, there is not a single provision in it that promotes privatisation. It is said to be a Bill that promotes fragmentation. The service already suffers too much fragmentation. The Bill writes into the law an obligation to deliver integrated, more collaborative, joined-up services. That addresses the problem that has been identified, which is attributed by its opponents to the Bill. It is said to be a Bill that promotes unbridled competition. That is absurd.
It is not only the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh, who can be quoted from the past. The hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), who is seated alongside him, has said some very useful positive things in the past. I quote from the hon. Lady in 2010:
“I’ve always believed that there needs to be some competition and challenge in the system. . . I am also a strong champion of giving patients more voice and a greater say, not only over which hospital they go to but all aspects of their treatment and care.”
I am sure the hon. Lady was speaking on behalf of those on her Front Bench. The whole Labour party used to believe in that. We believe in that. That is what the Bill provides. It builds on the policy that the right hon. Gentleman used to believe in and used to advocate. He should have the courage of those convictions.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), the Chair of the Select Committee. He said that Members on our side were looking raptly at my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband). Members of the right hon. Gentleman’s party were looking raptly at him, wishing he was the Secretary of State for Health.
It is an important day when both Houses are discussing the Health and Social Care Bill, and the Prime Minister is in America. When they meet, President Obama will remind him that he said the NHS was
“something that Brits take for granted—a health care system that ensures you don’t go bankrupt when you get sick”.
The President’s stepmother said that she owed her life to the NHS, without which she would not have been alive to see him become President.
There is a kind of double-speak about the Bill. If the Bill was so good in the first place and so necessary, why did we need to have a pause and a rethink, and why were there so many amendments—almost 2,000? The Secretary of State says that the GPs are in control. If the GPs are in control, why are there commissioning support groups? Who are they accountable to? Who voted for the GPs to be in control of a business dealing with public funds? If GPs are so happy about this, why did a GP in Walsall tell me that they are demoralised, disengaged and uninspired? Maybe because they were not consulted.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
Robert Flello
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. My persuasive charms work. Does my hon. Friend share the concerns of my constituents? They often find it difficult already to get a GP appointment. With GPs spending so much time with commissioning boards and more to come, will that not make it even harder to get time in front of a GP?
Valerie Vaz
My hon. Friend makes an important point. He should read the front page of the left-leaning newspapers, and he will see how much money is being spent on locums.
The GP in Walsall said that the pace of change is too fast. GPs are being forced into larger organisations. They have no experience of managing a business model. The Secretary of State says he wants to cut the numbers of managers. If the number of managers has been cut, why are the management consultants crawling all over the NHS? A group of consultants including McKinsey, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers sealed a £7.1 million contract with 31 groups of GPs. Pulse found that four in 10 clinical commissioning groups across England have begun to enlist commissioning support from the private sector. That was the work that the PCTs did.
The Secretary of State says that change is happening anyway. So why have the Bill? The Secretary of State says that Monitor did not have a duty to promote competition. So why did the Government not approve the amendment tabled by Lord Clement-Jones that sought to designate the health service as
“a service of general economic interest”,
taking it out of EU competition law? That was not accepted.
The Government said that the role of Monitor is like that of Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom. David Bennett said:
“We did it in gas, we did it in power”.
Who are the shareholders? Look at Centrica. Its shareholders include Bank of New York Mellon, the Government of Singapore, the Government of Norway, the state of California, the Government of Saudi Arabia, and Goldman Sachs. The shareholders of the NHS are the people of Britain—but for how long?
The Secretary of State says he wants integration, but the Bill will effectively repeal the integration that started with the Health and Social Care Act 2001. Torbay is a classic example of that. What about the cost, which is £1.2 billion and counting?
Valerie Vaz
I am sorry, but I have nearly finished my speech and must press on.
There was a chorus of disapproval from professionals when the White Paper was published, as they wanted more information. As Rogers and Walters say in the sixth edition of “How Parliament Works”, if there is pre-legislative scrutiny, Ministers have less political capital at stake and changes are not seen as defeats; the scrutiny of a Bill in draft gives higher quality legislation. That is not a description of the Health and Social Care Bill. The pre-legislative scrutiny was in the Secretary of State’s head, not in a draft Bill.
What about my constituent Stephen Wood, who went to his local GP’s surgery only to be told that doctors would only refer him to a consultant privately, not on the NHS, as he had apparently used up his budget?
Valerie Vaz
It is true. This has become personal. The NHS is an organisation in which miracles sometimes happen, which is why people are fighting to protect and save the very essence of its existence. Those who have paid their taxes do not want the Bill, and the health professionals do not want it. From all parties, professionals and patients in the NHS, we can say that we oppose the Bill, and when the NHS unravels, as it is now beginning to, we can say, “We told you so.” I support the motion.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “Bill;” to end and add:
“declines to support the Bill in its current form; and calls for an urgent summit of the Royal Colleges, professional bodies, patients’ organisations and the Government to plan health reforms based on the Coalition Agreement.”
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), a fellow member of the Health Committee, who talks with great knowledge and, from the manner in which she handles herself in the Committee, is clearly very committed. The primary concern of us all in this debate is the future of the NHS; I do not question anyone’s motives as far as that is concerned. That is why I was particularly pleased when the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) opened the debate by reassuring us that we would have a non-tribal, non-partisan debate, and that is also why I feel rather saddened that the debate so quickly degenerated once again into tribalism, which I am sorry to say will seriously undermine our chances of coming forward with a rational solution to the intractable problem of what to do with the Bill.
Although the positions have become further entrenched by the debate, I am concerned about its outcome, because ultimately we will not defeat the Bill. This is not Second Reading, when Members could independently make up their mind on the issue outside the tribal mix. We should debate the matter in a manner that might assist the Government to reflect on where we are. I hope that ultimately they will withdraw the Bill, which is what many of us want them to do. As far as I can see, the Bill cannot be defeated by either House, so the power, and the fate of the Bill with it, lies pretty much entirely in the hands of the Government.
Although I understand that the Secretary of State is obliged to advance the arguments in the way he did today, I am concerned. Therefore, if we are to advance as I propose by withdrawing the Bill and, as set out in the amendment, calling a summit of those who want to take forward a lot of what I think is good in the Bill and in the coalition agreement, I am not sure how that could be achieved on the basis of what we have heard so far. Clare Gerada, the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, this morning talked about withdrawing the Bill in order to stabilise the NHS and ensure that we go forward without basing the future of the NHS on ideology, but we of course need to do that while ensuring that everyone is working together.
I agree with the Secretary of State’s approach to the issue, which is that no change is not an option and that change and reform are of course required in the NHS, but I think that it is better that we take this forward on a more consensual basis than the Government have achieved so far.
I already have only a little time left, so let me say something about the Secretary of State himself, because his commitment to the NHS has been questioned in today’s debate. Let me make it clear to my right hon. Friend—in this regard—that, as I said on Second Reading, I believe that he approaches the issue with the very best of intentions, and I would never question the sincerity of his commitment to the NHS over many years, which I highly respect, along with his knowledge of the subject; our disagreement is on the judgment of the legislation. I do not know whether that metaphorical embrace will damage his reputation among his Conservative colleagues, but I hope that it will not.
There are many failings in the current legislation.
Andy Burnham
I am listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but may I push him a little? He says that the Bill cannot be defeated, because of parliamentary arithmetic, but what is his take on the points that his right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) made? Is it not the hon. Gentleman’s understanding that the Lib Dem conference withdrew its permission for his peers to vote for the Bill? Does that not therefore take permission away from Liberal Democrat MPs to support it?
Andrew George
The right hon. Gentleman is aware that the conference was advisory on the issue. The motion before it actually congratulated our noble Friends in the House of Lords on having achieved significant amendments to the Bill. They have made the Bill less bad but not good enough to make it acceptable to myself—or indeed to many of my colleagues.
The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that Liberal Democrat Ministers and others cannot vote against the Government, so it is not very helpful of him to try to tease out such a situation. The pressure on those who are not so constrained has, however, been lifted.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
For the purposes of clarification, would the summit that the hon. Gentleman’s amendment puts forward include the trade unions? If not, why not?
Andrew George
The summit should be as inclusive as possible—so that there is no sense of it being exclusive. The professional bodies and patient organisations in the amendment would be included as well, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured on that point.
I congratulate my colleagues in another place on what they have achieved, but underlying that is a concern about the role of the private sector. Serco in Cornwall provides an important out-of-hours service, but there are serious concerns about how the service is being run, and I have raised concerns about that over the past year. The Secretary of State has pointed out that the contract was let under Labour, but even so we can learn lessons from the previous Government’s failings on letting private sector contracts, and there are issues, which I shall take up with the Secretary of State, in that regard.
The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the debate calms down and becomes less tribal, so that people can speak more freely and the Government can reflect on the fact that the Bill has less support than it did when it started. Support is ebbing away, and opposition to it is increasing even at this stage.
Andrew George
I cannot at this stage. I am sorry about that.
I urge the Government to reflect on this debate and on the opposition in the country, to withdraw the Bill and to allow such a summit to go ahead.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), and the House would do well to listen to what he says. The Secretary of State may feel that he can bluster his way through the debate, but people out there—our constituents—are listening. When I became a Member almost 25 years ago to the day, I made the point that the health of the people is the highest law, so even if we cannot deal with the Bill in this debate, we have three hours in which we can send a message. Although I came into the Chamber to support the motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), I have listened to what he has said and to what the hon. Member for St Ives has said, and I am quite content to back the amendment and to ask for an urgent summit—and for the trade unions to be involved as well.
Joan Walley
No, I will not.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), who chairs the Health Committee, that some aspects of the Bill are very worthy, particularly those on public health, and we do not want to lose them, but four issues need urgent clarification, and I hope the Minister will address them when he replies.
First, why are my constituents not entitled to know what is on the risk register? What is there to hide? Why can we not have it laid before us when we are making important decisions about the future of the NHS? I am quite content for there to be service changes, but not structural, top-down reform, which the Prime Minister himself, in one of his commitments before the general election, said he was not going to introduce.
The key issue for the House is whether the NHS will be subject to the full force of domestic and EU competition law, and that has not yet been clarified. The Government maintain that it will not, but the changes brought about by the Bill make certain that it will. In any event, it is not in the Government’s gift to decide, because the issue will be decided in the courts, so I genuinely believe that we are entitled to clarification on that issue—[Interruption.] I will not give way on that point. It is absolutely essential that the Government, not the law courts of this country, determine NHS policy.
Secondly, what safeguards are there against private companies using loss leaders to replace NHS services and then, once the NHS service has been eliminated, maximising profits by reducing quality? We have heard from the Secretary of State on that, but once the service is eliminated, the private companies that come in will surely have a free hand. The Government say that there will be no competition on price, but private companies will still be able to use loss-leader tactics by overloading a bid with quality for the specified price, so we must have regard to the real concerns about that.
Thirdly, how will the Government stop cherry-picking in practice? If they attempt to exclude private companies from bidding for a particular contract, will they not face court action, and in those circumstances will not services be put on hold while the courts deal with how NHS care is to be provided?
Finally, again when the Minister replies—
Joan Walley
Yes, in 10 minutes, because we need time to sort out the NHS. What will the Government do about foundation trusts once they become unsustainable—once they have been undermined by cherry-picking and by loss leaders?
There are huge issues, our constituents’ health is at stake, and this is an important debate, one in which the Government need to take account of what we are saying so that Parliament can have a say in how the NHS goes forward.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
It is an honour to speak in this debate.
I thought that I should set out the context of our discussion. Members on both sides of the House have talked about demand, in particular, and it is important to look at that question. Most importantly, we must admit that the NHS needs to adapt under new pressures. In 2001 the NHS treated 12 million patients. Today that figure is 17 million, so in other words the number of people accessing the NHS has risen over the past decade from 101 per minute to 124 per minute, resulting in the cost of drugs and prescriptions rising by more than 65%.
Chris Skidmore
No, I will not. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) did not give way to me, I am afraid, so I am not feeling too charitable.
Despite the coalition Government’s added investment of £12.5 billion over the course of this Parliament, demand will only rise further, with 1.6 million people turning 65 in the course of this Parliament and many living into their 80s and beyond. The number of 85-year-olds will double by 2030. The NHS is facing a perfect storm—an ageing population combined with a rise in chronic conditions, including an increase in diabetes, which will take up as much as 25% of the health budget. That is why we are reforming the NHS. Just as this Government are committed to dealing with the deficit so that future generations will not be burdened with debt racked up yesterday, we must be committed to reforming the NHS so that future generations can enjoy an NHS that is free at the point of delivery regardless of the ability to pay. I am sure that that is what everyone in this House is committed to.
By placing GPs rather than management in control of patient treatment, we will not only drive up standards of care, allowing patients access to more treatments under any the qualified provider scheme, but ensure that recurrent cost savings are made to be reinvested in the NHS to cope with the rising demand. Above all, this is an evolutionary measure. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) touched on the Blairite doctrine. It was a pleasure that we had Professor Julian Le Grand come to the Health Committee, where he said that if Tony Blair were still Prime Minister and he were advising him, he would have urged him to undertake this measure. It is great to see the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) in his seat. It would have been fascinating to see what would have happened if he had become leader of the Labour party. I am sure that we would not have seen the rank tribalism that we have seen from those on his Benches today.
Chris Skidmore
I am talking about the right hon. Member for South Shields, not the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George).
Professor Julian Le Grand stated on 28 February:
“With respect to the NHS bill, it is important that even those who generally prefer to rely upon their intuitions should avoid muddying the waters by accusing the bill of doing things that it does not, like privatising the NHS; and that all those involved should acknowledge the peer-reviewed evidence demonstrating that its provisions with respect to public competition…are likely to improve patient care.”
More hours have been given to debating this Bill than any other during this Session. Despite Labour’s message, which seems to be opposition for opposition’s sake, we are gradually learning what its policy will be for the next general election. It is interesting that at a rally in Manchester last week, the right hon. Member for Leigh stated, in front of his union faithful,
“And I will make you a promise today—if I am the health secretary after the next general election I will repeal this bill.”
According to the Opposition, this is the greatest reorganisation in history. Yet the Bill will save £4.5 billion straight away and then £1.5 billion recurrently, year on year, thereafter.
Mr Burrowes
All our constituents will be listening intently to the debate and will hear that following the health inequalities that have grown under the previous Government, the Opposition will oppose and repeal legislation that imposes a duty to tackle those inequalities. What will they think of that?
Chris Skidmore
We have already heard one Labour Member say that she welcomes the new measures on health inequalities, so it is a shame that the legislation could be repealed in its entirety.
Last week, Labour Members committed themselves to re-establishing primary care trusts and strategic health authorities—to reconstituting the NHS as if time had stood still, with middle-level management holding the reins. It is remarkable that Labour is not the party of the NHS patient but has become the party of the PCT, the SHA and, above all, the NHS manager.
Grahame M. Morris
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about efficiency, costs and so on, I draw his attention to an article in The Guardian today which says that the cost of replacing with a locum GPs who are away on clinical commissioning duties is £123,000 a year, while one clinical commissioning group has reported that 15 local doctors are each spending two days a week away from their surgeries. How is that an efficient use of resources?
Chris Skidmore
We are reinvesting the billions of pounds saved on managers into front-line care, and that is why we have already seen over 5,000 new doctors working on front-line services this year. I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from in terms of the political spectrum, but I believe that he is referring to a TUC press release that The Guardian published in full.
In a previous debate, the right hon. Member for Leigh said that he would put a cap on private practice in “single figures”. That would take the NHS backwards from its current position, and it is an arbitrary cap based on ideology, not on what is in the best interests of NHS patients. Nor is it in the interests of some of our best-loved hospitals. Dr Jane Collins, the chief executive of Great Ormond Street hospital, has said:
“The lifting of the private patient cap would allow us as a Foundation Trust to treat more patients, but also, through re-investment, to help more NHS patients.”
So Labour has set its face against Great Ormond Street hospital: well done!
We need a constructive debate about what needs to be done for patients in the 21st century. The right hon. Member for Leigh should stop using the shroud-waving language that he used today in stating:
“Time is running out for the NHS.”
In December last year, he said that there were 72 hours to save the NHS. What happened? He should beware, above all, of becoming the boy who cried wolf. I believe that this Bill will improve the NHS. I sincerely urge him to base his argument not on intuition but on facts, and, for the sake of patients, not to turn his back on reform that he once believed in and should go back to believing in.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
If there are three letters in the English language that resonate in practically every household in this country, they are NHS. One need say no more than “Save the NHS” for the people of this country to know what one is about. The NHS is this country’s most precious national institutional asset. It is free at the point of use and available to all. It has saved lives, it has prolonged lives, it has improved the quality of lives, and it has done all those things by the million—and now this Government are in the process of destroying it.
That is not surprising, I suppose, because, after all, when Aneurin Bevan brought to this House the Bill to create the national health service, the Conservatives voted against the creation of the national health service. Ted Heath accepted it as part of the national consensus. That consensus was breached by Margaret Thatcher, but even she never targeted the national health service. “The national health service is safe in my hands”, she said. It is all the more shameful that the Government are legislating in this way, because the Tory posters in the 2010 election featuring the current Prime Minister specifically featured the NHS—the Tories knew that that was their vulnerable point. It is now even more so, and it will destroy them.
This Government are the most right-wing Government that the country has had for three quarters of a century. They bring back the social neglect and the social damage of the era of Neville Chamberlain. They are creating mass unemployment, and particularly youth unemployment. They are harming our schools and destroying Sure Start, whose creation, of course, they also opposed. They are taking the police off the streets and provoking crime on the streets. They are inflicting irreparable harm on the universities and on higher education. They are harming pensioners, even down to the niggling theft from them of money from the winter fuel payment. They are creating homelessness. They are doing damage that it will take a generation to repair, even if they are thrown out at the next general election—and all without a mandate of any kind.
All this damage to my constituency and to every constituency in the country, including those of Government Members, is being done with the cynical complicity of the Liberal Democrats. Without them, none of this would be possible. Last night, I had the distasteful experience of refreshing my memory of their manifesto by reading it again, and there is nothing in it to justify what they are participating in today and will be as this Bill proceeds through the House of Commons.
The Liberal Democrats’ spring conference last weekend was a degrading spectacle. They even trundled on the nation’s favourite elder sister, Shirley Williams, to try to convince people that this appalling Bill and their complicity in it are tolerable. What a contrast that is with their facile promises in opposition, when they promised everything because they knew that they would not have to deliver. Now they have to deliver and they are damaging everything they touch. They could save the national health service by their votes this evening. If they do not, the nation will remember and the nation will never forgive.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Like all Government Members, I am absolutely committed to the principles of the NHS: that it should be free at the point of need, irrespective of the ability to pay, and available to all those who need it. The NHS saved my life when I was 24-years-old. It was there for me and I always intend to be there for it, for my constituents and others who need it. I say to Opposition Members that on Saturday morning I spent two and a half hours in Dunstable market talking to more than 400 of my constituents on a wide range of issues, and not a single person raised concerns about the national health service.
Andrew Selous
I will make a little progress.
I also say to Opposition Members that the GPs of Bedfordshire are thoroughly behind these proposals. Dr Paul Hassan, a long-standing Dunstable GP, will be the leader of the clinical commissioning group in my area. He is an excellent GP who has the interests of his patients at heart and he will do an extremely good job.
Karl Turner
The hon. Gentleman says that he met 400 people in his constituency, not one of whom mentioned their opposition to the Bill. Has he had any communication from any health service professional who has concerns about the Bill? I and many Opposition Members have received numerous e-mails and a great deal of correspondence from such people, as well as from constituents.
Andrew Selous
I am aware of one GP in my constituency who has concerns about the reforms. The overwhelming majority of GPs are thoroughly behind them. I find it troubling that Opposition Members do not trust our nation’s GPs, with their wisdom, good sense and commitment to patients, to do the right thing by their patients. They will look at the powers in the Bill and use them for the good of their patients where it is wise and appropriate to do so.
I have to tell Opposition Members that the clinical commissioning group in Bedfordshire has already established a new team to deal with emergency calls from elderly people in care homes. That has resulted in a 40% reduction in hospital admissions and has enabled vulnerable elderly people to be treated at home. That is just one example of the sort of thing that we will see when doctors make use of the powers that they are given in the Bill.
I will cite a few areas of the NHS in which, if Opposition Members think honestly, they will recognise that there were problems when they left office. I will use three brief examples from my constituency. As we heard from the Chairman of the Health Committee and others, one of the important things that the Bill will do, under part 1, is to integrate health and social care. I am extremely grateful to the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), who has been looking at the issue of delayed transfers of care at Luton and Dunstable hospital. The new structures that will be introduced under the Bill, with the full integration of health and social care, will be helpful in that area and will deal with the serious issue of delayed transfers of care.
Mr Sanders
One of the problems that my constituents have is that they have experienced integrated health care in Torbay since 2003, but it is having to be dismantled because of the Bill. It is difficult to explain to my constituents why what they have taken for granted and enjoyed under existing legislation requires this big Bill.
Andrew Selous
All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that in my area the current structures are not dealing adequately with that issue. The powers in the Bill are permissive and I am hopeful that they will help.
To move on to mental health and other NHS services, my biggest town, Leighton Buzzard, has a 16-bed unit for mental health patients. Many of those beds are empty at the moment and could be used for step-up, step-down care or intermediate care. By giving commissioning powers to doctors and fully integrating mental health with other NHS services, the Bill will open up the possibility of those beds being used for the people of Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding area.
If Opposition Members are serious about orthopaedics, which is a massive issue for the NHS, they will know that the standard of care varies widely and that we can do better. I have discussed this issue with the Chair of the Health Committee and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. Professor Tim Briggs, who is the clinical director at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital, and others have useful suggestions in this area that the Government are prepared to listen to.
I say to Opposition Members: look at the record so far. Ten thousand more people have had access to cancer drugs. There are 4,000 more doctors and 900 more midwives in the NHS. There are 15,000 fewer managers and administrators, and all the savings from that are going back to the front line, where they are needed by the hard-working staff of the NHS. Opposition Members should look at the money. The Government are committed to spending £12.5 billion more on the NHS in England, unlike in Wales where, under Labour’s stewardship, the NHS is being starved of funds.
We heard terrible stories about health inequalities from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who spoke before me. I wonder whether he has looked at clauses 22 and 25 of the Bill, which for the first time put in law the duty to deal with health inequalities. My goodness, that is needed, because under the previous Government health inequalities got worse and were in a state comparable with Victorian times.
Clause 116 will prevent discrimination in favour of the private sector. We have listened to a lot of concerns about the private sector. Perhaps Opposition Members have forgotten about the private sector treatment centres, which were paid £250 million for operations that they did not perform. Clause 116 will ensure that the higher tariffs that have been paid to private sector providers cannot happen in future.
The involvement of local authorities in public health is another vital thing that did not happen under the previous Government. If Opposition Members think honestly about what local authorities can do fully to involve schools, children’s centres and care homes in the national health service, they will agree that there are real possibilities.
My plea to Opposition Members is to look at the facts, to look at what is in the Bill, and to look at the improvements that have happened already, such as the greater number of doctors and midwives and the £12.5 billion extra that is going into the NHS, under this Government.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I will speak in favour of the Government dropping this truly awful piece of legislation.
Before I do so, I will say a few words about my constituent, Dr Kailash Chand, who began the e-petition against the Bill, which has reached 174,000 signatures. Kailash has been a GP in my area for 27 years. He has been awarded an OBE for his work and in 2009 he was named north-west GP of the year. He has dedicated his life to public health. At times he has spoken out against Government policy, whoever has been in charge. His motivation in creating the e-petition was solely his love for and belief in the NHS. We should be grateful for such public servants. I am delighted that he is here to listen to this debate.
Mr Simon Burns
So that everyone fully understands the background, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that this same doctor wants to be a Labour MP, has been appointed by the leader of the Labour party to review Labour party policy on older people, and has worked for the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) in a research capacity?
Jonathan Reynolds
The Government are just not willing to listen to the people who will be affected by the Bill. Kailash is not alone in opposing it. If I read out the name of every organisation that opposes the Bill, I would run out of time.
Jonathan Reynolds
No, sit down and listen for once.
It is clear that the majority of non-biased, objective opinion is against the Bill proceeding. Never in the field of public policy have so many opposed so much and been listened to so little.
Should the Government not be asking themselves this: if the Health Secretary cannot convince the people who he wants to devolve power to, and if the Deputy Prime Minister cannot convince his own party members to support the Bill, maybe—just maybe—there is not that much going for it? The Health Secretary cannot even visit an NHS hospital, so low has his reputation sunk.
As has been said, the people who oppose the Bill, whether the royal colleges or Opposition Members, do not oppose all reform. Of course, NHS services will have to change over time, particularly in the provision of specialist services. The Labour Government introduced reforms, which used the private sector to the advantage of the NHS. The Bill does the opposite and uses the NHS for the benefit of the private sector. The problem is not reform, but these reforms. To say that anyone who opposes the Bill is against all reform is crass and simplistic.
Let us please put an end to the nonsense that the reforms are just an evolutionary approach following what has happened in the past. If that were the case, would there be an unprecedented groundswell of opinion against them? Once the Bill is passed, the primary care trusts and the strategic health authorities will be gone, and clinical commissioning consortia will be responsible for the whole NHS budget. Local authorities will take public health, and Monitor and the NHS Commissioning Board, not the Department of Health, will be responsible for the health system. That is a fundamental, top-down restructuring of the NHS, and no one wants it.
To justify that revolution, the Government started by rubbishing the success of the NHS. It began with the cancer survival rates and carried on from there, and every time the Government’s case has been knocked down. The King’s Fund, the respected health think-tank, in its review of NHS performance since 1997, clearly showed dramatic falls in waiting times; lower infant mortality; increased life expectancy across every social group; cancer deaths steadily declining; infection rates down, and in mental health services, access to specialist help, which is considered among the best in Europe. Again, I put it to the Government that they have no justification for the revolution that the Bill brings about.
The Government’s other justification has been that the NHS has too many managers, yet their reforms create a structure so confusing that, when an organogram of the new structure was published, it became a viral hit on the internet because it looked so ludicrous. What do the experts in the King’s Fund say about this? The myths section about the Bill on its website says:
“If anything, our analysis seems to suggest that the NHS, particularly given the complexity of health care, is under-rather than over-managed”.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
During the Bill’s passage, it has struck me just how vulnerable my constituents will be to doctors who are not as good as many of those who currently serve them well. One of our opportunities in Newham with a decent PCT was to deal with doctors who did not provide the right care. Is my hon. Friend , like me, concerned about the vulnerability of many of our constituents if the Bill is passed?
Jonathan Reynolds
I agree with my hon. Friend. If the Bill is passed, perhaps one of the biggest changes will be to the relationship between doctor and patient. Every time a patient is not referred for some sort of specialist treatment, they will wonder whether that is on clinical grounds or because their GP has one eye on the budget. Whatever the basis for those fears, GPs will be in a difficult position, and because NICE guidance will no longer be compulsory, the problem will be compounded when people compare their experience with that of others, using the internet or other means.
However, the most worrying aspect derives from the stories that we hear from parts of the country where individual GPs might have a financial interest in the services that they now commission. Such a relationship would not only destroy the trust at the heart of the system, but provide perverse incentives for how it might develop in future.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Government Members have said that the Government will spend an extra £12.5 billion on the NHS. Yet University hospital in Coventry must make further cuts of £28 million this year. The Government boast about the increase in the number of doctors, but it takes seven years to train a doctor. Who, therefore, was responsible for training those doctors? The Labour Government.
Jonathan Reynolds
My hon. Friend is, as ever, correct. He knows that the problem that all parts of the health service face is that they have been given money to justify claims from Ministers to Parliament, but they must ring-fence some of it to pay for the reorganisation—£16 million in the case of my PCT.
The story of the Bill is the story of British politics at its absolute worst. We have a weak and unpopular measure, opposed by nearly everyone, pushed through by two out-of-touch party leaders because they are worried that they will look weak if they perform a U-turn. Even worse, whatever Government Members might say, we all know that, had the Downing street operation been up to speed from the beginning of this Government—if, for instance, they had had a policy team in the centre of Government—the Bill would never have got through. After all, why, after spending so much time and so much money convincing the public that they could trust the Tories on the NHS, and after making a commitment that there would not be a further top-down reorganisation of the NHS, have the Government embarked on a deeply unpopular and unwanted top-down reorganisation of the NHS? The Bill has confirmed every swing voter’s nagging fear—you simply cannot trust the Tories on the NHS.
We have the Bill for two reasons: the vanity of the Secretary of State for Health and the naivety of the Prime Minister. Neither is a good enough reason for proceeding. It is time to drop the Bill.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I was cut off when I previously spoke on the subject. Perhaps that was welcome, because I was quoting a strangely prophetic entry in Chris Mullin’s diary. It was a conversation with a Labour Member, whom he describes as a “mild-mannered” Yorkshireman—surely an oxymoron—who said in 2005:
“I think we will lose the next election. The Tories will come to some sort of understanding with the Lib Dems and we’ll find we’ve opened the door to the market in health and in education. And when we protest they will reply, ‘But this is your policy; you started it.’”
That is the story of our debate.
Critics of the Bill often fail to realise how far Labour had exposed the NHS to all sorts of market forces such as EU competition law, encouraged and subsidised the private sector, and imposed “any willing provider” in all sorts of places where it might not have been appropriate. Essentially, Labour set up the building blocks for a market system.
The Bill continues that process. To put it bluntly, no one in this House regards the Bill as anything but risky. Even the Whips, who are normally the most cheerful about legislation, can barely summon a smile when dragooning Members into voting for it. Why? There is a simple explanation. It is the combination of the biggest ever organisational upheaval and the biggest ever financial pressure: the £20 billion Nicholson challenge.
The Bill is also considered risky because the confidence of staff and the public is low, concern is justifiably high, and, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, there are too many “known unknowns”—about the interaction with EU law, how GPs can commission themselves legally, and what the law actually means. Nigel Crisp, the former chief executive of the NHS, recently described the Bill as “confused and confusing”.
There is also a lack of trust. To some, the thrust of the Bill seems essentially unchanged. As the Secretary of State warned us in 2009—I repeat his words in case people missed them in the earlier intervention:
“Organisational upheaval and reform do not seem to correlate well.”—[Official Report, 19 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 225.]
The Bill also represents a significant generator of future over-regulation and, to some extent, a perpetuation of micro-management. There is no essential difference between a Government imposing AWP and telling everyone what to commission and when, regardless of local circumstances, and instructing everyone to have a Darzi clinic, as the Labour party did.
We are considering a strange spectacle—a sort of paradox. We genuinely have gradual improvement of legislation, but simultaneously there is increasing professional detachment and disillusionment. That is possibly because people view the Bill as big government; as a centralising measure. The right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) was right to point out that a huge quango had been set up— “the biggest quango in the land”, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who is now a Minister.
There are alternatives. Life without the Bill is possible. However, with or without it, the gap between professional and political opinion is fatal. The gap between ideology and evidence is fatal. The gap between what the Prime Minister thinks he needs—not to look weak—and what the NHS needs, which is a two-way dialogue, is also fatal. We must find some way of bridging those gaps. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has tried to find a particular way.
Spin and propaganda will not get any of us out of this. The reality will be played out in the next year and the subsequent year in hospitals, surgeries and homes. Spin will not help because, across the land, reality will kick in—and reality has a horrible habit of trumping spin.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I want to speak in support of the motion, which notes the e-petition and declines to support the Bill in its current form. As has been said but deserves repeating, the Conservative-led Government have no democratic mandate for the Bill; quite the opposite, given the Prime Minister’s promise that
“with the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures”
of the NHS. Yet this reckless and unnecessary top-down reorganisation will cost £3.5 billion, which could be spent on patient care.
Already in my local area and many others, patients are losing services, waiting longer and receiving poorer treatment than before. Salford primary care trust has ended its active case management service for people with long-term conditions—the service had been both popular and effective. NHS budget cuts have meant that a community matron service was ended in a local area.
The Select Committee on Health recently dealt with the impact of the NHS reorganisation in its report on public expenditure—my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) quoted it. The report concluded:
“The reorganisation process continues to complicate the push for efficiency gains...it more often creates disruption and distraction that hinders the ability of organisations to consider…effective ways of reforming service delivery and releasing savings.”
Cuts are having a direct effect on treatment. A staff member of the local branch of the Parkinson’s Disease Society told me recently that NHS cuts mean that GPs and pharmacists are switching to cheaper brands of drugs for patients with Parkinson’s, many of which are much less effective. One person was admitted to hospital. She became ill following a switch to a cheaper, less effective medicine. The hospital staff told her that she should be “firm with her GP” and insist on the more expensive brand.
The Bill brings competition into the NHS at a level that is unhealthy and unwanted. The PIP breast implants saga showed us the dangers for the NHS of a vast increase in private provision when regulation of medical products for use in surgery is so poor. In January, 14 consultants, GPs and public health experts wrote a letter to The Times about the expansion of private provision and the issues arising from PIP implants. They warned that the Health and Social Care Bill
“provides much less protection for patients should their provider fail than is available to people booking package holidays”.
With PIP implants and private surgery, there was a strong marketing sell to patients of the benefits of surgery but little information about risks, and little or no interest in aftercare. That is an important warning. We know that there are potential health issues with metal-on-metal hip implants, yet there will be pressure on patients waiting for a hip or knee replacement to go for private surgery to avoid the waiting lists that we know are building up.
The Bill risks creating a two-tier NHS and a return to the long waiting lists experienced under Conservative Governments in the 1990s—the Government have already watered down guarantees on NHS waiting times. I recall meeting a patient in 1997 who had been waiting up to two years for vital heart surgery, yet more recently in my constituency I have met people whose lives have been saved in a matter of days by the rapid diagnosis and treatment of cancers.
A number of local GPs have written to me calling on the Government to drop the Bill because they feel it undermines the bond of trust between doctor and patient. One GP told me:
“The reforms are being made on the cheap. GPs are being asked to do the work of the PCTs with half of the funding and all of the blame when problems arise. The Bill drives a wedge between primary and secondary care.”
That GP actually supports the theory of clinicians being given more input and supports a reduction in bureaucracy, but says that the Bill “does the exact opposite” because it introduces new layers of bureaucracy such as the clinical senate. He says that people coming in
“are doing so at different levels of understanding…leading to confusion.”
He feels that, ultimately,
“it will be the patients who will suffer…no one has asked the patients what they want.”
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend describes a GP in her constituency, but a GP in mine described his concern to me. He said that he is there to be a doctor and wants to care for patients, and that he does not have the expertise to be a manager. That is the overwhelming concern of his colleagues around the country. Does she agree that that is the danger of that part of the Bill?
Barbara Keeley
I very much agree. Only quite recently have GPs expressed such concern. I have never known GPs to come to their MPs in numbers, as they are doing, to complain about the implementation issues they are already finding. As I said, the GP I quoted supported the idea of GPs being more involved with decisions about patients, but he now thinks that the Bill is
“simply a mask for a cost cutting exercise…a way to deal with the NHS on the cheap. A way of farming out support systems…e.g. clinical support, into the private sector.”
He says:
“More money will be taken out of the NHS and put into the private sector.”
The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) asked us to trust the wisdom of our GPs. That is a damning indictment by a Salford GP, and one that I believe is echoed by GPs up and down the country. Trusting the wisdom of my local GP, I urge hon. Members to support the motion.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
I rise tonight to oppose the motion and the amendment. The motion is clear on the e-petition, on calling on the Government to drop the Health and Social Care Bill, and on declining to support the Bill in its current form. I see no mention of the risk register, yet when we debated it several weeks ago the shadow Secretary of State did not want to talk about it; he wanted to talk about the Bill. I shall come to the very confused position of the Opposition on this issue.
I will obviously not support the amendment—that will come as no great surprise to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George)—but I agree with his reference to patients’ organisations. Such references have been missing from the speeches of Opposition Members. I would prefer a reference to patients and service users, because my first point is that the voice of patients has not been heard. Those are not my words, but those of somebody who gave evidence to the all-party parliamentary group on mental health last week. We have not heard the voices of patients in the debate so far—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are welcome to stand to correct me, but I have heard no mention from them of the words and views of patients.
Karl Turner
I am obliged to the hon. Lady for giving way. The mere fact that more than 170,000 people have signed the e-petition surely must speak volumes to her.
Nicky Morgan
We could talk about the number of people who have taken part in the Royal Colleges petitions.
Karl Turner
I am talking about the 170,000 people who signed the petition. What are you talking about?
Nicky Morgan
Well, 175,000 have signed the petition, but there are nigh on 60 million people in this country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Mr Turner, do not shout over the Chamber. Either intervene or listen to the points that are being made. You do not have to agree with them; you just have to be quiet.
Nicky Morgan
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. After many, many weeks on the Health and Social Care Bill Committee, there is no danger of the hon. Gentleman agreeing with any of the points that I make, but that will not stop me making them.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talked about mental health. Those who spent time on the Public Bill Committee will know that I am particularly involved and interested in mental health, and I hope that we will have a debate on mental health in the Chamber soon, but what has struck me in discussions of the Bill is that mental health service users want to be involved in decisions about the commissioning of their services. They have that opportunity in the Bill through the health and wellbeing board, HealthWatch, the clinical commissioning groups, the involvement of the voluntary sector, and, as hon. Members have said, the integration of health and social care services. The Secretary of State talked about shared decision making. It is incredibly important that that is allowed to flourish under the Bill.
My next point—a damning and depressing one for a Member of Parliament to make—is the misinformation that has been perpetuated about the Bill. Tonight, we heard the shadow Secretary of State say that time is running out for the NHS. An hon. Member said that the shadow Secretary of State spoke in December of our having 72 hours to save the NHS, and another said that their constituents are worried about the services that will be on offer. All that is scaremongering, and it is unfair on those who do not have the time, capacity or inclination to read the Bill. We need to talk about the reality.
Grahame M. Morris
On the charges of scaremongering, is the hon. Lady aware that the George Eliot hospital in Nuneaton is engaged in conversations with two private sector providers—Serco and Circle—on taking over that provision? In my 30-odd years involved in the NHS, I have never known that to happen.
Nicky Morgan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point and the measured way in which he made it. That is welcome in the debate on the Bill. As a midlands MPs, I am aware of what is happening in Nuneaton, but it is not my constituency so I will refrain from saying too much. I will say only that the hospital management have asked in other providers because they are concerned and want to ensure the best possible care. Is that not what we want?
Nicky Morgan
That could be the voluntary sector or the community sector. They are all private. If someone has a physio appointment, it could be with a private provider. At the end of the day, we want the best care for patients and constituents. That is what we all want.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) will be aware that the George Eliot hospital is on the edge of my constituency and serves my constituents. There are six people on the shortlist of people it is talking to—six people who have asked to be spoken to. It is wrong to imply that the George Eliot has gone out and spoken to only two private providers. The rest are all NHS providers.
Nicky Morgan
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clarifying that.
The shadow Secretary of State talked about trying to be constructive. I am unclear whether he supports his own motion. Is he calling for the Bill to be dropped or for a conversation? This reflects the position of the Royal College of General Practitioners, which says that it now wants to work with the Government to implement the Bill, having previously opposed it. That is because the people in the NHS are beginning to recognise that implementation is critical if we really care about patient care and service users. There has been talk about how people in the House have stopped listening. I suggest that it is the Opposition who have stopped listening. I am fed up with receiving repeat e-mails. When I reply, making this point and trying to engage in a debate, all I get is another standard e-mail telling me about privatisation and how the NHS will not exist in its current form. That is not correct and not fair on the patients who rely on the NHS.
As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire said, implementation is already happening in many parts of the country, and that is to be welcomed. In Leicestershire, I have three excellent clinical commissioning groups and a health and wellbeing board being set up. I salute the public health professionals in Leicestershire who are working hard on implementation, the secondary care providers, the patient participation groups and everybody else who has taken part. The trouble is that implementation is being hampered by this ongoing political debate. I have a real feeling of groundhog day every time I come in and speak on this. We are going round and round in circles, and I repeat that the people who are missing out are patients and service users. Loughborough has taken the difficult decision to move our walk-in centre, but the GPs have taken that decision, and although I did not agree with it, they are clear that it will result in better urgent care services, and they are spending more money on them. I am willing to trust their judgment.
Members want to talk about the vote of the RCGP. It is interesting to note that out of 97,000 professionals, only 4,700 have taken part in the debate on the Bill. That should tell us something. We need to get on with the Bill now.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
It is good to follow the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). Hers was an heroically loyal attempt to fill time on the Government Benches. But she is wrong. The Government have lost the confidence of the NHS to make further changes, and they have lost the trust of the British people to oversee those changes. Why no apology from Ministers? Why no apology to the 1.4 million NHS staff for the last wasted year of chaos, confusion and incompetence? Why no apology to the millions of patients who are starting to see services cut and waiting times get longer? And why no apology to the British people for breaking the promise in the coalition agreement to stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care?
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I was contacted last week by a constituent of mine, Ruth Murphy, who told me that she had waited more than 40 weeks for an operation that had then been cancelled four times. She asked me if that was what we had to expect from a Tory NHS. That is the kind of thing that my right hon. Friend is referring to.
John Healey
Sadly, Ruth Murphy’s experience is more and more common. By the end of last year, the number of people having to wait more than 18 weeks to get into hospital for the operation they needed was up 13% since the previous year.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Like many in the House, the right hon. Gentleman will have received a lot of correspondence from professional bodies, such as the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and many, many others, and they all say that these changes will lead to an unsafe foundation for the NHS. Does he feel that they all want change, but the right change, and the right change is not what will be delivered by the Government here?
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is right. One of the great tragedies here is that the Government have squandered the good will and confidence of NHS staff that is necessary to make the changes to the NHS that it must make. This health Bill will make making those changes more difficult, not easier.
The Government could have built on the golden legacy and the great improvements that patients saw under 13 years of Labour investment and reform: hundreds of new hospitals and health centres; thousands more doctors, nurses and specialist staff; and millions of patients with the shortest ever waits for tests and treatments. Instead, we have a Tory-led Government, backed by its Lib Dem coalition partners, who have brought in the chaos of the biggest reorganisation in NHS history; wasted billions of pounds on new bureaucracy; and betrayed our NHS with a health Bill that will, in the long run, break up the NHS as a national health service and set it up as a full-blown market ruled, in time—for the first time—by the full force of competition law.
Everything about this NHS reorganisation has been rushed and reckless. This has been a master class in misjudged and mishandled reform—implementing before legislating, and legislating before being forced to call a pause to listen and consult on the plans already in hand. This health Bill was introduced last January. What was a very bad Bill is still a bad Bill. Make no mistake: this legislation will leave the NHS facing more complex bureaucracy and more confusion about who decides what and who accounts for what, and mired in more cuts and wasted costs for years to come.
Risk has been at the heart of the concern about these changes from the outset. There has been a lack of confidence and a lack of evidence, yet the Government are ready to manage the risks of introducing the biggest ever reorganisation in NHS history at the same time as the biggest financial squeeze since the 1950s. These risks were the reason for the growing alarm among the public, professionals and Parliament in the autumn of 2010, when I made my freedom of information request for the release of the transition risk register.
Last Friday the courts dismissed the Government’s efforts to keep secret the risks of their NHS reforms. Apocalyptic arguments were made in court, in defence of the Government, about how releasing the register would lead to the collapse of the Government’s system for managing risk. That did not happen when the Labour Government were forced to release the risk register for the third runway at Heathrow. Nor will it lead to the routine disclosure of Government risk registers, because the tribunal’s decision, like the Information Commissioner’s decision before it—both saw the transition risk register—was based on my argument that the scale and speed of these changes was unprecedented, and therefore that the public interest in their being disclosed was exceptional.
The Government have dragged out their refusal to release this information for 15 months. That is wrong. They have now lost in law twice. This is not a political argument but a legal and constitutional argument. It is about the public’s right to know the risk that the Government are running with our NHS, and about Parliament’s right to know, as we are asked to legislate for these changes.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
John Healey
I will not, as I have less than a minute left.
Release of the transition risk register is now urgent, in the last week before the Bill passes through Parliament. It will also be important in the two or three years ahead, as this reorganisation is forced through the NHS. I say to Ministers this evening: do the right thing. Respect the law, accept the court’s judgment and release the register immediately and in full, so that people and Parliament can judge for themselves.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
Let me follow on from what the previous speaker said about the legacy of the Labour party by expressing to him my concern about happened to the hospital in my constituency. “We went through the process of meeting patients’ needs.” Well, one would think that if a Government were meeting patients’ needs, they would speak to them to ask what they would actually like. That would be the normal thing to do in meeting patients’ needs: one would want to hear their views. Did the previous Secretary of State speak to the people of Burnley and ask what they wanted within that process? Not a one. Did the previous Government, in their programme to “meet patients’ needs”, ask the GPs what they would like? Not a one.
What did “meeting patient’s needs” mean to the people of Burnley? It meant the closure of our accident and emergency unit and our children’s ward, and their transfer 15 miles away to Blackburn. Hon. Members will recognise from what happened that the strategic health authority and the primary care trust, which made those decisions after taking advice from a gentleman called Sir George Alberti—hon. Members will also recognise from the name that he is not well known in Burnley—did not understand what the people of Burnley wanted. The strategic health authority and primary care trust transferred our A and E unit, which supported 250,000 people, if we include Pendle and Rossendale, and a children’s ward supporting the same number of people, to Blackburn, without one comment accepted from the people in my constituency. That was an outrage.
We campaigned vigorously to get that stopped. I held a march of more than 1,000 people through Burnley. What happened? Our local MP at the time—hon. Members will probably notice that after 77 years, the colour of the MP in Burnley has changed, and it has changed because of this—[Interruption.] A lot longer than you think. What happened then was that our MP was glad to support a change that meant taking a vital service from our town and relocating it 15 miles away. People were having to travel 15 miles to Blackburn after having heart attacks or suffering major trauma in car crashes. An example of a lady—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) wants to ask me a question and apologise for what Labour did, I am happy to take it. No? Fine. One lady had a car crash in the Burnley hospital car park—her foot slipped off the pedal and she crashed her car. She was in sight of the urgent care centre that we have now—an excuse for an A and E unit. What did they do? They did not treat her within 100 yards of the accident; they brought an ambulance all the way from Blackburn to take her there and sort out her problem.
Are Labour Members telling me that that is really good, when there is a chance that in future the people of our town will be able to have a say in what they want? Decisions about the health service will be taken by the GPs and the people they represent. If I have a problem I will go and talk to my GP. I cannot talk to the PCT, and I certainly cannot talk to the SHA, which sits in its landed glory in the centre of Manchester, so what is wrong with the Bill? We cannot allow what has been happening to continue, so I disagree with my hon. Friends down here below the Gangway. We cannot delay; we need to get on with it. We need to sort out the problems that we have. We cannot continue with what we have now.
There is a young lady called Rachel living in my constituency who suffers from myalgic encephalopathy, or ME. She has a friend in Blackburn who has the same problem. The friend in Blackburn was given treatment by the PCT, because it was a decent PCT. When Rachel asked the PCT that represents Burnley for the same treatment to help her, she was turned down—for £3,000. I went with her husband and her parents to speak to the people at the PCT and beg them to fund her treatment—I even had a letter from her doctor—yet the two ladies we spoke to cruelly turned us down. Her doctor was keen to do it; he will still do it in Rachel’s case. I support the Bill; let us get on with it.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I welcome today’s motion on the Health and Social Care Bill, because I know how precious the NHS is. We must do everything possible to protect it. I am proud of the fact that the Labour party founded the NHS. In 1997, when we took over from the previous Government, we had to rebuild a health service that was under-invested in and turn it into a world-class health service, which is what it is today. We reduced waiting times and invested in creating a health care system that delivered for patients. On our watch, there were 33,000 fewer deaths from heart disease each year, and we achieved the highest ever level of patient satisfaction. In my constituency we have seen real improvements locally and real successes in Tower Hamlets, with the highest childhood vaccination rates in London, improved health for those with chronic diseases such as diabetes, and reduced mortality rates from cancer and heart disease, although there is much more to do.
The Labour party has always been at the forefront of reform where it is needed and where it would benefit people on the ground. As my hon. Friends have already pointed out, we are talking about the difference between good reform and bad reform. My party will always support reform that is good for patients, but the Government’s plans do not offer that kind of reform. I have had thousands of letters and e-mails from constituents—
Rushanara Ali
Yes, thousands. I have had thousands of letters and e-mails from constituents—members of the public, as well as professionals—who oppose the Bill.
Rushanara Ali
I am sorry, but I will not be able to give way.
Those people are opposed to the Bill. They have been campaigning and have joined the 170,000 people who have signed up to oppose the Bill. They oppose it because they know that it will damage health care. This Bill will damage life chances; it will destroy the NHS.
In Tower Hamlets we had the first clinical commissioning group calling on the Government to drop the Bill, led by the respected Dr Sam Everington, who said:
“Your government has interpreted our commitment to our patients as support for the Bill. It is not.”
It is shameful that the Government carried on trying to use his name in support of the Bill. Those in the clinical commissioning group are concerned about the unnecessary bureaucracy that the changes will create and about the impact on patient care. They know that top-down reforms and restructuring will detract from their ability to care for their patients. That is what they have said. I hope that the Government will listen today, because in areas such as my constituency, where child poverty is higher than elsewhere—half the children in my constituency live in poverty—and where there is an inextricable link between poverty, health and life expectancy, it is vital that we have a health service that delivers for people on the ground. This Bill will not do that—Ministers know that, so they should do something about it. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I do not need any help chairing this debate; what I need is for Members to listen. If they want to have a private conversation they can go outside and have it, and then come back in for the vote.
Rushanara Ali
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
This Bill is effectively a form of backdoor privatisation of the NHS, with up to 49% of beds going to private patients. That will hurt my constituents and ordinary people up and down the country. That is why the Government need to think again. The Bill undermines the very principle of the NHS and the inspiration behind it. It highlights the fact that we cannot trust the Conservatives—or, now, some of the Liberals—with the NHS.
Waiting times are expected to go up. Already, between May 2010 and December 2011, they increased by 9%, and that will get worse. The Government need to take these issues seriously and start listening to people. In the east end, inequality continues to be a major concern, and we need to work together to reduce it. I reiterate the shadow Health Secretary’s request that we work together on this. The Government should listen, and they should drop the Bill.
As my hon. Friends have done, I appeal to the Government to think again, to think about the people of this country and to think about the people like those in my constituency who desperately need an NHS free at the point of delivery and free for those who need it. Those people do not need the marketisation and competition that are going to damage the health service. I call on the Government to drop the Bill.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
As in the many other debates that we have had on this Bill, there is a strong sense of déjà vu here today. Opposition Members grind out the same old arguments over and over again to attack the Government. They spin the same misleading, scaremongering lines about privatisation. They proclaim the end of the NHS and talk down the medical professionals and patients who will be empowered by the Bill. They continue to support the bureaucracy that drains vital resources away from front-line care, certainly in my constituency. [Interruption.] As he did the last time we debated this, when I mentioned that my constituency had very little front-line local NHS care, the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) arrogantly sneers—
Priti Patel
No, at my constituents, actually. The Bill will bring much-needed front-line NHS resources to my constituency.
We have heard the shadow Secretary of State recycle the same speech from the Dispatch Box like a broken record stuck in the 1970s. The Opposition have nothing sincere to say and, as in every other debate on the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has rebutted all their opportunistic smears and given a robust account of the Bill and the benefits that it will bring. He has also ensured that the NHS budget is being increased.
Opposition Members would have done well to engage constructively on the Bill, instead of spending the past two years siding with the smear campaigns run by the left and its trade union paymasters that seek to misinform the public, play with their emotions and frighten them. In particular, we hear the Opposition complain about the involvement of the private sector in delivering health care, but it is this Government who are getting to grips with the spiralling private finance initiative costs that are crippling many NHS trusts in England, for which the Labour Government were entirely to blame.
I find it astonishing that the shadow Secretary of State can come to the Dispatch Box, week in and week out, and bleat on about the private sector without having the courtesy to accept that his Labour Government blew hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash on paying private providers for treatments that they failed to carry out. [Interruption.] Opposition Members should put away their synthetic anger for a moment and accept that, thanks to the Bill, expensive private sector pay-offs will be a thing of the past. When they were in government, they were enriching the private sector and creating an army of fat-cat NHS managers while failing to support patient care.
Paul Uppal
Opposition Members often try to portray us as callous and uncaring about the NHS, but is not reform absolutely essential if we want an NHS that is free at the point of delivery for our children and grandchildren?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I mentioned front-line patient care in all our constituencies. This is about ensuring that resource goes to the front line, and that it is taken away from the back office, the bureaucracy and the managers.
Labour’s opposition to the Bill is shallow. Every time we have these debates—[Interruption.] We have had 13 years of Labour. Witham was once a Labour town, but my constituents have all woken up to the fact that, under Labour, there was no resource going to the front line of the NHS. Now, we are working across the parties to ensure that the Bill goes through Parliament, so that we can bring that much-needed front-line care to my constituents in Witham town. Labour’s opposition to the Bill is completely shallow, and every time we have this debate, its arguments are exposed as being ever more synthetic and opportunistic, with little connection to reality. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) talked about Labour’s commitment to the NHS. Just as history shows that Nye Bevan introduced the legislation to establish the NHS, it will show that this Secretary of State, through the Bill, has saved it for the patients who rely on it.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I want to pay tribute to all the hard-working individuals who work in the national health service, and to Dr Éoin Clarke and Dr Clive Peedell, who have been supportive of the coalition, for highlighting the dangers of the Health and Social Care Bill. I suspect that this will be my final opportunity to speak up on the Bill. I understand that there are only about seven days before its Third Reading debate in the House of Lords. It terrifies me that the Bill, which I have studied intently during its 40 Committee sittings, is going to become law. The Secretary of State is introducing a new health system. It is a system that no one voted for, and it will be unrecognisable in comparison with the NHS that cared for an entire population from the cradle to the grave.
Jim Shannon
Does the hon. Gentleman share the concerns of many Members on the Opposition Benches—and, I suspect, many people outside the House—that the Government will create a two-tier health system consisting of those who can afford to pay and those who cannot? Does not that fly in the face of what the NHS was originally set up to do?
Grahame M. Morris
That is precisely our fear, and I hope to develop that argument in a moment.
The national health service was established in 1948, against the background of the devastation following a world war. Men and women with a vision for a better, fairer society set in law the guiding principles and values of our NHS. Let us not forget that, during the post-war period, this country faced a bigger deficit as a proportion of our national wealth than we are facing today.
Grahame M. Morris
I am afraid not, as I have very little time.
Those people knew that the value of money would be worthless if it did nothing for ordinary people. Nye Bevan stated:
“No longer will wealth be an advantage, nor poverty a disadvantage. Healthcare will be provided free of charge, based upon clinical need and not on ability to pay”.
In contrast, this Government seem to see any money spent by public sector providers as somehow wasteful unless it is trickled through their friends in the private sector who can turn a profit. I am concerned that their whole philosophy is antagonistic towards the public sector. I was outside the Lib Dem conference on Saturday, lobbying the delegates. I hope that Lib Dem MPs will support the motion tonight.
Grahame M. Morris
No, I will not.
The Health Secretary’s problem is that no one voted for these reforms. He has no mandate, and 24 organisations are ranged against them. He has cited Clare Gerada of the Royal College of General Practitioners as his new ally, but nothing could be further from the truth. She has said that, just because the GPs are being forced to man the lifeboats, it does not mean that they agree with sinking the ship. They really have no alternative.
It has been suggested that Labour left the NHS in a dreadful state. Let us not forget that when the Labour Government were elected in 1997 only 34% of those surveyed in the British social attitudes survey said that they were satisfied with the NHS. That was the lowest level since the survey was started under the Tories in 1983. By 2009, however, public satisfaction in the NHS had more than doubled, to 64%. So, from that starting-point of cutting bureaucracy, decentralising powers and increasing clinical commissioning, we now seem to have an end-point, which is becoming clearer. It seems to be the NHS ripped asunder by competition and private provision.
This Bill is about establishing competition and entry-points for the private sector at every level of the NHS. In essence, it is a Trojan horse for privatisation. [Interruption.] People are saying that this is not true, so let us look at clause 163, as amended by the Lords, whereby for NHS hospitals and foundation trusts, up to 49% of their treatments can be set aside for private fee-paying patients. That must surely put NHS patients at the back of the queue.
In conclusion, Labour Members are keen to form a coalition with progressive Members who recognise the damage that these so-called reforms are likely to do to our health service. We fervently oppose the reforms as set out in the Bill. What we should be doing is talking about how to create a national care service, which would be the next and logical step for the NHS. On behalf of everyone in this country, my party, the Labour party, created the NHS and is now fighting to save it. We are building a coalition so to do. We will fight for the values, principles and future of the NHS well beyond the passage of this Bill.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The British public, as I think everyone here acknowledges, have a great care and concern for the national health service. That is not an idle superstition, as Conservative Members sometimes imply, but probably arises because we all interact with the health service when we are at our most vulnerable and at pivotal moments of our lives. Perhaps it happens when we are having our children or when a parent is dying or when we are ill and frightened. It is therefore unfortunate, to put it mildly, that no Government Members have been prepared seriously to engage with the depth of public concern about this Bill.
Let me quote a joint editorial, written by the editors of the British Medical Journal, the Health Service Journal and Nursing Times—publications that originally supported this Bill, to which fact I draw the Secretary of State’s attention. They describe the Bill as
“poorly conceived, badly communicated, and a dangerous distraction at a time when the NHS is required to make unprecedented savings.”
That is the consensus within the NHS. Ministers talk about the GPs involved in clinical commissioning groups. Of course GPs are moving forward and trying to engage with the changes—because they want what is best for their patients, not because most of them support the Bill in principle.
I have spoken about opinion within the NHS. As some Members know, my mother was a woman who gave her life to the NHS. She came to this country in the 1950s as a pupil nurse, and she ended her career working in a mental hospital just outside Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. She was part of that generation of men and women who built our NHS in the years after the second world war. In preparing for this debate and thinking about how to cut through the bluster, allegations, counter-allegations and politicking, I thought to myself, “Perhaps I should say what my mother would want me to say”. She was not a politician; she was not the head of a royal college; she was not a manager; she did not work for a glitzy Westminster think-tank: she was just an ordinary woman who was very proud indeed to say that she worked for the British NHS. My mother would have wanted me to say that the NHS is special and that from its earliest years it has been about change and adaptability. She would have wanted me to say, too, that politicians should handle it with thoughtfulness, not engage in party political games, but give the debate the care and thought that she always gave her patients.
I have to reinforce the point about the specialness of the NHS because part of the Secretary of State’s narrative, as this year has worn on, is that the NHS is somehow broken, and only his Bill can fix it. Well, we have heard that the Commonwealth Fund says that the NHS is one of the world’s leading health care systems for quality and value for money, and we know that it had the highest satisfaction ratings ever at 72%. Even the Secretary of State said on Second Reading that on a number of indicators,
“including mortality rates from accidents and self-harm, equity and access to health care—the NHS leads the world”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 606.]
This is far from a health care system that is broken.
My Labour Front-Bench colleagues and I need no reminding of how special the health service is and how we should respect the people who work in it at every level. We have spent the past year going up and down the country, shadowing workers in the NHS. We have met radiotherapists in Wirral, physiotherapists in Northumbria, ambulance crew in Cambridge, mental health nurses in Rochdale, cancer nurses in Birmingham, hospital porters in Leeds, paediatricians in Bristol and midwives in London. These were different people working at different places at different levels, but from every visit, we heard the same abiding message—“Our NHS is not for sale.”.
The second point that I am sure my mother would have wanted me to make is that from its earliest years the NHS has always been open to change and improvement, as I said. Workers are not opposed to change. Why would workers in the NHS be opposed to change? It is a service where people and science interact. Of course people are different first thing in the morning from how they are when they go to bed. Of course NHS workers are able to deal with change. No one needs to tell a nurse’s daughter that there have always been things in the NHS that could have been improved.
The Labour party is not opposed to change. It was our willingness to change and reform that drove down waiting times to unprecedentedly low levels. Some of the things we tried were so radical that some of us could not vote for them, but it is no discredit to my right hon. and hon. Friends that they were willing to try every lever they could to bring down waiting times and provide a service for the people who voted us here.
Ms Abbott
Time is against me, I am afraid.
The final thing that ordinary health service workers would wish me to say is that if anything has exemplified the unfortunate practice of politicians of saying one thing and doing another, it is the frequency and vehemence with which the Government decried top-down reorganisations when they were in opposition. In 2006, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), then Leader of the Opposition said:
“So I make this commitment to the NHS and all who work in it. No more pointless reorganisations.”
In 2007, the then shadow Health Secretary said:
“The NHS needs no more pointless organisational upheaval”.
In 2009, still as Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Witney said:
“But first I want to tell you what we’re not going to do. There will be no more of those pointless re-organisations”.
Then, the coalition agreement of 2010—I do not want to touch on private grief here for Liberal Democrat Members—said:
“We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care.”
We are thus presented with a Bill that is based on a bizarre sort of life support—the arrogance of the coalition leadership.
Now we know that the doctors, the nurses, the midwives, the health visitors, the paramedics, the cleaners, the porters, and the scientific and technical workers will do their very best with this Bill if it becomes law. That is what Clare Gerada was saying this morning: if it becomes law, they will do their very best, but why should they have to see an already discredited Bill on the statute book? Why should they have to see more bureaucracy, which is what the Bill will mean, and why should they have to see billions of pounds wasted at a time when the health service is under unprecedented financial pressure? Government Members have sought to denigrate those who oppose the Bill by saying that their opposition is merely party-political. Of course it is not: we are proud to be part of a coalition of concern about the Bill.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband), my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) spelt out our concern about the Bill. It is extraordinary that we can proceed while the Government are still refusing to reveal the risk register. There is concern throughout the NHS about the fragmentation that will result from the Bill. Government Members say that we are scaremongering—[Hon. Members: “You are.”]—but private sector companies such as Humana and Capita are already advertising their willingness to take over GPs’ commissioning powers on their websites.
The NHS does not belong to the Secretary of State, and it does not belong to the Deputy Prime Minister. It belongs to the people of Britain who built it after the war. The NHS is not for sale, and I urge the House to support the motion.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who observed in her vigorous and punchy speech that there was an element of déjà vu in the debate.
I was delighted to listen to the speech of the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband). As I listened to it, and to the speech of the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), I reflected on how odd changes in political fortunes are. Those two were the über-Blair reformers, but it was clear from their speeches—both thoughtful in their different ways—that they had turned away from their reforming zeal. I can only put that down to “what a difference a leadership election makes”.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) on another good and compelling contribution. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and for Witham, as well as the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle). It seems that in his part of the world they call a spade a spade.
I must also mention the speech of the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), which was at times fanciful, that of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), that of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), which was passionate but, I fear, misguided, and that of the hon. Member for Stallybridge—[Hon. Members: “Stalybridge!”] I mean the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds). I am afraid that I am from the south. I was disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not answer my question about the political allegiance of Dr Chand, whom he prayed in aid, given that Dr Chand has had aspirations to become a Labour candidate. Indeed, I think he even had aspirations to fight the seat that the hon. Gentleman fought, so it was very generous of the hon. Gentleman to mention him.
Let me make clear to the House that no party has a monopoly on caring for the NHS. We all care for the NHS passionately, and I find it distressing when Opposition Members seek to misrepresent the position by accusing us of trying to privatise it. Let me tell them that this party, my party—this Government, the coalition Government—will never privatise the NHS, and let me tell my hon. Friends to reinforce that message. Clause 1 of the Bill gives the Secretary of State a duty to provide a comprehensive health service, and subsection (3) gives a commitment—just as Nye Bevan did in his original Act—that it will be free at the point of use.
Let me tell Opposition Members that what they are saying is scaremongering, that it is unfair, and that it is a gross distortion of the facts. Let me also tell them that shroud-waving does not do them any credit. Pulling out examples that have no basis in proof and are simply intended to misguide and mislead the public is a disgrace—
Mr Burns
No, because I have no time. I have only five minutes.
The right hon. Gentleman was seductive in his speech. He came across as trying to be eminently reasonable by saying that he did not want this to be a party political football. I must say to him, however, that it is he and his friends who have turned the NHS into a party political football, and I must say to them that the NHS is too precious to be turned into a party political football simply for the purpose of trying to gain votes.
Our reforms will help to prepare the NHS for the future, making it more balanced and better suited to the demands of the 21st century so that it has a long and healthy life based on its founding principles. First, our reforms will give patients more choice, enabling them to choose where to go, see who they want to see, and influence the kind of services that they want in their communities. Secondly, they will give doctors more freedom to commission care for their patients, so that they can shape the NHS around the needs of their local communities. Thirdly, they will reduce bureaucracy so that money—£4.5 billion of it between now and 2015—can be saved and reinvested in front-line services. Those are the basic premises and that is the basic ethos of the Bill.
Not once during the speech of the shadow Secretary of State, and not once during the speeches of any of his right hon. and hon. Friends, did we hear a single answer to the question of what they would do. I do not know how many Members saw the right hon. Gentleman being interviewed on “Newsnight” by Jeremy Paxman two weeks ago. Some of us live in fear of that experience, while some of us come to enjoy it. Five times during that brief one-to-one interview, Mr Paxman asked the right hon. Gentleman “What would you do?” and answer came there none. That was because the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to criticise and try to scare people in order to win votes, but he is not prepared to confront, in a realistic and meaningful way, the challenges facing the NHS and the way in which it must move forward.
What we need is less carping, less criticism, and more constructive engagement. When the right hon. Gentleman says in his flowery way that he is prepared to engage in all-party discussions there is a hollowness in his claim, because he has no policies to discuss, and can identify no positive way in which to resolve the problems of the NHS and enable it to evolve to meet the pressures to which it is subject.
This Bill, which has been discussed at length in this House and in another place, is the Bill that will move the NHS forward and enable it to meet the challenges of an ageing population and an escalating drugs spend. I urge my hon. Friends to reject the motion and to reject the Liberal Democrats’ amendment if it is pressed to a vote, because neither is in the interests of the health service or those of the country.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I believe that Mr Chope was speaking when we adjourned the debate, and, if I can have his attention, perhaps he will indicate whether he wishes to continue to speak.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I was in mid-sentence, I think, when we finished last time at 10 minutes past 10. On that occasion, as we know, we had in the Chamber the sponsor of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). Since then, he has been unwell but he is back today and we are delighted to see him in his place.
The Bill was first introduced in November 2007 and has since progressed through Parliament, although no one would suggest that that progress has been rapid. If and when it gets its Third Reading it will go to the other place so that the many amendments that have been introduced, largely as a result of the broad-mindedness and good sense of my hon. Friend, can be considered. He is to be congratulated on having put pressure on the Bill’s promoters—the local authorities behind it—to compromise on many of the issues on which they did not, at one stage, appear to be willing to compromise. The Bill is now in a significantly better state than when it first reached this House, because it has been amended in Committee and during the three-hour sittings on Report, but it is still an unsatisfactory Bill for a number of reasons.
I articulated in some detail my concerns about the Bill during the nine hours of debate on a series of amendments on Report, and I do not think I can add much to the arguments I deployed in those debates. We are now left with what the Bill looks like after many of those amendments were rejected but others were accepted. All I shall say tonight is that I am glad we have been able to have a full debate on this issue. I am disappointed that there has not been wider participation among Members who represent London constituencies and that we are introducing legislation that will affect one part of the country while ignoring other parts. There is an issue of principle there that the Government need to address. Having said all that, I think the Bill is in a better state than it was.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
We have all enjoyed my hon. Friend’s circumlocution on this matter, but can he distil his arguments into a couple of sentences? Is he saying that he now regards the Bill as reasonably acceptable, broadly acceptable or still unacceptable?
Mr Chope
It depends. It is unacceptable to me but it is probably acceptable to the majority of Members of the House if one has regard to the debates and votes that have taken place. As with much legislation, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. When people in London find that they cannot go to the public toilet they used to go to without going through a turnstile they might ask, “Where’s that come from? What happened to the private Member’s legislation that outlawed turnstiles in public lavatories right across the country? Why do we now have a separate regime being introduced in London?” I wonder what will happen when they are accused of trying to sell their car on the internet and are deemed to be engaging in street trading by reason of a substantial extension of the definition of street trading. In fact, we have been able to restrict that, through an amendment, so that it will not affect ordinary individual householders as it would have originally affected such individuals in Westminster. People who try to sell their cars on the internet will be adversely affected by this legislation and perhaps when they suffer significant penalties they will contact their local MP.
I still have significant concerns about the Bill, but there have been many Bills before the House that I have had concerns about, not all of which one has been able to amend. If one is fair-minded, one must accept that progress has been made and that there has been a willingness on the part of the promoters and particularly on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green, who has taken the matter forward on their behalf, to listen. That is an important lesson for people who want to bring forward private Bills. There is a lot to be said for a bit of jaw-jaw and discussion and for trying to reach a reasonable compromise. That is probably quite a long answer to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), but I feel that after this length of time not much more can be said either in summary or in detail. That is why I am going to resume my place.
First, though, let me say that I am very grateful to all those colleagues who have participated in these debates, not least my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who has made quite a name for himself. In one debate he broke through the one-hour barrier. That is not a novelty for my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who I think will catch your eye shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker, but for those of our colleagues who have not yet broken the one-hour barrier, this type of legislation is fertile ground for doing so. I commend that process to my hon. Friends.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Yes, but not on Third Reading, Mr Chope.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
As always, it is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I might well have gone through the one-hour barrier on one occasion or more, but it is not my intention to do so this evening.
The Bill has been considered at some length over several years and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) and the promoters of the Bill on their determination and perseverance in ensuring that it has finally reached Third Reading. The finishing line is in sight, there is not much further to go and the end is nigh.
I have to say that whatever spin is put on the Bill’s provisions, it will give more powers to the local authorities within our capital city and will reduce the freedoms of the city’s citizens and visitors. It will also increase the burden of regulation on our capital’s businesses at a time when they ought to be devoting all their time and energies to improving levels of service, increasing sales and dealing with all the problems that businesses face. They are going to have to sit down and tackle all the new burdens, rules and regulations contained within the Bill.
Let me raise a couple of fresh points. First, given that the Bill imposes new burdens on businesses, I have to ask what has become of the one-in, one-out rule. The promoters have not given any indication of the rules and regulations that are being removed to make way for the new ones in the Bill.
There is one other reason why the Bill, even at this late stage, ought to be rejected. So much has happened in the years since the Bill first surfaced that there must be real doubt about whether it is warranted. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned the fact that the Bill made its first appearance in 2007. Since then, not only have a number of London local authorities changed their political composition and in some cases their political control, but the Mayor of London has changed, and we are about to enter a further mayoral election.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
May I reassure my hon. Friend that the Bill is promoted on behalf of London Councils, not the Mayor of London? Although over the preceding years the complexion of London Councils may have changed, the leadership of all three political parties and all 32 London boroughs and the City of London still wholeheartedly support the Bill, as amended.
Mr Nuttall
I am sure that is the case.
Since the change in the mayoralty of London, a further change has occurred—the passing into law of the Localism Bill. Under the Localism Act 2011 there is a general power of competence for local authorities. Had the Localism Act been around a few years ago, provisions in this Bill might not have found their way into it at all and might now have been rendered completely unnecessary.
As I said in opening my remarks, the Bill has been subjected to detailed analysis on consideration. Some progress has been made and I am pleased to say that the promoters listened to the arguments. The requirement that notices should be served by an accredited person has been removed, which is one small victory for those who highlighted the Bill’s deficiencies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, the Bill ought not to have proceeded. I agree, but the House is broadly in favour of its content. For that reason I will draw my remarks on this long-running measure to an end.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I support the Third Reading of the Bill, which has been subjected to immense scrutiny. There have been opportunities for detailed discussion of all aspects, including every clause and every line of the Bill.
Mike Freer
On the point about scrutiny, will my hon. Friend join me in thanking our hon. Friends the Members for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) and for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and the hon. Members for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for their work in scrutinising the Bill? It is fair also to thank our colleagues—for instance, our hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)—for their principled and resilient scrutiny as the Bill proceeded through the House.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I add my congratulations to the Members who served on the Committee and who have contributed during this debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) for his stalwart work in piloting the Bill through this place and making extremely rapid progress since we were both elected in May 2010, considering the slow progress that had been made up till then.
I remind colleagues that the Bill may have entered the House of Commons and the House of Lords in 2007, but its gestation began long before that as a wish list from the 32 London boroughs and the City of London. I well remember seeing a very long wish list prior to the Bill being presented to the House. That list has been considerably reduced.
It is important that we consider the wide range of ideas that emerged on Report. It was suggested that the council officials who were to serve penalty notices should wear a uniform, with a bowler hat, or that they should wear a fine tabard properly approved by the College of Arms. I trust we have accepted that that is not quite what we intended, and that it will not be implemented across London. But many good ideas have been accepted and encapsulated within the Bill, as amended. My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green has acted in a coherent and co-operative way in order to take in the ideas of others, which have been welcomed across the piece.
There can be no denying that there has been a huge amount of scrutiny of the Bill and the powers within it. Among the topics raised on Third Reading was that of turnstiles on public toilets. The purpose is to do away with the need for toilets to be staffed and for the councils to retain the money that will come from the use of the toilets by members of the public. There is nothing new in that in many parts of London, but those toilets are often operated by private companies, as opposed to the public authorities. That will change, and it is important.
Another issue was the sale of cars on the internet. We dealt with that on Report, but it is important that we put on record now what it is all about. At present, if people sell cars on the public highway and put notices in the cars, that is an offence and action can be taken. However, if unscrupulous individuals do not put notices in the cars but just park them on the public highway and advertise them on the internet, no action can be taken. The Bill allows council officers to clamp down on that practice, which is a scourge on many London streets. The measure will be widely welcomed across London.
The Bill has been scrutinised on the Floor of the House, in Committee and in an Unopposed Bill Committee in another place. It adds to the nine previous Bills that London authorities have put through in order to give London boroughs greater powers to take action on issues that matter to Londoners. I am sure the Bill will be welcomed by London residents. They will see it as allowing action to be taken against those who disobey the law. I trust that visitors from the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch, for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who have all contributed to the debates, will not be upset by the outcome.
I thank the Minister and the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) in advance for their support for the Bill, and all 32 London boroughs and the City of London for their support. I trust the House will give it an unopposed Third Reading tonight.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I rise in support of the Bill. It is has taken a long time to get to this stage and, I must say, has received an astonishing amount of scrutiny. I am not sure that I would wish to thank the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for his contribution in the way the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) did, but he certainly left no stone unturned in his scrutiny of the Bill, and he was ably assisted in that task by his hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).
The Bill is an important step. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) pointed out, it is supported by every London borough and, indeed, every Member of Parliament who represents a constituency in the capital. For that reason, I hope that it will receive an unopposed Third Reading this evening. It is very much in line with the Government’s call for greater localism and for local authorities to have greater self-determination, which the Opposition support.
The hon. Member for Harrow East dealt with a number of the clauses in his contribution. I think that there was a misunderstanding—if I may put it like that—from the hon. Member for Christchurch, who raised some concerns about the installation of turnstiles in public toilets. He also suggested that cars being parked on highways and then sold over the internet were not a major problem, but I know from the information I have received that local residents have on many occasions been put out by unscrupulous traders who are getting around the law by using the internet inappropriately, so I think that it is appropriate to enable local authorities to address the problem on behalf of the people who elect them.
Some clauses in the Bill have been lost, which I think is regrettable. For example, I think that it would have been helpful if the Bill still included the additional protections that were proposed for people living in houses in multiple occupation and the greater protections for restaurant users. Nevertheless, the Bill is worth supporting and, in view of the considerable scrutiny it has already been subject to, I hope that we will not be detained too long this evening and that it will be given an unopposed Third Reading.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
I join all hon. Members who have spoken in the debate in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) on the work he has done to promote the Bill—I am delighted to see him back in the Chamber in good health. I also congratulate and thank all hon. Members on both sides of the House who have contributed to the scrutiny of the Bill. I will certainly not detain the House for long. I have made it clear on previous occasions that the Government maintain a neutral position on the Bill, as is consistent with the conventions and precedents relating to Bills of this kind.
The issue that has been flagged up in the course of the debates we have had is the need for balance between localism, which is of course part of the Government’s policy, and a proportionate approach to regulation. If it is the will of the House that the Bill be passed, I hope that local authorities will exercise their new powers in a proportionate and considered fashion and am sure that they will do so responsibly. We want illegitimate behaviour to be dealt with but, at the same time, do not want the legitimate business activities of Londoners to be penalised. In so far as an attempt to strike that balance has been achieved, if the House considers that to be the case, the Government do not object to the Bill. It has been improved considerably by amendments, as has been observed, and a number of clauses that the Government could not support were removed on Second Reading. If it is the will of the House that the Bill be passed, subject to the aspiration that its provisions will be dealt with in a proportionate and responsible manner, as I am sure London Councils will, the Government do not object.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
20:25 - The House divided: - Ayes: 238 / Noes: 67 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Torphichen Sub-Post Office (Closure)
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
The reason why I have called for this Adjournment debate is to warn all Members of the House that what happened to the sub-post office in the village of Torphichen could happen in every constituency in the UK, and is likely to do so, given the plans of the Post Office.
I should like to draw a timeline for the House. At the time of the last review of the post office network there was no proposal to close Torphichen sub-post office. In my constituency there were a number of closures in very small villages with very small numbers of post office users. However, Torphichen is a village of over 600 residents living in over 300 dwellings. It is a very well-known heritage village where the priory of the Order of St John was founded after the knights left the Holy Land, and it is visited a great deal by tourists passing through West Lothian on their way to Linlithgow palace, where Mary, Queen of Scots was born. The village’s natural attractiveness makes it very popular with people who want to buy houses and commute into Edinburgh. It is not a village with a down-at-heel population who have very little use for a post office. Moreover, it has many elderly residents.
On 2 November 2011 the most recent postmaster, who had not been a shopkeeper before and had been renting the premises for some nine months, decided to give up the premises, stop being a shopkeeper and give up the licence at the same time. The person who previously ran the post office and very popular shop—the only shop in the village—had done so for a long time. That is the crucial point. It is the post office that has sustained the village shop for many years, as do many post offices in communities across the shires of England and the counties of Scotland.
On 8 November Post Office Ltd sent a letter under the name of Brian Turnbull, the change manager, to MPs, MSPs and local authorities saying that there had been a temporary closure. It put an apology for the temporary closure on the window of the shop. Interestingly, I believe that that is the same Brian Turnbull who used to be the manager of the post office in Bathgate, who got me and my constituency party to campaign for some years to keep his post office open. When his Crown post office shut, all the people who worked there got their books and were made redundant. Obviously he then got taken on to carry out the same task in other areas.
The odd thing about the letter was that it was written from an address in St Albans. It referred to a couple of telephone numbers, but when I called them I heard things like, “Press 1 if you want this, press 2 if you want that, or press 3 if you want nothing.” The website that the letter referred to was just a general website with nothing at all about what was happening to Torphichen post office. There was no way of communicating.
In the past, the network manager for Scotland would have had the courtesy to phone the Member of Parliament, because this is a reserved matter. They would have spoken to the Member of Parliament and involved them in any difficulties, temporary closures, or proposals for changes or for a reopening. That has always been the case until now. The new network manager for Scotland, Ms Sally Buchanan, did not take the trouble to do that. In fact, we had to search out her telephone number so that we could contact her.
Ms Buchanan had been contacted by Neil Findlay, the adept MSP for Lothian. He contacted the address in Edinburgh and received a reply on 21 November. The reply was interesting because it said that the Post Office had done modelling. I do not know when it had found the time to do that modelling between 2 and 8 November. Having done the modelling, it had decided that the Post Office Local option, which was mentioned when we debated the Postal Services Act 2011, would be best for that property.
We discovered that, despite the fact that somebody in the village had approached the owner of the post office building and offered to buy it, the Post Office had got the key from the previous owner and stripped out all the security that a normal sub-post office has. For some reason it drilled holes in the safe so that it could no longer be used to store money. When I challenged the Post Office on that matter, the reply was:
“That we removed the Post Office owned equipment, including the computer system, from the premises is not indicative of future service arrangements; it is normal practice for us to recover our property where there is any doubt over our ability to have continued access to the premises.”
As I wrote to the Minister and the head of Post Office Ltd, Ms Vennells, it is quite clear that this was an act of vandalism by the Post Office. I can see the point of taking out the computer, but not of ripping out all the security that a normal sub-post office uses. It is clear that the Post Office had taken the decision to downgrade the sub-post office without any consultation with the public.
I have never had to put up with anything like that. I do not think that any Member from any part of the House or from any party would find that acceptable. I certainly would not have found it acceptable in the past and did not expect it to happen in this case.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I am a neighbouring Member, representing Livingston in West Lothian, and I am therefore well aware of the community to which he refers. He said that there was no consultation with the community and little consultation with him as an elected Member of Parliament. Is it not the case that the code of practice for the post office network requires full and meaningful public consultation if any changes to particular post offices and sub-post offices are to be made?
Michael Connarty
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention because I am about to come on to that subject. The code of practice was attached to the original circular that was sent to MPs and MSPs. The Post Office apologised for the inconvenience of the temporary closure and attached to every circular its code of practice, which states:
“We’ll let you know about any change as soon as we possibly can. Sometimes, change is out of our control, but we’ll try to keep you as up-to-date about what’s happening as much as we can. We try to make sure you have 4 weeks’ notice before anything happens. If we’re going to make big changes, there’ll be a ‘consultation period’ which lasts about 6 weeks.”
I can verify that ripping out the equipment happened within days of the Post Office finding out that the closure had taken place.
From then on, it was clear that the Post Office had immediately been contacted by someone in the village who wished to purchase the building and reopen the post office—Miss Oonagh Shackleton and her partner Ian Jamieson, who run a very good manufacturing company in another village. They were keen to give the shop back to the village, and they talked to the Post Office immediately. We also know that the shop’s previous owner, Mussarat Aziz, who had been the sub-postmistress and was also the sub-postmistress in Boghall in Bathgate in another part of my constituency, was approached by the Post Office to ascertain whether she would take over the post office temporarily and run it as a sub-post office. On the one hand, the Post Office was saying that it wanted to keep the sub-post office going, and on the other hand, it had been approached by someone who wanted to do a similar thing.
At the public meeting that we held in the village, Oonagh Shackleton said that she had a business plan, which included financing a sub-post office. In the agreement that we had when the post office network review took place, the money that the Government gave the Post Office included money for running a sub-post office in Torphichen. The money had not been taken away or withdrawn, and it was therefore assumed that it would be available. However, for some mysterious reason that point was never confirmed to Oonagh Shackleton. She decided that she wanted to open the shop in the village again anyway, and she went ahead and purchased it.
However, now that all the security has been torn out, we are told that Mr Brian Turnbull says that if we want a post office service of any kind in that shop in the village, we can have only a Post Office Local. I call that blackmail. All that stuff about removing the equipment not meaning that the Post Office had changed its mind is clearly a bluff.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment at what has happened to his post office. In four locations in Northern Ireland—Ballyhalbert, Portavogie, Cloughey and Kircubbin—all the changes were made with consultation and a time scale for the changeover. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there should be a successful transition period before the handover, so that everything runs smoothly, and to stop debacles such as that in his constituency?
Michael Connarty
I totally agree. Every hon. Member would expect that. I am sure that the Minister would expect it in his constituency. We would expect the Post Office to say, “We have a closed shop and someone who might want to buy it. We’ll consult the public on what kind of set-up they want, and support the shop on the basis that previously existed.” That would have been sensible.
The Post Office’s precipitate action was driven presumably by a policy from above to drive down the level of service—that is what happens with Post Office Local. The Post Office probably now finds that action irreversible —or perhaps it acted deliberately to ensure that the action was irreversible.
If people consult Hansard, they will find that when we debated the Postal Services Act 2011 and heard talk of Post Office Local, I informed the House that I had had in my constituency its forerunner, which was called post office essentials. The shopkeeper who took that on board eventually after six months decided that it was not worth the trouble, because of a number of things. The shopkeeper of a Post Office Local has to provide all financing out of their own pocket; no money comes from the Post Office in advance. The Post Office will tell people that it might give them a loan in the interim to see them over to the point when they are viable, but in reality, financing for a Post Office Local—or a post office essential, as it was called—comes out of the pocket of the shopkeeper.
Another problem for the shopkeeper was that people could come in and say that he had kept their pension for five or six weeks and they would like to have it because they were going on holiday: they would be asking for £500, £600, £700 or £800. Small shopkeepers do not keep that kind of money in their shop, so the shopkeeper who ran the post office essential in Linlithgow Bridge in my constituency told me that he had to say to people, “I’m sorry. I can’t supply that kind of money. I can’t shut the shop to go to the bank, so you’ll have to go to the main post office,” which was at the other end of town. Of course, people then started saying, “What good are you?” and he started to lose customers. In fact, he decided it was not worth the trouble to have a post office essential.
That was in a town environment, but if it happened in Torphichen, and if people found that they were not using the shop because they were not getting the service, and that they had to go to the main post offices in other towns to get large sums of money, I believe the shop would become unviable, close and be turned into a house. I have seen that happen again and again in villages that have lost their post office.
The shop will be taken away from the village if the proposals do not succeed. The people who offered to open the shop in the belief that they would get a sub-postmaster’s salary, get money delivered by the Post Office securely, and have a safe, secure and insured transit of money, find those things denied to them by Post Office Local. It is a travesty that that has gone ahead, and everything I have had from the Post Office, right up to Miss Vennells, and sadly from Ministers, who have just copied letters coming from the Post Office, does not stand up to scrutiny.
I want to end with a couple of things that make me think this is not just happening in this village. I wrote to Miss Paula Vennells, the chief executive of Post Office Ltd, on 3 February, asking:
“Who took the decision to take out the Sub Post Office infrastructure?...Who decided not to re-open the Sub Post Office but to re-brand/re-offer a Post Office Local to the new owner of the Torphichen Sub Post Office?”
No reply has been heard from the Post Office since then.
We discover that the Post Office proposal, when we discussed the Bill, was to have new operating models—that is what they are called—in 50% of its branch network. Post Office Ltd’s own plans say that at least 2,000 branches will be converted to the new local operating model. That is potentially four sub-post offices in the constituency of every Member in the House. This debate is about that happening in a precipitate manner.
We have tabled early-day motion 2841 calling for a moratorium on the use of the Post Office Local model. As I have said, the post office essential model is not much different. Shopkeepers do not get parcels, and there are limits on the amount of benefits that can be drawn from the shops, because people draw them on the resources of the person who is running the post-office local, or sub-post office.
I am asking the Minister to look again at what has happened in Torphichen, and to say to the Post Office that it has not consulted properly or used its own agreement. It has not yet had a public meeting in the village. We took letters to the community council because nothing has been written to people in the village. Post Office Ltd is secretly badgering the person who has bought the post office to take a Post Office Local. It is saying, “If you don’t take a local, the village will be most upset because they haven’t got post office services. You’ll get no help or money from us, and you’ll get such a miserly sum for every transaction that it really won’t be worth your while, but you’ll have to take it or the village will blame you”—the person who rescues the shop—rather than the Post Office, which deserves to be blamed.
I hope the Minister will look seriously at this situation. The Government might say, “We can’t interfere; this is a commercial matter,” but this is such a breach of the Post Office’s own rules and practices. Will the Government say to their Back Benchers and to Opposition Members that that new model is acceptable? I hope not.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Norman Lamb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) on securing this debate. Adjournment debates are an important opportunity for Members to raise issues of importance to their own constituencies. He has taken that opportunity, and I applaud him for doing so. He has been passionate in pursuing this issue. As a Member representing a rural constituency, I agree with him about the importance of maintaining the rural sub-post office network, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to the concerns reflected in a petition to Parliament from the residents of Torphichen, which, I am told, is a very beautiful village.
The hon. Gentleman spoke passionately about the importance of the post office in Torphichen and about its future. It is a matter he has written to me about, so I have some understanding of his concerns. I think back, however, to the extensive debates in the House, to which he referred, on the Postal Services Act 2011, which was passed last July. He will remember that he opposed the Act, not withstanding its clear objectives, which were to secure the future of the universal postal service and, critically in this context, to secure the future of the post office network. As I said, I care passionately about achieving that.
I shall briefly reiterate, for the record, the commitments to the future of the post office network made by my predecessor as postal affairs Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey). It is important to do so, because the Government’s commitments are particularly relevant to the situation at Torphichen. Over the course of this Parliament, we will provide £1.34 billion of funding to secure the long-term and sustainable future of the post office network. That will be achieved through investment to modernise about 6,000 post offices, improving them for the future while continuing to provide funding to maintain a network of at least 11,500 post office branches.
Alongside that was the fundamental commitment that there would be no programme of post office closures. That is important to this debate and the situation in Torphichen in particular. As I explained in my correspondence with the hon. Gentleman, Torphichen post office temporarily closed—he made that point—last November, following the resignation of the previous sub-postmaster with immediate effect. That is really important. Those two words—“immediate” and “temporary” —are significant. Normally, when a sub-postmaster wishes to resign, they are obliged under the terms of their contract to give Post Office Ltd three months’ notice to enable the Post Office to identify a new sub-postmaster or mistress and, if necessary, nearby premises from which post office services can continue to be provided.
I understand that the previous sub-postmaster at Torphichen resigned with immediate effect, so Post Office Ltd had no opportunity to ensure a proper and timely transition of service in the community without a break in service. That was the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Of course, ideally, we would seek to achieve a smooth transition from one sub-postmaster or mistress to another, but that is simply impossible where the sub-postmaster resigns with immediate effect.
Jim Shannon
In the light of what has happened—I am sure that there are many other examples across the United Kingdom—is it not time that post offices put in place a system whereby they have someone on standby who can fill in as a changeover takes place? Is that something that the Minister would consider?
Norman Lamb
The problem is that we are dealing with private businesses. Most sub-post offices are owned individually as private businesses, so it would be difficult to put in place a network of people who are immediately available perhaps to move into premises that are privately owned and not accessible to a third party. The emphasis is on trying to get as smooth a transition as possible, but obviously there are real difficulties when someone walks out without giving any notice. I absolutely sympathise with the concerns of the people of Torphichen, who have been suddenly confronted with the loss of a really important service and who obviously fear for its future. I completely understand that concern.
As a result, the post office in Torphichen has been closed temporarily since 2 November last year. A temporary closure is exactly that: temporary—closed for a limited period while Post Office Ltd seeks to identify a new sub-postmaster to restore services. Where a temporary closure occurs, it is obviously preferable that it lasts as short a time as possible. I understand that in the majority of the 602 cases over the last nine months where a sub-postmaster has chosen to leave the network—whether because they are retiring or moving elsewhere, or for other reasons—there has been a seamless transition between the outgoing and incoming sub-postmasters, with no break in service for the post office’s customers. However, that cannot necessarily happen in all cases.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk used the term “downgrade”. Let me address that concern. There was no decision to downgrade the Torphichen post office. He talked about the removal of security equipment, so let me deal with that. I have noted his concern, but I should explain that where a sub-post office temporarily closes, the temporary removal of valuable Post Office-owned equipment for safe storage should not be misinterpreted, or otherwise misconstrued, as suggesting that post office services will be permanently removed or downgraded; rather, it is purely to ensure the safekeeping of equipment. It is standard practice until such time as the equipment can be reinstalled.
As the representative of a rural constituency, I fully understand the considerable distress and inconvenience that the closure of any post office causes to a community. That is why I am so delighted to be in a position to say that this Government are investing in the post office network, not spending large sums of taxpayers’ money closing it. I am well aware of the inconvenience that the temporary closure of Torphichen post office is causing the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, but I can give him this reassurance. Post Office Ltd has not considered the permanent closure of Torphichen post office, and is actively engaged in measures to re-establish the post office service there.
Michael Connarty
I hope that the Minister will accept what I said before, and what I will say again: the Post Office is badgering the person who has bought the shop —they own it—to take only the Post Office Local option, which is all that it is offering. There is no equipment going back in, no security going back in and no safe going back—it was taken out for scrap. The Post Office had already made the decision when it wrote to the MSP for Lothian on 21 November that it would offer only a Post Office Local—no consultation; no consideration of keeping the sub-post office. How can that be justified by anyone? All the money that is being spent on the Post Office will not be spent in Torphichen.
Norman Lamb
The hon. Gentleman uses the term “badgering”. My understanding from the explanation I have received is that discussions are continuing and that the owner of the shop is keen to provide post office services. There has not yet been a conclusion to those discussions, but I think there is optimism that a successful conclusion will be reached.
Norman Lamb
I want to deal with this issue, because it clearly concerns the hon. Gentleman, and I want to address his concerns properly. I have noted his comments about the future of the post office, and in particular his concerns about the Post Office Local model. Given the importance of the post office network, both the Government and Post Office Ltd have invested a great deal of time and energy to ensure that the future strategy for the Post Office strikes a balance between providing a fair income for sub-postmasters and ensuring that Post Office Ltd is financially sustainable. Both elements of the strategy are underpinned by the commitment to maintaining the network at its current size, with a focus on providing improved service for the Post Office’s customers. The Post Office Local is an important element of the strategy. It offers genuine benefits and opportunities for the sub-postmaster, for the company and also, critically, for customers.
Norman Lamb
The hon. Gentleman says, “Rubbish,” but let me develop my argument. The Post Office Local model has been extensively piloted over the last year. It is now operational in more than 150 locations. Critically, where it is being piloted, customers—the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Torphichen—are reporting high levels of satisfaction, and operators are seeing more sales and are benefiting from greater flexibility.
When we look in detail at the Post Office Local model and at the independent research that has been conducted, the reasons for high levels of customer satisfaction become apparent. Not only are post offices staying in communities, but they are offering access to the vast majority of post office services—95% of the transactions that typically account for customer visits across the network—during much longer opening hours.
That is really important. In the past, the service to customers has often been constrained by limited opening hours. With the Post Office Local model, a post office can remain open for as long as the shop is open. That makes it much more convenient for people to obtain those services in an evening, for example, if that suits their working habits. That will mean that more people will use the post office’s services in their local sub-post office. So far, the evidence is that sales have gone up by 9% in those Post Office Local models. Sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses are reporting their own satisfaction with the model. So customers and sub-postmasters support the model in the vast majority of cases.
Graeme Morrice
The Minister mentioned the discussions that had taken place on the move to the Post Office Local model. Presumably, those were internal discussions within the post office network. Has there been any public consultation involving local communities on the issue?
Norman Lamb
Let me deal with the consultation and with the issue of compliance with the code of practice. I know that the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk has expressed concern that the code has not been complied with, and I note that concern. The code of practice that was agreed between Consumer Focus and Post Office Ltd governs changes in the post office network, and it has to be followed. I see from the hon. Gentleman’s letters to me that Post Office Ltd wrote to him on 8 November to explain why the branch had closed and to say that the company would
“work to find a solution that will provide a post office service to the Torphichen community.”
The code of practice contains details of when and why a consultation will be held. In the case of a temporary closure—which this is—such as that caused by the sudden resignation of the previous sub-postmaster, the code states:
“We will aim to restore the service...as quickly as possible. As such, and given the emphasis on speed of activity to ensure the service interruption is as temporary as possible, this would not be a matter for public consultation—rather it is an issue of effective communication to keep customers informed.”
That is why a letter was sent to the hon. Gentleman very soon after the closure occurred.
As I have made clear in my correspondence with the hon. Gentleman on this matter, the benefits of the local model far outweigh the reduction in the availability of a very small number of services. He might not take much comfort from my words on this matter, but I hope that he will recognise that many sub-postmasters, old and new—potentially including those in his constituency—see the benefits of the Post Office Local model. Given what has happened in the 150 pilots that have been conducted over the past year, and given the very high levels of customer satisfaction that have been reported, I ask him to keep an open mind and to reflect on the fact that, if customers in other branches that have been piloted over the past year have responded so enthusiastically, it might just be that his own constituents in Torphichen would respond positively to a Post Office Local in that community.
Michael Connarty
But the Minister must accept that if the Post Office Local model does not provide an adequate income stream for the business model of the person who has bought the shop, and if the shop closes because of inadequate footfall in the village, it will be because there is inadequate supporting income, given the miserly payments from Post Office Local to the people who run them. If that were to happen, the Minister would be responsible for shutting that shop. He will see from the petition and the letters and notes sent by the people in the village that the village was dead during the period in which the shop was not open. No one was traversing the high street, and people were not talking to each other as they had no place to meet. If that happens again, the Minister will be responsible.
Norman Lamb
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that warning. I come back—[Interruption.] That sort of abuse is surely unnecessary.
Given that the pilots pursued over the last year have proved so successful—both for sub-postmasters and for customers—I repeat that the hon. Gentleman should have an open mind to the possibility that this might work in his community. I absolutely understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about footfall. That is why the discussions are continuing—to see whether this will work in that particular location. As I say, the pilots elsewhere have proved to be highly successful, so it is important to be open-minded.
I understand that the Post Office is holding the commercial discussions with the interested party in Torphichen, who is keen to provide post office services in the community. Crucially, a particular interest was expressed in the Post Office Local model—perhaps because of the flexibility it offers and its popularity with customers.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that there should be a moratorium, but given that this model has been so successful and so popular, it would surely be disastrous to stop it. We all have a common goal in ensuring the sustainability of the post office network. Given the quite dramatic decline in footfall over the last decade, things have to change; we have to find new ways of attracting people into the shop. One attractive aspect of the local model, as I have said, is the fact that opening hours are so much longer. That is an attractive prospect for customers in Torphichen, as elsewhere.
My Department has received many letters from the residents of Torphichen about the future of the post office, with many also signing the petition calling for its reopening, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I can tell him that that is very encouraging, because if everyone who signed the petition were to visit the new post office on a weekly basis, its business would be increased by over 50% on previous levels. If we can get agreement with the shop owner and the post office service is resumed, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will do all he can to encourage customers in the local community to use the facility.
Before I finish, let me reiterate the fact that the hon. Gentleman’s assumption that this is all about downgrading or closure is simply not the case. If we are confronted with someone walking out on a business, giving literally no notice, a temporary closure is inevitable, as I explained. Everything is being done to try to make sure that the service is resumed as quickly as possible for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. I thank him for raising this issue and for presenting me with the opportunity to reassure him and his constituents that steps to restore post office services in Torphichen are being actively pursued as a matter of priority.
Question put and agreed to.
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Pay and Consultants (Public Sector)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to be here, Mr Howarth, with so many hon. Friends and hon. Members, for what I hope will be an interesting, if somewhat controversial, debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I look forward to the Minister’s response to some of my specific points, and to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson).
To be clear about the topic, I intend to cover three closely related issues, which I believe raise the question of financial, moral and, in some cases, legal abuses in the employment practices of public sector organisations. Those issues are absolute levels of remuneration; the use of consultants—sometimes called interims—and agency and other alternatives to employed staff; and the avoidance and sometimes evasion of tax by the improper classification of employees as consultants. All three often occur together, although not always, and there are often other related abuses. I shall give examples of how that works and use one egregious example from my local authority that has wider implications.
Such practices would be offensive at any time, but when the country is in recession, when many, if not all, workers in the public sector at a lower level are facing pay freezes and when there are hundreds of thousands of redundancies, it is particularly offensive that what I can only describe as a new elite in the public sector appears to be immune to the worries, fears and constraints of ordinary working life and, in some respects, seems to be more comparable with those at the top of the banking or other private sector industries. The difference is, of course, that everyone thinks of bankers—outside the Royal Bank of Scotland, perhaps—as being in the private sector and responsible to shareholders. The people whom I am concerned about are responsible to us, the taxpayers or council tax payers.
The issue is not only controversial, but very topical. The Daily Telegraph has an article today headed “Council chief executives enjoy pay rises as services are cut”. It reports:
“Town hall chief executives have seen their pay packets rise by as much as £17,000 while cutting front-line services, including libraries, care for the elderly and bin collections.”
It goes on to point out that the average council chief executive is still paid more than the Prime Minister, with one in 20 earning more than £200,000 last year. At a time of pay freezes in the public sector, the average relevant salaries in local authorities were £143,995 last year, with total pay packages averaging £146,957.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman may be right to point out that the average salary in that category last year was £143,000 and that the average remuneration was £146,000; but does he accept that before 2010, or before the Government took action in 2011, the average was something like £221,000? There has been a significant drop under the Government’s procurement rules.
Mr Slaughter
I cannot say that I will keep away entirely from party politics in what will be quite a long speech, but I will try to make a point with which I hope all hon. Members agree. The hon. Members whom I shall refer to come from both sides of the House. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point but would rather that he addressed his comments, and that the Cabinet and other Ministers would address themselves, to the current abuses, rather than playing some sort of tit-for-tat game.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), will the hon. Gentleman at least acknowledge that rocketing salaries in some public sector jobs are not a recent phenomenon? That is something that mushroomed in the previous 13 years, under Labour.
Mr Slaughter
I suspect that it goes back even beyond then and that the tradition of public service and people doing jobs not primarily for the remuneration changed in the 1980s, when a lot of moral values went out of the window in the era of Gordon Gekko and Margaret Thatcher. We could talk about that all night if we wanted to, but I would rather talk about the current situation—and the issue is very contemporary. At 8 pm this evening on Radio 4, “File on 4” will cover tax avoidance through personal service companies. I think—I am never quite sure, with the BBC—that it will cover some of the same examples that I will give today. The brief for that programme begins:
“How strong is the government’s commitment to ending schemes set up to minimise tax? A number of schemes have proved popular in the private sector, including Employee Benefit Trusts. These have been used by football clubs for tax planning purposes, but are now in the sights of HMRC as it attempts to recoup what it sees as unpaid tax. But how widespread are these trust schemes and why are they so popular with companies that have large government contracts?
As the Treasury reviews tax avoidance by senior government employees, it has emerged that employees in other parts of the public sector are using payment schemes that keep them off the payroll. There is growing concern that paying public servants through personal service companies may be inappropriate.”
I have received briefings in advance of the debate from the TaxPayers Alliance and the Public and Commercial Services Union. The concern that these issues cause across the political spectrum is such that I could read a paragraph from each briefing, seamlessly, without affecting the flow of my argument. That is not something that can be said about every topic.
The Treasury review, to which the “File on 4” blurb refers, is the one announced in the main Chamber on 2 February by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in response to an urgent question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown). That, in turn, was a response to the exposé of the funding of the head of the Student Loans Company. The investigation at the time was, I think, by “Newsnight”, but I am now referring to a report in The Daily Telegraph. The investigation showed that the
“chief executive of the Student Loans Company, was paid through a private firm he had established rather than being paid direct—a tax avoidance mechanism which could reduce his income tax liability by £40,000 a year.
The disclosure threatens to undermine Coalition pledges to crack down on tax avoidance in the private sector and opens ministers up to accusations of double standards.”
Heaven forbid!
“Documents show the deal was signed off by David Willetts, the Universities minister, who said in a letter that it had been ‘agreed by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’ Danny Alexander.
Mr Alexander insisted he did not know that the arrangement allowed him to avoid tax, and has ordered an urgent investigation across Whitehall to see if the practice is widespread.”
I am sure that many hon. Members remember that urgent question and that many took part in the debate. I could not be there, but I have of course looked at the Hansard and will outline what the review was said to entail. After, rightly, quoting the Treasury’s “Managing Public Money” guidance, which states 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”
and making the bold assertion that
“There is no place for tax avoidance in Government”,
the Chief Secretary said in relation to his review:
“I have asked the Treasury urgently to review the appropriateness of allowing public sector appointees to be paid through that mechanism”—
the one used by the chief executive of the Student Loans Company. After being interrupted, the Chief Secretary continued:
“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.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2012; Vol. 539, c. 1001.]
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend not go further and say that anyone working directly for the public sector in any capacity should be employed by, and accountable to, the public sector? There should be utter transparency about their employment, and we should not have these ludicrous schemes that are probably to do with tax avoidance and lack of accountability.
Mr Slaughter
As always, my hon. Friend has summed up my 40-minute speech in about 40 words. I agree with him, but I will not sit down.
Daniel Kawczynski
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is making this point about tax avoidance. How does he regard the Labour mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, and the panoply of mechanisms that he set up to avoid taxation?
Mr Slaughter
My earlier pleas clearly fell on deaf ears. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have a debate on that subject, he is entitled to request one. This debate is not on that subject. It is about people who are employed by the public sector—they are actually employees—who are receiving, in many cases, high remuneration, but who are falsifying their employment status not only to make more money for themselves and possibly for the organisation for which they work, but effectively to defraud the taxman. None of those points applies in the hon. Gentleman’s case, and if we go down those avenues, we will not get far with this debate. I hope that he has not come here today to score points—or to fail to score points.
Let me return to the urgent question on 2 February. I think that it is fair to say that the Chief Secretary was struggling that day. I think that he was trying to come to terms with what had effectively been exposed in the media a couple of days before. Hon. Members from all parts of the House raised other examples. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) raised the case of the chief operating officer of rural payments. The innovation director of the Technology Strategy Board has been referred to subsequently, as have at least 25 senior officials at the Department of Health and employees of health trusts.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the review that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary announced. Is it not quite extensive in its scope, taking on board more than 4,000 contracts across Whitehall? Moreover, it is already having the effect of terminating some of the arrangements that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. It is, therefore, a review that he should welcome.
Mr Slaughter
Oh, I do welcome the review. I think that the hon. Gentleman may be quoting from The Guardian article in the debate pack. It said:
“Treasury review of the extent to which civil servants channel salaries into tax-efficient private firms is to look at more than 4,000 postings across Whitehall and its quangos—and is expected to conclude that such schemes must end for full-time permanent staff, even if the arrangement led to a net financial gain for government departments.
The Department of Health is deciding whether to cancel contracts paid to at least 25 staff via private firms worth over £4m… The Guardian has been alerted to similar schemes operating in NHS trusts and primary care trusts. In one recent case, the Milton Keynes Hospital paid its acting chief executive Mark Millar via a partnership called Millar Management Associates. There is nothing illegal in staff being employed as consultants, especially if they are temporary.”
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
While my hon. Friend is on the subject of acting consultancies in the national health service, does he share my concern about the signal that was sent out by the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust last year when it appointed an interim chief executive allegedly on an arrangement of £2,000 a day for up to 200 days. Does he accept that, with a £35 million deficit, that sends out a very worrying message to the public? Moreover, does he not think that the fact that the chief executive has now been appointed the permanent managing director—I welcome that move and do not throw any doubts on his competence to do the job—implies that that consultancy arrangement was wrong?
Mr Slaughter
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our constituencies share the world-renowned Imperial health care trust. When I was first introduced to the new chief executive, I assumed that he was just that—a paid chief executive. It was only when I read the articles in The Sunday Times that I understood that he was being paid £2,000 a day as a consultant. I do not know whether it was always the intention to regularise his position or whether it was The Sunday Times and perhaps my hon. Friend who acted as a prompt. I am, however, pleased that the chief executive, Mark Davies, applied for the job and has now been appointed to the full-time position. If that is a precedent in removing such anomalies and abuses, I hope that it will be followed.
Going back to the point made by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), I do not object at all to the review. However, as he will have seen, the issue goes wider than Departments and non-departmental public bodies. It is my understanding—the Minister may want to correct me when she responds or even now—that that is the limit of the review at the moment. Even in the statement on 2 February, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) asked about local government—a topic to which I will return—and the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) asked about the BBC. Will the Minister update us on whether the terms of reference of the review have been extended to cover those areas, what progress has been made so far and when will we see a report?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
To assist the debate in its early stage, I am happy to confirm that the review extends to all bodies that are covered by Her Majesty’s Treasury’s guidance on managing public money, with which Members will be familiar. That includes all central Government bodies, such as Departments and their arm’s length bodies. On the subject of the BBC, I can confirm that the review will not cover arrangements in public corporations, public broadcasting authorities or the publicly owned banks. I hope that that information is of assistance.
Mr Slaughter
That is disappointing. I wish that both local government and councillors were covered. The leader of Kensington and Chelsea is paid a six-figure salary. The days of councillors being volunteers or being paid small amounts have gone. The review should also cover health trusts, non-executive directors of health trusts, the whole panoply of organisations that surround the public sector bodies, the Local Government Association and the Local Government Improvement and Development board, because those are the organisations in which abuses are likely to take place. We are talking about bodies that recruit people who have retired from the public sector and who, because of restrictions on their earnings thereafter—such earnings affect pension rights—will be prone to adopt these devices to avoid being classed as employees.
The figures for high pay in the public sector speak for themselves. The Chief Secretary conceded that he had cognisance of more than 180 civil servants on packages in excess of £142,500. I commend the work of the TaxPayers Alliance—I have been doing that quite often recently—in publishing the “Town Hall Rich List”, which shows that the highest paid chief executives, who are, I think, in Wandsworth, are on around £350,000 a year. That list of shame, which is regularly updated and published, is a great public service.
Let me just say, though, that as someone who has spent 20 years in local government, I have worked with some very fine public servants who did not do the job primarily for money. I even had a chief executive who capped his own salary, which is not something that we see much of at the moment. However, I have also had the unedifying experience of seeing the last chief executive of Hammersmith and Fulham, which is one of the smallest unitary local authorities in the country, retire on a salary of £281,000 a year. That salary had been increased by £11,000 in the last year of service—the salaries of everyone else in the organisation had been frozen—in order, I suspect, to enable him to retire on the maximum pension. The authority would not divulge the details of that pension but the House of Commons Library calculated that it would be substantially in excess of £100,000 a year. In addition, he received a lump sum payment of a sum much larger than £250,000 a year. To my mind, that is not where local government should be.
I will return to the issue of consultants. I say again that I am grateful to a number of organisations for their help, particularly the PCS union, which takes an interest in this subject.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
I want to make a point before my hon. Friend moves on from consultants. Before I do so, Mr Howarth, I give early apologies that I have to leave Westminster Hall early as I am on Select Committee business with the Culture, Media and Sport Committee this morning. Coincidentally, the Committee will be taking evidence from the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is the Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who is closing libraries up and down the country. Can my hon. Friend just clarify his earlier comments about chief executives being awarded something like a 17% pay increase? Is that accurate?
Mr Slaughter
It must be accurate—it is in The Daily Telegraph.
The PCS union quantifies the amount spent by Government on consultants at more than £1 billion; I think that that amount is based on figures from the National Audit Office. Before Government Members jump up and down, I accept that the figure paid to consultants has been too high for too long, but that is not any reason for not addressing the issue.
The PCS union says that, when hundreds of thousands of jobs are being cut in the public sector and its members on low pay are being forced to take pay cuts, it is not right that, for example, the Ministry of Justice—an organisation with which I am reasonably familiar—spent £43 million on consultants between May and November 2011. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, or LASPO, is currently being mauled in the House of Lords, particularly about the issue of social welfare legal aid. If that figure of £43 million were annualised, the cost of consultants to the MOJ would effectively pay for the entire cuts in social welfare legal aid. So, all the agonising about cuts to citizens advice bureaux, law centres and to the funding for disabled people seeking advice on welfare benefits, housing or whatever would be unnecessary, if only the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice could address his habit for consultants.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene, and I must say that I have a lot of sympathy with the general principle of some of the things that he has said this morning, but not with everything he has said. Is his opposition to the public sector’s use of consultants completely based on principle, even if such use of consultants adds to efficiency and does not cost any more money? Even if those situations existed, which in some cases I believe they do, would the hon. Gentleman still oppose the use of consultants just on principle?
Mr Slaughter
There is a definition of consultants that I will give—it is not the PCS definition, which I think is plagiarised anyway:
“People who borrow your watch, tell you what time it is and then walk off with it.”
The definition that I will use is:
“People who do a specific task, which is needed, usually for a short period of time, and which is a particular piece of expertise that is being bought in.”
What we are talking about this morning is—in very many cases—absolutely not that, and I will now give the hon. Gentleman an example. I hope that it is not a typical example, but it is certainly a very shocking example.
I will give way once more.
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman is being very kind in giving way. Just before he moves on from this issue, I want to ask him a question. He has talked about the £43 million spent by the MOJ on consultants. Can he tell the House exactly what that £43 million was for, and can he say whether there was a public sector evaluation of the cost if the work for which that money was paid had been carried out in-house? I think an answer to that question would aid the debate.
Mr Slaughter
I think answering that question would take us off on a siding, albeit an interesting siding, and I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman really wanted to come to Westminster Hall today to defend that spending by the MOJ. If he does, he is very brave, but there it is.
Mr Slaughter
Of course, the MOJ pales into insignificance beside the Ministry of Defence and what are euphemistically—well, perhaps appropriately—known as FATS, which are framework agreements for technical support, and beside the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent through that route. The Department for Work and Pensions is another major offender. According to the PCS, “business consultancy services” cost the DWP £18.2 million in 2010-11. At a time when the Government could not find the money for the future jobs fund, that seems to be wrong. I could give a lot more examples in relation to Government Departments.
Mr Slaughter
I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I want to press on and hopefully finish by ten minutes past 10.
As I was saying, I could give a lot more examples about Government Departments, but I think that the point is made and I hope that it is a point that the Minister, when she responds to the debate, will say the Government are taking very seriously. I hope that takes seriously not only the issues about the levels of remuneration and taxation problems but whether the public sector is getting good value for money for the number and type of consultants that are hired.
I will give just one other little anecdote about consultants and again it is an anecdote from my own backyard. My local authority has got rid of 1,800 staff in the last five years—I think that is the figure—and that is a substantial proportion of its work force. A lot of that is related to cuts and a lot of it has proved unwise. However, the local authority has now cut so many staff that it is now “taking on”—to use the authority’s own words, which it uses to defend the number of consultants that it employs—agency staff and consultants, simply because it has got rid of so many PAYE staff. That cannot be the right way to run a public sector organisation.
Let me give another example of what I think we all know as IR35. Let me talk about a particular case in Hammersmith and Fulham. It has received some media attention, but I am not sure that the full horror of it has been expounded. It relates to a particular gentleman. I am sorry to have to talk about individuals, but obviously this issue is about individuals who have these consultancy contracts. That gentleman is called Nick Johnson. He used to be the chief executive of the London borough of Bexley, on a salary in excess of £200,000. His partner—his common-law wife, if that phrase is still in use—is a woman called Kate Davies, who is the chief executive of Notting Hill housing trust, and she is also on a salary of about £200,000. They jointly set up a personal service company, or PSC, called DaviesJohnson, to tender for work. I should point out that Ms Davies is still the chief executive of the Notting Hill housing trust, but Mr Johnson is no longer the chief executive of Bexley.
Rather than explaining their situation in my words, I will quote from a letter; although it is quite long, reading from it will save time. It was written by Councillor Stephen Cowan, who is the leader of the opposition in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 16 December 2010, which is some time ago. As far as I am aware, Mr Cowan is still awaiting a response to that letter. Mr Cowan wrote:
“I was interested to read your view that ‘Councils could cut chief executive’s pay’ as a means of saving money in these difficult times. You will no doubt have seen this article in the Mail on Sunday when it appeared on the 31st October 2010.”
The letter goes on to talk about the contents of that article. It continues:
“I believe that the issue it raises warrants investigation by your Department and the loopholes that have allowed this to occur need to be tightened. Such measures are likely to result in significant savings to the public purse. The Mail on Sunday reveals how Nick Johnson ‘receives a total of £310,000 a year, making him what is believed to be the highest paid council-funded official in Britain.’ However, this money is a combination of Dr Johnson’s ability to draw an alleged £50,000 local government pension as well as invoicing H&F Homes”—
that is, Hammersmith and Fulham Homes, which is the council’s ALMO, or arm’s length management organisation—
“over £260,000 a year. He is able to claim both these amounts because the ALMO’s money is paid to his private limited company (Davies Johnson Ltd) rather than directly to him. On the 24th of June 2010, Nick Johnson gave evidence to the Borough’s Housing Health and Audit Social Care Select Committee to say that he worked ‘full time’ for H&F Homes and now also LBHF”—
that is, the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Mr Cowan went on:
“Nick Johnson worked as Bexley council’s chief executive. But he retired earlier than normal pensionable age on 4th November 2007. This happened after he was deemed to be ‘permanently unfit to discharge his duties or any comparable duties as defined by the Local Government Pension Scheme regulations.’ In a note to Bexley Councillors, the current Chief Executive of that authority explained that an ‘Independent Occupational Health Consultant’ reached the conclusion about Dr. Johnson’s health and the decision to retire him was made by ‘the Acting Chief Executive’…However, Dr. Johnson started work in Hammersmith and Fulham on 11th February 2008—fourteen weeks and one day after he retired. Since then he has billed Hammersmith and Fulham around £700,000…Bexley councillors have questioned why they are paying a pension to an individual who appears to still be working full time… Many people have raised concerns about this.”
Mr Cowan goes on to quote newspaper articles and adds that Conservative colleagues argue that Nick Johnson is good value for money. I think that £260,000-plus is a lot of money to pay a local government official. I question whether such payments have been correctly monitored. Only recently, the chief executive officer wrote to inform me that Mr Johnson’s company is paid £950 a day, which equates to an annual salary of approximately £160,000.
Mr Cowan then goes on to request action by the Department for Communities and Local Government, which has not been forthcoming.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that what people find so shocking is not just the huge sums that are being paid out to these individuals, but the fact that many of the organisations in question do not even pay their lowest paid employees the London living wage, and the discrepancy between the pay at the bottom and the pay at the top is absolutely huge these days?
Mr Slaughter
My hon. Friend is right. If I have time, I will comment on the wider trend towards the involvement of such private sector companies in the public sector, which seems to be something that the Government intend to encourage.
I have calculated, from documents supplied to me, the sum that Mr Johnson has been paid so far since 2007. As a consultant—as a PSC—to the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and its daughter organisations, he has been paid £957,481, just shy of £1 million. That was for a series of contracts, but principally for being chief executive of the arm’s length management organisation running the council’s public housing in the borough, and subsequently as the council’s director of housing and regeneration. To my mind, that is a post of employment, not a post as a consultant.
Following that letter 15 months ago in December 2010, the matter was not allowed to rest there, despite the fact that the local authority wished that it would. Eventually, audit reports were commissioned to look not only at Mr Johnson and DaviesJohnson, but at the wider trend for Hammersmith and Fulham council to employ consultants. I want to put on record the shocking findings about how that local authority conducted itself. If this practice is common in other local authorities, I urge the Minister to consider that this needs to be looked at as surely as Government Departments are.
Following the complaints made by the leader of the opposition, a report from Deloitte was commissioned to undertake an internal audit of the use of personal service companies across the council and in Hammersmith and Fulham Homes, and in particular the contracts between DaviesJohnson and Hammersmith and Fulham Homes and the council. In summary, the findings were:
“There is currently no corporate policy covering the use of consultants appointed to interim positions or as temporary staff, regardless if they are self employed consultants or operating as Personal Service Companies (PSCs);
We were unable to obtain evidence of any formal, documented selection and recruitment process being followed for the appointment of any of the PSCs within our sample;
For the seven appointments examined that were procured by the Council, we were only able to obtain one agreement;
For the four PSC appointments within H&F Homes we identified a number of issues including agreements not being available for the entire period of engagement; the absence of signed original agreements; an agreement with a dissolved company and an agreement between the ALMO and the individual rather than the company;
PSC invoices tested were found to be authorised in all instances tested;
Departments are required to submit returns detailing all consultancies appointed; however this does not include individuals covering posts as interims. Therefore there is no complete, centralised listing of all PSCs currently in use by the Council; and
We were unable to obtain evidence of formal performance monitoring of PSCs.
2.2 These findings have led to a ‘nil assurance’ in this area and seven recommendations have been made that are currently being implemented. All the recommendations have been accepted by the council. Timeframes for implementation are given in the report and range through to September 2011 for all recommendations to have been implemented.
2.3 The internal audit identified three individuals in particular where the auditors thought that professional advice on tax status should be sought, including the contracts in relation to Davies Johnson Ltd that the Audit and Pensions Committee had asked to be reviewed.”
It separately looked at the issue of DaviesJohnson. Although the view of Deloitte is not necessarily that Mr Johnson was an employee, in words that may come back to haunt the local authority, it states:
“the application of the tax and NIC regulations in such situations is not clear cut and HMRC may form a different view. Therefore, to this end, we would strongly recommend that, if not done so already, H&F Homes Ltd documents the services provided by Davies Johnson Ltd during this period, which will support the tax/NIC application by H&F Homes Ltd and help counter any potential challenge from HMRC should it consider there might be a case to form a view that NJ was an officer holder and an element of the payments made were solely linked to that of NJ holding the office of Chief Executive.”
He held that post for more than three years on a remuneration of approximately £1,000 a day.
My next point deals with where the investigations are going now. I urge the Minister to consider how unlikely it is that organisations such as Hammersmith and Fulham will put their house in order. I am sorry to single out Hammersmith and Fulham, because it is my local authority. I am sure that the same malpractices occur elsewhere. I pay tribute to local media—the Hammersmith & Fulham Chronicle, the Shepherd’s Bush blog and the Hammersmith Today website—which have highlighted these issues constantly and have been the driving force, along with the opposition on the council, in getting any movement on the issues. The council remains stubbornly of the view that it will not investigate these matters. It has now instructed PricewaterhouseCoopers, following the Deloitte report, to look at whether it is or is not complying with the law—in other words, whether it has or has not broken tax law.
Deloitte has revealed that, on June 30 last year, there were 69 consultants working at Hammersmith and Fulham council, 17 of them working via personal service limited liability companies. It found that Hammersmith and Fulham council had broken all its own rules for hiring consultants. There was no evidence of a formal documented selection recruitment process and no evidence of formal performance monitoring. The council had potentially wasted up to £12 million in this way, potentially operating outside UK tax laws with a possible £15 million in back taxes, fines and other sanctions that could hit the borough’s finances. That was the reason for bringing in PricewaterhouseCoopers at the end of last year, but—this is an important “but”— PricewaterhouseCoopers’ remit is simply to look at the future. It is to look at whether— this is in the response from the director of finance to a member of the audit committee—contracts in Hammersmith and Fulham will comply with tax legislation in future. What it should be looking at is whether it has done that in the past. If it will not do that, HMRC should.
There was a council meeting on 29 February. The motion put by the opposition stated:
“This council is committed to full cost transparency wherever possible to enable tax payers to hold us to account. This council notes that it has employed 540 agency workers over the past year—20% of the directly employed workforce.
This council has also employed sixty-nine consultants, with almost twenty of those employees working via service limited companies. The Local Government Pension Scheme forbids retired local government employees from being re-employed in local government. However, a personal service limited company allows this rule to be side-stepped.
However, there are clear rules laid down by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about what defines a consultant and there is a likelihood that the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham may have breached those rules in directly employing people to work in its management structure as “consultants” via personal service companies.
This Council therefore resolves:
1. To inform HMRC of all cases where it has employed individuals via personal service companies and ensure its tax obligations are met and up to date
2. To report to Cabinet and the Audit and Pensions Committee full details of any back-taxes and fines issues by HMRC on IR35
3. To review its use of agency workers looking for more cost effective means of employing individuals and to publish all details of agency workers employed by LBHF and/or its subsidiaries and details the salaries of all of those over £100,000 per year.”
That was proposed by the opposition and voted down by the administration.
The final and perhaps the most shocking matter is this. I have dealt in some detail with the DaviesJohnson contract, as it is such a significant contract—more than £1 million was paid to a private company—and because it opened the door to the other abuses occurring in the authority. However, when an opposition member of the audit committee asked whether the council should report the DaviesJohnson contract to HMRC, the director of finance said that
“given the high profile of the situation in the media, HMRC would be aware of the situation, and had not approached the Council. If the Council approached them directly, a further inquiry would take place, with further impact on officer time and resources. Given the PWC findings, she did not propose to refer the matter to HMRC.”
The opposition councillor
“then proposed that the decision to refer or not to refer the matter to HMRC be put to the vote. The vote having been tied 2-2, it was agreed, on the Chairman’s casting vote, that the committee should not refer the matter to HMRC.”
Stephen Gilbert
The hon. Gentleman has rightly given many examples of indefensible salaries and egregious working arrangements, but does he accept that there are 1.6 million freelancers throughout the country who contribute £21 billion? Is there not a danger of tarring the entire sector with the same brush?
Mr Slaughter
I do not disagree with that point, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be somewhat in opposition to his colleague sitting next to him, the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who was tut-tutting earlier about a small business run by the former Mayor of London. I hope that they get their ducks in a row.
However, I have moved on from that point; I will draw my remarks to a close in a moment. I am now dealing with a different point: public authorities had it drawn to their attention, if they did not know it at the time, that they might be in breach of UK tax law, and are covering it up, refusing to engage with HMRC and making every attempt to suppress that information. That must be wrong, and it must be a matter for the Government, and above all for the Treasury and HMRC.
I do not have time, although I wish I did, to discuss A4e and the role that it is playing in the public sector. That organisation has multi-million-pound contracts in the public sector. It is taking huge sums of money and paying its chief executive huge sums of money, and it is now under investigation on five separate counts of fraudulent activity. McKinsey, too, was exposed three or four weeks ago in The Mail on Sunday for the role that it is playing in promoting the private health care industry. Again, to use an example from my own backyard, the Association Of British Insurers and the insurance industry have been pushing their own agenda with the Ministry of Justice in the drafting of the legal aid Bill. Those are all more than warning signs; they are indications that something is seriously wrong in public procurement, and the Treasury above all must handle it.
The two most infamous names in local government in my lifetime were probably Poulson and Porter. What is happening in my local authority has overtones of both. First, it involves a cabal of people who seem intent on feathering their own nests and earning huge sums of money from the public sector. Secondly, the project in which Mr Johnson is engaged involves the sale of two council estates for £100 million to a private developer so that they can be demolished to make way for luxury homes. The project will benefit the developer and Mr Johnson, but not the thousands of my constituents, mainly low-income, who live on those estates. Whether or not it is legal is not the point, although I do hope that there will be a proper investigation into the issue of tax law by HMRC, to which I have written; it is clearly quite wrong.
I pay tribute to the media. For every issue that I have introduced in my speech, I have referred to a media article. The campaign has been driven by papers from The Guardian to local newspapers, by blogs and by the BBC. They have done the job that the Government should be doing. I thank all those in the media who have taken the trouble to investigate the matter, and I urge people to listen to “File on 4” this evening.
I also pay particular tribute to the councillors in my borough—I am pleased to see that one of them has attended this debate—including the leader of the opposition, Councillor Cowan, whom I have quoted extensively. However, we cannot rely on volunteers and newspapers alone to ensure probity, fairness and economy in the public sector. I hope that the examples that I have given today are sufficient to show that something is seriously wrong, not just in the one or two examples that have been debated previously in the House and not just in central Government Departments and quangos but throughout the public sector. I hope to hear from the Minister that she is serious about tackling it and will talk to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about extending the remit of the review to cover the matters that I have mentioned.
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, it might be helpful if I make two comments. First, there are 44 minutes left, and quite a number of people wish to speak. If Members are disciplined about putting their arguments, we might be able to get everybody in, and I will certainly try to do so. Secondly, I should draw hon. Members’ attention to the title of this debate, which deals with excessive pay and the use of consultants in the public sector. Tempting though it might be to introduce topical examples of people’s income and tax arrangements, unless those people are already working in the public sector, it is not within the terms of the debate.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on securing this important and timely debate. I speak as somebody who has worked in both the private and public sectors. I started my life after university in the private sector. I spent a great deal of time trying to secure as large a salary from my bosses as I could, always pushing for a better company car, health insurance, ever greater bonuses and shares in the company. I felt that that was fair and appropriate, as the company was making a great deal of money, I was contributing to that wealth and the shareholders were happy to pay that sort of remuneration.
Having come into the public sector, I think that those of us who work in it should not be thinking about trying to make a lot of money. It has a lot to do with mindset and with educating people about the different responsibilities involved in working in the public rather than the private sector. One must never forget in the public sector that one’s salary comes, in the main, not from wealthy people but from extraordinarily hard-pressed families who are struggling to pay their bills and, in certain cases, to keep a roof over their heads and those of their family. All of us who work in the public sector must bear that in mind.
I am participating in this debate because I want to raise something specifically with the Minister. I went to Pontesbury village hall in my constituency to meet first responders, people in remote rural Shropshire villages who respond to emergency cases before an ambulance arrives. In many cases, they save people’s lives. It is the big society in action. I found out on Saturday that there are 144 such responders in Shropshire, and I pay tribute to them. Someone said to me at that public meeting that the chief executive of the west midlands ambulance trust earns £180,000 a year. I was absolutely staggered by that, bearing in mind that a lot of the work carried out by the first responders—as I have said, they are all part of the big society in action—is charitable work. They are on a shoestring budget and yet provide a vital service.
I telephoned the chief executive of the West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust following the meeting because of the concerns raised by that constituent at the public meeting in Pontesbury, who said to me, “We do the work primarily from charity. Did you know that the chief executive of the ambulance trust is on £180,000?” There was anger, frustration and bewilderment from my constituents, who were all there in a voluntary capacity, undertaking a vital role in teaching people how to be first responders. Even I was taught how to resuscitate someone while I was there—not that I want to put it into practice, of course, for fear of hurting someone. I was extremely impressed with what was going and worried about my constituents feeling upset about the high salary.
I telephoned Mr Marsh, the chief executive, to ask him how he could possibly justify earning £180,000 a year, which is a staggering amount. His response was, “I do a very important job.” Of course he does an important job—managing the West Midlands ambulance service is an extraordinarily important job. However, I tried to convey to him that it is no more important than the job of the Prime Minister, a point that the hon. Member for Hammersmith alluded to at the beginning of his speech. Why should any public sector employee be paid more than the Prime Minister of the country, who has a huge amount of responsibility on his plate?
Police and crime commissioners will be elected in November. My understanding is that the police and crime commissioner for our area in Shropshire will be remunerated somewhere along the lines of £100,000 per annum, which I am pleased about. That is a far more suitable salary for people in the public sector rather than sky-high, rocketing salaries.
The issue is not just about mega-high salaries for individuals, but about how even small organisations manage taxpayers’ money. One parish council in my constituency, Bayston Hill parish council, manages to spend £43,000 per annum on administration costs and the salary of a clerk—this is just one parish council. We all have a responsibility to acknowledge and accept that our wonderful country is on its knees financially, and we all have to take responsibility in ensuring that debts are paid off and that salaries are reasonable.
I am conscious of the time, so I will end by talking briefly about my concerns about the pay of certain BBC executives. My understanding is that Mark Thompson is on a salary of more than £600,000 per annum, which I find—I will go as far as to say this—nauseating, deeply distressing, worrying and troubling. At a time when BBC Radio Shropshire is facing cuts—not a single person in that entire organisation is paid more than £55,000 per annum, and it is a wonderful service that provides many people in our rural county with vital services—the director-general of the BBC is earning more than £600,000. I fundamentally object to that.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
We have just heard the exposition of Kawczynski’s law—that one squeezes as much from their employer as they possibly can, including company cars. Surely the director-general of the BBC is merely following the sound and good advice of the hon. Gentleman?
Daniel Kawczynski
There is an important distinction. I was working in the private sector, with shareholders as private individuals. Mr Thompson works for the BBC, which, by the way, forces millions of people up and down this country to pay for TV licences. I have applied for a debate on the rationale and efficiency of the way in which that tax is collected. There is a fundamental difference.
I am grateful for being called, and I end my speech now so that other hon. Members may speak.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
This is the first time that I have participated in a debate under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, so I am pleased to be here today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on securing this important debate.
In response to concerns about the time, I will make just two quick points to add to the forensic examination by my hon. Friend regarding public sector pay and the use of consultants, and I would like the Minister to consider them.
When my hon. Friend opened the debate, he was intervened on several times, and Members pointed out that some of the problems had existed under the previous Government. I fully accept that. A lot was made of the issue around the time of the general election, and the then Opposition were right to do so. There were concerns in the public about the rates of pay that were paid through public funds—taxpayers’ money. That is a legitimate issue to raise. Having raised the issue, even going as far as to say in the coalition document that the Government would reduce public sector pay, that there would be a cap on pay and that a mechanism would be put in place for agreeing pay that is above the rate of the Prime Minister’s salary, it is legitimate to have a debate such as today’s to examine what progress is being made.
What we have seems to be an approval of a mechanism for avoiding tax and paying higher salaries for the performance of tasks and roles that are paid for out of the public purse. There is a certain irony in that some of the mechanisms seem to allow payments that end up reducing the amount of tax that is available to pay for the services in the first place. We are talking about people who are recognised to be on the payroll, but whose salaries are paid through private companies. An article in The Guardian on 16 February states that many people who are being paid through private companies and who are avoiding paying tax at source
“are listed as full-time legal, IT or human resources consultants. The department said many of them had been employed for a long time, and appear on staff directories.”
Such people are, for all intents and purposes, full-time employees—of the national health service, in this particular case—and yet they are being paid through service companies that allow them to reduce their tax liabilities.
The article says that Departments are complicit in that. It states:
“The arrangement can be tax-efficient both for the individual and for the Whitehall department, including arm’s-length bodies, since the department may not need to pay national insurance in addition to fees.”
My concern here is that Departments, which are paid for by tax and whose revenues are collected by the Exchequer, seem to be colluding to reduce the amount of money paid to the Exchequer. Will the Minister respond to that, or at least look at the issue? When she conducts her review, will she specifically respond to that? Am I alone in thinking that there is something peculiar about a Whitehall Department seemingly colluding with the private sector to reduce the amount of tax payable? Is that practice acceptable? Should we be encouraging such practice?
Stephen Pound
My hon. Friend came into the House at the same time as I did. He will remember, as I do, the huge debate on IR35 at the time, which I thought had addressed the issue. Is he as shocked as I am to hear today, and to read in the sheets of that august organ, Private Eye, that a golden carousel fuelled by avarice is spinning chief executives from one fleshpot to another, letting them fill their boots on the public purse without even pausing for breath? Does he agree that that should have been sorted years ago? I thought that it had been by IR35.
Clive Efford
My hon. Friend is tempting me along a path that I do not wish to go down because I have limited time. However, he has made his point and put it on the record.
I will quote from another article in The Guardian dated 15 February to illustrate my point further. What is disturbing about that article is that the officers within the Department—whether inadvertently or not—have failed to give the full facts in answer to a Member asking questions specifically about the use of such vehicles for paying permanent members of staff in the NHS. The confusion seems to rest around whether those people are classified as civil servants, or whether they are private sector consultants.
The series of e-mails that The Guardian quotes from in the article suggests that there are attempts within the Department to facilitate that sort of arrangement. I find that alarming. The answer provided failed to give the full facts to the House. The article states:
“The emails handed to the Guardian also show senior civil servants at the department discussing the possible reputational damage to the department and seeking to avoid ways of revealing the nature of the payments sought in a written question last December by Gareth Thomas, the shadow Cabinet Office minister”.
The Guardian goes on to say that the answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) stated:
“It is not the department's policy to permit payments to civil servants by ways of limited companies.”
That led to the belief that no civil servant was being paid through such a mechanism. However, it transpires that there is an issue surrounding the definition of a civil servant. A civil servant is someone who is on pay-as-you-earn, rather than someone who is being paid through one of those mechanisms. Therefore, the answer was entirely misleading. Whether that was deliberate or not, we need to have some answers to that practice. Do the Government think that that is a satisfactory definition? Alternatively, does it need clarification so that when hon. Members seek answers in the future about how people are being paid, we get accurate answers? We can then be the scrutineers of what is going on with public sector pay and how much public sector money is being used. With that, I conclude my speech.
Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. It might be helpful if I say that I intend to call the Opposition spokesperson at 10.40 am. I call Philip Hammond.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Howarth. For the record, I am Stephen Hammond—Philip is the tall, good-looking one. I listened carefully to your strictures and have therefore ditched my section on people seeking to re-enter public life and avoid tax. At the outset, I remind hon. Members of and guide them to my declared interest in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I have listened carefully to the debate. I only wish that I had known my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) sooner, as I could have followed Kawczynski’s law when I was in the private sector, but I singly failed to do so. I also listened to the fascinating opening speech of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). He chided us on party politics, but I say gently that it might have been helpful if some of the examples had not been exclusively from Hammersmith and Fulham. On that basis, we might take his comments as a party political contribution.
I shall raise three points in my remarks. First, I shall discuss the concept of value for money. I shall then talk briefly about excessive pay and contractors. Many of us feel that one of the big areas where problems arose with value for money in relation to outside firms being used in the provision of public services was with the private finance initiatives that were set up. The public sector should be the enabler. Sometimes, it will also be the facilitator, but it does not need to be so. The real scandal of excessive pay and excessive failure to manage arrangements was in the unitary payment scheme set up under PFI. That unitary payment allowed the capital and the current payment to be collided for the deliberate obfuscation of what was being paid in current payments. That was a real scandal, and value for money was impossible to assess.
On excessive public pay, the hon. Member for Hammersmith is absolutely right: payment should be in line with performance. As reflected by the view of the vast majority of the public, the scandal has been that, at the time of entering austerity, a number of people in the public sector were getting paid well beyond their perceived performance. Although I was chided for using this example, it is absolutely true that, since the Government have come to office, there has been downward pressure on the overall pay in local government. Again, I give the example that, before 2010, £221,000 was the average salary for chief executives. It is now £143,000, which may well still be too high in terms of what is being delivered. None the less, there has been downward pressure. The TaxPayers Alliance “Town Hall Rich List” is a good touchstone for us all, but one should not forget to put the matter into context. Under the previous Administration, we had to revise the definition of public sector productivity twice, because pay increased without a commensurate increase in performance.
I want to put some balance into the debate because if we are not careful, we will end up saying that all contractors and freelancers are bad value and try to evade tax. That is simply not true. The skills that some of those people provide contribute a huge amount to not only the economy, but the public sector. That is clear. The public sector needs all sorts of skills in addition to the work that dedicated, hard-working public servants and public sector workers provide. Some 1.6 million people in the UK work as freelancers. The idea that all those people are tax dodgers is simple nonsense. Oxford Economics has made the point that, in 2009, the overall benefit to the economy was around £21 billion.
I want to touch briefly on the review that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has set up. That review started because of the Ed Lester case and the fact he was given special concessions. However, the idea that all those concessions apply to every individual who is a freelancer in the public sector is simply wrong. We should not forget—I say this to the Minister, as I hope she will address this point—that the reason why a number of freelancers put themselves into limited companies is that the Government procure through agencies rather than directly. Those agencies require that the contract goes to a limited company. The Government need to address that in their review.
I want to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) time to speak, but I should like to say that, although I support what the Chief Secretary is saying, I hope that the Treasury will ensure that the review focuses on value for money. That is the key. The danger is that contracts will be delayed and taken away and that it will become a witch hunt, rather than a proper review of value. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that that is what will finally happen.
I did not catch exactly what the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) said, but he mentioned IR35. The Government rightly set up a review of IR35, but I say to the Minister that there is real concern that HMRC’s fairly simple business tests, which would have allowed a relatively clear definition of someone who is a freelancer or someone who is working full time, are going astray. I therefore urge the Treasury to get back involved in that debate to ensure that the tests are clear, because IR35 could be a good way to ensure that certain people working in the public sector are true freelancers and contractors, not people who should be on the full-time books of the public sector.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I have 60 seconds to change the world. In my respectful submission, no one should earn more than the Prime Minister, the lead general in Afghanistan, the Lord Chief Justice or my local chief constable. The issue of excessive pay is raised on the doorstep in the north-east, and should, frankly, be addressed.
The Government are right to raise the tax threshold to £10,000, but I would like to go further. No one—at all—who earns the minimum wage and works a standard week should pay tax on their income. That would take it slightly beyond the £10,000 threshold. I support the work of the TaxPayers Alliance, the High Pay Centre, the High Pay Commission and the campaign against excessive executive pay—organisations that I work with regularly.
I finish my 60-second bid for glory on executive pay in the public sector by saying that, while I support a lot of what the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) said, it must be acknowledged that we are clearing up the mess of a light-touch regulation regime and the problems relating to Mr Thompson’s £600,000-plus salary, which not a single member of the BBC whom I have ever met could possibly justify.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Howarth.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on securing the debate and on giving us an extensive and forensic tour around local and national concern. He said that his speech would be both interesting and controversial. Actually, it has been helpful that there have not been too many controversial issues. Perhaps there is more agreement than disagreement, notwithstanding some party political points. My hon. Friend talked about the financial, the moral and the legal practices in relation to some contracts in the public sector and to absolute levels of remuneration. They have been reflected in the contributions of various hon. Members. He was clear that he was most concerned to focus on deliberate avoidance and evasion and the improper use of the rules, or attempts to use the rules improperly, to benefit individuals.
I have worked in the public sector. It would never have occurred to me, when I worked in a senior post of a local authority social work department, to set myself up as a company and contract my services to that local authority. I was brought up—this was mentioned by a number of hon. Members—with a public sector ethos that recognised that working in the public sector made us accountable to the local taxpayers who paid our wages.
The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) made a distinction between the private sector and the public sector. I hope that he feels that the private sector ought to have a set of business ethics. Everyone operating in the private sector ought to take account of that. It is not simply about squeezing as much as possible out of employees because they happen to be in the private sector.
We heard that people are angry about such arrangements. They are angry because they feel that low-paid workers, particularly in the public sector, are suffering the squeeze more than those at the top. The Minister will recall that I raised this issue last week at Treasury questions. I asked what the Government are doing to ensure that they deliver on their promise that the lowest paid public sector workers receive the £250 a year pay rise that they believed they were going to get. We also need to ensure that we do not have a further expansion of excessive pay at the opposite end.
Perception is an issue. The public understand that people whose primary job is with a local authority or public body—whether nationally or locally—and who are being remunerated by it, should pay their fair share and be involved in a proper, transparent arrangement. The public become concerned when it looks like individuals or companies have set themselves up in a particular way to benefit themselves financially, and are not paying their fair share.
In response to points made by the hon. Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham, for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and, in his brief contribution, for Hexham (Guy Opperman), I do not think that anyone is suggesting for a moment that everyone who is self-employed, works as a consultant or in such organisations, is “at it”, to use a term used on the streets of my constituency. There are many people who add value, who can offer very specialist knowledge and expertise and who can be paid through appropriate contracts in the public sector. However, there is genuine concern about some of the arrangements, which we heard about in the forensic contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, whereby it is clear that people are contracted to do a particular job and, in any reasonable definition, would be seen as employed by the public sector.
Some hon. Members mentioned IR35, which not only affects people in the public sector—I do not intend to deviate from the subject of the debate other than to mention the review of IR35—but many small businesses. There are many situations where people, who are either self-employed or in small businesses, find themselves at odds with HMRC when dealing with definitions of how tax should be collected and paid. I hope that the Minister will say a bit more about the progress on IR35, and how it will be modernised and changed. A quick look at the Treasury website showed me that, far from the situation being simplified, there were about 40-plus—I lost count—different guidance notes on IR35 that would have to be interpreted to decide whether someone was an employee or not. That is not helpful and gives rise to speculation that such guidance is not necessarily there to help people, but to help people avoid the payment of taxes. Many small businesses feel that they are currently being pressed, unlike some of the arrangements we have heard about this morning.
I am conscious of the time, so I will not go through, point-by-point, everything that was raised. Clearly, there have been situations over a number of years—I do not think that anyone particularly wanted to make a party political point—and the general public, understandably, feel that they are taking the pressure to do their bit on deficit reduction. I do not always feel that we are all in it together. It is not fair that those on the lowest pay are set to lose some of their benefits. As was pointed out, those on the lowest pay are feeling the squeeze and do not have a living wage. We are not focusing on pay at the top or the ratio—the difference—between those on the lowest pay and those on the highest pay in the public sector. We should do everything possible to ensure that there is openness and transparency.
There is a place—perhaps not all my colleagues agree—for using specialist expertise and consultants on a short-term basis to add value to the public sector, but that must be done openly and transparently, with proper processes in place. We should never allow people to use the rules and regulations to avoid paying the appropriate tax or to benefit themselves—that is not what the public expect.
Finally, I have already mentioned IR35. Will the Minister say what action has been taken to ensure that, across local authorities, there will be no other examples of the type of practices that give rise to public concern? What will the Government do to monitor them in the future?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, in an important debate to which hon. Members have contributed with some thoughtfulness. I should like to mention my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for 2009.
Hon. Members are aware that we face a tough challenge to repair the damage to our economy resulting from the recent crisis. Restoring the economy to prosperity requires restraint in many sectors of society. It is right that public sector pay restraint plays a part in that fiscal consolidation. I shall start with general pay restraint and then refer to various areas mentioned by hon. Members.
I am confident that all hon. Members agree that public servants do a crucial job delivering the high-quality public services on which we all rely. It is right that we continue to offer rewards to those who have skills that would help and assist all our constituents who need those services. At the same time, however, given the pressures on public finances, public pay restraint can help to protect jobs and services in the public sector. That is why, in the June 2010 Budget, the Chancellor announced that there would be a two-year pay freeze for public sector workers earning more than £21,000. At the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced that, for the two years following the freeze, public sector pay awards would average 1%.
On senior pay restraint, it is particularly important, in a context of overall pay restraint, that senior managers show leadership on pay. That is why, at the first meeting of the coalition Cabinet, Ministers announced that they would take a 5% pay cut and that their pay would be frozen for the rest of the Parliament. In May 2010, it was announced that the number of senior civil servants receiving bonuses would be reduced by two thirds, which I am sure hon. Members welcome. At the same time, it was also announced that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury would sign off any appointments for those earning more than £142,500, in areas where Ministers control pay. Of course, much of what we are discussing today can only cover the areas where central Government have control over pay. There is a certain amount of complexity in that landscape to which I may not have time to do justice, but I hope that hon. Members will understand what the Treasury could comment on today.
The Government asked Will Hutton to review senior pay in the public sector. The Government accepted his recommendation that Departments publish a top-to-median pay multiple each year, and Departments will include that as part of their annual reports from this year.
Likewise, the Government are also clear that any consultancy arrangements in the public sector should provide good value for money. In May 2010, we announced that the Cabinet Office and the Treasury would join forces to drive out waste, through a new group called the Efficiency and Reform Group. One of that team’s first priorities, with immediate effect, was to freeze all new consultancy spend unless it was an operational necessity. Where such spending was proposed, ministerial sign-off was required for £20,000 or above. This spending control remains in place. Because of that decision, in the 10 months from May 2010 to March 2011, £870 million was saved through a reduction in consultancy spending by central Government. I am sure that hon. Members welcome that.
On tax avoidance by senior staff, which has been of interest to hon. Members throughout this debate, the Government have been clear that we are committed to tackling all forms of tax avoidance. We do not believe that tax avoidance is appropriate in the public sector. Indeed, it is expressly forgiven—[Interruption.] It is expressly forbidden—I hope Hansard can hear this—in a document entitled “Managing Public Money”, which I know hon. Members have as their bedside reading. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) asked whether an NHS trust would be covered by that guidance and I confirm that that would be so. All bodies covered by that guidance are covered by the Chief Secretary’s review, which has been mentioned in the debate.
The review occurred after it came to light that a senior public servant had been appointed in way that could be perceived as minimising his tax. The Chief Secretary therefore announced a review of the tax arrangements of senior public sector appointees. This review will consider the extent to which use is made of arrangements whereby the tax position of appointees can be perceived to be minimised, and will make appropriate recommendations. The review will include individuals being paid through PSCs, to use an abbreviation relevant to this debate.
Several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), have mentioned that there is much complexity here that the review should reasonably take into account. The review is not intended to be a witch hunt.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) asked specifically about IR35. She will know that in the Budget last year, following a review by the independent Office of Tax Simplification, the Chancellor announced that IR35 would be maintained, but that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will take forward options for improving its administration. That is a separate point, but I hope that that answers the hon. Lady’s question.
Cathy Jamieson
I thank the Minister for that clarification, but I hope that she offers slightly more information in terms of how the administration will be improved and whether any of the guidance will be changed.
Miss Smith
I had better write to the hon. Lady, not being able to cover that matter under the terms of today’s debate.
The review is due to report to the Chief Secretary by the end of March, so hon. Members will understand that I cannot comment further at this time.
Local government is outside of the scope of the review, although I hear the points made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), including his wish for the review to go wider. He will know that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has written to the Local Government Association to urge it to consider similar action.
It is right that light should be shone upon practices in the local government sector as well, although central Government do not control pay in local government: it remains, rightly, a matter for local authorities. We have taken several steps to bring greater local accountability and transparency to pay in local government, which I think local taxpayers welcome strongly. They now have the tools and information needed to hold their councils and elected councillors to account, through the Localism Act 2011.
Mr Slaughter
I hear what the Minister is saying and I look forward to the review, but will she at least hold open the prospect of widening its ambit, because what she has just said is not correct? In my experience, in my local authority, the audit committee is not meeting—it is being made inquorate by the majority party—and documents are being refused, not only to me but to the leader of the opposition, who has particular rights in law to get such documentation. If councils are going to abuse the position of trust, surely the Government and HMRC must act in this matter.
Miss Smith
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman feels that the council was better off his watch, when it was 363rd in respect of value for money out of 387 local authorities.
Let me provide one example of ways in which local authorities are now more transparent. I have no doubt that the good citizens of Hammersmith enjoy holding the pay practices of the council to account through measures under the 2011 Act. They can do that because local authorities are obliged to publish their pay policy statements by the end of March.
On the responsibilities that I am drawing attention to, the Government believe that there should be public accountability in this regard, not only for employees but for elected councillors. The responsibility for meeting the transparency that we all demand of the public sector rests not only with locally elected councillors through some of the measures in the 2011 Act, but with citizens who are now empowered to understand more about the choices that their councils take.
It is right that, as we call time on a decade of ever-increasing centralisation, targets, levers and poor value for money, greater localism must come with greater transparency and accountability. Opening up the pay deals of top town hall jobs to public scrutiny will mean that taxpayers know with certainty that their interests are being protected, complementing measures taken by central Government to control and cut consultancy spending under their areas of responsibility, while also freezing and tackling excessive pay elsewhere in the sector.
Work Experience
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am delighted to have been able to secure this important debate on work experience. I am also delighted to see so many hon. Friends and hon. Members from throughout the House in the Chamber today, to debate a subject that not only is topical and relevant to the recent newsfeed but has seen the concept of work experience turned into a matter of political ideology, rather than of pragmatism in how to help our young people and create opportunity for them. I bring the subject to the House in all seriousness, and out of concern for many of our young constituents whose future well-being could lie in the debate around work experience. I therefore ask right hon. and hon. Members to approach the debate in the spirit of helping our young people into work from a pragmatic rather than what I might describe as an ideological standpoint.
I come to the debate as a parent with two young children. Despite their ages, I am not prevented from being a little concerned about their future and what the employment market will look like by the time that they step into the big, wide world of work, whether from school, college or university. I suspect that many of my thoughts are not far removed from those of most parents throughout the country, which is why I wish to consider briefly what the Government are already doing to tackle youth unemployment, and to put that into the context of the importance of work experience, which will be the focus of the majority of my comments.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree, on pragmatism, that MPs can lead the way? I employ an apprentice, as part of my team working in the House of Commons, but we can also have work experience in our constituency offices—we had 40 in the Hexham office over last summer.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. MPs can certainly show the way practically and, as I will come on to, by supporting people who are willing to give work experience opportunities to our young people.
Youth unemployment is not a new phenomenon in this country, and it has been on an upward trend since 2004, when we were in a better economic position, although getting young people into work should be a priority for any Government regardless of the economic situation. Tomorrow we will see the latest unemployment figures, and we wait to see the figures on youth unemployment with bated breath. The current figures indicate that we have more than 1 million young people unemployed and out of work, which equates to 22% of young people in the country.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
It is excellent that my hon. Friend has initiated this debate but, given what he has just said, is it not extraordinary that we are having to have what is a needless debate? It is extraordinary that anyone out there should be opposed to young people getting work experience.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is incumbent on Members of the House to support work experience and any tool that we can put into the toolbox to reduce the shocking number of young people who currently lack opportunity.
To return to our 1 million unemployed young people, if we compare our situation with that in many European Union countries, we will probably see our figures compare reasonably favourably. We should, however, never be satisfied or content to have one in four young people unemployed. For that matter, we should never be content to have any young people out of work. Recently, we have started to see policies put in place by the Government to increase opportunity for our young people. For example, places for apprenticeships have increased by 50% over the past year, to 440,000; my constituency, I am glad to say, has had a 56% increase in apprenticeship take-ups, more than half by young people. The youth contract, starting in April, will also see many more opportunities, including financial incentives for businesses to take on young people, which I hope will mean the creation of up to 160,000 opportunities—as quoted, I believe, by the Department for Work and Pensions, in particular given the £2,275 wage subsidy to support young people.
Under the youth contract, a number of opportunities are coming along in April, but we should also realise that, although we have many opportunities and however many schemes we have, there is always a cohort of young people who struggle to take up such opportunities, often because the education system has failed them and sometimes because they have low self-esteem or no experience or track record in employment. They might have previously experienced employment but had a poor experience.
Guy Opperman
Does my hon. Friend agree that the advance of academies and free schools, such as the enterprise school being set up in Newcastle, next to my constituency, will provide greater skills and address youth unemployment problems?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For far too long a cohort of young people has been failed by the education system in this country, and we need to ensure that such people have the maximum opportunity to gain a high-quality education. Hopefully, we will reduce the number of people who need work experience. Until that happens, however, it is incumbent on us all to support the principle of work experience, because we need to reach that cohort. Figures from the International Labour Organisation show that, of the young people out of work in this country, more than 50,000 have never had a formal job and 20,000 have poor or no formal qualifications. If we are to reach out to that cohort of young people and if we are serious about getting them back into work and engaging them to become part of the mainstream work force, work experience is an essential tool to have in the toolbox.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Can the hon. Gentleman define the difference between work experience and an internship, because the two phrases are becoming increasingly blurred? There is definitely a difference and it is important to state it. What is it, in his view?
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. There is a distinction. With work experience, we are talking about a short-term opportunity for young people; they can be given some short-term experience of work to allow them to get into mainstream employment, often with employers who are keen to take on a certain number of those who have been on work experience and to put them into proper employment. There is a distinction from internships, which have traditionally been used as a method of giving people experience in this place, but also in law firms and all sorts of other professions. There is a distinction, and we need to be alive to that.
Over recent weeks, I have been pretty dismayed by the response to the current Work Experience scheme offered by the Government in partnership with many of our best companies in this country. I have been dismayed by the vitriol towards employers, who have not sought to create a free supply of labour but, on the contrary, have shown a genuine will to give experience and a chance to young people who, for whatever reason, have not been given that chance elsewhere.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I was open to the hon. Gentleman’s comments about not being ideological, so I hoped that he would rebut some of the interventions that he has already had, which were extremely ideological. On the specific question of the Work Experience scheme, does he agree that the work experience must be relevant to the needs and previous experience of the participants?
Mr Jones
It does have to be experience, but I hope that the hon. Lady is not taking us down the route of demeaning certain types of employment—I will come on to this in a moment—or of being what I call a job snob. I am sure that she is not seeking to do that at all. Over recent weeks, however, we have seen a small cohort of people who have been willing to show a great deal of vitriol towards some of those companies which were willing to give young people an opportunity. In the debate today and over the past few weeks, we have seen what I consider to be the huge red herring of whether work experience is compulsory or voluntary, and that has been a huge distraction from the real issue.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I associate myself with my hon. Friend’s disappointment at what has happened in recent weeks. Does he condemn those organisations that have sought to spread fear, and have organised letter-writing campaigns, with no basis? They have made the scheme, which should have been a great success, questionable. Does he welcome the fact that we seem to have dealt with the issue, that the argument seems to have turned around, and that the scheme is now being welcomed?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I agree absolutely. A small number of people—I emphasise that it is a small number—have put their political ideology before the best interests of disadvantaged young people, whom the Government and employers who have taken part in the Work Experience scheme are seeking to help. That is disgraceful, and an indictment of the methods that some of the people in that extremist group use. I hope that today we will hear from the shadow Front-Bench spokesman that the Opposition do not support such groups, and that they support the Government’s scheme to give young people opportunities. It is incumbent on the House to provide as many routes as possible for our young people.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous with his time. To follow on from the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), does he agree that a key reason why the scheme is so important and why young people who have taken part speak so highly of it is that the experience that they get and where they are placed is based on the experience they want in an industry that they are interested in going into?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Most of the placements that have been offered to the cohort of young people are relevant to them, and it is important to bear that in mind.
On the debate about the Work Experience scheme over the past few weeks, and the fact that there has been a red herring, or an elephant in the room, about whether it is compulsory, we all know that it is voluntary, and that the only sanctions relate to conduct, and willingness to see the placement through when someone has embarked on that route. That is not irrelevant, but it is not the most relevant issue. The most relevant issue is to give young people, sometimes with what some people call tough love, the opportunity to go out and get themselves into a position where they can compete in the labour market.
In a moment, I shall discuss employers, but before doing so I want to tackle negativity and ideology, which are damaging opportunities for our young people. Later, I shall use the word “unskilled” with extreme caution. There is no doubt that there is a skill in doing any job properly. I am worried about the rhetoric from some people who seek to demean jobs such as shelf-stacking, because there is no doubt that all jobs are important. We all need to start our career somewhere. For some, that may be shelf-stacking. For some that may be their niche, but regardless of that we in the House should show that any job that is legal and above board should be respected. We need to drive the job snobs out and to promote the fact that we support all people who work, whatever they choose to do or whatever they have to do to make a living and to achieve self-respect.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
My intervention is now three or four minutes out of date, but I will make it anyway. Does my hon. Friend agree that work experience is the ultimate job interview for a job that might not exist initially? I am a former employer of work experience people. Does he also agree that the great value is that enthusiastic and willing people become part of the team?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his positive comment, and he is absolutely right. It is important that businesses seek to grow their own. Many receive a lot of benefit from bringing young people on in that way. He makes the important point that work experience is often a job interview. We are discussing people whose CV may arrive by post in a pile of 20 or 30 other CVs, and the employer may just put it into the filing cabinet, or write back saying that perhaps they will contact the applicant if a suitable vacancy comes along, or it may end up in a filing cabinet on the floor, which is usually a bin. We must ensure that we provide opportunities to people who need a leg-up.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
I thank my colleague from Warwickshire for securing this important debate. Since I have been a Member of Parliament, I have had 16 people doing work experience in my office, and I welcome Thomas Hart, who is in the Public Gallery today. Some employers ignored the protest activity. How can we encourage more employers to ignore it, and to take on the scheme in greater numbers?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend, who, as a fellow Warwickshire MP, knows the importance of getting young people in our area into work. He is absolutely right that we must encourage employers, and ensure that they are not frightened of the vocal minority who seem to put political ideology before young people. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should support the Work Experience programme. It is not a panacea for the whole youth employment issue, and is probably applicable to only a small cohort of people who are difficult to get into work. We should all support the programme, and back employers to the hilt in supporting it.
No matter how unskilled—I have said that I am worried about using that word—a role may be, new staff cannot be brought into a business, whether or not they are doing work experience, without providing training. Some young people will pick up that training more quickly than others, but regardless of that, people must be trained. All employers will say that. So they must invest time, provide training, perhaps buy a uniform, and generally invest in that young person, who may be a member of staff for only a few weeks.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
Does the issue not go even deeper than that? The House should celebrate the fact that some companies are a force for social good. They do not just make profits for the shareholder, but provide an enormous amount of employment across the piece, and ensure that this country is put on a sound financial footing. We should celebrate that.
Mr Jones
As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I go out and speak to businesses in my constituency, I detect that people are becoming alive to the issue of youth unemployment, and that there is a real will in businesses to try to give young people opportunities, whether through the apprenticeship route, work experience or other parts of the Government’s Work programme. We should embrace the good will in businesses throughout the country and ensure that we fully support them, not demean them or try to make out to the public that they are trying to get something for nothing. At the end of the day, we rely greatly on the good will out there, and we must not spoil or stymie that. If we start to go down that route, we will defeat the object. Given some of the ideologies expressed, however, it seems that some people are willing to see that happen just because the current Government may not be of the same colour as them, and that seems pretty disgraceful.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend widen his thinking on the issue to women returning to work? I know from my experience of being a stay-at-home mum for seven years that it is unbelievably difficult to get the confidence to return to the workplace. For me, work experience was the best way to build up work attachment and work habits. Will my hon. Friend join me in urging Ministers to ensure that opportunities for work experience are offered to older people—particularly women—who are an economic force to be reckoned with?
Mr Jones
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. There is a cohort of people who have perhaps looked after children but are willing and able and capable of returning to the labour market although they may lack confidence. In time, the Work Experience scheme could be widened in the way that she suggests.
I also wish to focus on some of the ladies and gentlemen of Her Majesty’s press who have perhaps not given this issue the fairest of hearings. I appeal to them to dismiss any rhetoric or old-fashioned and outdated views from the far left that they may have, and to think about young people and look to support this policy. By setting out to try to destroy work experience, all they will do is destroy a route to work and an opportunity for our young people. Work experience is not the be-all and end-all for young people, but it is a route into employment nevertheless, and Members of this House should seek to provide as many such routes as practicable to help our young people into work.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
As I am sure my hon. Friend will agree, it is welcome that many media outlets, notably the BBC, ITV and The Guardian, offer work experience to young people.
Mr Jones
I think that is absolutely fantastic. It is a shame, however, that some of those who work for the publication to which my hon. Friend referred may not share the same view as that taken by their employer. That is sad, and I hope that people will think a little more carefully before making the sorts of comment that may destroy the life chances of the most vulnerable young people in this country.
Safeguards must be in place and we must ensure that we protect young people who may be vulnerable. No hon. Member would want any young person to be exploited, but that does not detract from the fact that employers need positive support and encouragement to be offered through the leadership of this House and its Members. It is, therefore, incumbent on Members of Her Majesty’s Government and Opposition to do all they can to encourage employers to offer work experience, and to fight against the small minority of people who seem intent on putting their ideology before the needs of the most vulnerable people in society who need a little extra help to get on the work ladder and into a job.
I will conclude by saying that we must move this debate away from the discussions of the past couple of weeks and towards the political centre ground and a sensible viewpoint that is shared by most people in this country. Most people are supportive of this policy, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Government intend to support it and ensure robustly that we do not give in to that small minority. I also look to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman to back the policy to the hilt and do the right thing for young people in our country.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing this debate, although despite his claims that he would not be ideological, I think that he was ideological throughout.
Last Friday, I met a young man in a local community café that is run entirely by volunteers and opens for two hours a week. It is quite new, but it has been very successful. The young man started to volunteer in that café through an arrangement with his school, as he was soon to be a school leaver and had some learning difficulties. He has since left school, although he has continued to volunteer. He told me that as a result of that volunteering experience, Debenhams had offered him the opportunity for paid work in its city café for four hours a day. I thought that that was a great story and a wonderful example of what work experience can do.
When I served on Edinburgh council, we started a scheme called JET—jobs, education and training—first in one high school, although it was subsequently rolled out to others. It was for a cohort of pupils who were in their final year at school but who were likely to emerge with very little to show for it, probably because they hardly ever attended. The pupils and their families were approached and asked to sign up for the scheme. They had a reduced school timetable; they spent one day a week doing work experience and one day a week at a college doing training that was related to that work experience. There were about 20 of those pupils in each school, and although I cannot say that they all came out with jobs at the end of the scheme—we discovered that a lot of them had deep-rooted personal problems—it was a good programme that involved a period of work experience and, importantly, was related to training.
I therefore refute absolutely the allegations that Labour Members are somehow against work experience or even—this is the allegation repeated by the hon. Member for Nuneaton—that we are content to leave people stuck in unemployment. That is totally wrong.
Mr Marcus Jones
Will the hon. Lady say whether she supports the Government’s work experience programme that I spent about 20 minutes outlining?
Sheila Gilmore
I was about to come on to that, but I wanted to establish the importance of correctly managed work experience.
What is wrong with the current scheme? To me, the most important thing is that work experience moves people away from their current situation and towards employability, whether or not that involves a job right away. As Ministers and others have said, it is essential to get people away from lying in bed or watching daytime TV—anyone who has been the parent of a teenager, particularly a teenage boy, will say amen to that. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
The first, but by no means that last, example of the scheme was related to me by a constituent. She was still quite young and had worked in the past. She had qualifications and had done holiday jobs, but she had then become unemployed. Her complaint was that she was expected to do eight-weeks’ work experience—the shelf stacking that everybody goes on about—and wondered how that related to moving her to where she wanted to be or make her more employable. I do not think that that is being a job snob. We are mixing up two things.
Claire Perry
May I ask the hon. Lady a personal question? My first job was baking bread in a bakery at the age of 14. What was the hon. Lady’s first work experience?
Sheila Gilmore
My first work experience, which was paid, was washing dishes in a department store in Coventry. We have all had such jobs. The point that I am trying to make is that, in the case to which I referred, it was not the young woman’s first job experience. She was not someone who had never worked and needed to get from that situation to another. Of course most of us have experience of different types of temporary work.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
The hon. Lady just said that the lady she was referring to was forced into work experience. It is a voluntary programme. Frankly, if the lady is doing work experience, it might involve another skill that she can learn, but it is voluntary; she cannot have been compelled to do it.
Sheila Gilmore
I shall explain the issue as far as this young woman was concerned, and I think that this is where it comes down to conditionality. She was certainly put under, as she explained it, considerable pressure—as part of a general conditionality point—to do the work experience or her benefits would be put at risk. That was how she perceived it.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Is not part of the problem that, as the Minister has repeatedly said, and as others have said today, this is a voluntary scheme, but jobcentres sent out letters telling people that they would lose their benefit if they did not join the scheme? There is, at the very least, huge confusion in Jobcentre Plus about what the terms of this arrangement are.
Sheila Gilmore
That is the kind of information that I have been getting from constituents. I am referring to the rules on conditionality and the advice or information that they were getting from the local jobcentre. This point is different from the point about whether people are sanctioned when they leave the scheme; it is about the conditionality regime.
Simon Hart
In the specific circumstances that the hon. Lady outlines, what advice does she give her constituents when they come to her with that issue?
Sheila Gilmore
My advice to people in that situation—the young woman to whom I was referring had already completed the period of work experience—would be to question the relevance or appropriateness of the work experience to their situation. The young lady to whom I was referring did not need to learn those skills; she already had them. A different question might arise if we want to say about someone, “Should they apply for a job of that nature?” That young woman would have been qualified for any vacancy that came up of that nature. Some hon. Members present would no doubt say that she should simply apply for such a job, but anyone who has gone for such jobs when they are in that situation will find that they are likely to be turned down as over-qualified, or employers might think that they would leave quite quickly. It is a different question from whether work experience of that type is useful. They are two completely separate issues.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Surely, doing the work experience would both display a can-do attitude and place the lady in the shop window for the organisation, which could ultimately lead to a permanent role.
Sheila Gilmore
I am not convinced, from the young woman’s description of her experience, that she was in the shop window of anything. I should like to quote the chief executive of the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion. His view is not that there should be no work experience, but that there should be
“a good ‘match’ between the nature of the work experience and the young person”.
He gives an example. He says that
“for someone with a law degree doing work experience at a legal firm would be a much better match than, say, the night shift at a pound shop. We have learned time and again that the better the match,”
the better the prospect of someone getting employment.
Brandon Lewis
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again and being so generous with her time. This scheme is voluntary and the work experience that people do is based on an area and an industry in which they are interested. The hon. Lady is a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, but I suggest that she look at what her constituent has brought her, because she may be getting confused—mixed-up—between the work experience scheme and other schemes such as the mandatory work scheme, the skills and training schemes and even the Work programme. It seems as though she is talking about a totally different scheme, which is part of the problem that the Socialist Workers party has had in purposely trying to confuse the situation.
Sheila Gilmore
I accept that there is a plethora of schemes and some confusion—the media have been confused—but I am absolutely certain that the mandatory work experience scheme was not involved in this example. It is not good enough to have the view that when people make the point about relevant work experience—relevant to people’s existing experience and skills—they should simply be condemned as snooty job snobs and people who are not willing to work. That is not the case.
Chris White
Does the hon. Lady not agree that relevant skills would include presentation, punctuality, communication and being able to get on with one’s co-workers?
Sheila Gilmore
Absolutely, but we must ensure that these schemes build on the experience and skills that people already have. Of course, some people have not worked for a very long time. Some young people have never held down a job. For them, some basic experiences will enable them to grow, develop and mature.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I come from a town with 14% unemployment; indeed, it has a history of unemployment over the past two or three decades. Most people will make any sacrifice, in any way, shape or form, for the promise of a job. The problem at the moment is not necessarily this policy in its totality; I think that it is well meaning, although perhaps it has a few kinks in it. The problem is the change to tax credits. There may be no promise of a job at the end, or particularly in retail, there may be a job that is part time and for fewer than 24 hours a week. Some people might therefore see such work experience as valueless, because the job at the end might not pay as much as they would receive on the dole.
Sheila Gilmore
My hon. Friend is correct. Someone spoke previously about an elephant in the room. The job at the end is probably the biggest elephant in the room. It is not good enough to say that the whole problem is about people not having skills or training and that, somehow, if we list all the schemes, work programmes and other programmes, we have solved the unemployment problem. There are two sides to the unemployment problem. There is the problem of the lack of jobs, which is very considerable in some areas of the country, and, yes, there are issues about whether people have the proper skills and experience to take up opportunities. We need both. To say constantly that we are on top of this because we have programme X, Y, Z and goodness knows what else will not solve the problem of the lack of jobs.
One big issue that we face is that we do not know a lot about the outcomes of the scheme. We are told that it is a wonderful scheme and is having great results. Will the Minister tell us when he will give us more detailed information about what is actually happening? Ministers and Back Benchers constantly recite the fact that half of those doing work experience are in jobs within a short time. That is based on an initial pilot involving some 1,300 people between January and March 2011. The more accurate statement—I accept that the Minister usually gives the more accurate statement, although others do not—is that one half or 51%, to be exact, were off benefits 13 weeks after the work experience period. They may have come off benefits and gone into a job or to college, or simply not have been claiming. For example, someone who has got to the end of their six months on jobseeker’s allowance and who has a working partner may simply stop claiming.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
Will the hon. Lady confirm that the benchmark that we use to judge the success of the work experience programme is exactly the same benchmark that she and her colleagues used to judge what they claimed to be the success—it was at a much higher cost—of the future jobs fund?
Sheila Gilmore
I am not going to dispute—[Interruption.] It is important to know a bit more about what has been happening. All these assertions are made on the basis of a fairly small number. If the Minister has other information to give us, that is all well and good, but we are not hearing that at the moment. I asked him in a written question how many of those who had taken part in the scheme, either between 16 and 18 years of age or between 18 and 25, had found employment with the firm with which they had done the work experience or with another employer. The answer was that the Department does not hold that information. The Government are not tracking that information. I find that worrying, because assertions and statements are being made about the success of a programme, but answers to the detailed questions that anyone might reasonably want to ask about these programmes are simply not being given to us.
Tom Blenkinsop
May I give my hon. Friend an example? The Government are changing the point at which an employee’s rights kick in and they become a full employee with full rights to 24 months. What is there to say that a young person who has got work experience through this scheme and gets a job will not find that the workplace is subject to a short-time-working agreement and that they are probably first in line for a LIFO—last in, first out—scheme, unofficially, by that employer, because their employment rights do not kick in for another 12 months?
Sheila Gilmore
The situation might be even worse than that. At Treasury questions last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), who is not here today, raised the case of two young people who had been given a job at the end of a work experience scheme, but who were paid off within two weeks, which is not particularly satisfactory. If we are not tracking outcomes properly, we should be. If we are to judge the validity of schemes, we need the data.
Andrew Bingham
Is the hon. Lady aware that 51% of the first 1,300 people who took part in the scheme were off benefits after 13 weeks?
Sheila Gilmore
That is precisely what I said—that 51% of the first 1,300 people who took part in the scheme between January and March 2011 were off benefits. That was the point where I came in.
We have to look not only at the quality of work experience, but at the fact that some firms may simply be using schemes to get people to do jobs they would otherwise have employed someone to do.
On a slightly different matter—this does not relate to the work experience scheme pure and simple—I was astonished to read in no less a paper than The Sunday Times, which is hardly a friend of the left, that McDonald’s had, it seemed to me, reframed its trainee posts as apprenticeships. It was taking Government money to train people in the skills they would need if they got a job at McDonald’s, such as customer service and food hygiene. Many people, including students and others, have gone through the McDonald’s scheme over many years and they have gone on to work in McDonald’s. However, people on the scheme are now being designated as apprentices, and I know of one case in which somebody doing a Saturday job got a contract as an apprentice. McDonald’s got the money from the Government and was quoted as saying that no additional jobs had been created.
Chris Grayling
Is the hon. Lady aware that she is describing the previous Labour Government’s policy of allowing companies that developed in-work training places to designate them as apprenticeships? Does she accept that what she is describing originated under the Labour Government and has been deemed—by that Government and this one—to be an important part of the career development mix?
Sheila Gilmore
Even if the Minister tells me that that is the case, I would not necessarily always accept everything previous Governments have done, because such provisions are not helping us in any respect to create additional jobs. The worry about firms taking successive people to do work experience without payment is that they may be reducing their other employees’ opportunities to do paid work—through additional hours, for example. We need reassurance that that is not happening, and if we do not get it, we will have some queries.
George Hollingbery
When I looked into the success of the future jobs fund, there was much trumpeting of 50% placements and costs per placement being reasonable. However, the cost per placement was about £3,000 to £5,000, while the figure under the work experience scheme is £200 to £300. Does the hon. Lady not agree that it was somewhat perverse for 80% of the placements under the future jobs fund to be in the public sector? Looking around the piece, that would hardly save the Government money in the long run.
Sheila Gilmore
My understanding regarding those public sector jobs is that there was, in part, a difficulty over whether the measures would constitute state aid if they were carried out in some other way. It is regrettable if that became an obstacle, because the future jobs fund was a good model and gave people good-quality work experience. I hope that the Government will consider returning to it in the future.
It is not my position or that of any Opposition Member that work experience is simply not to be done. However, we want people to have work experience that genuinely improves their employability; if it does not, it has to be questioned.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing this important debate.
It is important to start off with why we are here. The scheme, which has worked successfully, has been in place since January last year, and it is only in the past few weeks that it has gained any publicity. It has been working very nicely, the companies involved in it have been taking people on and more than 34,000 people have been through it. That tells us that something has happened in just the past few weeks to bring it to public attention.
Sheila Gilmore
I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that some of us did, in fact, raise questions considerably longer ago than the past few weeks, but we were put down with exactly the same suggestions that we were being over-fussy and supporting people who thought they were too good to work.
Brandon Lewis
I thank the hon. Lady for outlining that she supports the Socialist Workers party position on this. The reality is that the publicity came about a few weeks ago, when the Socialist Workers party started a campaign, having placed an advert that was wrong.
Tony Baldry
Would my hon. Friend not pass on to the hon. Lady the advice that when one is in a hole, one should stop digging?
Brandon Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. He has probably said everything that needs to be said.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have debated this issue a few times with people from Right to Work and various other groups that are backed or supported by the Socialist Workers party. What has been particularly noticeable, however, is that there has, until very recently, been a lack of Labour Members debating it. It was therefore somewhat surprising, if not frustrating, that when Labour Members started agreeing to come out during the last couple of days of the real media coverage, they quite openly said that they supported the scheme’s principle—I hope the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), will do so again today—but then complained that the problem was miscommunication.
The miscommunication has come about, however, purely because the Socialist Workers party and its representative protest groups have purposely confused things in every single debate. Before one debate I took part in, a member of the Socialist Workers party was chatting quite happily outside the studio. He understood exactly what the different programmes were and how they worked. When we went in to debate them, however, he straight away confused the mandatory Work programme with work experience—he knew exactly what he was doing. It is a real shame that Labour Members did not come out with us, even if they do disagree with the programme, to clarify that work experience is a straightforward and simple voluntary programme that gives people experience in an industry or field they have expressed an interest in going into.
We should remember to congratulate the companies involved in the scheme, and it is great that hundreds more are joining, thanks to the publicity it has had—we should possibly thank the Socialist Workers party for giving it that extra coverage. Those companies should be congratulated for doing young people a service by providing opportunities and experience of a range of issues. They are providing not just the skill sets that people want, whether that is in engineering, technology, retail or any other industry, but the interpersonal skills that Members mentioned and the skills that come with simply understanding what it means to get up and go to work. Last week, The Sunday Telegraph carried a story about people on the work experience programme of a company in Kent. Those people said how much higher their self-esteem was as a result of getting up in the morning and having a project, and most of them were going on to full-time jobs with the company.
We must, however, be careful. The real shame is that if we do not make it clear what a good scheme this is, organisations such as charities that run work experience schemes could lose the benefit of them. Through the Prince’s Trust, I have had people work in my office for a couple of weeks. They have been excellent people, and they have used that experience on their CVs and gone on to really productive ways of life, which was perhaps not the case before. A range of charities could be threatened if we are not careful.
The most important people in all this, however, are the young people who take part in the scheme. They have voluntarily said they want to do something with their lives; they want to think out of the box and take a different path. As we have heard, many of us, and many people who work in the media, have had work experience. I was fortunate enough to do so when I was young because my father happened to know somebody who offered me work experience, and that led to other opportunities. Other young people do not necessarily have those connections and opportunities. It is right and courageous of the Government to put the scheme forward, to give a chance to people who may not have those contacts. That is hugely important.
We have all perhaps worked in jobs that we have seen as only the first step. My first paid job was in a warehouse. I did not particularly want to spend my life working in a warehouse. I wanted to be a buyer, and move on from there, but to get into a particular company I needed to take a job in the warehouse. It was step one on the ladder. We must encourage the 34,000-plus young people who have done the work experience programme to feel that they have done a good thing. They have shown motivation, and are inspired to go and do something different—to take a step on to the first rung of the ladder, and not to expect to jump on to rungs four, five or six, which too often is the case these days. We should really congratulate the young people who have had the motivation to get involved with the scheme, as much as the companies that give them the opportunity. It is a good scheme and we should support it.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Howarth, despite the fact that I have an awful cold. I hope to get through my speech without coughing too much.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing the debate. I asked for a debate on the same matter in business questions recently. It is important to use this opportunity to clarify the terminology, which I shall do in the form of a media guide, as it were. I hope the Minister will confirm my understanding of the categories. The three that get most confused are Work Experience programme, the Work programme and workfare.
My experience of the media confusion came when, like my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is a colleague on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, I was invited on to “Newsnight”. The producer said to me, “We are going to have one young person with a good experience of work experience, and one with a bad experience, and we would like you to come and debate it.” I thought it seemed sensible, but when I turned up there were three people, one of whom was a young person who had had a positive experience of work experience. However, there was also a 48-year-old gentleman who was clearly either in some form of the Work programme, or had some other experience, and a 40-year-old gentleman. It did not help—I do not know whether it was deliberate or accidental—that the producer had accumulated three people with experience of different aspects of back-to-work activity.
It would be helpful to use the debate to clarify the fact, which does not seem to have got through loud and clear to certain segments of the media, that the Work Experience programme is a voluntary one for people under 24. It changes the unfortunate situation that existed under the previous rules. We have heard that the BBC, ITV and The Guardian offer work experience, often in four-week tranches. Under the previous rules, a young person looking for work who was fortunate enough to be offered work experience by one of those organisations would have to give up jobseeker’s allowance for taking work experience that lasted longer than two weeks. That is profoundly unfair, because we all know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth said, that many perhaps more middle-class families can afford to subsidise their young person under the age of 24 to take that kind of work experience. It is extremely progressive that the Government have changed the rules, so that now a young person whose family relies on their jobseeker’s allowance can take the work experience opportunities that have been largely the preserve of sharp-elbowed middle-class people.
The Work programme is completely different. It is not age-dependent. The Government put out contracts, which became live last June. The Work and Pensions Committee is looking forward to hearing from the Minister next Monday some of the early indications of the results of the contracts. Obviously, there is regional variation in providers and who won the contracts. The important thing about the Work programme is that, rather than being prescriptive about the contracts, the Government have for the first time created a black box: the providers can do what they find works to get people back into work. It is a completely different kettle of fish from voluntary work experience for young people. Yes, participation in the Work programme comes about when someone has either spent a period on incapacity benefit or been out of work on jobseeker’s allowance for an extended time, and those activities do tend to be mandatory in many cases. That is the second thing that gets confused when it is brought into the picture.
I would like to ask the Minister for clarification about workfare. My understanding is that the Department’s use of workfare—having to work while on benefits—is quite limited, particularly where it is mandatory. However, it is a tool that jobcentre advisers have in their armoury. If they suspect, for example, that someone is working and claiming benefits, they can use workfare to identify those situations. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether that is the correct way to define workfare.
I think that there has been media confusion. I hope that in my speech I have created a helpful media guide for any producers out there who may be doing programmes on the subject, and I look forward to clarification of the definitions from the Minister.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing this important debate, on behalf of the striving majority for whom work experience is a great opportunity, for themselves or their children—something to be celebrated and encouraged.
I want to broaden the debate slightly to talk about work experience before children leave school, but before I do that I want to talk about the Government programme that has caused some controversy: what it is, what it does, and for whom. From an employer’s point of view it is a fantastic extended job interview, and an opportunity to see someone in action. Anyone who has ever taken anyone on will know that giving someone a job is always a risk. The more it is possible to see the person in action, the more the risk is mitigated. An employer will get some productive work out of a short-term work experience placement, but, to be honest, it is not nearly as much as some media commentators have suggested. I suggest that, for employers, taking part in the programmes is far more to do with investing in the future and the next generation.
For the individual, the key advantage of work experience is proving oneself—first to the employer directly concerned, bearing in mind the possibility of a job at the end; but, perhaps more importantly, to any employer, by demonstrating recent work experience, involving turning up on time and undergoing the discipline involved. Along the way, of course, people develop skills, and experience a business or occupation that may interest them. But most of all work experience is an in. It is an opportunity that people might not otherwise get. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) said that people who apply for jobs in retail know how hard it is to get them. Well, yes: one reason is that without recent work experience people are far less likely to be considered. Other things being equal, at the same rate of pay, the risk is lower and the odds of success are far higher if an employer employs someone who is already in a job or who has just left one, than if they take a punt, as they might see it, on someone who has been out of work for some time. I suggest that anyone who thinks that great employers—great firms with consumer brands of huge value—are in the programme just to get cheap labour, has never held a supervisory position in a consumer-facing branded organisation.
The Government Work Experience programme has generated controversy. I have had e-mails from bemused constituents about both the opposition and Her Majesty’s Opposition: the deafening silence from the Leader of the Opposition has done no credit to the great Labour movement, the party of work.
Tom Blenkinsop
We have yet to hear from the Government Benches about how this policy rebalances the economy and how work experience can be used in manufacturing. We hear about employers in the retail sector, but I am interested to hear whether manufacturers have taken on people in this work experience role and whether, if there have been long periods of such experience, greater numbers of people in the north-east have been employed in manufacturing in the traditional sense.
[Mr David Crausby in the Chair]
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I shall leave it hanging, so that the Minister can pluck it at the appropriate moment. All I would say is that the service industry is an enormous part of the economy. We all want to see growth in manufacturing, but services are a huge part of the economy in many of our constituencies. Getting work experience in that area is absolutely valuable in its own right.
The bemused e-mails that I have been receiving from my constituents say something along these lines: “I understand that the programme is voluntary. There are some advantages to the individual in taking part, but if, after a period of time—not on the first day but after a week or so—they just cease to turn up to work for no good reasons, there are adverse consequences.” It is called a work experience programme—I do not know about you, Mr Crausby, but that sounds an awful lot like an experience of work. I pay tribute to the firms that have taken part in the programme, particularly those that have stood firm and not given in. However, I also understand the nervousness of some of the firms that have issued statements expressing concerns.
We all welcome the new media campaigns with which we are pleased to communicate on a regular basis. As politicians, we also know that they are not always all that they purport to be. I am probably unusual on the Conservative Benches in being a Guardian reader. Perhaps I was the only Member present who was a little bemused, or amused, to read the helpful clarification in The Guardian that this right to work campaign was not run by a bunch of lefties because it contained not only the Socialist Workers party, but members of UK Uncut and the Occupy protest movement. I understand the nervousness of firms with quarterly results to deliver and daily revenues to monitor. We need a debate about how some of these campaigning organisations work and about their proper role in society.
Sheila Gilmore
I can say from my long political experience that if views that might be deemed extremist do not strike a chord with the public, they will simply sink. If some of the criticisms of this initiative, which have been raised in this House previously, had had no resonance with the public—
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. All credit to those organisations for creating a splash over the issue. However, I am afraid that they have done it by misleading the public and saying that young people are being forced into slave labour when that is absolutely not the case. This relates to what I was saying about the Opposition—I do not include the small number of Labour Members who have come here today. When their leader had an opportunity to debunk that theory and to put the record straight, he failed to do so. It was a great shame that we did not hear such a view from Labour, the party of work.
I know that we are short of time, but I should like to broaden my contribution to include work experience at school. Whenever employers give evidence on the Education Committee, on which I sit, they predictably complain about qualifications not doing what they say on the tin and about young people not being work ready. Work readiness is sometimes called employability skills, soft skills or, when the terminological obfuscation gets extreme, transferable non-cognitive skills. Essentially, what it means is all the stuff about dealing with other people—turning up to work on time, knowing the right way to dress, empathy with the customer, smiling and pride in a job well done. All those things can be partly developed through work experience. When we ask employers if the situation is getting worse, they often say that it is. We cannot demonstrate that it is getting worse. It may be just not getting better, but we are in the business of economic growth. To achieve economic growth, we need such things to be improving year on year.
We need a debate about the role and quality of work experience in schools. It may be that the two-week block in years 10 or 11 is an important part of that, but it does not seem to be doing the full job. With the rise in the participation age, I wonder whether moving the bulk of work experience into the sixth form might be more appropriate. It may well be that there is a role for both. I also hope that we can consider other ways of augmenting and bolstering that work experience. Perhaps we can have a more formal assessment of that young person’s performance in work experience that can count towards their future job prospects.
Tom Blenkinsop
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I suggest that we bring in that introduction to work experience at the options stage, when children at 14 and 15 are choosing their options for GCSEs, which usually indicate what career they might be going into.
Damian Hinds
I absolutely see that point. That is why I said that there could be a role for both. Even at the options stage, there is only an opportunity to see one employer, so it will not give a full range of career choices. We certainly need more firms to step up to the plate for school-age work experience. There are many myths about health and safety compliance and Criminal Records Bureau checks and so on. I hope the Government will turn their attention to encouraging more and more quality employers to get on board with that programme and offer more opportunities to young people.
There is a particular area in which school-age work experience can deliver huge benefits to our country. I am talking about work in the public sector, particularly in teaching. The Education Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into what makes a great teacher. One of the recurring themes is that everybody knows what a great teacher is because they have had one. They know it when they see it, but it is very difficult to predict in advance who is going to make a great teacher unless they are seen teaching. I hope we can encourage young people who are interested in teaching, particularly from the sixth form, to do teaching placements of one or two weeks in a school. By working alongside a QTS teacher, they will be able to develop their skills and decide whether teaching is right for them. Furthermore, qualified teachers will be able to assess whether they are well suited to the job.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
Just this morning, I visited the charity City Year, which enables young people to volunteer for one year to work, unpaid, in local schools—Hackney schools in this particular instance. Some 86% of students who volunteer get a job after, largely as teachers.
Damian Hinds
That is a fascinating scheme. I am not familiar with it, but I will certainly look it up. As it transpires, that was the end of my remarks, so I will stop.
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
I want to call the two Front-Benchers at 12.10 pm, so I would appreciate a very short contribution from Graham Evans.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
I will crack on with my very short contribution. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this very interesting debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing it. He is a hard-working advocate for his constituents and deserves considerable credit for his work. Like his good self, I have a young family, so we both have a vested interest in this topic. I know first hand the importance of experiencing the world of work. I grew up on a council estate in Poynton and left my local state school with few qualifications. My first job was stacking shelves in the local Co-op. I went on to get a job working on nimrods at BAE Systems at Woodford. I was able to study at night school and build a successful career in manufacturing. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) talked about opportunities in manufacturing. Under Labour, between 1997 and 2010, the number of people employed in manufacturing halved. In 1997, manufacturing’s contribution to GDP was 22%. In 2010, it was 12%.
It is a great honour to represent the people of Weaver Vale. That would not have been possible if I had not been able to get my first experience of work. We all know how vital work experience is for young people. The previous Labour Government acknowledged that and used it as part of their new deal. The evidence is even clearer now. Statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions tell us that 50% of all participants on work experience schemes move off benefits within three months. Obviously, work experience schemes can be a key weapon in the fight against youth unemployment, but why is that fight so important?
As I have said in recent debates on apprenticeships, there is a significant correlation between the eastern expansion of the European Union and the increase in youth unemployment from 2004 onwards. Despite repeated warnings from the Conservative Opposition at that time, the Labour Government decided against having transitional immigration controls. The impact on youth unemployment has been dramatic.
If someone wants to understand why youth unemployment has become such a problem, they should put themselves in the shoes of a prospective employer. Are prospective employers going to pick a school leaver with zero work experience or training ahead of a 30-something migrant who has extensive work experience? Would they take on the risk, costs and effort to train young people who are lacking any sort of work experience, and who therefore have no way of demonstrating that they are reliable, instead of older migrants who are already trained and have a CV demonstrating a strong work ethic? So it is screamingly obvious why work experience schemes can help to tackle youth unemployment, and I am delighted that the Government recognise that and are spending £1 billion on the youth contract to create incentives for employers to create an extra 250,000 work experience places during the next three years.
Given some of the utter nonsense that has been spouted in recent weeks about these work experience schemes, it is important to remember that they are voluntary. Furthermore, people have an opportunity to try out the scheme first before giving a commitment. In addition, it is absolutely ridiculous to assert that businesses are exploiting young people and getting free labour. There are significant costs for businesses that are taking part: to arrange the placements, to train the people, to mentor them and to provide equipment and uniforms. Businesses that take part should be applauded, not attacked. So all Members should get behind the Work Experience scheme and the Government’s—
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. I ask the Member to wind up quickly.
Graham Evans
I will finish quickly. A record 440,000 apprenticeships have been created this year alone. There has been £150 million of capital spending to support improved technical and vocational education. There are ambitions for at least 24 new colleges by 2014 and, of course, there are the fantastic education reforms. The future competiveness of our economy depends on these initiatives.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I am grateful to you, Mr Crausby, for giving me this opportunity to speak. I also thank the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who has done us a great service by securing a debate on this very important topic.
The Government have got themselves into an extraordinary muddle over work experience. Labour supports work experience. It can be invaluable in reconnecting people with the labour market; it has been a part of labour market intervention since the 1970s; and it was a key feature of the success of the new deal. Unfortunately, however, the Government have got themselves into a terrible mess.
On 29 February, the Minister—in an attempt to extricate himself from that mess—announced a U-turn and that the “Work Experience” scheme was to be fully voluntary. Previously, he had said that it was a voluntary scheme; I suppose that his announcement on 29 February means that it really will be voluntary. However, his problem is that the letters that Jobcentre Plus staff sent out to claimants said something quite different. He was memorably confronted on “Channel 4 News” with a letter that had been sent out to somebody who was being told about a placement on a “Work Experience” scheme; the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) quite rightly said that there are other schemes, but in this case the placement was part of a “Work Experience” scheme. The letter said:
“You have been referred to the following Opportunity: retail assistant…If you cannot attend for any reason or if you stop claiming Jobseekers Allowance please contact this Jobcentre immediately. If without a good reason you fail to start, fail to go when expected or stop going...any future payments of Jobseekers Allowance could cease to be payable or could be payable at a lower rate.”
There is no point in claiming that the scheme is voluntary if Jobcentre Plus staff—staff in the Minister’s job centres—are telling people precisely the opposite.
Chris Grayling
Has it crossed the right hon. Gentleman’s mind that nobody would receive a letter unless they had volunteered?
Stephen Timms
Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what I suspect is the source of the confusion. It arises from the decision maker’s guide, which any Member of the House can read on the website for the Department for Work and Pensions. That guide says:
“JSA may not be payable or it may be payable at a reduced rate to claimants who are entitled to JSA and have...after being notified by an Employment Officer of a place on a Work Experience scheme, refused without good cause or failed to apply for it or to accept it when offered, or...neglected to avail themselves of a reasonable opportunity of a place on Work Experience.”
A Jobcentre Plus adviser who is doing their job and looking at the official guidance discovers that that is what the guidance is—a clear description of a mandatory scheme.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Jobcentre Plus staff have been so confused and have contradicted what the Minister has said. Of course, as we know, a number of businesses also lost confidence in the scheme. But the muddle goes even further, because the DWP’s provider guidance for the Work programme says:
“Where you are providing support for JSA participants, which is work experience, you must mandate participants to this activity. This is to avoid the National Minimum Wage Regulations, which will apply if JSA participants are not mandated”.
The DWP was saying that until a few weeks ago, but that particular statement has now been deleted from the guidance on the website.
Therefore I want to ask the Minister three specific questions. First, now that there are no sanctions in work experience other than for gross misconduct, will he amend the decision maker’s guide? Secondly, how will he ensure that the policy is now implemented in line with what he has announced? Thirdly, what has changed in the legal position so that work experience no longer has to be mandated to “avoid”—to quote the guidance that was on his Department’s website—the national minimum wage rules?
The Work Experience scheme is too valuable to let this muddle continue. And as we have already heard in the debate, there are other schemes apart from the “Work Experience” scheme. In fact, Inclusion says that there are seven different current work experience schemes, which may be part of the reason for the muddle. At the time that some claimants are starting on the “Work Experience” scheme, others start on mandatory work activity, which was the scheme referred to by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth. That may well be another source of the confusion. As the name of the mandatory work activity scheme suggests, it is not voluntary. It is designed for people who are a long way from the labour market and who have no experience of work or the work ethic. Placements are for a similar period to those in the Work Experience scheme, and they are sourced through private welfare-to-work providers. The total value of the contracts for mandatory work activity is £32 million. I have repeatedly asked the Minister to tell the House what the average cost of such a placement is, and various other details. He has repeatedly refused to answer those questions, claiming that it is “Commercial in Confidence” although heaven knows why.
Mr Marcus Jones
The right hon. Gentleman has talked a lot about “confusion”, but from where I sit in Westminster Hall today I am extremely confused about the position of his party in relation to the Government’s work experience programme. On the one hand he says that he supports work experience, but on the other he seems to be coming up with all sorts of “confusion” in his argument to try to get away from supporting that programme. Does his party support the current Government’s work experience programme and will he commit to supporting those employers that are doing a fantastic job in giving our young people this type of opportunity?
Stephen Timms
I very strongly support work experience and I strongly support the contribution of employers. However, what I regret and deprecate is the extraordinary muddle and confusion that the Government’s handling of the Work Experience scheme and the six other similar schemes has created.
On mandatory—[Interruption.] Time is running out and I want to give the Minister every chance to respond to these points, so let me just tell the House about one of my constituents. She was put on to mandatory work activity. She was not a long way from the labour market; indeed, after I inquired about her, she received a phone call to say that she should never have been put on mandatory work activity in the first place. The letter that was sent to her initially was a classic of incomprehensibility; I sent a copy of it to the Minister. It instructed her, a resident of east London, to go to an obscure Sheffield postcode, and it said that if she had any queries she should ring telephone number 000. Her placement was at a charity shop. When she arrived, there were 14 other people on mandatory work activity who had also been sent to the same charity shop to help out. There was nowhere near enough work to go round, although presumably all 15 of those people attracted a payment to the provider from the Minister’s Department.
Experiences such as that will not help anybody into work. I ask the Minister: what checks is he making on placements to mandatory work activity? In fact, does he know if his Department is being ripped off on a large scale, as the example that I just gave suggests? Also, why does he insist on secrecy about all of this, when the openness that is being promoted by the Cabinet Office would help to resolve all these problems? This Minister has some form on this. He has been officially rebuked for misusing statistics—I think more than any other Member of the House—including on three separate occasions since he has been a Minister. That is a pretty extraordinary record.
Chris Grayling
On a point of order, Mr Crausby. Is it in order to make allegations about another Member without giving details? I am certainly not aware of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has just raised. He has made quite a serious comment about another Member. I have no knowledge of any such occasions since I have become a Minister.
Stephen Timms
I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that the three occasions are all on the UK Statistics Authority’s website: first, data relating to the flexible new deal; secondly, data relating to worklessness statistics; and thirdly, data about benefit claims on the part of immigrants. The first and third of those were widely publicised at the time. I have the letter on the second in front of me. The Minister publishes statistics that he thinks advance his partisan case, but he refuses to publish straightforward, routine data that certainly should be in the public domain.
Chris Grayling
Further to that point of order, Mr Crausby. Since becoming a Minister I have not received, to the best of my knowledge, any communication from the UK Statistics Authority questioning any statistics that I have published. I want to place that on the record and ask whether it is in order for a shadow Minister to make an allegation of that kind.
Stephen Timms
I will gladly copy the letter from the UK Statistics Authority website for the Minister.
Work experience should have been straightforward and uncontroversial. It is valuable and we need more of it. Instead, we have had U-turns, public relations fiascos and even street protests. The Minister needs to clear up the confusion at Jobcentre Plus, level with us about mandatory work activity and embrace at last the open data initiative that was conceived by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General so that everybody can judge for themselves the effectiveness of the schemes.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
We have just heard a clear example of why the Opposition have yet to adapt to opposition. In long years of opposition, we learned that there are times when one should simply accept that what the Government are doing is right. I am sorry to hear the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), for whom I normally have a high regard, misrepresenting the situation around any letters or communications that the Department has received from the UK Statistics Authority. I am also sorry that he is dancing on a sixpence to try to oppose something that he should support.
Mr Crausby, if you had told me three months ago that we would be dealing with protests against the work experience scheme, given all the difficult decisions that we are taking in the Department for Work and Pensions, I would have thought you were mad. Among all those difficult decisions, this is a positive programme that is designed to help. It is innocuous. It does what it says on the tin. It started as a result of a complaint that I personally received from the mother of a young woman who said, “My daughter has arranged a month’s work experience for herself and been told she will lose her benefits if she carries out that experience.” I regarded that as unacceptable, so we started to use the teams of people we have in Jobcentre Plus to look for opportunities for young people to do work experience, precisely because of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis). It is all well and good if someone comes from a prosperous background, but not everyone does. Helping young people find work experience opportunities is enormously important.
I will deal straight away with the issue raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore). I am afraid she needs to look in the mirror and ask the question about being a job snob. The row came about because of a computer error, which published an internal bulletin about a work experience placement at Tesco. Had it been Airbus, this would never have been a story, and the hon. Lady would not be complaining today. I commend Airbus for joining our scheme, along with many other manufacturers.
About 12 months ago, I met an older, former unemployed worker at an Asda store in Birmingham. He said: “I came here after years of unemployment. I got a job at the bottom level of the scale. A few months later, I was running a department with a staff of 20.” The job of running a high street retail branch—a big supermarket—can be a job that oversees a large staff in a business turning over tens of millions of pounds a year. In a large company such as Tesco, there are a vast range of opportunities in IT, HR, logistics, or community outreach. There was magnificent community work at Asda in my own constituency. There are all kinds of opportunities for someone to go in at the bottom and work their way up.
Let me explain to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East how the scheme works. Our advisers sit down with young people and talk about different career options. They ask them about the sectors that interest them, and find them—if we can—a placement in one of their preferred sectors. It is their choice. We listen to them and try to find the opportunity. Unfortunately, we cannot find opportunities for all the young people, because the scheme is over-subscribed. That is the nature of what we are trying to do. We expect them to turn up, if they have taken a placement from someone else; we expect them to fulfil the placement if they stay beyond the first week’s grace; and we expect them to behave themselves. It is the lightest-touch conditionality anywhere in the welfare system. We have listened to the employers—given all the brouhaha—and accepted that we would remove the attendance requirement. We still have sanctions in place for things such as racism in the workplace, theft in the workplace and abusive behaviour towards customers or fellow co-workers. Only about 200 out of 34,000 participants have been sanctioned.
The scheme was and will continue to be a voluntary scheme that is positive and beneficial. Some of the coverage—particularly the BBC’s—and wilful attempts to mislead were disgraceful. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) is absolutely right. The way in which this was covered was nothing short of disgraceful. The scheme is aimed at the under-24s. Putting people in their 40s on the TV was nonsensical and extremely poor-quality journalism. However, a small number of older people do get work experience placements: for example, long-term carers and people who have been out of the workplace for long periods for whom such experience is beneficial.
The right hon. Member for East Ham raised a variety of questions about letters and so forth. Of course, someone does not get a letter about the scheme unless they have volunteered to be on it. It is as simple and straightforward as that. I will tell the House a simple story, which was fed back to me by one of our Jobcentre Plus teams a couple of weeks ago. They were briefing a group of young people about the work experience scheme and opportunities. One of them—a young woman—said, “I don’t wanna do that. It’s slave labour.” Our staff said that they did not have to do or say anything at all, because the rest of the group turned on her and told her in no uncertain terms how important the opportunity was to them and how important it was that they all took part. By the time they had finished discussing it as a group, she was going to take part, too. There was no mandation from us, but mandation from her peers.
The scheme is positive. It is not about retailing. The tragic aspect to the debate is the absurd discussion about whether we should be helping young people get work experience places—of course we should. There should be no doubt about that. We are still not hearing, especially from the right hon. Member for East Ham, “This is a good scheme that we will back publicly. It is the right thing to do. We will continue it if we get back into Government.” All we hear is cavilling about this and that detail. Let us stand up and say, “We have a problem with youth unemployment. We need to do something about it. We will do something. We will all work together.” Every single one of us in this House, whether it is the right hon. Gentleman, me or any other Member here, could do a power of good for this scheme, Mr Crausby. Indeed, you could yourself, sir, in your constituency. We can talk to local employers and say, “Get involved.” This is a real way to help young people. It makes a difference. It is great. They go on into employment and many of them look back and say that it is the best thing that ever happened to them.
We do have mandatory programmes. The mandatory work activity programme gives our Jobcentre Plus advisers the discretion to refer someone whom they believe is struggling, not pulling their weight or having real difficulty in their work search to a month’s full-time activity. We do not mandate to go and work for private companies—they would not take it even if we did. The same is true of the Work programme. We cannot send people against their wishes to work for a big retailer.
Chris Grayling
I will not, because I have very little time.
Mandation in our system will apply to community benefit schemes and to nothing else. We are absolutely clear about that. It is the same for the Work programme. The work experience scheme is a good scheme, which must and will continue. It will now grow, because more people are coming forward to help—after all the publicity, ironically. The protesters are plain wrong. They are misguided. It is a tragedy that they are supported by the unions and Labour MPs, but we will not listen to them. We will listen to the young people who say, “This is the best thing that could happen to us.”
Investigation of Suicides
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
It is with delight that I appear before you, Mr Crausby, as I know that you take a particular interest in this matter. This debate has been prompted by my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention, and is based on the testimonies that I have heard from families bereaved by suicide. I will raise two key issues in the short time that I have. The first involves how police officers interact with bereaved families, and the second involves how suicides are investigated, most notably where the internet may be a factor. I will make eight clear requests for change, which I ask the Minister to consider.
Suicide is a tragedy for the individual who takes their own life, and it brings long-term distress for the family and friends left behind. For every suicide, six people close to the person who died—in England and Wales, that means 30,000 people each year—will experience a deep sense of grief. Families bereaved by suicide inevitably find themselves in direct contact with the authorities. In many cases, a knock at the door by a police officer informs them of what has happened.
Families touched by suicide can suffer a greater stigma than is attached to other forms of death, and they may avoid reaching out for support. They are vulnerable. As the Government’s draft suicide prevention strategy notes, family members are approximately two and a half times more likely to take their own life after the suicide of a close relative.
At a recent meeting of the all-party group, we considered bereavement. Many spoke about their initial contact with the authorities. I will share one statement:
“The police who dealt with my son immediately following his death were, as I would have expected, matter-of-fact but kind and sympathetic to the family. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for them to have to deal with a family like ours who are expressing a mixture of utter shock, bewilderment, hysteria, and sheer terror when a family member takes their own life. It happened late in the evening, and by the time the police had left around midnight, it was dark and cold and trying to get children to sleep, let alone ourselves, was impossible.
The following day, another policeman arrived to take statements. He again did his job well and with sympathy. However, I found the whole event very distressing, and it would have been very helpful if someone had been there—a trained counsellor—to help us through this process, to offer some comfort and attempt to give us some level of understanding as to what had just happened. As it was there was no one. No one gave us the ‘Help is at Hand’ booklet, no one gave us any numbers to call. Nothing.”
I recommend that the Minister read the work of Dr Sharon McDonnell, or at least that one of his team read it. She is at the university of Manchester and has researched how health professionals and police officers interact with bereaved families. For her PhD, she interviewed bereaved families, finding that eight out of nine participants informed by the police reported feeling distressed, traumatised and angry at how they had been informed. Dr McDonnell is seeking funding for further research in the area. I urge the Minister to discuss not only the changes that she has identified as necessary but how we can move forward and ensure that we change families’ experience.
None of the families with whom I have had contact ever received a copy of “Help is at Hand”. I would be interested to know whether the Minister is aware of the booklet to which I refer. It is a Department of Health document offering advice for those bereaved by suicide or other traumatic deaths. It includes contacts for support groups and covers practical matters such as the inquest procedure and methods for dealing with grief. Sadly, that invaluable resource is being wasted through patchy distribution and a lack of awareness.
Last year, when I took part in the police service parliamentary scheme with South Wales police, I was already aware of the expertise of officers across my constituency on the issue, and I take this opportunity to commend them. However, away from Bridgend, I was concerned by the lack of guidance that individual officers appeared to receive on how to deal with families and media inquiries. It left me wondering whether standard guidance and training for police officers exist or whether it is left to chance.
In the first instance, investigations of a death are steered by the murder investigation manual, which is employed for investigation into unexplained deaths. After criminality has been ruled out, the manual no longer applies. Apparently, it is left to local forces to produce their own guidance on investigating non-suspicious deaths.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate on an important issue. On police investigations, is it not important that suicide should never be presumed but that a finding must be based on evidence? For a family, suicide is a traumatic experience. Police must therefore eliminate all other possibilities in their investigations.
Mrs Moon
It is vital that the police conduct a full inquiry, but they must be aware of the sensitivity of the issue and the risks associated if the inquiry presses too much on possible family engagement or involvement in the death. I will address that later in my speech, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
Once a suicide has been determined, it is important that the police reconnect with families to ensure that they are not left feeling that they have caused or been implicated in their relative’s death. Families have expressed a feeling of being on trial, and that feeling can resurface, particularly during the coronial process. They feel that they carry some guilt and responsibility for the death. That is the cause of the risk of trauma.
The House of Commons Library undertook research on my behalf into what guidance is available to police forces, but it drew a significant blank. Although I plan to meet the lead on the issue from the Association of Chief Police Officers, will the Minister examine how advice and guidance can be issued by the Home Office to bring consistency to the investigations carried out by police forces after a death has been recognised as suicide? Will he examine the training provided to police officers on the difficult role that they play in breaking the traumatic news of a death to families, the sensitivity of gathering information to further their inquiries and the need to provide support and information to the bereaved? In particular, will he ensure that all front-line police officers are made aware of “Help is at Hand” and that families access it as a matter of course?
Families have also suggested that, in the event of a suicide, an immediate response plan should be put in place, bringing them into contact with someone with professional training to help them through the first few days and weeks and to give practical advice. As the first responders, the police often seem to be the trigger for generating such support. In addition, families propose that, in the first few days after a suicide, local agencies should work together to share information, agree lines of communication and ensure that lessons are learned. I can tell the Minister that it happens in my constituency, where it works extremely well and is very effective.
Australia leads the world on police and media communications after suicide. The all-party group heard from Professor Jane Pirkis, a leading expert in suicide research from Australia, about a programme called Mindframe designed to equip police officers with the necessary skills for dealing with the media. Officers are issued with a small card to keep in their wallet offering advice about appropriate language to use and how best to deal with media inquiries. It also highlights information to be passed to families, localised to individual police forces, about local and national support services. It is simple, but it ensures a high level of consistency, which we also need to achieve. Will the Minister look at Mindframe, with a view to adapting something similar for use by police forces in England and Wales?
Not only are the police often the first agency to be involved in a suicide, but police officers are more likely to have contact with people who are distressed and may go on to take their own lives. It is estimated that as many people see a police officer in the three months before their death as see a mental health professional in the 12 months before their death. Police officers are often the authority figures with whom the suicidal are in contact before their death; they are in contact with them more often than with any other professional. Will the Minister consider how police training can be used to build awareness of suicidal behaviour, so that officers are better equipped to recognise those at risk?
Social media such as Bebo and Facebook create an additional burden for bereaved families. Photographs posted on personal sites can often be accessed by journalists. I cannot begin to say how many families I have spoken to have been distressed when they saw photographs of their relative—often photographs that they have never seen before—printed without their knowledge or permission, often on the front page of a local newspaper. A few years ago, I worked with the Home Office to provide a simple telephone contact for each social network provider for police media teams to use to close access to individual sites. Will the Minister look at that again to ensure that police forces are aware of the process and that families can be advised of that service?
My second area of concern is about the investigation of suicides, in particular where the internet may have been a factor. In the past year, I have been contacted by several bereaved families, the majority of them parents who have lost a child. The communications follow a similar pattern. In the aftermath of a suicide, it becomes apparent that the individual may have used the internet to access information on the means and methods to take their own life. They may also have been offered encouragement to do so via internet sites. In all the cases brought to me, the police have decided not to investigate the individual’s computer. The reasons are varied, including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, general privacy issues, time and money—the latter becoming a growing issue as police forces face budget constraints.
Without investigation, what may amount to criminal incitement to suicide is going undetected and unchallenged. Papyrus, a suicide prevention charity that works with bereaved families, is aware of 50 cases in which the internet played a significant part in a suicide. If the police do not routinely investigate websites explored by individuals before their suicides, we will never know the real scale of the problem or what the most dangerous websites are. If the police are unwilling to investigate, surely the full facts are not being presented to the coroner. We need national guidelines for such investigations and we need police forces to investigate computers and internet use as a matter of course where there is a suspected or known suicide. Will the Minister examine the 2000 Act to see whether any aspect of the Act is seen by police forces as a prevention to further investigation of computers? Will he issue clear guidance to police forces to ensure that, at the least, the history of internet use before death is examined and notified to the coroner? That is a small task, and for an expert it takes a matter of minutes. However, most families cannot do that for themselves.
I wish to end by thanking the many police officers who have been given the awful task of investigating suicides and who have been given the even worse task of notifying the families of those who have died. In securing this debate, I have aimed to bring greater clarity and consistency for police officers and families alike. We ask a difficult task of our police officers: to be able to go on dangerous streets, to tackle violent crime and drugs, and to be able to deal with people in a high state of distress and trauma. It is important that they are given the guidance and training to do so, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on securing the debate. I pay tribute to her excellent work in the prevention of suicide through her role as chair of the all-party group on suicide and self-harm prevention. I am sure that her efforts have helped to keep the issue at the forefront of the political and public agenda. I am aware of her particular interest in such issues, following the spate of terrible deaths of young people in her constituency a few years ago. Every suicide is a tragic event, and it is hard to imagine how traumatic an experience it must be for the bereaved family and friends.
The Government take the issue seriously, and we are committed to suicide prevention. Last July, we published a consultation on preventing suicide in England, which set out a draft cross-departmental outcomes strategy to save lives. I understand that the Welsh Government have their own national action plan to reduce suicide and self-harm in Wales.
A whole range of factors come together to increase a person’s vulnerability to self-harm or suicide. The Government are committed to ensuring that the right support is in place for individuals who find themselves in such desperate situations. As part of a range of measures to reduce the suicide rate, the draft strategy highlighted the need for continuing to support the internet industry to remove content that encourages suicide and to provide ready access to suicide prevention services—a particular concern to the hon. Lady following the deaths in Bridgend.
The consultation ended on 11 October last year and received around 200 responses from a broad range of organisations and individuals. We are now considering all the responses received and intend to publish the final strategy later this year, so the hon. Lady’s intervention and list of suggestions are timely.
Turning to the role of the police, which is the specific topic that the hon. Lady has raised, it is important to set out the different but complementary roles of the police and coroners when there has been a sudden death. The coroner is an independent judicial officer who has a statutory duty to investigate every death where he or she has reason to suspect that it may have been violent, unnatural or of an unknown cause. The police have a duty to investigate all sudden deaths. They also act as coroners’ officers and are required to collect information and evidence that will enable the coroner to determine accurately the cause of death.
The police also have a core duty to establish whether a crime has been committed. Even when a death becomes no longer suspicious and appears explainable, they have an ongoing duty to assist the coroner by collecting and recording all available evidence for an inquest. Both the coroner and the police share the view that a suicide must never just be presumed, and they are diligent in their duty to establish unambiguous evidence that the deceased had intended to take his or her own life and to rule out other possibilities.
Training on how to deal with sudden deaths, including suicide, is mandatory for all police officers. Suicide is covered in training given to officers in a range of areas, including missing persons, coroners’ investigations and inquests and domestic abuse. Some forces have developed additional advice to police officers through local guidance or protocols on the investigation of sudden or unexplained death, including suicide.
It is the responsibility of the chief officer of each force to take appropriate steps to ensure that their staff receive appropriate training. They take that responsibility seriously and are alert to the need for their officers to behave with the utmost sensitivity and support when dealing with suicide. Nevertheless, I will certainly draw to the attention of the Association of Chief Police Officers the hon. Lady’s comments about the need for some kind of national guidance; about the booklet “Help is at Hand”, distribution of which she said is patchy; and about the Australian Mindframe programme that is issued to all police officers, about which I would certainly like to find out more.
We are in the process of setting up a professional body for policing, and this area is exactly the kind that that body would look at, because it is about standards in policing. We have to strike the right balance in deciding between what is appropriate to issue national guidance on and what is a matter for the police themselves to issue guidance on. That is consistent with our policy.
We want to hold the police accountable for the outcomes that they achieve, but to be less prescriptive in terms of Government direction about what they are doing. Our ambition is the same: to improve the service that the public receive. These are clearly very sensitive matters, and although it might not be appropriate to issue national Government guidance, that does not mean that it would be inappropriate for police guidance to be issued in the future by policing professional bodies. That is a matter that we can discuss and that I am open-minded about. I am conscious that we must be careful about adding to the burden of guidance.
The police coroner interface—the process by which a death is deemed not suspicious and is passed to the coroner, and through which evidence is shared—is important, as is the role of the police and other partners and organisations in supporting bereaved relatives. We accept that practice in those areas can vary across forces. That is why these issues are currently subject to discussion and review through a number of Government-led, cross-sector forums that want to improve the practice and investigations of sudden deaths and the support given to bereaved relatives. Representatives from ACPO are playing an active part in those discussions.
In November last year, the Government announced that they intend to proceed with the implementation of the office of the chief coroner, which will provide leadership and oversight of the coroner system. Once the chief coroner is in post, ACPO intends to meet him or her to indentify and discuss these cross-cutting issues. In addition, the Ministry of Justice plans to publish its charter for coroner services shortly. For the first time in the 800 years since the office of coroner was established, that will set out the standards of service that bereaved people can expect to receive and what they can do if they are not satisfied.
The other issue that the hon. Lady raised, which is obviously very serious, is that concerns have been expressed that the police should routinely examine the computers of suicide victims to determine whether they have received online encouragement to take their own lives. Any decision to access the computer of a person who has committed suicide rests with the relevant police force. I will come back to that, but it may be helpful if I first explain briefly the relevant provisions in law that have been simplified and modernised to reflect concerns about the misuse of the internet to promote suicide.
Under section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961, as amended by section 59 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, it is an offence to carry out an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person with the intention of so doing. The person committing the offence need not know the other person or even be able to identify them. Therefore, the author of a website promoting suicide and suicide methods may commit an offence if the website encourages or assists the suicide or attempted suicide of their readers and the author intends that the website will so encourage or assist them. Crucially, the law also allows that person to be prosecuted, irrespective of whether a suicide or attempted suicide takes place. Similarly, any person making a posting to an online chat room or a social networking site that intentionally encourages another person to commit or attempt to commit suicide may be guilty of offence.
The police can investigate those suspected of encouraging suicide by accessing the relevant computer and analysing the data on it after obtaining a warrant or an authorisation under the Police Act 1997 or RIPA, which the hon. Lady mentioned. Both routes would be authorised by senior police officers on the basis that the action is necessary and proportionate to detect a crime, including the crime of encouraging or assisting suicide. The 1997 Act authorisation would be necessary to open the computer and the RIPA authorisation would be necessary to examine the private information it contains. RIPA also permits the police to authorise the access of data from a communication service provider, including internet service providers, on the same basis to determine what sort of sites had been accessed or who had been in contact.
The decisions to take those actions would be a matter for the police. Neither the 1997 Act nor RIPA place any restriction on investigations into the use of the internet to encourage or assist suicide. In circumstances where the police believe that a suicide and content on the internet are linked, they might consider it appropriate to investigate the computer of the person who has committed suicide. As the hon. Lady knows, that can include the investigation of activity on social network sites, which have been thought to play a part in some incidents.
Any decision to access the computer of a person who has died following a suicide of course rests with the relevant police force. That must be done sensitively. If the bereaved family is not satisfied with the police’s actions, they can complain to the force directly. If they remain dissatisfied, they should raise any concerns with the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The hon. Lady raised a separate issue about the role of social media following a suicide and the fact that it may be possible through social media for people to access information, including photographs, in a way that distresses the family. She mentioned that some kind of protocol to address that is already in existence. I am very happy to consider that matter and examine whether that protocol is being used effectively. I can understand that a social website through which photographs are shared and available when somebody is alive and perhaps happy may take on an entirely different complexion to the family of that person if a suicide occurs. Therefore, it is desirable to be able to ensure that information that was publicly available in different circumstances cannot be misused. I am happy to consider that matter and examine how we might work with the social media providers to ensure effective action in such circumstances.
I reiterate the Government’s commitment to preventing suicide, which requires co-ordination and contributions from public services and organisations, voluntary groups, the private sector and individuals. The forthcoming Government strategy will play an important part in helping to prevent vulnerable people from taking their own lives and in supporting those who have been bereaved following suicides. The Government are ensuring that we have a support framework in place, so that the right help is available to those who are at risk of suicide. Furthermore, the existing legal framework ensures that the police have sufficient powers to investigate sudden deaths and to support the work of the coroner.
I will ensure that we study the hon. Lady’s speech carefully, so that all the issues that she has raised are picked up, as we consider the publication of the strategy and the responses to it. If necessary, I will write to her to set out what more we think we might need to do. I certainly do not want her to think that I am not taking seriously her request that there should be national guidance in this respect, but I am conscious of the background of the burden of national guidance that has been coming from the Home Office on a range of matters. That is why the appropriate first step will be for me to discuss these issues with ACPO and find out what it believes is necessary by means of further doctrine and what it thinks the appropriate doctrine should be. The overall burden is something that concerns me; but equally, it is important to ensure proper practice.
Clearly, we will not prevent every tragedy. However, we can assure ourselves that we have done everything in our power, so that those with suicidal thoughts have somewhere to turn for support and bereaved families are treated with sensitivity by the police, who will leave no stone unturned in their pursuit of answers. I hope that that is an adequate response to the hon. Lady, given the seriousness of her concern about the matter, which I recognise.
Secondary Ticketing
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I believe that the free market is by far and away the best method by which to allocate resources effectively. Provided the often-quoted five criteria regarding the definition of perfect markets—identical product, all firms are price takers, all firms have a relatively small market share, perfect knowledge, and no barriers to entry or exit—are mostly met, the market should be left alone to do what it does best.
Consumers should have the ultimate say on how products are delivered and at what price. However, with live music and many other activities where a finite amount of tickets are available, there is a major perfect market imperfection. Music and other forms of creative expression are vital to the British economy—from earnings to employment—and for quality of life as well. The performing arts and sport sustain employment and tax revenues that benefit all our citizens. Some 1.5 million people are employed in the creative industries or in creative roles in other industries. Exports of services from the creative industries accounted for 10.6% of the UK’s exports of services, and there were an estimated 106,700 businesses in the creative industries, which represents 5.1% of all companies. British musical talent earned £139.6 million from overseas earnings in 2008. The top three earners, in order, were the Police, Iron Maiden and Coldplay. The Performing Rights Society for Music has said that Britain is the No. 1 home of musical talent in the world. In short, it is worth us all taking an interest in the continued prosperity of the creative industries.
There is, however, a blight that creams off revenues by exploiting an imperfect market and contributes nothing to the creative copyright holders, or indeed the venues and staff who put on events. The blight consists of those who profiteer by exploiting excess demand. In rapidly changing times in the internet world, what was previously considered quaint and not much of a problem, or indeed a possible service, has now been overtaken by industrial-scale activities at the touch of a button. Government have not kept up with the rapid pace of change.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that this is a drain not just on the musical industry, but on the Exchequer too?
Mike Weatherley
Absolutely. I agree—it is a drain on the Exchequer. Of course, some secondary ticketing organisations pay tax, but there is an amount of VAT and so on that is not necessarily reclaimed.
The issue is recognised by some of the music and sports industries’ leading names. The list of those who joined me to meet the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport last year reads like a “Who’s Who”: Melvin Benn, Festival Republic, who runs the Glastonbury and Reading festivals and is chairman of Wembley stadium; Harvey Goldsmith, legendary promoter of live events; Rod Smallwood, Phantom Music, manager of Iron Maiden; Ian McAndrew, Wildlife Entertainment, manager of the Arctic Monkeys; Anthony Addis, Brontone Management, manager of Muse and the Pogues; Emma Banks, Creative Artists Agency; John Jackson, K2 Agency and Sonisphere festival; Simon Davies, the Teenage Cancer Trust charity; James MacDougall, Sport and Recreation Alliance; Dan Fahey, Virtual Festivals; Neil Warnock and Geoff Meall, the Agency Group; Jeff Craft, X-ray Touring; Brian Message, ATC/Courtyard Management and Music Managers Forum; and Danny Newby, Big Green Coach. Those industry leaders have been joined by many others in recent months, including DJ Rob da Bank; Phil McIntyre, Phil McIntyre Entertainments; James Sandom of Supervision Management, who look after the Kaiser Chiefs; and Steve Parker of Live UK. That group cannot be called an isolated few—the industry is very concerned.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I was surprised by the number of e-mails I received on this issue. Having heard that list, perhaps I should not have been. I received an e-mail from a constituent, Mr Sunderland from Larkfield. He said that a typical scenario is for tickets to go on sale on a Friday at 9 am, and by 9.10 am they are sold out. They are then listed on other websites at triple the face value, or even more, of the original tickets. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be putting the fan, not the salesman, at the centre of the ticketing process for live music and other events?
Mike Weatherley
I could not agree more. I will come on to that point in a moment—it is on an industrial scale now. The intention of the person buying the ticket is important. If the intention is to make a profit, I argue that that is to the detriment of the industry.
It can be argued that there are occasions where intermediaries, such as agents, or, in this example, ticket touts, provide a supply and demand service. However, in the case of exceptional excess demand for a finite product, supply cannot be increased to match demand. With only a finite number of hours available to the performers, the free market falls down due to a restriction of supply. Ticket touts who take advantage of that market imperfection do nothing to add to our creative industries in terms of revenue and profits to those putting on the shows.
In addition to profit being driven into the hands of those who have done nothing to nurture and develop the product, there is the added consideration of who owns the product being performed. I hope that everyone listening to this debate will readily agree that a performance belongs to an artist, and that the artist has the right to be in control of the terms of that performance. Indeed, today the French Government have enacted a law stating specifically that. Any hon. Member who wishes to explore further why the protection of intellectual property rights is so important may wish to check out my “Rock the House” website, www.rockthehouse2012.com, which goes into that particular debate in some detail. The creative person should at all times be able to retain control of how the end product is produced, marketed and used.
I am well aware of the argument that artists realise the full value of the ticket sales, so who are they to complain if others also make a profit? That argument, however, falls down on three counts. First, there are many reasons why a business may wish to price at below full market value, such as market penetration and reward for loyalty. There is differential pricing in football stadiums; for example, in a young persons area where the club wishes to build a fan base. They could sell at a much higher rate, but choose to price market segment. The clubs would be disadvantaged if those young persons simply sold on their tickets for a profit—that would defeat the intention of a lower-priced ticket. I will come on to the Olympic example later.
Secondly, another reason would be to control the type of person attending—for example, crowd separation at football matches. That argument is well established in other areas, too. There are restrictions on who can buy certain properties, such as affordable housing units that cannot be bought by speculators and sold at an immediately higher value to someone not in the target housing audience. In addition, a band may wish to have a young crowd at the front of the stage, rather than people who can afford the premium pricing, which would not necessarily create the same atmosphere.
Thirdly, there is criminality relating to ticket forgeries and organised crime, which I will come on to later. I should point out at this point that I am not totally against the on-selling of tickets. There must be a mechanism that allows ticket buyers to recover the price of their ticket, and maybe make a small profit for their troubles, if they cannot attend. That could be done via a fan-to-fan website. That is an essential safeguard, but it is the intention when buying the ticket that is the most important consideration. We saw recently, with the debenture ticket holders story at the Royal Albert hall, that some were buying their debenture—or season ticket, if you prefer—with no intention of going to the shows, but because they were able to make a profit of 10 times the face value.
At the moment, with huge profits available for popular events, tickets are being purchased on an industrial scale, with no intention of going to the event itself. People up and down the country are contracted by ticket organisations—or are freelance themselves—that make it their job to sit at banks of computers to buy the maximum allocation of tickets at face value as soon as they go on sale. As we saw on the “Dispatches” programme a few weeks ago, some companies are willing to use their staff, and credit cards obtained for this specific purpose, to buy tickets and resell for a profit.
Before I move on, may I just address the issues brought up in the “Dispatches” programme? A lot of the focus of the programme was based on artists, promoters or venues holding tickets back and using free market mechanisms to sell tickets at an additional profit to the benefit of those putting on the concert or event. I see nothing wrong with that if it is done with the copyright holder’s permission. It seems that that was given, since it would appear that the promoter ticket allocation, for example, was in the contracts. That was known to all parties and is no different from premium pricing at the front end. It is simply a mechanism that reduces the risk to the artist on pricing, and shares that with those operating the system for them. Some artists grade their tickets from the outset at a higher premium value. We have heard about certain artists charging £1,000 for tickets in the front row. The mechanism on fan-to-fan websites is no different from that; it just uses the free market to set the price. What was wrong, as mentioned earlier, was where the secondary ticket seller was buying, via a network of intermediary operators, for the specific purpose of on-selling at a profit to them, not to the artist.
That brings me on to the Olympics. As is well known and accepted as a matter of principle, it is against the law to on-sell an Olympic ticket, whether at a profit or not—it must be sold back to the organiser. It strikes me as baffling that the Government accept this for a specific sporting event and promote strong enforcement, but are reluctant to take action for the benefit of our creative industries. Some 6.6 million Olympic tickets have been sold to the public, raising £527 million. That figure could have been much more, but the price was set and the Government seek to enforce it so it remains a “games for all”, and not just those who can pay the premium. Some 25% of tickets have been held back for other purposes, such as corporate sales and other premium pricing, but a decision was taken that 75% of the tickets should go to enthusiastic fans at a specific price below market value. The atmosphere inside the arena will benefit as a result, contributing to what I am sure will be a fantastic games.
The Home Secretary is so determined to crack down on touts, the fine was raised from £5,000 to £20,000. In May 2011, she said:
“The 2012 Games will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the Games on home soil. By increasing fines for touting we are sending a clear message to criminals…that it is not worth their while and they are not welcome.”
The police, under Operation Podium, have announced that every ticket tout caught will also be pursued to recover their assets, with no maximum limit to the amount that can be recovered. Additionally, internet companies such as eBay and Gumtree could also face action if they do not take immediate action, once notified of illegal activity.
The worry about the effects of ticket touting goes further. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Downing, in charge of Operation Podium, said:
“we have already seen the demand for Olympic tickets which gives criminals greater opportunity to run scams, sell non-existent tickets and even steal your personal and credit card details to use in other crimes…As soon as you allow things to go out of control, opportunities for criminals grow. And I do not want London to be associated with disappointment at finding out all the money paid out was to criminals and no tickets exist”.
That last point could have been echoed by any bank manager, who I am sure would worry about exactly the same thing.
Although examples that I have given show that extensive action is, and can be, taken to prevent ticket touting at the games, it only serves to highlight the lack of action taken against ticket touts at other events. Without legislation, artists are forced to think of innovative ways to prevent touts. Glastonbury, for example, uses a picture of every ticket holder and other events have insisted that people bring with them the credit card used to purchase tickets. But this fails in a number of ways, from the father wanting to give a present to his kids, to those who do not have a credit card or driving licence as proof of identification. Such approaches can also create problems with crowd surges before curtain-up: checking 10,000 IDs will add to entrance delays, which venues are not geared up to handle, and there are obvious safety concerns—and anyway, it adds to the Big Brother state, which surely we should avoid if we can.
I am pleased that the ticket sales for the games have gone well. The Olympics are inspirational in so many ways and I hope that the Minister will be inspired by the ticketing arrangements for the London games and use that inspiration to help all our creative industries and events that could benefit similarly from Government and police assistance.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I know that the hon. Gentleman is probably just about to wind up, so I thank him for giving way. I wanted to listen to his speech in full and not interrupt along the way. He has made an excellent speech, as I would expect, because he is knowledgeable about this subject. With everything that he has said, and taking into account everything that he knows about what is going on, which “Dispatches” highlighted, does he think that the time has come for the Government to consider legislation, and not just say that the industry has to try to regulate itself?
Mike Weatherley
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I applaud her efforts in this field, without which I would never have been alerted to the issue. I thank her for that. I agree and France does, too. As I said, France has gone live today with a law specifically about this form of ticket touting, which is along the lines of the hon. Lady’s private Member’s Bill, which although introduced did not get past the next stage.
I am not advocating that every ticketed event be subject to additional legislative support. Many artists and events will be happy for the secondary market to buy and sell their tickets, but those that wish to have protection should be able to apply for support under law, in the same way the Olympics did. If it is good enough for the world’s premier sporting event, it should be good enough for our creative industry, which is worth protecting before we lose the world-beating position Britain currently enjoys.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, whereas in days gone by people queued to buy tickets and paid cash, many tickets are now bought online via different means and that is another example of how the internet and online communication are moving at a pace? We should move to use that to help us to prevent the scenarios that he is outlining.
Mike Weatherley
I agree. Some 20 years ago, ticket touting at events was a quaint issue, but now it is on an industrial scale. We live in rapidly changing times. I agree that the internet is a huge game changer. The UK Government need to catch up.
It is worth noting, as I said earlier, that a secondary ticketing law goes live in France today. The French are leading the way, the Olympics demanded it, the music industry is begging for action and the fans certainly want it, but what is lacking is our Government’s grasp of the overwhelming evidence for action.
The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and acknowledge, as other hon. Members have done, his expertise in this subject since he first came to Parliament and beforehand. Given that his speech was mainly about the music industry, I apologise for not being my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is normally the Minister responsible for matters musical. For some reason—I suspect because of the Olympics—the responsibility for such matters lies in my portfolio.
I will deal with various points that my hon. Friend has made. First, I am aware that there has been a spike of interest about secondary market issues, following the recent edition of the “Dispatches” programme, which he mentioned. I take the points that he made. I gather that the Office of Fair Trading has been asked to investigate a number of allegations made in that programme. As a result, I am told that I am not in a position to comment further on those allegations at the moment.
Secondly, my hon. Friend mentioned the Olympics. Let us be clear that we did not introduce a ban on secondary ticketing because we in this country thought that the Olympics needed such protection. To be brutally honest with my hon. Friend, we did it because it was a requirement of the bid. The International Olympic Committee requires that. A country has to sign up to a number of things in that regard, not all of which are universally popular in this country—from Olympic-specific lanes onwards. The commitment to introduce the ban was made quite correctly by the previous Government, precisely because it was a requirement of the bid.
To be clear about the quote from the Home Secretary, which my hon. Friend quoted correctly, the fine was raised to that level and not a great deal higher—the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) was a member of the Committee that dealt with this matter—although an amendment was tabled to do just that, in response to specific police advice about the appropriate fine and the seriousness of the threat. The Home Secretary did not dream it up for policy reasons; she was responding to a recommendation from the police.
Mrs Hodgson
As the Minister mentioned, I was a member of the Committee that considered that matter. We took evidence from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who, when I questioned him, said that he had evidence that the criminal activity that he was citing with regard to the fine having to be quadrupled to £20,000 also existed across the whole ticketing market. I pressed him to give his thoughts on whether the legislation should be extended, but obviously he said that it was not his place to say so. However, he gave evidence that this was rife across the whole ticketing world.
Hugh Robertson
After the hon. Lady’s private Member’s Bill was introduced, I undertook some checks with both the Home Office and the wider security services. I have checked with both the Metropolitan Police and the wider security services, and without going into too much detail about the information that they have given me, I regret to say that those organisations have told me that they think that we have the balance about right. They have said that this is a moving threat.
It is fair to say—it came across clearly in Assistant Commissioner Allison’s evidence to the Committee—that this is a new and growing threat. It is reasonably easy, through Operation Podium, to nail that down for the Olympics. However, the organisations that I mentioned do not feel—I really have asked them about this—that there is sufficient evidence at the moment for them to tell the Home Office, “Our legislative offer is deficient in this regard; we want a ban across the piece.” The police have not said that and neither, yet, have the security services.
I have asked the security services this specific question every time that we receive a briefing about intelligence behind a large range of threats to the Olympic games. We always ask about Operation Podium and the influence of large-scale criminal gangs, and the rest, on the games. The security services are happy that the current fine is sufficient to deter that activity. They are making good progress in targeting those who have offended and taking down dummy websites that have sprung up all around the place offering tickets that they cannot supply—people send off money out of misguided enthusiasm, but find that the thing is a complete sham.
At no stage, however, has anyone said that the threat is sufficient to support a more general ban. I shall come on to that in a minute, but I have an open mind. When that Rubicon is crossed, we will need to look at the matter very carefully, but I think that I have covered the Olympic-specific points, about the bid requirement and last year’s London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Act 2011 being a response to a specific threat identified by the police and to a need for a higher penalty than the existing £5,000.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hove went through the range of opportunities open to event organisers, but I suspect that we are on slightly different sides of the argument. The Government are keen for event organisers to look at all the options currently available to them before we legislate, whether paperless tickets or photo IDs, although I recognise what he said about some of the shortcomings in given situations.
Mike Weatherley
I thank the Minister for a detailed reply. On that specific point, have the Government initiated any inquiries into alternatives, or are they waiting for the industry to come back to them?
Hugh Robertson
The short answer, following on from the meeting that my hon. Friend had with the Secretary of State a month or so ago, is that we are very much waiting for the industry to come back to us. It will not surprise my hon. Friend or the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, who are assiduous campaigners on the issue, to know that every time that they campaign there is a counterblast from the other side—the secondary ticketing organisations, which do not want legislation for a number of reasons. Every time the matter is highlighted, we inevitably get a blast from the other side; but, as I say, we are keeping everything under review. We would like to explore the point made by another of my hon. Friends about whether the internet can be used more effectively to provide extra protection before we move to legislation.
Where does all that leave us? Personally, I have an open mind, but it is worth recording that the previous Government asked the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to conduct an inquiry. The Committee included a wide range of different views but concluded, in about 2009, that there was no need for legislation at that stage. The previous Government also considered the matter and came back to it a number of times, because I think that it was a manifesto commitment of the new Labour Government back in 1997, as acknowledged by a number of my predecessors, with whom I have discussed the subject. They thought that the argument could be cut either way and that extra evidence would be needed to prove that large-scale criminality was taking place as a result of secondary ticketing.
The current Government have agreed with that approach until now, but I have an open mind. Purely in my own opinion, the moment that the security services or the police say that the activity is becoming a proxy for large-scale criminal activity and that large amounts of money are being laundered through the system, the case for legislation will become much easier to make. At the moment, the Government are satisfied to follow the recommendations of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the approach of the previous Government, and not to advocate a more general ban.
Mike Weatherley
I understand the point about criminality, but what about the ownership of the performance? There has been no mention of that. Surely, performers owning their product is at the heart of our creative industries.
Hugh Robertson
Indeed it is, and intellectual property and all the rest are a hot topic at the moment. There is no point in my pretending that there is anything other than a range of views. Both parties include people who believe that secondary ticketing and exchange are a perfectly reasonable way for individuals to buy tickets. It is an open market and people should be allowed to do that. There are a range of views; but, for myself, although I always have to defend the Government’s line, I have a very open mind. I am perfectly happy for us to give guarantees to events with such a bid requirement—I have no ideological problem with that at all.
Mrs Hodgson
Following on from the point made by the hon. Member for Hove, I have had representations from people who consider that a ticket is nothing more than a receipt for access to an event. Some very clever people, including some studying law in university, are researching whether there is a case in law to find that selling on such a receipt is illegal. It is a ticket, but it is actually a receipt, to take part in an experience, and it is not something in and of itself.
Hugh Robertson
I am dangerously close to being out of my depth. I studied a little law at university, getting close to 30 years ago now, a bit more military law when I joined the Army and a little banking law 15 years or whatever ago, but I am not an expert. That is the first I have heard of that idea, but if someone is able to prove such a case legally, clearly the terms of the whole debate will be changed.
At the moment, I have an open mind and am happy to grant the necessary exemptions if required by a bid, but as a Government we are not yet ready to move beyond that. If the case can be proved and a particularly strong one can be made about criminality, we are open to that.
Mike Weatherley
Will the Minister commit the Government to look at the French example to see why it was put into statute—going live today—and what the benefits or problems will be once it has gone live?
Hugh Robertson
I most certainly give my hon. Friend that undertaking. I had better tread carefully, but there are a lot of things that the French do differently throughout sport and the wider entertainment industry. For example, they have a betting law around image rights, so that sports bodies can gain money from the betting industry that they can reinvest in grass-roots sports—many of the bodies are keen on that. Other things they do not do: they do not have a national lottery, which keeps many of our sports and arts events going. I will, absolutely, look at the French example, although that is not to say that, if it is a success, we will necessarily incorporate it directly into practice.
Mrs Hodgson
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way again, and I realise that we are operating a pincer movement on him at the moment. One of the responses that the Secretary of State gave at the meeting the hon. Member for Hove and I had with him was that the issue could be looked at again if market failure, and not only criminality, was demonstrated. The Minister mentioned the investigation by the OFT, which I wrote to following the “Dispatches” programme to ask it to look at market failure. He cannot go into such details perhaps, but I think that the OFT will find demonstrable market failure, so would the Government then look at this again?
Hugh Robertson
Absolutely. Personally, as the Minister responsible, I have an open mind, as I said. The OFT is another good example, because if its investigation were to demonstrate market failure, we would clearly have to look at the market, to analyse the failure and to see what can be done, if appropriate, to put things right. That would most certainly change the debate, as would a firm police or security services commitment that large amounts of money were now being laundered through the secondary market and that not having legislation was helping criminal gangs.
I shall try to wrap up my comments, given the time. The position remains that we have an open mind on secondary ticketing. We are happy to legislate for events with a bid requirement, but we do not think that there is yet an absolutely sound case for a more general ban. We will keep an open mind, however, and look at the case as the months progress.
Work Capability Assessment
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I hope that the Minister is not tired of hearing from me this morning. During this debate on the employment and support allowance, and the independent review of the work capability assessment, I want to concentrate on the recommendations for new mental, intellectual and cognitive function descriptors, which is a fairly narrow part of the overall picture. Before the Minister jumps up to remind me, I am well aware that the work capability assessment was introduced by the previous Government, and I hope that I would say exactly the same now if my party were in power.
We must not forget that the issue is about people, such as my constituent with mental health problems who has twice scored nil points on a work capability assessment, and who was twice placed in a support group after appeal, having waited seven months and nine months respectively for those appeals. He is currently awaiting the outcome of his third assessment, and the stress of that has affected his recovery.
The issue is a narrow one, but with 35% of the people going through work capability assessments being recorded as having a mental or behavioural condition as their primary condition, it is the largest single group of employment and support allowance claimants, so it is of considerable significance. The Scottish Association for Mental Health, using Government data, says that 43.9% of incapacity benefit claimants who are undergoing reassessment have mental health problems, and in Scotland the figure is 46% of claimants. Getting the assessment right is critical.
In his first review in November 2010, Professor Harrington acknowledged that inadequacies in the descriptors for mental, intellectual and cognitive function were likely to play a substantial role in the high rate of successful appeals. In September 2010, three organisations—Mind, Mencap and the National Autistic Society—were asked to provide recommendations on refining the descriptors. They presented initial recommendations to an independent scrutiny group in December 2010, and both groups jointly submitted their report to the independent review in April 2011.
Following two written parliamentary questions and some initial reluctance to publish, the Minister was good enough to place a copy of the document in the Library on 1 December 2011. Professor Harrington endorsed the report and its recommendations in his second independent review, which was published in November 2011. Parallel with that, there was an internal review by the Department for Work and Pensions, and as a result the descriptors were changed in March 2011.
In the report prepared for Professor Harrington, the charities reaffirmed the importance of getting the descriptors right, and said:
“Some of the problems...are probably attributable to procedural or training factors. However...it is inconceivable that the descriptors do not contribute substantially to this unacceptably high error rate in decisions.”
It concluded that the internal review had not resolved the concerns, and it noted specifically that measuring just one of the relevant aspects of an applicant’s condition, or trying to include more than one aspect on a single linear scale are part of the problem. Although that makes the assessment quicker and easier to carry out, it fails to take account of the multiple features of impairment, and how they interact.
The document explains that the existing assessment does not take systematic and consistent account of the frequency of particular problems, or their severity. If a problem or difficulty is likely to occur infrequently, it could have a very different effect on potential for employment compared with the situation when the problem occurs several times a day.
How will the proposed new descriptors vary? First, the Department for Work and Pensions has been asked to consider reversing the previous reduction in the number of descriptors from 10 to seven. That was done in the internal review. The charities’ view is that by doing that
“Features which have been combined in this way represent separate impairments and…need to be considered separately to ensure a comprehensive assessment.”
Secondly, the proposed descriptors are multi-dimensional. Let me give a brief example:
“Michael experiences frequent spells of anxiety when he finds it…difficult to engage socially with almost all people. These episodes reoccur on average once a month, and tend to last for a few days at a time, after which Michael is usually able to bring them under control with some basic techniques from a short spell of cognitive behavioural therapy which his family paid for.”
It is considered that he is likely to score no points under the current descriptors, two of which relate to social contact. The first is:
“Engagement in social contact is always precluded due to difficulty relating to others or significant distress experienced by the individual”.
That covers engagement with anyone, and scores 15 points on the current descriptors. The second is:
“Engagement in social contact”—
with someone unfamiliar to the claimant—
“is always precluded due to difficulty relating to others or significant distress”.
The word “always” appears in both those current descriptors, and the report’s writers suggest that that is not taken into account in the complexity and difference in that individual’s situation.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the problems tend to be compounded when people have to appeal, particularly as appeals require advocates who have some knowledge of mental health issues? They are few and far between, and services are stretched at the moment.
Sheila Gilmore
They are indeed, and the issues involve both the still considerable waiting times for appeal, and the fact that appeals may be specialised. We know that those who are represented have a different outcome from those who are not.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady not just for giving way, but for her persistence in pressing the issue, particularly in parliamentary questions to obtain information. A key recommendation in the Harrington review that relates to this debate and particularly the point she is making is that each and every assessment centre should have a mental, cognitive and intellectual champion. Only two assessment centres in Scotland have one, although all centres were supposed to have champions by this time last year. Does the hon. Lady share my concern about that?
Sheila Gilmore
I do share that concern, and the recommendation, which the Government indicated initially that they would accept, was that there would be such champions in all assessment centres. I appreciate that some centres are small and isolated, but two in the whole of Scotland is low, and it will be difficult for them to make a significant impression on the system.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
A distressing case recently at my surgery was a constituent who was in tears and crying hysterically because she believed that she had been placed in the wrong work-related activity group. She is appealing, but the appeal process in Nottingham takes an average of 56 weeks. She is really struggling in that group—she is asked to carry out role play and interviews when she believes that she is in the wrong group. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue, and hope that she will press the Minister to address my constituent’s case.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention.
On the current descriptors, Michael would be unlikely to score any points. Because of the multi-dimensional nature of the proposed descriptors different aspects are looked at, including the severity of an applicant's difficulties with social engagement, the degree to which that varies between familiar and unfamiliar people, and how frequently that occurs. Those separate factors are scored, and are then multiplied together, with final points being allocated accordingly. The view in the report is that someone such as Michael would be expected to be awarded around nine points rather than none.
The purpose of the proposed descriptors is to account better for fluctuations in impairment that are commonplace in such illnesses, and the amount of support a person might need to overcome their impairment. They are structured in such a way that they could be used as the direct basis for the questions and would be better understood by the claimant.
Those were the recommendations in the report, but what about the Government’s response? As Professor Harrington made clear when he passed his report to the Government, he endorsed the proposals when writing his second review. To date, however, the Department for Work and Pensions has decided not to introduce the new descriptors, arguing either that there is insufficient evidence that the current descriptors are not working—that seems surprising given that that point was made in Professor Harrington’s first review and was accepted by the Government—or that the new ones would work better. In response, the Government said that the Department would “consider” a gold standard review that would take place in the first half of 2012.
The charities that are involved in these matters accept that more research is needed, but in the run-up to this debate they expressed their concern that no gold standard review has yet been initiated. Will the Minister confirm whether such a review will take place, and if so, when? Have DWP officials met with Professor Harrington, Mind, Mencap and the National Autistic Society regarding the establishment of such a review?
The charities have also expressed concern that a number of civil servants on the employment and support allowance team have recently moved on and have not yet been replaced. As a result, the DWP claims to have insufficient staff to initiate the review. Will the Minister ensure that staff are allocated to the ESA team to carry out the gold standard review? If the DWP is unable to provide staff to carry out that review, the charities have suggested that such work could be contracted out to an independent organisation. If that were to happen, would the Minister accept the findings of that review?
The Government accepted a suggestion about revising the ESA50 questionnaire that people fill in when making an initial application, and the idea was to reconsider and adapt, although not change substantially, the wording of the existing descriptors. Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made on that?
More broadly, my fear is that the Minister might use the cover of the gold standard review to kick the proposals into the longish grass because looking at a better way of assessing mental, intellectual and cognitive functions would shine a light on the whole work capability assessment process. That was illustrated by the Minister’s response to an oral question from my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) on 24 October 2011. She asked whether the Government would be implementing the recommendations in the report and the Minister replied:
“The challenge facing us is that the recommendations will involve a complete change of the work capability assessment, not simply for mental health issues, but for physical issues, and is therefore a multi-year project. We are considering whether we can incorporate elements of the recommendations into the current approach much more quickly.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 8.]
Perhaps that is the crux of the matter. The Minister appears to be saying that a substantial change of approach is needed to the whole way that assessment is carried out for issues of physical as well as mental health. The longer the process takes, however, the more people are at risk of being wrongly assessed as fit for work, with all the stress and emotional turmoil that that causes. That is not a small matter for the DWP given the high rate of appeal and the cost and effort involved.
In conclusion, I urge the Minister to press on with the gold standard review for mental, intellectual and cognitive function. In doing so, however, he should not shy away from confronting the real issues that exist with other aspects of the work capability assessment.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I have a sense of déjà-vu because the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and I are continuing a debate, albeit on a different subject, from an hour ago.
Let me start by saying that it is of paramount importance to get right issues of mental health in the work capability assessment process. That is the most difficult challenge, because in many respects mental health can be the most intangible of the various areas that we need to assess when we seek to understand what people can and cannot do, and there are clearly many people with mental health problems who cannot possibly be expected to work. I do not have detailed knowledge of the case highlighted by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), but people will appear in our surgeries saying that something is not fair or right, or that they are in the wrong group. Some people will genuinely believe that they cannot return to work, but that will not always be the case.
A few weeks ago, I sat with a woman in one of our Work programme centres. She had arrived having been mandated to the Work programme after 14 years off work with chronic depression, and she said that on the first day she was in tears, did not believe that she should be there and that she was protesting bitterly. I met her about eight weeks later, by which time she had started doing voluntary work in a charity shop and had begun to apply for jobs, and she said that that was the right thing to do after all. We will not always get it right, but we are taking some people down a path that can be right for them, even if they are reluctant to follow it at first.
Gloria De Piero
I accept what the Minister says, but does he agree that to decide whether someone is in the right group and has the right of appeal—which in itself acknowledges trial and error—56 weeks is too long?
Chris Grayling
I completely accept that, and we have started to reduce the backlog of cases. It is a big challenge, and we have put extra resources into the tribunal service for that. We have also tried to strengthen the reconsideration process in Jobcentre Plus, so that new medical evidence seldom appears at appeal stage. In his first report, Professor Harrington stated that one key reason why so many decisions were being overturned on appeal was that new evidence was appearing at appeal stage. We have tried hard, both at the start of the assessment process and the reconsideration stage, to ensure that such evidence is in place.
I ask the hon. Member for Edinburgh East to step back for a moment because it is tempting to take what the charities say at face value. Charities do good work and have long experience, but they do not always get it right and the internal review was the clearest example of that. I sat through meeting after meeting with the charities at which they said that we should not proceed with the internal review because it would lead to more people with mental health problems being found fit for work and that all the evidence suggested that it was the wrong thing to do.
Work had been done by the previous Government using the approach that the Department always takes to such matters, which is to take a batch of cases, put them through a new methodology and see what difference that makes. Our team of officials advised that, although there were fewer descriptors, the changes would lead to an increased number of mental health claimants in the support group. The charities protested and said, “That won’t happen; you’re wrong. That is not the case and you shouldn’t do it.” A few months later, however, that internal review led to an increased number of mental health patients in the support group. Indeed, the support group as a whole has got bigger. It is easy for groups that advocate change to existing systems to say, “We’ve got the experience; we’re right and you must do this,” but that is not always the case. It was certainly not the case for the internal review.
Dr Whiteford
I should like to bring the Minister back to the first Harrington review, particularly recommendation 7. He has previously told Members, including myself, that those recommendations have been taken on board and implemented, but why has recommendation 7 not been implemented in Scotland?
Chris Grayling
In relation to mental health champions, let me explain some of the things that we have done for mental health patients. We have a pool of about 60 specialists who provide advice within the Atos network, and their skills are available to every centre, either in person or by phone. Professor Harrington has looked at how we implemented that change, and he praised it because he thinks that it was done well and effectively. We think that we have delivered that expertise, as does Professor Harrington who is an independent assessor and can say whether or not his recommendation has been implemented properly, which in his view it has been.
If I find evidence that we are not getting things right, we are open to change. As I have said from the start, this programme does not have a financial target and is about saving lives, not saving money. If we are successful in moving people back into work it will, of course, reduce the cost to the welfare state, but it will do so in a right and positive way that will help people such as the woman whom I described, who I hope will return, step by step, to the workplace. The alternative is for her to spend the rest of her life on benefits suffering from depression at home, and no one benefits from that.
That is the spirit in which we have approached all this. We tried very hard to ensure that we got it right with the internal review. There was no particular reason for me to implement the internal review. It was set up by the previous Government. The findings were put together by the previous Government. It would have been easy just to say no, but the advice was that it would increase the size of the support group, and that is what has happened. I regard that as a positive step. I always said, and said on a number of occasions in the House, that I was happy to see the dividing line between the work-related activity group and the support group move a bit in the direction of caution, because we are trying to get this right and I do not want people in the wrong place. There will never be a perfect system—I wish there would be—but we shall try to get this right.
I will move on to the recommendations of the work carried out by the charities. I commissioned that myself. I asked the charities to come back with recommended changes to the descriptors. I very much wanted, and do want, to get this right. The problem is straightforward: they did not actually do what they were asked to do. They were asked to make recommendations about further ways to improve the descriptors that would allow us further to ensure that the assessment process for people with mental health challenges was accurate, effective and reflected their needs and potential. That is not what happened.
The charities came back with a recommended system that would have involved tearing up the whole work capability assessment for mental, fluctuating and physical conditions and starting again from scratch, redoing all our computer systems and all the training for every member of staff in the entire network. That was not just a tweak; it was a comprehensive change to the whole thing, based on no actual evidence. The charities did not come forward with tangible evidence. They simply said, “We think it would work better this way.” They may or may not be right, but that is quite a big step to take just on the basis of a set of recommendations from a group of charities that had been proved wrong in the internal review process.
Sheila Gilmore
The recommendations from the charities were put to an independent scrutiny panel that had a large number of people with considerable expertise, so will the Minister agree that it is not true to say that they were simply the recommendations of a group of charities?
Chris Grayling
That is the case, but what we lack and what we intend now to get is hard evidence to determine whether this is right. Given that the charities were wrong the first time round, I am very reluctant to tear up the whole thing and redo all the computer systems—a vast amount of change; probably a two or three-year project—only to discover that that does not make a difference.
Alongside this, we have been doing work on fluctuating conditions. These are the two particularly challenging areas. Fluctuating conditions can represent a real challenge in the assessment process, because someone who is fine one day may not be fine the next. There are a range of fluctuating conditions and, again, I want to be careful to ensure that we get this as right as we can. In a moment, I will touch on some of the changes that we have made. I just want to explain first where the issue arises with the new set of recommendations.
The working group on fluctuating conditions reported at the end of last year. We intend this year to do that gold standard work, which in effect involves applying the new systems recommended by both groups to a set group of cases to understand what the difference would have been. If we discover that there is very little variation between what they are recommending and the existing system, there will be no point in changing it. If we discover big changes, we will want to understand why. I am perfectly open to making changes in the future if I think that that will make a significant difference. I will state again that we are not trying to force into work people who should not be there. We are not trying to get this wrong, but at the same time this is not about a simple change. It is not about introducing mental health champions throughout the network, improving the quality of the telephony process, ensuring that our staff are better trained or strengthening the reconsideration process. It is about tearing the whole thing up and starting again. That is quite a big step and a very long step to take.
We shall do the gold standard work. We have already done the initial scoping work. It is very important that that is completed. I am very open to making changes, but I will not make changes on the hoof without clear evidence that they will make a difference. The hard evidence that was there for the internal review, which I based my judgment on, proved to be right, whereas the external advice, based on what the charities thought, proved to be wrong, so we have to be very careful.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank the Minister for taking another intervention. Obviously, there have been many changes in the system and changes initiated after Harrington 1 as well. Is there a reason why the Minister thinks that the change in the descriptors has resulted in more people being put into the support group?
Chris Grayling
The general view of the team who worked on the internal review was that the assessors were better placed with a broader base and less specific descriptors in relation to mental health. People should bear in mind that both the assessors and the subsequent tribunals and decision makers have to operate to a pretty tight template around the descriptors as set in law. By creating additional flexibility within the descriptors, we end up with more people being put into the support group than was previously the case, and that is indeed what happened.
I thought that there was good and sensible thinking in the way that the charities brought forward their ideas. We made some pretty rapid changes. We have continued to adapt the ESA50. We have adapted our training, so that some of the issues that they have highlighted are built more clearly into it. We have also invited all the charities—some have taken this up—to work with decision makers, to contribute to the training process for decision makers.
Probably the biggest change that we made to the whole process was to de-emphasise slightly the role of the assessment itself. One of the criticisms levelled at the whole WCA process before we took over was that it was much too formulaic, with far too little flexibility. Of course, one of the reasons for the appeals issue was that a vast amount of new evidence came forward only at the appeal stage. As a result of Professor Harrington’s report, we tried to create a more holistic process, so we actively ask people for evidence from their specialists up front.
Our decision makers have the discretion to look for additional evidence at the point at which they reach their view, based on the evidence that has been submitted by the individual themselves, the ESA50 and the outcome of the work capability assessment. Likewise, we now actively encourage people to supply new evidence at the reconsideration stage. It is now almost universally the case that we see most if not all of the evidence before it leaves Jobcentre Plus. That has to be the right thing to do.
We have tried to build the learning from the work done by the mental health group and by the fluctuating conditions group into the decision making that is already happening. We have not parked this on the sidelines and said that we will come back to it at a later date. I can explain my problem using the analogy that I used in the Select Committee. It is rather like taking one’s car in for a service. When we come back at the end of the day, it looks great. The people who did the service have done a brilliant job, but they have turned it into a boat. That is not a lot of use if we have to drive it on the road. That, in a nutshell, is the position that I am in. The charities made a recommendation. If they had recommended some tweaks to the descriptors, we would have done that by now, but they did not; they recommended a total transformation of the whole process, including redoing everything for physical health conditions as well—all the descriptors for them—a new scoring system and a new computer system. It would be and will be, if we do it, a monumental task.
We are therefore putting together the mental health work and the fluctuating conditions work. We are looking at the consequences of the approach, through the gold standard review, in a way that the previous Government did, and rightly so. It involves taking a selection of cases, applying the new methodology and understanding what the difference would be. However, we are not sitting on our hands in the meantime. We are not just saying, “Well, that work has been done. Maybe we’ll get round to it at some point in the future.” We have used that as the basis for changes across the way that we interact with people through the assessment process, because we genuinely want to get it right.
I have said on many occasions that this is about helping people who are potentially able to return to work to do so. That is the right thing to do. We will not always get the decision making right, whatever we do. Even if we implement everything that the charities are recommending, we still will not have a system that is perfect in all circumstances. That is why we have the appeal process. We are not talking about putting people into a position whereby they are doing an activity that is damaging to them. We are, step by step, helping people to get back into a process whereby they can apply for jobs and get into work—sometimes quite gently.
Sheila Gilmore
Will the Minister clarify, if the gold standard review has now started, whether he has any anticipated time scale for its concluding?
Chris Grayling
I have not instantly, but it is certainly my intention that we will complete it within the next few months, as we said that we would. I think that it is necessary to understand the impact. Above all, I want to get this right. Our objective has only ever been to find the right number of people we can help back to work, not any number of people. That is a human goal, not a financial one.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Anti-avoidance
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Government are committed to tackling tax avoidance to ensure the Exchequer is protected and fairness is maintained for the taxpayer.
HMRC has recently become aware of an avoidance scheme that seeks to generate loss relief from a property business that holds an agricultural estate. It is intended that this loss can then be set-off by users of the scheme against their other income. This scheme relies on arrangements that have a tax avoidance purpose. The Government do not accept that these arrangements have the effect that is sought, but to remove any doubt prompt action is being taken to protect the Exchequer.
I am today announcing that legislation will be introduced in the Finance Bill 2012 to prevent property business loss relief being given where allowable agricultural expenses arise from arrangements entered into in which the main purpose, or one of the main purposes, is to obtain a tax reduction. The legislation will have effect from today and will protect significant amounts of revenue.
We have acted quickly to prevent the use of this particular scheme and we will not hesitate to close down other schemes representing a significant risk to the Exchequer as we become aware of them.
Since the scheme that HMRC has become aware of is the third avoidance scheme that has targeted trading and property reliefs, there is a risk that further schemes may seek to exploit one or other of these reliefs.
I am therefore also announcing that the Government will introduce further legislation in the Finance Bill 2012 to prevent post-cessation property relief being given where a qualifying payment or qualifying event arises from arrangements entered into in which the main purpose, or one of the main purposes, is to obtain a tax reduction. This legislation will also have effect from today.
Draft legislation and further details of this measure are being published on HMRC’s website today.
Armed Forces' Pay Review Body Report
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
The 2012 report of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body (AFPRB) has now been published. I wish to express my thanks to the chairman and members of the review body for their report. I am pleased to confirm that the AFPRB’s recommendations are to be accepted in full.
In line with the Government’s 2010 emergency Budget, which announced a two-year pay freeze for all public sector employees, the AFPRB basic military salary recommendations are only for those personnel earning £21,000 or less where the recommendation is for an increase of £250. The AFPRB also recommended a reduction in the qualifying interval between levels of longer separation allowance. There is also an increase to food and accommodation charges. These recommendations will be effective from 1 April 2012. The Government have also accepted the AFPRB recommendation to harmonise the pay for graduate and non-graduate officers and this will be effective from
Copies of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body report are available in the Vote Office.
Bill of Rights Commission (Membership)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
The Government made a written ministerial statement on 18 March 2011, Official Report, column 31WS, announcing the establishment of an independent Commission to investigate the creation of a UK Bill of Rights. The membership of the Commission has now changed.
The Commission is chaired by Sir Leigh Lewis KCB, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions with a long career in public service. Sir Leigh Lewis is joined on the Commission by: Jonathan Fisher QC, Martin Howe QC, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws QC, Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC, Philippe Sands QC, Anthony Speaight QC, Professor Sir David Edward QC and the recently appointed Lord Faulks QC.
The terms of reference for the Commission remain unchanged. The Commission is investigating the creation of a UK Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, ensures that these rights continue to be enshrined in UK law, and protects and extends our liberties. It is examining the operation and implementation of these obligations, and considering ways to promote a better understanding of the true scope of these obligations and liberties. The Commission reports jointly to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Justice. The Commission is supported in its work by a small secretariat of civil servants.
Early Intervention Foundation
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
The Government recognise that early intervention is an important area. It makes sense, wherever possible, to prevent problems or address them early on. Taking this preventive approach will support children to achieve their full potential, reducing costs to the state of later educational failure and offering a wide range of associated benefits in participation, productivity, behaviour, health and social cohesion. Offering early help is central to the Government’s commitment to unlock social mobility and tackle child poverty.
On 27 February 2012, Official Report, column 11, in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) I confirmed that the Government plans to procure the early intervention foundation.
The new foundation will have two key roles:
providing advice and support to local commissioners on evidence, social finance and payment by results relating to early intervention to assist their own procurement and evaluation; and
building the evidence base on what works in early intervention in the UK.
The Department will issue a public notification shortly in advance of an open and competitive procurement. Government have always been clear that an open and competitive tender process is the best way to ensure value for taxpayers’ money.
The Government have secured £3.5 million to fund the foundation for a two-year period. The contract will run for up to two years after which it will become self-financing, and Government funding will cease.
NHS Pay Review Body
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
I am responding on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the 26th report of the NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB). The report has been laid before Parliament today (Cm 8298). Copies of the report are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office. I am grateful to the chair and members of the NHSPRB for their report.
We welcome the NHS Pay Review Body’s 26th report, note its observations and accept its recommendations in full. In the light of a tough economic climate, I am pleased to confirm that lower paid NHS staff earning £21,000 or less will receive a flat rate increase of £250 from 1 April 2012. This will support continuing NHS service improvements and the position of lower paid NHS staff.
Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
I am responding on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the 40th report of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB). The report has been laid before Parliament today (Cm 8301). Copies of the report are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office. I am grateful to the chair and members of the DDRB for their report.
We welcome the 40th report of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration and note its observations and recommendation to the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government are still considering the recommendation and expect to be in a position to make a decision by the end of the month. We will take forward the suggested actions, which will help us continue to improve our support for the DDRB’s important work.
Transit Visa Requirements (Syrian, Libyan and Egyptian Nationals)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Today my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and I will inform the Governments of Syria, Libya and Egypt that we will be introducing a change to the transit visa regime for the citizens of Syria, Libya and Egypt travelling to the United Kingdom. We see this as a necessary measure to protect the security of our borders.
Britain is a major hub for transit passengers travelling on long haul flights. The volume of traffic passing through the UK is increasing and poses new challenges. Since 2003 certain nationalities have been required to obtain a visa before they travel, including if they are in transit to another destination and are arriving at and leaving from the same airport. This is known as a Direct Airside Transit Visa (DATV). Since the introduction of the DATV regime a number of countries have been added to the list of those required to obtain a transit visa before transiting the UK. This has been done as a direct response to emerging security and immigration threats to the UK, and we will continue to monitor risks and threats.
The implementation of the DATV regime allows us to run comprehensive checks on those transiting the UK, and prevents high harm individuals from travelling here. Since the original introduction of the DATV there has been a noticeable fall in transit passengers destroying their travel documents before claiming asylum. The visa process means that we are able to collect pre-travel information as part of the application process which makes identification and checks more robust.
The situation in Syria continues to pose a serious concern to us and the wider international community. Libya and Egypt are emerging from a period of instability. We therefore assess that requiring nationals of these countries to obtain a visa for transit through the UK is both a sensible and proportionate response to the threat posed to the UK’s national and border security.
Prison Service Pay Review Body (11th Report)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
The 11th report of the Prison Service Pay Review Body (PSPRB) (Cm 8300) has been laid before Parliament today. The report makes recommendations for staff within the remit group who earn the full-time equivalent of £21,000 and below, and who are eligible for an increase in 2012-13 under the Government’s announced pay policy for public sector workforces. Copies have been placed in the Vote Office, the Printed Paper Office and the Libraries of both Houses. I am grateful to the Chair and members of the PSPRB for their hard work in producing these recommendations.
The PSPRB key recommendations for 2012 are as follows:
a consolidated increase of £250 to all pay points at or below £21,000, including the first two points on the closed prison officer scale;
endorsement of the introduction of the new bands 2 and 3 as part of the wide-scale reforms to pay systems being introduced across NOMS. Bands 2 and 3 will apply to new prison officer and OSG entrants and existing prison officer 2 and OSG staff who wish to opt into the new bands from 1 April 2012;
an increase of 5% to the hourly rate of the Operation Tornado Emergency Response payment;
all other allowances and payments to be frozen.
The PSPRB’s recommendations will be implemented in full. The cost of the award will be met from within the delegated budget allocation for the National Offender Management Service.
Review Body on Senior Salaries (34th Report)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
The 34th report of the Review Body on Senior Salaries (SSRB) is being published today. This makes recommendations about the pay of the Senior Civil Service (SCS), Senior Military Personnel, the Judiciary and Very Senior NHS Managers. Copies have been laid in the Vote Office, the Printed Paper Office and the Libraries of both Houses. I am grateful to the chairman and members of the review body for their work.
In the June 2010 Budget, the Government announced a two-year pay freeze from 2011-12 for public sector workforces, except for those earning a full-time equivalent salary of £21,000 or less, where the Government would seek increases of at least £250 per year. This policy is helping us to protect jobs and the quality of public services as we look to restore the public finances to a sustainable position.
At the same time, we are mindful of the need to ensure that we are capable of recruiting, retaining and motivating public sector workers with the skills that are needed. It is on this basis that the Government will carefully consider the post pay freeze principles set out by the review body and any wider recommendations made by them in relation to recruitment, retention and other aspects of the affected workforces.
Senior Civil Service
The Government will consider the post pay freeze principles and any wider recommendations set out by the review body in relation to the SCS.
Senior Military Personnel
The Government will consider the post pay freeze principles set out by the review body in relation to the senior military personnel.
Judiciary
The Government note the review body’s comments about judicial remuneration and thanks it for its ongoing work in this area.
The Government continue to consider the recommendations that the review body made last year following its most recent major review of the judicial salaries structure, and in the context of the announcement in the autumn statement in November 2011, that public sector pay awards will average 1% for the two years following the implementation of the current two-year pay freeze. As such, the Government will respond to the major review recommendations as a whole, rather than individually, when able to do so. It would not be right to implement new judicial pay increases during a period of pay freeze.
Very Senior NHS Managers
The Government will consider the post pay freeze principles set out by the review body in relation to very senior NHS managers.
Other Review Body reports for 2012-13
My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Justice, Health and Defence are making statements today on the reports of the Prison Service Pay Review Body, the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body, the NHS Pay Review Body and the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body in respect of pay for the relevant workforces for 2012-13. The Government’s response to those reports is consistent with the need for senior staff in the public sector to show leadership in the exercise of pay restraint
Street Works Overrun Penalties
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
Today I am announcing the coalition Government’s plans to increase the penalties that local authorities can impose where street works by utility companies and others overrun their agreed duration. This follows a consultation launched by the previous Government.
The maximum charge for the busiest streets will rise from £2,500 a day to £5,000 a day for the first three days of overrun and £10,000 a day thereafter, rather than the £25,000 per day planned by the previous administration. I consider that the new charge level will result in a decrease in the number of works which overrun their agreed period, and better reflect the congestion costs overrunning works impose on society.
I also intend to change the regulations such that works planned to be only of a short duration attract the same overrun charge as those of longer planned durations, in recognition of the fact that all these works cause equivalent disruption to the road user.
These changes are in line with the Government’s commitment to ensure regulatory proposals are proportionate, our desire to see congestion caused by roadworks reduce, and for utilities and others who work in our streets to be held accountable for that congestion.
The full consultation response can be found on the Department’s website.
To take forward these proposals, I will lay regulations before this House in the summer. It is my intention that the changes come into force in October of this year.
Social Justice (Transforming Lives)
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
When the Government came into power, the Prime Minister set up the Social Justice Cabinet Committee to look across Government at issues relating to poverty, equality and social justice, and improve the way that we deliver services to those in our society that face the greatest and most complex disadvantages.
I am pleased to announce that today this work has taken a significant step forward with the launch of the Government’s social justice strategy. This strategy sets out an ambitious new vision for supporting the most disadvantaged individuals and families in the UK, as well as outlining where the Government are already making progress on this agenda. The strategy embeds two key principles into the heart of Government policy delivery.
First, a focus on prevention throughout a person’s life, targeting the root causes rather than the symptoms of social breakdown to stop people falling off track and into difficult circumstances. This starts with support for the most important building block in a child's life—the family—but also covers reform of the school and youth justice systems, the welfare system, and beyond to look at how we can prevent damaging behaviours like substance abuse and offending.
Secondly, the strategy sets out the Government’s vision for a ‘second chance society’. When problems do arise, people must be able to access the help and support they need to turn their lives around. This strategy cements the principle that this support must be focused on recovery, independence, and life change, not simply on maintaining people in the circumstances they are in.
This strategy also sets out a new approach to delivery, based on locally designed and delivered solutions. New, innovative approaches to service delivery are also integral to the strategy, including the use of social investment, smarter commissioning and intensive key worker led support.
This approach will not be delivered by Government alone. It is essential that we harness the expertise and dedication of local leaders, commissioners and delivery organisations at all levels, including the voluntary and community sectors.
This strategy sets out an ambitious approach, but one that aspires to deliver lasting change. This strategy aims to do more than simply increase family income, but address the root causes of poverty and deliver change that will transform lives.
Social Security Advisory Committee
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I have today launched a review of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC). As part of the Government’s continuing drive for efficiency and effectiveness, all Departments are required to review their arm’s length bodies at least once every three years to challenge whether the functions they perform are still necessary and, if so, whether it is still appropriate for them to be delivered in the same way. The review of the Social Security Advisory Committee will look at the Committee’s functions and whether it needs to continue to exist. If the review determines that the Committee should continue, it will go on to examine its corporate governance mechanisms. I will inform the House of the outcome of the review when it is completed and place a copy of the outcome in the Library.
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall)
My Lords, I should remind the Committee that if there is a Division in the Chamber, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes from the sound of the Division Bell.
Information Committee: Annual Report 2010-11
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Annual Report for 2010-11 of the Information Committee (First Report, HL Paper 190).
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, it is my pleasure to move that the Grand Committee takes note of the Information Committee’s annual report for 2010-11. It is my pleasure and privilege to chair the committee. This is the first opportunity that we have had to share our deliberations more widely among our colleagues in the House. It is important that we should take every opportunity to do so when we can. I acknowledge the fact that the business managers have found time for this important debate. Time is precious and the Grand Committee has other business this afternoon.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, before the Division was called I was remarking that the business managers have done us a favour in finding time for this important debate in Grand Committee to deal with the annual report of the Information Committee.
I am sure that I speak for all committee members in thanking both the clerks who have covered this report and our own clerk, who has succeeded Rob Whiteway, and his colleagues in the clerks’ department. We are very grateful for the support we get from the clerks’ department. That is true also of all the heads and members of the professional staff and the directorates of the work that is overseen by the committee. They are all absolutely dedicated, enthusiastic professionals. It is a privilege to serve with them and we acknowledge the contribution they have, in their individual ways, made to making what I think was a successful year’s work enshrined in the committee report.
The committee has a very important, if rather peculiar role. You could characterise what it does in the three themes that are adverted to in the early stages of the report. It is driving what benefit we can get from information technology services in the service of the House. That has many aspects and dimensions, not just in terms of servicing Members but the back-office administration functions too. It is trying to make sure that we get a much more effective message across to the wider public generally about what is going on here and how we do our business, as well as trying to inform those who are anxious to inform themselves about the work of the House. That is an important element in the work of the committee.
I will be spending the majority of my short introduction dealing with services for individual Members in the House. In that regard, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, who represents the administration authorities. We have had very good support from not just the clerks’ department but the House and administration committees in difficult financial circumstances, for which we are very grateful.
For a committee member trying to cover all the important aspects of the House’s work, it is right—good practice dictates it—to take every opportunity to report back to make sure that Members of the House and others know what is going on in the work of the committee. We do that by publishing our minutes. We are as open and transparent as possible, and that is useful. It is also right to solicit views. There is a user group dimension to the work that we do, and to be successful we need to encourage people to give their views. We must use every opportunity we can to get feedback. As another dimension, using complaints constructively and instructively is also important. We are getting better at that, particularly with the Parliamentary Information and Communication Technology side to the committee’s work. I have a sense—there is only anecdotal evidence—that PICT is rolling out services, such as the Windows 7 upgrade to operating systems on desktop and laptop machines across the whole Parliamentary Estate, with commendable efficiency and minimal disruption.
All these things involve change, and people get nervous of change. We need to keep in contact with the people we are seeking to serve, within the House, the Administration and the public. The 2010-11 report covers the first half of the Parliament—effectively, the first two years which are just coming to an end. The current period is not quite covered by that; I had hoped to mention one or two things to bring us up to date with things that have happened since July 2011. The report is a useful piece of work, and I hope we will have a useful discussion about it. For the members of the committee who are here, we need to learn what other people think about the contents of the report.
It is obviously true to anyone who has studied the work of the committee that we were bequeathed a very valuable legacy by our predecessor committee. The noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry and his colleagues produced, among other things, the seminal report, Are the Lords Listening? Creating Connections Between People and Parliament.
This report is still a work in progress before the existing committee. Indeed, my own name as chairman is on a list of ballotable debates dealing with Chapters 7 and 8. We are trying to get some feedback from the House as a whole on important questions such as the use of parliamentary language, which was identified as a barrier to people’s understanding, and to ceremonial aspects of some of the House’s work, which in modern times can produce a barrier to people’s understanding of the important work we do. There is a lot still being promoted, based on what was done before the committee took its place and started the work for this report.
The context is important too, because it has changed. The membership of the House has increased to such an extent that the pressure on all of its services, ICT and otherwise, cannot be ignored. That is something we are alive to. The political tensions and the quite hard-fought debates we have had attract attention, and we need to address and deal with that, in terms of dealing with people’s inquiries. We are also affected by deficit reduction, because everything we do in Parliament for the foreseeable future will be affected. All these things have to be considered in the mix.
We have a broad list of responsibilities. As well as parliamentary information and communication technology, we cover the Library, the important work of the Hansard reporters, public information, and bicameral services. Most bicameral services are hosted by the House of Commons, but we have our own parliamentary archive, which is a bicameral service that is brigaded in the House of Lords, and it is very valuable. Anyone who knows anything about what goes on here cannot help but be impressed by the enthusiasm of the staff and the dedication they bring to their work.
I should like to go through the five or six services to update the Grand Committee on where we are now as opposed to where the annual report ends. However, I shall spend a little longer on parliamentary information and communication technology because it is the biggest game changer that we are confronting as an institution and as a society. I do not want the House of Lords to get behind the curve to the extent that we do not relate to, and lose traction with, a public who are now involved in social networking and all that that means.
It is a struggle to stay on top of that degree of change but—I probably say this because I am chairman of the Information Committee and we are supposed to be doing this—we are ahead of this important area of public policy in many ways, particularly in the use and piloting of tablet technology. Since the report was completed in July 2011, two significant things have happened. First, the Information Committee agreed to undertake a tablet technology pilot. I stress the word “tablet” because this is not an iPad trial; it is a tablet trial. We must be careful that we do not end up as commercial agents for Apple Incorporated, however good the technology may be. That is easy to do, in the way that vacuum cleaners suddenly became Hoovers, and we need to be careful when talking about generic technology because it changes so fast. Machines are being trialled effectively at the moment by members of the committee and we will consider the first phase of the results at our important committee meeting tomorrow. The likelihood is that the evaluation of the work of tablet technology will need to continue before we can say with certainty that we want to deploy the servicing and the back-up of tablets for Members.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend invited comments, and as I have a Select Committee hearing to go to, I wonder whether perhaps he can help me with a question at the moment. I appreciate how PICT has helped individual members—it has been really helpful to me—but I get worried sometimes about the attitude within the Information Committee. It feels that issuing computers and laptops to Members is somehow a gift and that it is being very kind to us. In fact, those machines are there to help us with our work. We do not get any secretarial allowance now and those of us who come from outwith London have been seriously disadvantaged as a result.
When the committee considers this issue tomorrow, can more flexibility be written into the allocation of computers and laptops? For example, on page 8 of the report it says that we are entitled to a range of things, including one Blackberry handheld device. When I ask whether I can substitute something else for that Blackberry handheld device, such as another laptop or a tablet, I am told that I cannot do so. This kind of inflexibility creates problems for noble Lords who are only trying to carry out their job as Members of the House. Could the committee consider some greater flexibility in the allocation of equipment in the future?
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
Indeed. I am grateful for that intervention. We have to be open and honest and tell the unvarnished truth about the degree of change that will be coming if the ICT strategy that the committee has agreed in principle is rolled out by May 2015. I am keen on using that as a planning date. Previously we could not say with certainty when the Parliament will end, so being able to ask ourselves where we want to be by May 2015 is a useful device. It enables us to devise strategies and get plans in place.
In answer to my noble friend’s question, the ambition is to become device-neutral and provide internet-based services in the sky anywhere, any time and any place. The service will then change from a hardware-based system—as it tends to be at the moment, with broadband lines being provided and serviced—to inviting Members to use whatever device platform and in whatever combination they are comfortable with. We will guarantee bespoke services, including coaching in terms of individual Members’ ways of working. This plays into the important point that my noble friend makes. We all do things differently and struggle to look after ourselves without a heavy staff back-up. The best way we can do this within the financial envelope we face is to develop these services. I promise my noble friend that I have seen some of the early prototype services and they are stunningly useful on a tablet device.
We have to be absolutely upfront about this because people need time to plan. If this strategy works, we will not be in the business of handing hardware to people after 2015. We will not, indeed, be putting broadband connections into people’s homes. That is a huge change and people will be frightened by it, but the Committee’s important duty over the next two years is to try to win the argument about why we are making this change. It is not just about money, but it is about money; because you can do this an awful lot more cheaply. If my noble friend just thinks about the rate at which some of these devices change, then if, after 2015, you were locked into supplying people with up-to-date hardware, you would have to change the equipment you offered with such regularity to keep them ahead of the industry standard that it would cost an unimaginable sum of money.
I think people will get desktops in the main precincts of the Palace of Westminster because they are easily maintained by a central staff, but my ambition is to get everyone else mobile; and what a tablet device or platform gives you is the ability to work anywhere as long as you have a wi-fi connection. That is the first thing that the committee knows about and the strategy that we have agreed. We have a sterling job to do on that because people will understandably be slightly apprehensive—that is probably the best word—until they understand what is being offered to them.
Secondly, this is where the House Committee’s assistance comes in and again I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. We now have the authority to wi-fi enable the whole estate over the next 12 months. That is a massive assistance. It puts us as an institution ahead of any other parliamentary service for tablet provision that I know of. The Italians are spending a lot of money and doing a lot of work on this and the Canadians have always had a reputation for it. The Brazilians are spending a lot of money as well. There is an international best practice sharing operation going on and by next year we could be seen as leading the service provision for individual parliamentary members because of the applications that we will be able to put on these devices. They will be crafted by our own people to assist Members of the House of Lords and I promise that when colleagues see the results of this work when it is rolled out—I hope within the next 12 months—people will see the reason and the justification for what we are doing in ICT.
In parenthesis, I want to be clear that we give an assurance to people who want their services delivered on a paper-based basis that they will always be catered for. That does not mean to say that the back-office machinery will not be done by clever enabled technology. People who are uncomfortable working in anything other than in a paper-based situation will always be catered for. That is an assurance the Committee would want to give so that that level of apprehension can be contained.
I have been slightly distracted. I wanted to talk about some of the other services. The Information Office, the Library, the Parliamentary Archive and the public information services have all done extremely well. The results of that are in the report. If I had had more time I would have given an update about the services that have been developed since July 2011 in each of those categories.
The Information Committee is at the forefront of ensuring that by 2015 we will be in the best possible place for incoming Members. However they come to this institution after May 2015, we will be confident that we will be able to provide them with an ICT back service which is fit for purpose.
I started with three themes: driving the ICT agenda forward with as much determination and as much robustness as we can, coupled with getting our message across to the general public about what is happening here so that they understand our work better, and getting the bespoke services fully operational and robust and fit for purpose. These are the things for the second half of the Parliament that the Committee will be committed to doing on behalf of the whole House. On that basis, I hope that colleagues will accept this report as a work in progress, and I beg to move.
Lord Selsdon
My Lords, I begin, having been here rather too long, with a vote of thanks to our chairman, who has a remarkably light touch sometimes in that all the meetings we have attended have finished exactly on time, usually when I have plucked up the courage to say something.
I will speak not on the high-tech areas, but on slightly simpler ground. We have 827 Members of this House—there have been 118 new ones since the last election. Those on leave of absence make it 788 people. These are, in a way, our customer base. However, unlike many great institutions, we do not know each other. I am prepared to guess that on average nobody knows more than 100 Peers. Therefore there is almost a need for introductions or facial recognition. That has worried me quite considerably. I now know my noble friends the Liberal Democrats, but when you sit behind your own colleagues and see only the back of their head, you tend to find it easier to recognise the Opposition, so I have suggested some things that could be done. I asked Black Rod whether it would be possible for the names on the badges to be a bit bigger, because people come up, and look down, and say, “Who is that?”. This is just a simple basis of information.
We have a duty to communicate with Members of the House and to provide them with facilities in difficult times. As we know, wi-fi is going to be a very long way away and quite an expensive exercise. On the other hand, we are still a paper-based House. The Printed Paper Office points out that it has 2,000 different reports in its basement, that it receives and issues more paper than ever before, and that the number of lines per sheet of paper has dropped to about eight from 15. Many people still require paper. It will be a long time until we have caught up with the technology to get rid of the paper.
However, we are in the information business. We often forget that we are lucky enough to have probably one of the best libraries of its sort in the world. When I came here I did not realise that a librarian was more qualified than almost anyone else in the information business and suggested to the Library that I would quite like to be a librarian. They looked up to me in a down-looking way until I realised that you can find anything you want in that Library.
Over the past 10 years, the Library has issued 155 reports of great quality, but they are not as widely distributed as I would have hoped. One reason is that some of the data in those reports are sensitive because the Library does not necessarily own the intellectual property. But those reports would be a good promotion for the House; they could be more widely distributed and more easily issued to universities, academics, colleges and the general public. I have a list of those reports, which include everything from the adoption of children back in 2002 right the way through to Lords reform and human tissue legislation. It is quite a remarkable collection. The number of reports doubles in direct proportion to the size of the House and the demands of Peers. Many of the newer Peers do not know what they can get out of the Library.
Another thing we do for the production of information is to ask questions. Your Lordships will know well that certain Peers like to read about themselves in Questions more than anybody else. In this Parliament, we have had a total of 16,389 Questions for Written Answer. That is quite a lot. I went to the Library to ask staff about it—I beat them to it, because fortunately the Public Bill Office had explained that in the green paper each Question is numbered. So the number against the last Question tells you exactly how many there have been without your having to do any research.
On top of that, we have had 1,100 Starred Questions. That is quite easy to work out. You take the number of days that the House sat and multiply it by four, because there are four Questions a day, so that research did not take very long. All that information is in the public domain and much of it could be of great interest to the general public, probably more interesting that some of the extracts from your Lordships’ speeches, monologues or dialogues.
In that information area, we have to accept that people who come here are people with whom we communicate. There have been comments from time to time in the press that perhaps we are eating or drinking too much, too cheaply, or perhaps too freely. So I thought that it would be a good idea if I asked the Banqueting department how many people it had had last year. It had received more than 55,000 guests from institutions that nobody could criticise. I retyped the whole lot; I took out the names of Peers in case anybody thought a Peer might be on a freebie, or something else, but I left in two great celebrations when there were large birthday parties for individual Peers. Of those 750 events, none was any burden on the public purse—they actually provide a surplus—and they generated revenue through the shops. That is an important part of what one might call outreach.
I have not been out to speak to people. I was what was once called a Snopake speaker: when anybody let anybody down, I was the last one invited to speak. I would go to the dinner and scratch the menu to see whose name was typed under mine. But bringing people to this place is very worth while. I have been on a few tours and am now fully briefed. We should not worry about the older age group. Yes, it is a good idea to take soldiers round when they have been on things and to let them be recognised. So I went for the youngest ones; I said that I would like to bring round a young school group. I asked what the youngest was that they could cope with and they said eight or nine—so we brought round a team of five year-olds from my grandson’s class. They went round and had a whale of a time. Each one of them, in their own writing, wrote a letter of thanks, and said that the thing that they had enjoyed most was the nice lady who showed them round, the gold and the big hall. Those sorts of things make you feel good. When we have outreach in schools, in many cases it might not be a bad idea to put the House of Lords on an agenda for the history class and have every school in London coming in.
I have another suggestion to make on the lack of knowledge that we ourselves have about the House—certainly the lack of knowledge on procedures, which we know full well, and how we discipline our colleagues to stop them shouting and jumping up and down. When I first came here I was very nervous and everybody got my name wrong. The Chief Whip said, “You ought to make a maiden speech”, which I did, although I chickened out twice. He then said, “You can intervene now; I think you can intervene at Question Time”. So I said, “Well, what do I do, sir?”. He said, “Well, you stand up very quickly, because you are athletic, to ask a supplementary question and you will therefore be the quickest up, as you are one of the youngest. But then other people will get up and you will know they are more important than you—because the whole of the House is more important than you—and therefore you sit down. But you sit down very slowly, as though you were arthritic. They will turn to you—realising that you stood up first. Do that, and they will sit down”. Two Peers stood up and then sat down. I forgot what question I was going to ask and felt rather nervous. I did not know afterwards that the Chief Whip and the Leader of the Opposition had arranged this so that I would feel comfortable, and that the two Peers who stood up were only doing that to make me feel at home. Now, when one looks at Question Time, it is a barnstorming. I make a list—I call it the black list—of those who jump up, intervene and shout. It is not necessary—and that is part of the character of the House that has gone.
I will not go on about iPads because although I started with a computer, I could not make it work so I went to the Alfred Marks girls’ school, as Miss Selsdon, up in Oxford Street and Tracy, Sharon and Gail helped me. One needs that sort of friendliness; one feels embarrassed as a man if one cannot cope.
We have the Queen’s Jubilee Thames event coming up. I promise not to interfere in my capacity as Secretary and Treasurer of the House of Lords Yacht Club, although I believe that I could have the right to get three barges alongside. When the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who is in charge of this, was briefing us the other day, we suddenly realised that the House of Lords, or Parliament, will be the focus. When the parade goes by, all the television cameras will be on the other side of the river. The suggestion was that this might be viewed by 3 billion people over a period of time—I am not sure how long the parade lasts, but perhaps for two hours. Some of the boats that are lower in the water are going to be quite difficult to see. However, on the main barge, I hope that we have got the Armada bell, which I have arranged to be put there with the ring. The argument for the Armada bell is whether it is middle C, C flat or C sharp. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry is dealing with it.
If the Information Committee knew that this was going out world wide, we ought to write a script on what happened in the House of Lords—the history of it, from Alfred the Great and the others. This could be passed, probably from the BBC, to the lead broadcasters in China, India and right the way around the world.
Information should be fun and interesting. I have certainly enjoyed being on the Information Committee. I have enjoyed the tolerance of the great Martin Casey, who knows more than anybody. We cannot let him go; now I will try hard to use my machine—I will not call it by its name. I am very grateful for having been on this Committee and I would like to thank the chairman.
Lord Maxton
My Lords, first, if anybody thinks that I am being high-tech using my iPad for my speech, that is partially true. However, I also have a confession to make. When I tried to print it out on paper, the paper stuck in the printer. I was leaving it a little bit late to get here and so, inevitably, I had to do it this way. In fact, I am very largely going to ignore it because of what has already been said.
I thank “my noble friend”—as my noble friend Lord Foulkes called him quite wrongly—Lord Kirkwood. I would still call him “my noble friend” at a personal level even if parliamentary convention does not really follow that route. He is also, of course, a fellow member of the gym.
However, I want to follow the speeches that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, have made from almost—not from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, but certainly from the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon—the opposite point of view. He quite rightly has sung the praises of the Library. It is a magnificent place. I do not know many books there are in the Library but they could all be put on about three Kindles, to be read whenever anyone wanted to draw them up.
When I want information, as I showed in the House the other day, I go on Google and request that information. I do not go to the Library; I do not look at a book; I go on Google and find the information that I want. I used it for a very short history lesson. During a debate about the Scotland Bill and the United Kingdom there was an argument as to whether the United Kingdom had been formed with the union of the Crowns or the union of Parliaments. I looked it up and said that it was actually formed in 1800 when Ireland came into it. That was a matter of finding information quickly and easily on Google rather than having to go to the Library and look for a book to find that information.
That is the future. At the moment it is iPads but, before very long, there may well be a chip in the back of your hand through which you can get that same information. That is the way we are going and that is why the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is absolutely right to say that we have to keep up to date. The same media that will attack us if we spend money on computers or whatever will equally attack us if we appear to be behind the ball game, out of date and no longer keeping up with what the younger people—and not only younger people but even old people like me—are doing in terms of technology.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that 12 months until wi-fi is simply not good enough. O2 has done a deal with Westminster Council at the present time under which, by putting its routers on what I believe it calls street furniture—lamp posts, fences and so on—it will provide wi-fi access to anybody who has a computer, laptop or mobile phone, whatever it might be, within Westminster Council. It is starting now. Some of it will be available in June and the whole of the council will have access by the beginning of July in time for the Olympic Games. If it can do that, why are we not approaching a company and asking whether we can do the same thing? Why are we not having the same access to wi-fi?
Presumably, as we are in the Westminster Council area, we will be getting access to that wi-fi. It would be slightly peculiar if, for some reason, we were not able to get it. Just like smokers—but not me; I am not a smoker and have not been for 30-odd years—we will have to go out on to the Terrace, carrying our laptop or our tablet, in order to get the access that we require. That would be nonsense. We ought to have wi-fi access throughout the whole system and I will urge at a later date on the committee that we should look at this issue much more quickly. We should have wi-fi access across the whole of the parliamentary estate—preferably within the next three months and before the introduction of the O2 system—and at speeds that are faster than the O2 system. Otherwise there is a danger that people like me will access the O2 system and say, “Oh, it is better than the parliamentary one anyway”. I do not have to sign in for it as there is automatic signing in. Every time I turn my computer on to access it, it will be instantly available. If our system is not as good, that will create security problems because people will be using computers, tablets or whatever which are not in any way related to the security systems within the parliamentary estate. That could have dangers.
I will finish by making a second point about the tablet experiment. Quite rightly, there has been a survey of tablets. It is all very well my noble friend Lord Kirkwood saying that it is the iPad but, as far as I am aware, they did not try out any other tablet. The iPad 3 is now out—it was announced last week and it goes on sale tomorrow—and the iPad 4 may very well come before the end of this year. We have to take a decision: do we or do we not give people the iPad? There is evidence that money will be saved by using the iPad through a reduction in the amount of paper used. People can use their iPads rather than printing out information and using up great piles of paper or getting it stuck in the printer, whatever it may be. The iPad is there; it is coming; we need it. Fellow Members are constantly asking me when a decision will be taken: they are saying, “Do we buy our own or is it going to be provided?”. It may be that the Committee and the House authorities want people to buy their own and they can then say, “We will provide the services”.
It would not be entirely fair if they did that. We may not be employees but this is a place of work and we are here to do a job. I cannot think of any other job where the tools required to do it have to be provided by yourself—where you have to go out and purchase your own hammers, screwdrivers, computers, whatever it may be. I cannot imagine journalists, who probably will attack us if we provide or offer iPads to everyone having to buy their own computers, tablets or laptops. That does not happen.
We ought to take a decision to at least offer a tablet, preferably the iPad—at the moment there is not anything else on the market—to everyone who wishes it, not as a straight extra but as a replacement either for the laptop that people have, if it is due for replacement, or instead of the mobile device that they have. I can use this. I have used this on the last couple of nights and my wife has used it as a phone using Skype. Using Skype and providing Skype services may be another way of saving money.
I hope we will take that decision. I welcome the report and the further meetings of the Committee, where I will again raise these issues.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to debate the report and to make a few points on it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for an excellent introduction, despite the rather rude interruption which tried to take us completely off the point that we were on. In future, if some Peers are going to make speeches in the middle of a debate, perhaps they will have the courtesy to stay until the end and not interrupt people at the start. This is a new tradition which has arisen with people who have come here and seem to think they have the right to do it and not to debate matters in a proper way. This reiterates the point of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, that we are having trouble getting people to understand the conventions of a self-regulating House, where you are not told what to do by a Speaker and you do not have a headmaster any more.
Leaving that point aside for the moment—I shall take it up elsewhere—I found the Information Committee report interesting and hugely encouraging. Like everyone else, I shall start by talking about the tablet trials, which is a wonderful move in the right direction. There are lots of questions about it and we received a bit of flak in the press the other day, which was very unfair. I have found that it has enabled me to work more efficiently and has allowed me to find papers when I have not got them. I remember going to a meeting where we were discussing the Protection of Freedoms Bill and some aspects of RIPA and I had thought we were going to be discussing something slightly different. I turned up with my tablet and everyone else had about a foot of paper in front of them. When I realised what we were discussing, it did not take me long to get the information up on the iPad because I know my way around the parliamentary site—a point I shall take up later—and I was able to find things quicker than the other people were able to by desperately fumbling through their index tabs. In particular, when we went on to a point they did not expect, I was able to search the PDF for a different Bill, to which it referred back, find the information and produce some intelligent comments. With the annotation facilities that we have for the PDFs in GoodReader, I was able to find information more quickly because I had indexed it already when we were debating the Bill. That is hugely valuable and useful and it is there, sitting with me, all the time. So, called into a meeting, I can react immediately. In the case that I mentioned, I think that it rather astonished them. They thought that I would know nothing because, apparently, I had no supporting material, but actually I had an entire library at my fingertips. That is the point, and it is one that has been brought up by other speakers.
The other advantage is the flexibility afforded when speaking, which the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, brought up. He would have printed his speech out and probably have felt constrained to stick to what he had written. He would have discovered that it was no longer as relevant as it was, but instead he was able to adapt it in a sensible and flexible way and produce a very interesting speech—one that, I hate to suggest, was probably more useful than the original speech because that one had been pre-empted. That is a huge advantage. I certainly found myself always modifying my speeches because I was able to use my Writer application.
We have been criticised in the press for handing out laptops, but you have to have a core group of enthusiasts who will test anything that is new. There is an old adage that no plan survives its first encounter with the enemy. Whatever you do to start with is not how you will end up. We could have launched on day one with the idea either that we would loan out tablets for Peers to use or that we would get people to bring their tablets in. Some businesses are doing that, but a lot of large organisations are fighting it quite hard because of security issues; they are finding it much harder than we are to adapt, but they are being forced into it. We have moved proactively, although the point is that if we had gone in that way, the critics would have killed it on day one. You have to run a trial to find out what the disadvantages are. We can see already that access to the website is changing and modifying as a result of some of the reactions to the tablet trial in the Information Committee.
I think that this still has a long way to go. An example is that when I want to look at a Bill I am concerned with, I want all the stuff that is relevant to whatever stage we have reached to be together in one place. I am prepared to pick the Bill up off the desk, but I am only offered the latest version and all the documents. I then have to go in and stab around. What I want are the latest amendments. I also want the note from the Whips’ Office so that I know what order people will be speaking in, although I am quite happy to get that off the other thing because I normally have that sitting there as well. However, it means having to jump backwards and forwards from one bit to the other. It is as if the most important thing is the last stage of the Bill, but it is not. The most important thing is the amendments we are about to discuss. Also, it is a real nuisance having last-minute additions to the Marshalled List, but I do not know how we are going to handle that. It means that you have to have two lists of amendments. However, we may see an improvement in our working practices as a result of all this because in some cases it may make us think more logically.
To make maximum use of this technology, we need training in how to search for and find things. For instance, occasionally I want to find EU papers, which is a particularly thorny problem on whatever device you are using. This is where we need the expertise of our librarians. One of the great things about modern technology is the way librarians have changed from people who just give you books and tell you where to find something into people who are able to gear up their expertise in knowing where to find information, then summarise it and produce a distillation. Library notes and research papers into aspects of things we are looking at are found to be extremely useful by Peers. You can see that in the doubling of the take-up of those notes. It changes someone who used to sit behind a desk into someone who is summarising information usefully so that it then becomes knowledge. It is then up to us to have the wisdom to turn it into something that we will use properly. Things are useless when they are just out there in the form of information.
I have one other brief comment to make about the trial. We are facing what every large organisation has to face, which is the problem of how we are going to handle security in a deperimeretised environment, as it is called. How are we going to have collaboration orientated architectures, as the Jericho Forum calls them? I know that these are technical things, but I thought I would throw them in for fun. These are the things we are facing, and large companies are stumbling over them as well. That is why at the moment we have a separation between the intranet and the internet, which I find so awkward because there is stuff I cannot get on my tablet. It is sitting on the intranet and it is too cumbersome to try to log in on that if you do not have a good connection. So I end up taking what I can get on the internet. There is some stuff which is missing. It is not secret or anything like that, and there are ways around it. I think we need to look at this, and it is something that may usefully come out of the tablet trial. I hope that the internet will survive and the intranet will be something that is accessed, if it is needed, in a very different way. I think there will be secure areas.
I want to say two things very quickly on the report. I was a little concerned by the talk of bespoke systems for core activities. I can see certain aspects of how we handle amendments and things as Bills progress through another place and then here, going backwards and forwards, and that there is a specialised system especially written to handle that. However, for a lot of our systems, we should be careful about going too bespoke, because the world is changing very quickly in a very unpredictable way. Who would have envisaged, even four years ago, that we would be doing a tablet trial here and that I would be permitted to use it in the Chamber or for my notes here in Committee? Who would have envisaged that we would be beginning to work in these flexible ways, or that we would be talking about Members bringing their own stuff in that would hook up inside the parliamentary perimeter? The changes are so fast that we do not know where we will be, and we have got to be very careful of locking ourselves into expensive, upfront capital expenditure when the world may move in a different direction.
To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, again, is it an iPad or not? We are quite right to say tablet. It just happened that the iPad had the easiest interface, earliest on, off the starting block in this area. Actually, there are very serious rivals now and some that are outselling the iPad. There are some other more generic operating systems that could give us better access to some of the other facilities one would like to have on the internet. The iPad for various commercial reasons will not run Flash, but an Android-based system will. There are all sorts of bits and pieces like that, so we should very firmly say tablet, but of course it does not matter. If we go to a system which is device agnostic—as the chairman of our committee said—it removes that problem. People can have whatever they fancy and like and want to use. That is definitely the way to go, and it also offloads a huge amount of capital expenditure.
There are two other things I wanted to mention very quickly, because we have spent so long on computers. What we are doing on the outreach area and the Peers in Schools programme is very laudable. I think that move is hugely useful to public perception of what we get up to, what Parliament gets up to and what the two arms of Government—the legislature and the executive—do, with all the issues behind it that people do not understand. I am very encouraged to see that that is expanding. I have spoken in a couple of places, but not as part of the service. I think quite a few of us do, but it is right that we should formalise it and make it easier, and that is a very good move in the right direction.
The other thing that I am very grateful for is the Press Office. I have not had to use it, but I find it hugely reassuring that when there is something that hits the press that you are worried about, and you think, “Oh my goodness, what am I going to say?”, you have the Press Office there to act as back up. If it is a bit oversensitive, instead of putting your foot in it you can hand it over to the Press Office, which can put its foot in it instead. I am sorry, I mean that it can do exactly the right thing instead. These are very important aspects, which we should not lose sight of in our excitement about the new technology.
It is a very interesting and useful report, and I look forward to working with the committee as long as I am allowed to.
Lord Haskel
My Lords, I, too, thank our chairman for organising this rather pleasantly informal debate. We have members of the staff here, we have a clerk, and we even have a member of the Government to see that we behave ourselves.
Until they actually serve on the committee, people do not realise the huge amount of work and the huge range of activity which is done by the information staff. As we come into contact with them, we know about PICT and the Library because they are there, but we are much less aware of the information services to the general public—the outreach, the work done with House of Commons education, the website, the intranet, broadcasting and generally telling the world who we are and what we do. Who knows that the House of Lords staff also take care of the parliamentary archives? Do not, of course, forget Hansard. Therefore, I start, together with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, by thanking the staff and congratulating them on all their hard work, dedication and thoughtfulness. Like the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, I think the committee should find some way of better informing parliamentarians of all this hard work and dedication. An awful lot of us just take it for granted.
Where should I start on this huge range of activities? I start by responding briefly to a question about ICT. This is a very difficult time to provide an ICT service because the technology and hardware are changing so quickly. No sooner had we learnt to operate our PCs than mobile systems started to take over. Then the tablet came along and now we may well be moving into an age of connected TV—who knows? It takes time for people to understand the systems and to move easily between static and mobile formats. That is why I am in favour of Peers providing their own equipment. I do not agree with my noble friend. It is partly because people would be more economical with their own stuff and partly because Peers are at different stages of development.
Some of us still use books for knowledge, as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said. For instance, I find it difficult to work on an iPad. I like to write little notes to myself in the margins of a document that I am working on because my memory is so awful. In a debate such as this, I could write a little note in the margin to refer to something that another Peer has said. I find this very awkward when using an iPad. It might be a little more difficult for the support staff but it would make the service more personal and individual if we supplied our own equipment. Providing our own equipment would also help to achieve the objective of increasing Members’ effectiveness in their own work. This does not mean that we should not be at the forefront of technology, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, said, but we have to do it at our own pace. That is why I was not in favour of trying iPads. They should certainly be provided for staff, but I saw enough of them being used by Peers in the Library and elsewhere in Parliament to conduct a worthwhile trial. I also felt that it was wrong to limit ourselves to Apple software—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. Now I read that we have Windows 7, with which we are all familiar, for the tablet in a very quick and easy form, with an app that does everything for you. I am sure that in time this will become very popular.
Another reason why it is right to concentrate on ICT is that it is a means of two-way communication—the feedback about which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, spoke. It is a means of strengthening relationships, which is what the Information Committee is all about. This should be done not only through social media—I am not suggesting that we reward people who become friends—but through individual websites as well as the parliamentary website. Last week the Labour Lords website went live; my noble friend starred on it. It provides exactly the kind of two-way relationship that the Information Committee should support.
Lords of the Blog is another example. It has now been going for three years and the page views are rapidly increasing because Peers raise issues there that they cannot raise on the Floor of the House due to overcrowding. As long as the House is overcrowded, Peers will find other ways to monitor and scrutinise the Government by using ICT. This also applies to tweeting.
Reaching out to the public in person is perhaps even more important. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, referred to this. As our report says, some 180 Members go to schools, colleges and other institutions to explain who we are and what we do. I would like to put on record my thanks to Gina Page and her colleagues in the Lords Speaker’s Office, and those in the Information Office, who put all of this together and actually organise more than 500 visits.
I have participated in this scheme since it started five years ago. What is appreciated is not so much telling people how Parliament works, but for people to have the opportunity to question a real, live, breathing, genuine Member of the House of Lords. I keep the explanations short when I go, and devote most of the time to a question and answer session. Indeed, this leads to some fascinating and informative discussions.
Of course, you are always asked how you became a Peer. You are always asked what you do. You are asked how much you get paid and what you did before you entered the House, and some of the questions are based on information gleaned from websites such as theyworkforyou.com. But many of the questions are unexpected. For instance, in November I was asked, if Jesus was alive today, would he become a Member of the House of Lords, and if so, on which Benches would he sit? This led to about 15 minutes of discussion and we came to the conclusion that yes, he would become a Member of the House of Lords, but no, he would not sit on the Bishops’ Benches; he would have become a Peer through the public applications system, and would sit on the Cross Benches as a champion of human rights.
Incidentally, to my knowledge we have never had a debriefing session for the staff and Peers doing this outreach, and I think this is something that the committee might arrange. For instance, before I visit a school or institution I always read the Information Office daily press report, because then I know what the audience has been reading. I wonder how many Peers know that this is available.
Of course, another part of the outreach with a human touch is the welcome given to visitors. The parliamentary guides are warm, they are smiling, they are informative and helpful, and they certainly form an important part of the human outreach. This is in addition to all the visitors that the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, told us about.
One part of the organisation that seems to bring a lot of these things together is the Library. Not only have the staff dealt with a huge increase in reference and research inquiries—not everybody uses their iPad—but they also provide briefing packs for debates. They provide online services and, helpfully, training on how to use them. There are computers for occasional use and services are available both here and at Millbank. As I said earlier, Peers look to the Library for help because it is local, in the same way that we look to PICT for help at short notice, which is another excellent service that we should applaud.
The report speaks about developing Members’ biographical pages. May I make one request? These biographies tend to say a lot about what Members take out of the pot—for instance, what the posts are that they hold outside Parliament—but very little about what they put back in. In all my years I have never met a Peer who does not do some kind of voluntary work in charity, sport, the arts, education, medicine—the list is endless. But rarely are people told about it. Both should have equal prominence in these biographies that we are working on.
There are lots of areas I have not covered, such as the archives, which is the place that many visitors tell me they remember the best. I could go on, but I must close. Has all this outreach been effective and worthwhile? I am not aware of any polling to find out, but my impression is that it is. People I meet are certainly much more aware of who we are, what we do and why we do it. If there is a reform Bill in the Queen’s Speech, this will be debated by an informed public, which will be far better informed today than it was five years ago, thanks to the work of the Information Committee. I also think that this work has made an important contribution to rebuilding our reputation and status with the public after the debacle of the expenses scandal—something that was desperately needed.
Internally, we work better, more efficiently and more effectively through the use of ICT, and this will only get better. Incidentally, streaming and broadcasting has made us more conscious of our behaviour and, speaking for myself, encouraged us to prepare better for meetings and debates. Once again, my thanks and congratulations go to all the information staff, to our Chair, our Clerks and my colleagues on the Committee. Our work is showing results.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, could I take up one minute of the Committee’s time to pursue a point just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll? It is about the use of equipment off the premises of the Palace of Westminster that is chosen by the Members themselves. That also featured in my noble friend’s introduction. I was quite excited by this, because the present system of allocating fixed hardware to people who then use it off the premises is unduly restrictive and can have serious disadvantages. I will mention one instance. I have a network at home and I was told that the Parliamentary ICT system could not supply me with broadband because of the danger that might arise from misuse by some of the other people on the network. It would happily look after one computer connected to broadband, which it would pay for, but if I were to connect one or several more computers to my network, that meant that it would not pay at all.
This would resolve the dilemma over iPads, which has been mentioned several times. I agree with the noble Lord that nowadays there are competitors to the iPad that, if not superior, are at least equal to it, and which Members might use if they had the freedom to choose. One can see the point of having specified equipment used in the offices in the House because the ICT people have to look after it. The desktop and printer on desks here in the Palace of Westminster should be specified, but as soon as you get outside and need a mobile, tablet or connection to the internet, Members should have a budget and be able to do exactly what they like with it instead of having to stick to equipment from a specified list provided by the IT department. I am glad to hear that the committee is heading in that direction.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, I am grateful to all the Members who have taken part. Apart from my noble friend Lord Avebury, we have kept this within the family. There is no harm in that, and I draw a conclusion from the fact that we have not had the Grand Committee packed with people complaining about various services that have gone wrong. That is a positive. The opportunity is there and it is important to provide that opportunity, and the fact that we have what is, in effect, another of our useful seminars among colleagues who were thinking freely and without being tied to an agenda has been valuable. Some important points have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, made an important point about in-reach, not outreach. There is no substitute for visits into the Parliamentary Estate, particularly for young people. In-reach is important as well as outreach, and I also agree with him that information should be fun. The committee’s work is lots of things; it is sometimes fun, sometimes it is hard work, but it is important work, and we need to bear that in mind.
I just want to take up a point from the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. He is right to be impatient for change for wi-fi roll-out, but there are practical difficulties about the public contract, which has to go through European procurement rules. That is what is actually holding the thing back; there is a cost, but there are some procurement rules which we cannot avoid. We will know soon who the contractor will be, but then there is a lot of bureaucracy to go through; it is all European-compliant legislation of which we have to be very careful to take account. The earliest we can possibly do it is March 2013, but he will know—because he keeps up with these things—that there is an advantage to that, because the standards for wi-fi provision are being upgraded and we will be able to take advantage of that. If we had done it earlier, we would have been with wi-fi one; we will actually be going into a situation with wi-fi two, as it were, so there is an advantage in hastening slowly, at least to that extent. However, I am grateful to him and I hope he will continue to challenge robustly the speed of the provision.
We have been in danger of anticipating the outcome of the committee’s deliberation on the evaluation of the tablet trials. I do not want to do that, as it is still a very open question, and we have to go through this process very carefully. I am grateful to all my colleagues who commented, including the well informed overview that the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, gave of the trial. He has vast experience in this are, which is valuable to the committee, and I take his point about generic systems. But the generic systems will be in the customisation of the applications for each individual Member, so the customisation that would be required for him will be at a much higher grade than for ordinary users. It is more customisation of generic systems that we have in mind.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, this is of course the advantage of having an iPad which is indexed immediately with my comments, which one can do in a PDF. The document is actually talking about a use of bespoke solutions for Parliament’s unique core systems, in paragraph 12 on page 7. That was the one that worried me. I entirely agree with the noble Lord about customisation for individuals at the front end; it is a very good idea.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
I thank the noble Earl. We are not far apart on this now. I am grateful to him for his other comments as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, was very kind to the House staff. We all feel that too; I think Member-led outreaches are invaluable and difficult to improve upon. I hope the debate has provided the House more generally, in Grand Committee context, with an overview of what we are doing and that we as a committee will decide to have another annual report, because they are good for the committee. They make you always look back at what you have done and give you a better idea of what you want to do in future. We are facing a challenging two or three-year period in the run-up to 2015. The committee is very vigorous and knowledgeable about this. I enjoy participating in it and am grateful to colleagues for the energy they put into the committee, which is in the service of the House and for the benefit of the House. There is a lot of work to do, and I hope it will continue to be fun. On that basis—because the Grand Committee has a lot of important work to do for the rest of the afternoon—I have pleasure in moving that the committee’s annual report for 2010-11 be noted by the Grand Committee.
Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2012
Lord De Mauley
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2012.
Relevant document: 41st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Freud, I will also speak to the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2012.
It is a requirement that I confirm to the Committee that these provisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, and I am happy to do so. The purpose of these two regulations is to increase the amounts of lump sum compensation paid under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979, and the 2008 mesothelioma scheme set up by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. The increased amounts will be paid to those who first satisfy the conditions of entitlement on or after 1 April 2012.
The earlier drafts of these regulations contained an error in one of the rates in the dependant tables. Had the error not been corrected, it would have meant that certain dependants could have received more than a sufferer in a very small number of cases. That cannot be right and so action was taken immediately the error was identified to withdraw the earlier regulations and correct that error.
Both schemes stand apart from the main social security benefits uprating procedure and there is no legislative requirement to make annual increases in the amounts payable under these two schemes. However, in recent years, increases to the amounts paid have been made in line with the rate of inflation, and the amounts payable for 2012 are being increased by the same rate that is being applied to social security benefits —that is, uprated by CPI—of 5.2 per cent.
Both schemes fulfil an important role in providing compensation where no civil action can be taken against an employer, the person responsible for the exposure to asbestos or one of the other listed agents. They also ensure that sufferers receive compensation while they can still benefit from it.
Noble Lords will know that improved health and safety procedures—
Lord De Mauley
Noble Lords will know that improved health and safety procedures have now both restricted the use of asbestos and provided a safer environment for its handling. However, we are all aware of the legacy created by the common use of asbestos before its effects on people’s health were fully understood. The Government are confronting the results of that common practice by ensuring that financial compensation is available to those affected. Indeed, that is why both of these schemes were introduced.
It might help noble Lords if I briefly summarised the specific purpose of each scheme. The Pneumoconiosis etc (Workers Compensation) Act 1979, which for simplicity of pronunciation I shall abbreviate to the “1979 Act”, provides a lump sum compensation payment to those who suffer from one of the five dust-related respiratory diseases covered by the scheme and who are unable to claim damages from employers after they have gone out of business. In outline, the diseases covered are diffuse mesothelioma, bilateral diffuse pleural thickening, pneumoconiosis, byssinosis and primary carcinoma of the lung, if accompanied by asbestosis or bilateral diffuse pleural thickening. A claim can be made by a dependant if the sufferer has died before being able to make a claim.
A person who is injured or contracts an industrial disease as a result of their work may sue the employer for damages. However, the diseases covered by the 1979 Act are known as long-latency diseases as they take a long time to develop and may not be diagnosed for a very long time after exposure to the dust that caused the illness. This is particularly so for the asbestos-related diseases within the scheme, such as primary carcinoma of the lung or mesothelioma. In some cases, it may take up to 40 years between the original exposure and the linked disease. Given that length of time, noble Lords will not find it surprising that by the time diagnosis is made, the employer responsible may no longer exist. As a result, sufferers and their dependants can find it very difficult to undertake a successful civil action to obtain compensation and the 1979 Act was introduced to help such people.
The mesothelioma lump sum payments scheme was introduced under the last Government in 2008 to provide compensation to people who contracted mesothelioma but were unable to claim compensation under the 1979 Act because their exposure to asbestos was not due to their work or because the asbestos exposure was simply unidentified. Noble Lords may recall the case of the unfortunate woman who contracted mesothelioma from washing her husband’s work clothes. The 2008 scheme means that payments can be made urgently to mesothelioma sufferers at their time of greatest need. If a sufferer dies before making a claim, a 2008 scheme payment can be made to a dependent.
The annual incidence of mesothelioma continues to increase. There are currently over 2,300 deaths from the disease in men and women each year. When other asbestos-related deaths—mainly lung cancer and asbestosis—are added, it is likely that there are now over 4,000 asbestos-related deaths in total each year. While it is always difficult to forecast exact peaks, the latest available information suggests that mesothelioma deaths in men will continue to increase to a peak of around 2,100 deaths in 2016. It is more difficult to predict when deaths in women will peak but it is likely that this will occur after the peak in men, albeit at a lower level.
Payment levels under the 1979 Act scheme are based on the level of the disablement assessment and the age of the sufferer at the time that the disease is diagnosed. The highest amounts are paid to those who have been diagnosed at an early age and with the highest level of disablement. Under the 2008 scheme, as well as under the 1979 Act, all mesothelioma disablement assessments are made at the 100 per cent rate. This means that for someone suffering from mesothelioma the amount of payment under both schemes will vary only according to the age of the person at the time of diagnosis.
Over 50 per cent of claims under the 1979 Act are made in respect of mesothelioma, a particularly unpleasant and fatal disease, caused almost exclusively by exposure to asbestos. Those diagnosed with mesothelioma usually have a short life expectancy, generally between 12 and 18 months. It is common that the sufferer is severely disabled very soon after diagnosis. I am sure we all agree that no amount of money can ever compensate sufferers or their families for the damage caused by these diseases, but it is right that they receive financial compensation, and as quickly as possible. These regulations help ensure that the level of government compensation provided by both schemes maintains its value. I commend the increase of the payment scales to noble Lords and ask approval to implement them.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his careful explanation of these two orders. There are one or two questions that I would like to put to him. First, he says that there is no statutory obligation to continue uprating these payments at the level that they have been in the past. I wonder what guarantee there is that, in the future, the percentage upratings that we are looking at now will continue to be maintained. If there is not any statutory obligation, how can the victims of these awful diseases come to the expectation that they will not be left in the lurch if there is some financial emergency and that, as with many other poor and vulnerable people, they will not be made to contribute some of the miserable pittance that they are awarded towards the repayment of the deficit that we all know is constantly in the Government’s mind?
My noble friend pointed to the legacy of these frightful diseases, which may continue to emerge for 40 years after the sufferer has first been in contact with the substance concerned, whether it be industrial dust or, in the case of mesothelioma, asbestos. Have the Government formed any estimate of the total cost of dealing with these diseases in terms of the compensation that will become available over the long tail that we expect to develop in the future? I was pleased to note from his speech that this peak will be reached for men in 2016, and for women a little bit later, but we know that thereafter sufferers will continue to emerge and some 60,000 of them are expected to be discovered at some point in the future.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I will briefly intervene in this debate. I am thinking back to 1979, when the original legislation went through, and the number of different groups of workers, including slate quarrymen from my own constituency, who were failing to get compensation through action against ex-employers for the reason that, as the Minister mentioned, many of them had gone out of existence and there needed to be some safety net.
In a recent Question on the Floor of the House, I raised the issue of people who are suffering from diseases similar to pneumoconiosis that are endemic in slate quarrying, such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema, which have been recognised as an industrial disease associated with pneumoconiosis for coal miners but not for slate quarrymen. I realise that the diseases defined by the 1979 Act are five and that they are specific, but the ones additional to pneumoconiosis were brought in because they were associated with and arising from the work that was undertaken. I would be very grateful if this issue could be pursued further because, although I have had a reply from the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who gave the reason that I have outlined, the trade unions involved still feel that there is a group of workers, albeit a very small one, which is missing out by the way in which these matters are being interpreted.
I touch on the mesothelioma dimension. As the 2008 scheme tries to gain compensation recovery following the payments out, it would be interesting to know what the Government’s line is with regard to the possibility of the legal aid legislation that is going through now having a direct and negative effect on this. The numbers of people that we are talking about are some 2,000, 3,000 or perhaps even 4,000 a year, and over the next 30 years some 40,000 people may have claims. So it is very important that there is some transparency in this and, therefore, I hope that the Minister will be in a position to give some indication of the thinking on that matter.
Lord Jones
I support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I thank the Minister for his patient and dignified introduction and acknowledge the work of my noble friend on the Front Bench, who had a splendid record of caring about these matters when for a number of years he was a Minister. I know that he was well served by his Civil Service team, some of whom are present today.
These regulations have their origins in the social, economic, industrial and political history of Britain, and they are of very specific interest to the people of Wales. I do not think that we can ever let these regulations just go through, although one wholeheartedly supports the proposals promulgated today by the Minister. We should acknowledge what the regulations reflect; much of our industrial and economic history, and the consequences of that history, is considerable. My noble friend Lady Golding is present in this Committee, and I draw attention if I may to the biography of her distinguished father, who was a miner and government Minister as well as a man of south Wales of huge stature. In his biography there is a great deal of detail, which presages what the Minister proposes and which we most happily accept. My noble friend knows in great detail the south Wales coal-field—what is left of it—what it meant and what happened there.
From my own experience in north Wales, as late as 1970 there were 12 collieries, which disappeared very quickly. But there was a considerable mining industry in much of Wales, north, south and in the west as well as the east. We should never forget the contributions made by the coal industry to prosperity and provision generally for the majority of the people in the nation.
The estate where I grew up was on a levelled-out coal tip, and such ragamuffins as lived on that estate would go out to play in the fields and, perhaps once a year, find a new shaft that related to the old mines. To find out how deep the shaft was you would heave a brick in it and count how many seconds before the splash. That is the culture, background and origin of the regulations, and the mother of Parliaments should never forget whence they came. And so it is relevant for Members to come to your Lordships’ committee and make a few points. With regard to the quarrymen—and I was glad to hear the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley—I would like to mention particularly some names, because these regulations have their beginnings in the work of Lord Cledwyn Hughes, Lord Harold Walker, Sir Elwyn Jones, who lived in Anglesey, and Mr Tom Jones, who was a Transport and General Workers’ Union official, and is still about. Also, the then Welsh Office in the late 1970s was heavily involved in bringing about an introduction of some redress for quarrymen. It is the case that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and his compatriot, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, were also involved.
The Government of the day was led by James Callaghan. I had the honour to serve in it, and having mentioned some distinguished names with regard to measures for the quarrymen, I had a small part in the origins of help for the quarrymen. In so far as I have mentioned names, there is parliamentary history of a kind, rooted in a culture and an industry in Wales.
May I say to the Minister—because he is more than a good sport—that if he was not too busy one weekend or one day, he might visit a quarry in north-west Wales, in Blaenau Ffestiniog, called Llechwedd? It is currently a museum of a kind, but if a Minister, or a noble Lord, or a noble Baroness, were to step into Llechwedd, and just listen and feel in the dark and the damp again, they would be struck about the need for these regulations. That particular quarry required the poor workman to bring his own candles to illuminate his slaving away. In that quarry you see how the prospect of injury was ever present.
Again, as a witness to the very warp and woof of what the regulations refer to, it is a very powerful reflection of what was ordinary work for thousands of people not that long ago. To give further verisimilitude to what I propose is the fact that there was a strike in the mid-1980s. I had the duty—perhaps honour—to address those 50 to 55 men in this industrial dispute. It was winter time and there was snow on the ground. It was in Blaenau Ffestiniog, which is a windswept, rainy place, of great beauty when the sun shines, but it needs the sun. Here I saw the end, almost, of a great industry. The industry at its height sent its product all over the world, and many of London’s roofs are covered with slate from the north Wales quarries.
Baroness Donaghy
I speak as somebody who lost a stepfather and a sister-in-law to these diseases, but mainly I speak because I produced a report on fatalities in the construction industry for the previous Government. Although my remit was to look closely at fatalities on site, I also saw the figures for disease and the figures that the noble Lord mentioned. At that stage, I think there were something like 4,500 deaths a year from lung-related diseases. This is a silent killer of the most horrendous proportions. The noble Lord indicated the lack of future for so many.
My concern is that the profile should be higher. What work is the Health and Safety Executive doing to improve that profile? Is any more research being done? I know that technically I am probably out of order on these regulations but, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, this is extremely important. Silicosis is going to come up further down the track. Every worker you see in London carving up the corner of a pavement and not using a water spray or wearing a mask over his face may well be dead in 15 years’ time. It does not take as long—it does not take 40 years. We could do an awful lot more. I know that these regulations are about people who have already contracted these fatal diseases, but we should try to raise their profile and to do more to prevent them because some of these killers are still there. It not a question of them peaking in 2016. Some other industrial diseases are coming along, and I do not believe that sufficient work is being done on them.
I have a question, and I understand if the Minister does not have the answer immediately. Could some inquiries be made about what work is being done by the Health and Safety Executive and about what can be done to improve these diseases’ profile and their prevention?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. I know he has stepped into the breach at fairly short notice because the noble Lord, Lord Freud, is unwell. We send our best wishes to him. I thank noble Lords who have contributed, particularly my noble friend Lord Jones. He is absolutely right; we should not see these orders each year just as a technical uprating. They are a chance to reflect on their history and what they mean. My noble friend, together with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, were, in my noble friend’s terms, participants in and witnesses to what went on in those communities. People of my generation, brought up in the relative safety of the south-east, only read about it and listened to it. It is a good opportunity to remind ourselves what we owe to those mining and quarrying communities.
As the Minister said, there is no statutory obligation to uprate these compensation amounts so I would say that a CPI uprating—so far as it goes—is welcome. Had the noble Lord, Lord Freud, been in post, we might have engendered a bit of a debate about the difference between RPI and CPI and which is the more robust statistic. I will, however, forgo that on this occasion. I am sure that the Minister will be grateful for that. We aligned the payments under the 2008 Act with the 1979 Act a couple of years ago; they were not aligned when they were introduced. That was one aspiration. There was another aspiration to narrow the gap between the amounts due to claimants and the amounts due to dependants. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether that is still an aspiration of the Government.
As we have heard, the concept is that the 2008 scheme was to be funded out of compensation recoveries—compensation from civil cases. Therefore, can we have an update on the levels of recovery; what percentage of 2008 scheme payments are covered by this; and what the estimate over the CSR period is? I follow the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on the question that he posed on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley—about how this works with changes that have been made to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. My understanding—I have not followed the intricacies of that Bill in great detail—is that there are government concerns about conditional fee arrangements being exploited, and that 25 per cent of success fees will, in future, be met out of the compensation payments. I think that is the proposition.
Therefore, my question to the Minister is: what will be the impact on the compensation recovery arrangements that help to fund the 2008 scheme if there will be that reduction in compensation recoveries? Presumably that will impact, at some stage, on the levels of compensation that will be due under the 2008 scheme. Indeed, it depends on the relationship between the overall compensation in individual cases and the level of compensation under the 2008 Act scheme, but it adds a challenge for the Government. Why should they go down that path in these circumstances as, in a sense, they risk taking the hit on these deductions themselves? I should be grateful if the Minister would give us a read across to what is happening in that legislation and what it means for compensation levels going forward.
I hope that the Minister gave us the projected numbers and what was going to happen in the upcoming years. We have discussed progress on the Employers’ Liability Tracing Office—the ELTO—before, which I think was, again, the point being pursued by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. We know that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, has previously, expressly taken a direct interest in that. The FSA consultation proposes that the ELTO cover all employer liability policies—entered into, renewed or for which claims were made—on or after 1 November 1999. However, the FSA policy statement requires only the recording of new policies— I think from April 2012. Therefore, what is the progress on back-filling the pursuit of those policies to 1999? Clearly, people’s ability to trace those policies is particularly important. We know the challenges posed, as the Minister and others have expressed, by long latency of the conditions with which we are faced.
I also ask the Minister whether any progress has been made on ELI, which will be the insurance bureau of last resort—a parallel to the Motor Insurance Bureau—so that when policies could not be traced there would be a collective compensation pot. There was a consultation document on that in, I think, the first quarter of 2010. I sought an update on progress before and would be grateful if the Minister could let us know the current position.
My noble friend Lady Donaghy talked in particular about her work in looking at the construction sector, and the importance of and the debt we owe to the Health and Safety Executive. We are at the moment in a rather ironic situation where the Government are consulting on asbestos regulations because the Commission has challenged the status quo about whether that was an effective translation of what it required. We have a Government now, thankfully I think, supporting the previous Government’s position on this. We usually hear that the EU is all about gold-plating and the UK Government follows suit.
I also take the opportunity to ask about the HSE’s resources. In particular what is happening on the proposed charging regime for the field operations directive, which was an integral part of its funding arrangements for the current CSR period? We are, as I say, indebted to the HSE for the tremendous work it does. My noble friend Lord Jones made the point that 20 years ago people did not realise that asbestos was dangerous. They played with it. It was a source of amusement. The research, work and preventive stuff that the HSE does is a route to making sure that history does not repeat itself, although we are still living, as are those tens of thousands of people the noble Lord referred to, with the challenges of the past.
Finally, given that these orders are all about the risks that workers and their families take, and the terrible suffering that comes from these conditions, can I just put it in the context of what is now International Workers’ Memorial Day? It was officially recognised a couple of years ago but has been marked in one way or another for many years. Can the Minister give us an update on what the Government are proposing to do to mark and acknowledge that day? Perhaps in closing I can remind him of the slogan that goes with that:
“Remember the dead and fight for the living”.
Lord De Mauley
Perhaps I can start by thanking all noble Lords who have participated in this brief debate for the sensitive way in which they have done it. As we have discussed, we are talking about some very terrible diseases and these things need to be approached in this way.
A large number of questions have been asked. Let me see how many of them I can tackle now. If I cannot, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I write afterwards. My noble friend Lord Avebury pointed out that there was no statutory obligation to maintain the level of payments and asked what the Government’s position was. I think the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also referred to that. The Government have no plans to make any changes to these two schemes. We review them regularly to ensure they remain well targeted and we will continue to consider uprating as appropriate.
My noble friend asked what is being done to support people who need to trace employers’ liability insurance. I appreciate that the Government’s response to the consultation is taking longer to publish than many had hoped. However, the issues raised are complex and we remain in active discussions with all the stakeholders to make sure we get this right. We are still carefully considering all the issues and we will bring forward our proposals in due course.
My noble friend asked whether there was a long-term estimate of the cost over what he described as the “long tail”. We have not estimated the cost to the Government of these two schemes over the long tail. If I can find anything out from my noble friend, I will write to him, but I am not aware that we have made estimates. He asked about the possibility of extending the 1979 Act where diseases cannot be traced back to employers. I have to inform the Committee that there are no plans to extend the coverage of the 1979 Act to those whose disease was not covered by their employment. The 2008 scheme covers those people who contracted mesothelioma outside work, but mesothelioma is a special case because of the very short life expectancy of sufferers.
Lord Avebury
Could I ask the noble Lord a question put to him earlier? As he knows, there is still a large gap between the payments to living victims of mesothelioma and those made to their estates after they have died. For example, the payment to a sufferer aged 67 is £17,416, while the payment to his dependants if he dies at that age is only £7,915. There is still an enormous gap between these two figures. There was a commitment by the previous Government to reduce and, over a period, to eliminate this differential. Could my noble friend say whether it is the Government’s policy to continue with that diminution of the gap and, if so, whether there is any date by which they hope the process will be completed?
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, as I have made clear, there is an issue about the availability of resources. We think it is very important that they are targeted principally on sufferers of the disease, but we recognise the plight of dependants. That is why, under the previous Government, dependants’ amounts were increased by up to £5,000. If I can add to that from my notes I will do so, but I will possibly do so in writing, if I may.
When I came to the points of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, I meant to thank him for his good wishes to my noble friend Lord Freud. I will send on his message. Closely allied to that is my thanks to him for letting me off the hook on a debate about CPI and RPI.
He also asked about progress on the employers’ liability insurance bureau. We understand the urgency of the situation. After all avenues have been exhausted, injured people are still unable to find an insurer to claim against. We are continuing to work hard to see what can be done for them, but I am not in a position to go further than that today.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about compensation recoveries forecast over the CSR period. We estimate compensation recoveries for 2012-13 as being in the region of £21.8 million. That is for both schemes. I will write with further information if I can find it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Can the noble Lord tell me what the total estimated projected cost for the 2008 compensation scheme is for the same year? I am just trying to identify the gap between recoveries and the amount.
Lord De Mauley
I may be able to come to that in a moment. The noble Lord asked about the HSE charging regime. Unfortunately, I am not able to answer him now but I will write with that information. He asked about our plans for Workers’ Memorial Day. Ministers are considering what official action would be appropriate for 2012. However, the focus of the day, as I understand has always been the case, should be on local events organised by individuals and organisations to commemorate those who have died, been injured or made ill through their work.
Lord McFall of Alcluith
If the Minister could make a positive statement that the memorial day is a good day, that would help enormously. When I was the Member of Parliament for West Dunbartonshire, we had that event for four or five years. It is important that a message on that goes out from the Government. Also, given the Scottish experience, will the Minister consider what has happened in the Scottish Parliament regarding relatives so that the sufferers do not have the iniquitous choice of having to take their case through court or die before their relatives can get compensation? Further, can the Minister ensure that the court cases are speeded up? There was a huge problem in Scotland until the Lord President acceded to the request to have a designated judge for these cases who would become familiar with the procedures and speed them through the courts, thereby having a more humane way of compensating for this terrible disease.
Lord De Mauley
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I agree with him and I should like it to go on the record that I think it is a good thing that such a day is marked in an appropriate way. As regards his comments about what is going on in Scotland, perhaps I may take them back to the department. That is a helpful suggestion and I thank him for it.
The noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Wigley, referred to the legal aid Bill and a perceived conflict between the two situations. General damages for things such as pain, suffering and loss of amenity will be increased by 10 per cent. The success fee that the lawyer can charge will be capped at 25 per cent of the claimant’s damages, excluding any damages referable to future care or future losses. This will help to protect the claimant’s damages, as well as any recoveries that the Government might make. Further to that, abolishing the recoverability of success fees and “after the event” insurance premium is the most important element of the reform package for civil litigation and represents a fundamental change to conditional fee agreements. This change will mean that claimants have an interest in the costs being incurred on their behalf, and it will introduce proportion and fairness to the current conditional fee arrangement regime. I appreciate that this is a sensitive area and we will be considering its effect.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am sorry to press the noble Lord but this is something which is quite current given that there is going to be a debate tomorrow on the Bill. Have I correctly understood what the noble Lord has said? Do the Government recognise that these proposals mean that the compensation of recoveries is going to be reduced by the effect of these fees, or are the fees otherwise going to have to be met out of the 2008 compensation?
Lord De Mauley
I shall have to get back to the noble Lord on that. I appreciate that we are on a rather tight timetable and will do what I can. He asked about the cost of both schemes for next year and I can give him a figure of £53.1 million.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Perhaps the noble Lord will split that for me between the two schemes.
Lord De Mauley
It is distinctly possible but I am not sure that I can do it now. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, asked what can be done to improve the public profile of these diseases and she made an important point. Building on the success of the hidden killer campaign, which targeted trades people who are the group of workers most at risk from exposure to asbestos, the HSE continues to warn against the dangers of all types of asbestos, working in partnership with unions, industry, suppliers, training providers and victim support groups. A recent example is the training pledge whereby organisations providing asbestos awareness training volunteered to supply more than 13,500 hours of free training for trades people who may come across asbestos in their day-to-day work. The noble Baroness is right. We are still discovering asbestos today.
The HSE is currently considering options for a further campaign along the lines of hidden killer. However, that will depend on the availability of funding, and decisions on what such a campaign might entail have yet to be made. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for his contribution, which brought the whole matter to life for me and helped us to see how terrible these diseases are.
As regards splitting the figure as required by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, under the 2008 scheme the figure is £9.2 million, and under the 1979 scheme the figure is £43.9 million.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Does that mean that the recovery levels are double the 2008 compensation payment allowance?
Lord De Mauley
I shall have to write but will do so as quickly as I can. As regards any other questions raised by noble Lords, I will write what is becoming an expanding letter. I thank all noble Lords who have participated. As I hope I have emphasised, the Government recognise that these two schemes perform an important role. I commend the uprating of the payment scales and ask for the approval of noble Lords to implement them.
Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2012
Lord De Mauley
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2012.
Relevant document: 41st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Automatic Enrolment) (Amendment) Regulations 2012
Lord De Mauley
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Automatic Enrolment) (Amendment) Regulations 2012.
Relevant document: 41st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Freud, I am pleased to introduce two instruments, which were laid before the House on 7 February. They form the final pieces of the framework for automatic enrolment. I am required to say that I am satisfied that they are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is vital that we tackle the problem that increasing longevity brings when coupled with decreasing pension saving. Millions of people are simply not saving enough for their retirement. Automatic enrolment will, for the first time, place a duty on employers to put their eligible workers into a pension scheme. This will result in between 5 million and 8 million people newly saving or saving more in workplace pensions.
We are now very close to the start of the roll out. As my honourable friend the Minister for Pensions has said, for many of us, it is automatic enrolment rather than the London Olympics which will be the main event in 2012. We are very grateful to the Mayor of London for installing a countdown clock in Trafalgar Square so that we can count the days, hours and minutes before automatic enrolment begins for the first workers.
Your Lordships' House has debated automatic enrolment legislation for more than four years. The time has now come to bring closure to some complex issues that have vexed noble Lords in particular. The instruments that we are debating today cover two broad areas. The first is certification of money purchase, personal and hybrid pension schemes. There is quite a history to this issue, but at its heart we sought a pragmatic solution to a complex problem. It is important to start by emphasising the basics: why we wanted to provide a simple self-certification process, and how we managed to do that.
The aim of certification is to allow employers who already provide good-quality workplace pension schemes to continue to do so after the reforms have started, without having to make costly changes to their existing schemes or payroll processes because they calculate pension contributions on basic pay rather than on a band of qualifying earnings. As they will do this by self-certifying that their scheme satisfies the relevant quality requirements, we wanted the self-certification test to be as straightforward as possible. However, as my noble friend Lord Freud mentioned last year in debate on the Bill, there is a balance to be struck in this area between simplicity and providing appropriate safeguards to individual members. We believe that we now have this right. We have worked closely with employers and the industry and have listened to their concerns, as well as the concerns expressed by noble Lords.
Safeguards for jobholders were hotly debated by noble Lords during the passage of the Pensions Act 2011. After careful consideration of the concerns expressed, in particular by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, we tabled an amendment with a strong and enduring requirement for the Secretary of State to ensure that at least 90 per cent of jobholders will not lose out. The detail of how certification will work in practice is specified in the regulations that we are discussing today.
In the debate last year, my noble friend Lord Freud described a proposed approach that would provide a three-tier structure for self-certification. Under this, an employer will be able to self-certify that their scheme meets the alternative quality requirements if it requires one of the following: first, contributions of at least 9 per cent of basic pay, including at least 4 per cent from the employer; secondly, contributions of at least 8 per cent of basic pay, including at least 3 per cent from the employer—and in addition, basic pay taken in aggregate must be at least 85 per cent of total pay; or thirdly, contributions of at least 7 per cent of total earnings, including at least 3 per cent from the employer. This is the test we are providing in regulations, with fine-tuning of the detail taken on board during consultation.
Before I come to the fine-tuning, I will stress the significance of the provisions. They mean that employers who already provide their workers with a pension will be able to meet their new duties without having to make costly and burdensome changes to pension schemes and payroll systems. Crucially, I will confirm that they also meet the test that the vast majority—at least 90 per cent of jobholders—will receive at least as good a deal as they would have done had they been in a scheme where the contribution was based on qualifying earnings. Indeed, many will be better off.
When we tested the draft regulations through consultation, there was broad support for our proposals from organisations that represented employers, the pensions industry and individuals. There was particular support for striking the right balance so that we have something that works for employers while providing appropriate protection for individuals.
We heard a strong message that the definition of basic pay needs further refinement so that it provides certainty to employers. We have now provided this by explicitly excluding several allowances—as well as bonuses, overtime and commission—from the definition of basic pay. The test that at least 90 per cent of jobholders should not lose out will still be met.
Another request that we have been able to meet in response to the consultation was to extend the proposed one-year certification period to 18 months. This will enable employers to carry out the renewal of their certificate at an appropriate point, depending on their use of the waiting period and the flexibility around three-yearly re-enrolment. We have published guidance for employers and their advisers alongside these regulations, which we intend will help to explain how certification will work in practice to ensure that schemes can qualify to be used for automatic enrolment.
The second part of these instruments is aimed at ensuring that automatic enrolment will provide access to pension saving for as many people as possible by bringing in some groups of individuals who are currently out of scope. Following an amendment brought in your Lordships’ House, the Pensions Act 2008 excluded seafarers and offshore workers from the reforms. However, this exclusion was only ever intended to be temporary. Additional time was needed to resolve some very complex legal issues—in particular in relation to international maritime law and custom—that are relevant to how the reforms should apply to seafarers and offshore workers.
We have worked closely with organisations in the shipping and offshore industries, as well as with other government departments, and are now confident that we have satisfactorily resolved these issues. I am particularly grateful to the Chamber of Shipping and the relevant trade unions for their considerable input, without which we might not have been able to make this progress.
The instruments that we are debating today will ensure that both seafarers and offshore workers are covered by the reforms. For the sake of clarity, when we talk about seafarers in this context we mean people working on ships or hovercraft, but we do not include share fishermen as they are self-employed and, like all self-employed people, they are outside the scope of the reforms. Offshore workers are, broadly speaking, those working on oil or gas rigs in the North Sea.
In brief, we are now satisfied that both seafarers and offshore workers should be jobholders if they are “ordinarily working” in the United Kingdom and meet the age and earnings criteria. This means that we will treat them in the same way as those working on the mainland. This is a similar approach to that adopted for the national minimum wage. The Pensions Regulator has now provided guidance on the application of the “ordinarily working” test.
The provisions for both seafarers and offshore workers are subject to a statutory review and contain a sunset clause. We have made this compulsory for all new legislation where there is a net cost to business, and it will allow us to monitor the operation of these provisions and contribute towards our goal of transforming the role of regulation in our society.
Finally, police officers do not have employers for automatic enrolment because the police are officeholders.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, if I may continue from where I was interrupted, I was about to say that, finally, police officers do not have employers for automatic enrolment because the police are officeholders. The Pensions Act 2008 brought police officers and police cadets into automatic enrolment by deeming them to be employed by the relevant police authority. However, police officers seconded to the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency or the Scottish Police Services Authority had no such employment relationship because, despite its name, the Scottish Police Services Authority is not technically a police authority as defined in the legislation. These regulations correct that and extend the definition of worker for automatic enrolment to these two groups of police officers. I commend these instruments to the Committee.
Baroness Drake
My Lords, as I was strolling to this Committee this afternoon, a noble friend stopped me and asked where I was off to. When I advised him that I was off to deal with some statutory instruments, he said to me, “I hope you sit quietly and say very little, as we do in the Commons”. I gulped quietly as I held in my hand my 10 minutes of detailed script. I did not know whether to feel admonished or what. I told myself that our role is to scrutinise, so I hope that noble Lords will bear with me and allow me to go through the issues that I want to raise and ask questions on.
As the Minister has said, these regulations set out the alternative quality requirements. I acknowledge the amendment made by the Government to Section 12 of the Pensions Act 2011, and I accept that considerable work and thought have gone into drafting these regulations. Nevertheless, I remain anxious because, as the Minister has said, the main purpose of the alternative quality requirement test is to give an easement to good employers with good DC pension schemes to encourage them to retain those schemes. This makes good sense and one would not want to undermine the continuation of good existing provision. That sits full-square with the public policy intentions. However, the alternative quality requirements—and this is what makes me anxious—should not enable bad employers to leverage self-certification to avoid their responsibilities.
On the form of certificate showing that the alternative quality requirements are satisfied, the requirements, particularly the facility to use the alternative test for part of the scheme or only for some jobholders, give rise to the potential to leverage the regulation to reduce auto-enrolment costs, for example where high and low earners are grouped together and/or where non-basic pay makes up a very significant proportion of earnings.
I welcome the requirement in the regulations on employers to provide information of both the names and the roles of the relevant jobholders where the certificate relates to only some of the jobholders, because they should assist in identifying bad behaviour, particularly as the Secretary of State has a responsibility to review the strength of the alternative certification test. I would welcome the Minister confirming that the findings from the Secretary of State’s review of the alternative certification requirements will be published prior to the wider 2017 review of the pension reforms as a whole.
I also ask the Minister about trust-based scheme with trustees and rules. Will the trustees bear any responsibility on the matter of whether the employer’s scheme or part of the scheme can satisfy the alternative quality requirements? If the answer is yes, will that also apply to trustees of multi-employer schemes and master trusts?
As for the renewal of the certificate, the employer has to assess on renewal whether during the past or future certification periods, the quality requirements were or will be met. Where an element was not met—in the past tense—the employer must consider what action needs to be taken to ensure that does not happen in the future. That requirement is welcome for future certification periods, but my question to the Minister is this: if it is revealed that a jobholder who should have been auto-enrolled was not auto-enrolled, or where some one receives an employer contribution lower than it should have been under the relevant quality requirements, will there be a legal requirement on an employer to notify the jobholder and to make good their employer contribution?
On the alternative requirements themselves for money purchase schemes and likewise for other schemes, I remain concerned that the first and second tests provide for pensionable earnings to be equal only to basic pay. For good employers, where basic pay makes up a significant proportion of earnings, a minimum of 4 per cent of employer contribution is clearly going to be a good base load. However, where basic pay forms a significantly lower proportion of their earnings, I remain concerned about abuse, particularly when that is taken with the explicit acceptance that there can be a 10 per cent shortfall in contributions for those who lose out.
I welcome the fact that a scheme is not to be treated as meeting the relevant quality requirements where the regulator is of the view that there are no reasonable grounds to do so and the regulator can issue compliance notices on employers where there is a shortfall in contribution payments or a failure to meet an alternative test. When the regulator issues a compliance notice on an employer, and a relevant jobholder during the certification period has since ceased to be employed, will the employer still have to make good any shortfall in respect of that now ex-employee or ex-jobholder?
As to the definitions in the regulations, the definition of basic pay lists all those payments and allowances that can be disregarded. The assumption in the drafting is that these additional payments are paid in addition to basic pay, so it is straightforward to disregard them. Sometimes such allowances are given in substitution of basic pay, so if you have salary substitution, basic pay is forgone in exchange. The employer meets the cost of an expenditure, resulting in savings in NI and tax, often for both parties. The use of salary substitution has grown exponentially and we see it being applied to such varied items as pension contributions, the provision of cars, computers, bicycles, and childcare vouchers, to name a few. In such situations it would not be unusual for an employer to have pay records that track two basic pay entitlements for a jobholder: one that applies post-salary substitution; and one that applies when salary substitution ceases or when pay rises are awarded. Will the Minister say whether consideration has been given to how the definition of basic pay will apply in certification requirements when an employer uses salary substitution?
With regard to giving a certificate and its retention and disclosure, the regulations—clearly a good thing—allow for a relevant jobholder or a recognised independent trade union to request and receive a copy of that certificate within six years after the end of the certification period. Does the relevant jobholder have to be a jobholder at the time of making the request, or is it sufficient to have been a relevant jobholder during the certification period? If a request is made during the certification period, must that request also be met by the employer? I welcome the decision to extend the coverage of the new employer duty to seafarers and offshore workers. I read the impact assessment in detail, which sets out clearly the complexities that had to be dealt with and how the regulations have sought to address those. I am very pleased that that decision was made.
I take this opportunity to refer to the Automatic Enrolment (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2012. It is a negative instrument but it addresses the important matter of the schedule of information to be provided in a notice from the employer to defer automatic enrolment to the end of a waiting period and in respect of the automatic enrolment information provisions generally. As all of us who believe passionately in pensions recognise, automatic enrolment turns inertia into a positive, and anything that undermines that beneficial inertia will undermine persistency of savings. How the opt-out procedures operate in practice will be pretty key to the success of the reforms and participation rates. It is clear, which I can see from my own experience, that good employers will take the opportunity of auto-enrolment to review positively their pensions proposition for the new generation of employees. There is clearly plenty of evidence there.
Subtleties in the employer behavioural response to regulation, particularly negative behaviour, always surprises policy-makers. They always miss some key behavioural responses. Jobholders in high-turnover occupations will be particularly vulnerable to the subtlety of employer responses to these regulations. For example, nothing in the regulations prevents employers giving several reminders of the opt-out dates to jobholders during the waiting period, and clearly the implicit intent is to increase opt-out rates. The impact assessment helpfully refers to the DWP’s intention to issue a template for generic and tailored information to be provided by employers. If the information provided to jobholders is significantly different from the template, will that be considered a breach of the regulations?
Lord German
My Lords, I will reverse the order in which I ask questions of the Minister on these regulations and the order. First, I welcome, as I am sure we all do, the extension to seafarers and off-shore workers. I have two questions. The first relates to the ordinary working test and the second to some of the conditions that I see in the impact assessment and the Explanatory Memorandum. I wish to get some understanding of the number of people who will be brought into the structure and of whether some people might fall out of it because of the way it is prescribed in the proposed legislation.
On the ordinary working test, the flag-blind approach is very welcome. We must avoid people being switched from being a normally UK worker by virtue of their vessel changing its flag to that of another country. The ordinary working test, as I read it in the documentation accompanying this legalisation, defines people’s work as starting and ending in a UK port. There are two exceptions to that which can normally be the case with seafarers and off-shore workers. Seafarers sometimes work on vessels that are incoming to the UK. They will often be flown out to the vessel in order to work it and then back into the UK afterwards. Often their starting point will not be with a vessel leaving a UK port but a flight from a UK airport to join the vessel, and then they will either bring it back to the UK or leave it at some other foreign port. Naturally, these people regard themselves as working from the United Kingdom. They might be working on a ship with a UK flag but they do not necessarily start from a UK port.
The same applies to off-shore workers. I had the fortunate experience—and I say ‘fortunate’ because it was very interesting indeed—of going to an off-shore oil platform in the North Sea. Most workers go by helicopter from an airport rather than by vessel to the gas and oil installation. I wonder whether legislation that says,
“starting and ending from a UK port”,
actually means starting and ending from a UK base rather than a UK port.
As to the numbers of people involved, I notice the revision of the estimate of the workers who will be engaged. As I understand it, there are 22,200 off-shore workers in the industry who would be classified as working from the UK and 27,800 seafarers. But the numbers who are eligible for auto-enrolment are of course significantly less than that: 9,000 of the 22,200 off-shore workers and 17,000 of the 27,800 seafarers.
Could the Minister explain the difference between those two sets of figures? Is it perhaps that some of these people are already in a pension scheme that meets the eligibility criteria? I do not understand why they would not necessarily be seen as being eligible for auto-enrolment anyway. I do not know whether that is a definition problem or whether I have misread the numbers in the way they have been portrayed to me.
My second set of questions relates to the definition of the quality test, which has already been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake: that is, of course, the three tests being applied. In the discussions that we have had on these issues in Committee, noble Lords will remember that we talked about the quality of the alternative schemes as well as who would necessarily fall in or out of them. It is that quality test about which I would like to ask my noble friend a specific question. It is in relation to the fees and the ways in which moneys might be paid back for short-term investments in small pots where the length of service is below the number of years for which it would have to continue, and where people have been offering back a certain proportion of the money, or alternatively, where the fees that are being charged on the money which is invested are greater.
It is my understanding that the Government has now taken the powers to regulate the fees charged in this area and I wonder whether my noble friend could explain if and when those powers are to be taken up in order to provide an alternative quality pension provision for those who are not taking up the NEST scheme, which we know is on offer alongside it. In general terms, these orders take the date a little bit closer to the countdown clock and I welcome the fact that we are getting much closer now to the date when these schemes will become part of the mainstream for the workforce of our country.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, almost by definition those attending in this room are enthusiasts for pensions, and we are a rather self-defining and small number. Of course, I would join in the approbation of both the principle of auto-enrolment, the related but not identical issue of the NEST scheme, and the new regulations which will provide some authentic alternative tests, and will make it easier for businesses to come to terms with auto-enrolment. That seems to be very welcome, and that should be put on the record. I do not think there is any material opposition, providing that we can make these things work.
I do not wish to add to the Minister’s troubles—because some very complicated issues have been raised—save only to comment on two of them. One is in relation to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, who knows this subject so well. When she raised the issue about salary sacrifice, it occurred to me that in some companies or organisations it would be not at all rare for arrangements to be made for consensual salary sacrifice with, as she said, the two options being put to an individual. There could potentially be a problem if there were a contractual arrangement, where perhaps there is a two-year undertaking and an option has been given for one or another, and the automatic enrolment might kick in in the middle. There would be difficulties unless the employer were particularly fleet of foot in ensuring that the employee was offered something new at that time because the situation might be different. That is a point of sensitivity which the Minister and officials may wish to consider.
My second point was prompted, although I am not for a moment suggesting that it is identical, by the issue about offshore employment. That is something that I have not thought much about since the days of the national minimum wage legislation, which was 15 years ago. Using that as a proxy—a very loose proxy—it occurs to me, reflecting back on the debates that we had on the Pensions Act last year, that we spent quite a lot of time talking about small pots. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, who I am sure would wish to be here, mentioned extensively the position of women. One wanted them to be able to contribute; one wanted to find a cost-effective way; and one did not want the conditions to be unreasonably restrictive. That is all perfectly sensible. Then there were worries about the administrative cost and the practicability.
Perhaps for the purpose of this discussion in Grand Committee, I could mention using the proxy of offshore employment and it would be helpful if the Minister could consider the position of overseas employees. As I understand it, under the law, certainly if you are an EU and probably if you are an EEA national and you are employed here, you would expect to be offered exactly the same terms and rightly so. However, I am concerned that situations might arise where people come within the rubric, make one or two contributions and then maybe their employment shifts. They may go back to their native country because they have come here for a season, or whatever, but they will have entered into our national insurance records and into our private sector pension arrangements. Then they are left with what you might call a super-stranded or a super-small pot, to which they have an entitlement, which is difficult to claim.
This is not a completely nugatory issue. There are surprising numbers of people in this situation. For example, I remember one of the drivers at the Council of Europe, saying to me, “I have worked in London for a bit and I have got to come to London to sort out the two or three years’ of pension entitlement that I have”. That is reasonable enough. We are not arguing against the principle. However, in making the whole matter of automatic enrolment and the related matter of NEST viable, we need to try to minimise the administrative complexity and, at the same time, ensure that those who have earned entitlement should be able to avail themselves of it. It should not all disappear into a kind of bureaucratic black hole, which can be redeemed only by superhuman efforts and personal attendance at a former company’s seat. I notice the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, is nodding at that.
I do not think that either of those two points that I have raised turns us away from the sensible things that these regulations intend. However, it is important that we should think about them. In a way, this has refired my enthusiasm for the fact that we will need a structured review in four or five years’ time—in 2017—to look at whether this is working as we intend. If any of these kinds of difficulties need attention then, they should receive it, if they have not been attended to beforehand.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Drake has dealt with the substance of these regulations from our perspective, so I can be brief and I shall ask few questions, which the Minister will doubtless be pleased to hear. We should start by acknowledging again the decision to proceed with an auto-enrolment following the independent review and to support NEST as an integral part of this. I think the Government should be congratulated on taking that forward.
As the Minister will be aware, we have concerns about the scope of some of the easements introduced by the Pensions Act 2011 and by this suite of regulations but the basic architecture remains intact. However, further increases in the personal tax allowance, should these be forthcoming in the Budget, will exclude even more workers from the benefit of auto-enrolment with consequential savings for the Treasury. Obviously, we support offshore workers being brought into scope. This was always the intention. As we have heard, the order treats someone with an offshore employment as,
“a worker ‘who is working or ordinarily works in Great Britain under the worker’s contract’”,
and similar provisions apply to Northern Ireland. However, the provisions do not apply where the employment is in the foreign sector of a cross-boundary petroleum field. Are we dealing here only with cross-boundary fields affecting Norway, or are there any others? I do not know about the Southern Basin or the Irish Sea, or whether there could be an EC country involved, which was the purpose of the question.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, as is always the case with pension reform, it has been a more than interesting and lively debate. The comments of noble Lords have been insightful and helpful and I thank them for those.
These reforms are designed to transform the culture of saving for retirement in our country. Automatic enrolment is a bold start, but we have also begun looking at how to improve transfers to deal with small pension pots, a point raised by my noble friend Lord Boswell, and the industry is looking at issues around the transparency of charges. Both these issues were debated in your Lordships’ House during the passage of the Pensions Bill. On transfers and small pots, our consultation closes next week and we will publish a response in the summer. The Pensions Regulator has also recently published a document on what a good direct contributions scheme looks like in order to help employers to select an automatic enrolment scheme.
I will now do my best to wade through the large number of important questions asked by noble Lords. I will start with a question raised quite late in the day by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, because it sets the tone of the debate. It concerned the 10 per cent of jobholders who might lose out. Employers who are aiming to meet the minimum requirements under the law are unlikely by definition to use self-certification. Those using it will tend to be those seeking to run a scheme that is at least as generous as, and probably more generous than, a statutory minimum scheme for at least 90 per cent of their workers. We are talking about employers who see the provision of pensions as an important benefit for their workers. We want to allow such employers some latitude, or we may end up losing these more generous benefits for many workers. Therefore, because members will be in a comparatively generous scheme, the risk that they will lose out to a significant extent will be small.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, asked a lot of pertinent questions. They were fairly technical and I want to make sure that I address the right question in each case, so I may write on a number of them. I will attempt to answer as many of them as I can. She asked about the publication of the assessment certifying that the conditions of the 90 per cent test are still being met. That will be published in 2017. She asked whether, if an individual has a shortfall, the employer will be required to make it up. If the employer has miscertified when he should not have done so, the Pensions Regulator will have powers to end the certificate and require the employer to make up the shortfall.
The noble Baroness asked about waiting periods and re-enrolment. An employer cannot use a waiting period in relation to re-enrolment so the problem of multiple waiting periods will not apply. She asked about the use of self-certification for certain groups of jobholders and suggested that the system could lead to abuse. What I might term “good” employers told us that they needed flexibility in how they applied the certification test. We will monitor the use of certification as part of the evaluation of the reforms. If we find that employers are abusing certification, we will have the power to change the scheme and ultimately repeal it by order if necessary.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and my noble friend Lord Boswell asked about the issue of salary sacrifice. The definition of “earnings” in the Pensions Act 2008 is,
“earnings payable to the person”.
If an individual chooses to sacrifice part of his or her salary, it is no longer “payable” and therefore not part of earnings, so the employer contribution would be payable only on the residual earnings. I will consider the point made by my noble friend Lord Boswell.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, asked about employer behaviour and increases in the opt-out rate—effectively, not following the template. The statutory requirement is to provide the prescribed information. There is no statutory restriction on providing additional information, but putting pressure on a worker to opt out is unlawful. Employers will need to be careful that they do not overstep the pressure test, even implicitly, by applying pressure to their workers.
My noble friend Lord German asked about the issue of “ordinarily working” in the context of seafarers. There are several factors a court is likely to consider in deciding where a seafarer is based and therefore whether they are ordinarily working in the United Kingdom. Where they join and leave the ship is just one of them. Other factors can be taken into account, such as the terms of their contracts. Offshore workers are deemed to be ordinarily working in the United Kingdom if they are working on the UK continental shelf or working on the UK part of a cross-boundary field. For offshore workers, the start and end of a journey does not matter.
My noble friend Lord German also asked about powers to cap charges. The Government have taken powers to place restrictions on charges in pension schemes. However, charges are not currently high in default schemes. They are typically in the range of 0.4 to 0.6 per cent. The industry is responding and a code of practice on transparency of charges is planned. We do not propose to regulate without evidence that it is necessary, but we will if there is evidence of a problem.
Baroness Drake
I am not sure when the Minister is going to finish and do not want to miss the opportunity to—
Baroness Drake
I was rather disconcerted when I discovered the implications of the interrelationships between earnings payable and how that applies under the salary substitution. A good employer simply has a shadow basic pay and pays pension contributions on that. I have not had an opportunity to go through whether there is a relevant hook in the schedule information, but the Minister should consider how this issue is brought to the attention of employees as they may simply not be aware of the implications for their pension contribution rights of taking on excessive amounts of salary contribution on a cumulative basis. The Minister did answer my question about employers having to make good the shortfall. I am particularly interested in whether they have to make the shortfall good where that employee has left and how they would do that. I am happy to have that in writing.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I understand both the questions. I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s acceptance that I should write because I need to consider the questions carefully before I answer them.
My noble friend Lord Boswell asked about a worker returning overseas with a small pot. The waiting period of three months will allow for workers such as summer workers, who work for a relatively short period, such that the issue does not arise. However, the problem of what I might call stranded pots is a real one. The Minister for Pensions is currently considering this for United Kingdom workers and I will pass my noble friend’s comments about overseas workers on to him so that he can take it into account in his deliberations.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the automatic enrolment rates for next year. The amounts for the automatic enrolment earnings trigger and the qualifying earnings band are subject to annual review. We have consulted on proposed thresholds for next year and are considering the responses. We aim to publish the response and announce the rates for 2012-13 soon, which is coded language that I think the noble Lord will understand.
The noble Lord also asked about the legal process to access the tribunals for offshore workers. I am going to have to write on that as I am on access to tax relief on personal pensions. He asked about the profile of the 10 per cent who may lose out from certification. I think I have covered that already but should add that we have examined the matter to ensure that our measures are not discriminatory. I suspect that when I am writing afterwards I might discuss that issue in some more detail.
I will, of course, look at the record to see whether there is anything else that has not been addressed. As I said, these provisions put in place necessary pieces of the automatic enrolment framework which will enable employers to comply with the new duties. This will protect existing, good-quality schemes while also providing ongoing protection for job-holders enrolled in them. We are also ensuring that these reforms bring on board individuals who are ordinarily working in the United Kingdom, regardless of whether their work is on land or at sea. I commend these instruments to the Committee.
Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) Order 2012
Lord De Mauley
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) Order 2012.
Relevant document: 41st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
Lord De Mauley
On behalf of my noble friend Lord Freud, I beg to move that the Grand Committee do consider the draft Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) Order 2012, to which I have already spoken.
House of Lords
Health and Social Care Bill
(12 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
13:54 - Division on Amendment 243 - Ayes: 180 / Noes: 212 - Amendment 243 disagreed.
Baroness Emerton
“Power to regulate health care support workers in England
(1) The Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001 (S.I. 2002/253) shall be amended to provide that all health care support workers in England shall be regulated in accordance with the terms of that order.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a health care support worker shall be an individual whose work is routinely delegated to them by a registered nurse or midwife or has a qualification in health and social care at level one (or higher) of the Qualifications and Credit Framework, in England.”
Baroness Emerton
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 240, tabled in my name, which relates to the mandatory training and statutory regulation of healthcare support workers. Before so doing, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for the time that they have given me in addressing this issue and for their very helpful responses.
The Bill is concerned with reorganising health service structures to improve the quality and safety of care and to improve the patient experience, building on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, in the last Government. The emphasis throughout the Bill is the role to be taken in the commissioning of services by general practitioners, but little attention has been paid to the other professions. Here I declare my interests as a retired nurse not on the Nursing and Midwifery Council register, a former tutor, manager and chair of the regulatory body for nurses, midwives and health visitors. I am also a lay member of the GMC, a former chairman of an NHS trust and a former trustee of the Kent Community Housing Trust.
I remind the House that nursing and midwifery form the largest individual professions in the NHS, currently with in excess of 600,000 names on the register. Moreover, some 400,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing support this amendment. It is concerned with the safe delivery of care to patients whether they are in hospital, in the community or within the NHS, local authority or independent sectors, along with nursing homes and charities.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part in the debates in Committee on the two amendments that I tabled then, the first of which asked the Government to produce guidelines on the ratios of registered to unregistered staff. I withdrew that amendment on the basis that further work would take place examining the research evidence. I am pleased to say that Ministers have taken this seriously and work is now in hand on the matter. I mention this as the ratio of nurses to unregistered staff is important in the points to which I now wish to draw the attention of noble Lords in making the case for healthcare support workers to be regulated against agreed standards and for this to be included in the Bill.
If this amendment is accepted, it would affect healthcare support workers—those who are limited to working under the direction of a registered nurse or midwife giving direct clinical care in hospitals, community settings and care homes. They would have accepted professional boundaries and would be entitled to practise, as set out on a list. There would be control of admission to and removal from the register. Professional standards of practice would be established, ensuring clarity for patients, the public and professionals, and individuals would be held accountable.
In a letter to me, the noble Earl said that the department is “unconvinced” that the regulation of support workers is necessary and that the Government’s policy is to set up a voluntary register. I am hoping to convince the Minister that having healthcare support workers subject to a voluntary register would not work satisfactorily in terms of protecting patients in the delivery of safe care. I pose two brief questions. First, what is the evidence to demonstrate that unsafe care is currently being delivered by healthcare support workers and the reasons for this? Secondly, is there evidence that will satisfy patients, the public and registered practitioners that the proposed voluntary register will ensure the safe delivery of care?
While a very large number of healthcare support workers deliver excellent care, most of them having received some basic training under adequate supervision and having gained experience, there is evidence that things can and do go dreadfully wrong, particularly where there is no appropriate training and poor supervision. Healthcare support workers are themselves calling for mandatory training and regulation.
We have only to refer to the most recent inquiries demonstrating unsatisfactory levels of care in Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The first report was very critical of healthcare support workers and the change in the staffing ratio of registered nurses to support workers. The second public inquiry is reporting on the confusion about supervision—not knowing who was in charge of care delivery. At Winterbourne View, a hospital delivering care to those with learning difficulties, charges were brought against support workers and guilty pleas have been made. The report published by the Local Government Ombudsman cited 10 instances of unacceptable care for the elderly. Moreover, prior to this there were inquiries at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. While the failures in delivery of care were not due solely to the poor performance of healthcare support workers, that was found to be very largely a contributory cause. Failure in delivery of safe service care was due in the main to there being insufficient registered nurses to supervise the healthcare support workers and a lack of a set of standards for care training.
A survey of 2,500 support workers carried out by the Royal College of Nursing between the Committee and Report stages of this Bill demonstrated that tasks currently being undertaken by healthcare support workers call into question the safety of patient care. The list totals 56 examples, but I will illustrate just a few. Healthcare support workers were left in charge of wards and nursing homes, administration of drugs, including insulin and controlled drugs, the removal of wound drains and central lines, bladder scanning and washouts, catheterisations, especially in very ill patients, assessing patients pre-operatively and pre-chemotherapy treatment, changing tracheotomy tubes, inserting nasogastric tubes, giving feeds through those tubes, and suturing and plastering. These are just a few.
As recently as last Friday, I was chairing a national conference and was approached by a very senior nurse who told me of a family member, a young person of 17, who had applied for a job as a healthcare support worker. She received two days’ training. On the first day on the ward, she was allocated to do a bed bath. She was accompanied by another healthcare support worker to supervise her. She washed the patient’s face and hands and proceeded to complete the bath, but was told by the other healthcare assistant, “I only do hands and face here. We don’t bother to do anything else”. When questioned about the patient’s back and pressure areas, she was again told, “We do not do that here”. Very many of our workers are in that situation, both in the community and in hospitals.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I wonder if I may be indulged again by the House by speaking from an unusual position. I speak against a background—dare I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench—that I have been suitably chastened on the way into the House by being told that yesterday was the first day on which Tory rebels outnumbered Liberal Democrat rebels. There was only one rebel: it was me. Here I stand trembling, yet again.
The spirit in which I approach this is slightly interrogative. I was not able to hear the earlier debate that the noble Baroness triggered, but I am puzzled about the Government’s position on this. I want to ask a few questions. I have no problem at all with tasks being delegated down to the appropriate level. I became Minister of Health 25 years ago, on the day that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege’s report into nurse prescribing was published. Ever since, I have thought that there were a lot of things being done on one level that could sensibly be done at another. I have no problem with the general principle of using healthcare support workers for things that might have been done by others in the past.
However, when it comes to things that are clinical, it is important that people should be trained and properly authorised and registered. That is the key point. Anyone who has been in hospital, as I have on a number of occasions in the past two or three years, will recognise that it is not always easy to work out who does what. I have no complaints about any of the people who looked after me, but it is quite clear that they are at different levels and that one would want to be confident that they all knew what they were doing. The noble Baroness referred to the importance of some of the work that healthcare workers do and we all know that one mistake in medication could have fatal consequences, for example. She referred to the various reports, which I will not rehearse, and she made a number of points that we ought at least to listen to with care.
However, as I said to the noble Baroness in a private discussion, I was a bit sceptical about this because the numbers are potentially huge and we do not want another example of a body being asked to take on more than it can do in too short a time. To some extent, I think that she has sought to meet that in her amendment by narrowing the definition of healthcare support workers to those who are in the clinical area, if I might use that shorthand. That is welcome. But I still think that there may be some problem with the scale of the task if it is imposed at one go. The noble Baroness is aware of my worries about that.
I am also less convinced that a voluntary register could not have a significant effect, with some provisos. First, we cannot have competing voluntary registers with people free to choose the one that they think is easiest. If there is to be a voluntary register, it must be officially sanctioned—I would be grateful for comments on that. If you have one, it might have a significant effect. It would be a brave health trust, once the system was established, that took on healthcare workers who were not registered because of the risk that would arise if something went wrong and the criticism that would ensue. So it might have an effect and I think that we should take account of that.
Even if the Government want a voluntary register and think that it could work, there is a parallel in the field of ombudsmen, which I know something about. That would be to have in the Bill a reserve power to take compulsory registration powers if that proves to be necessary. I am not sure whether that is there or not, but a fallback position might be to have the power to act if the Government’s preferred solution does not work and I would personally press that as a possibility to the Minister.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
My Lords, first, I apologise for missing the first five minutes of the noble Baroness, Lady Emerson, moving the amendment. With the House’s permission, I shall briefly speak to the issues that she raised, to which I have referred in the House on many occasions, as many noble Lords and certainly the Minister will be aware.
I understand the arguments that have been made by my noble friend, but healthcare assistants—and they are mostly in clinical areas—have a strong desire to be recognised and accredited for the work that they do. They take a pride in what they do, as the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, said, but patients do not understand what they do and therefore cannot have the discussion with them that says, “You are qualified, so I have confidence in you”.
I have had this discussion with the Minister on a number of occasions, and I am not sure why there is hesitancy in this area. I do not think there is an issue for trusts in being able to get healthcare workers who are qualified. We have a sector skills council for health, most of whose work is encouraging healthcare assistants and other people who work in hospitals to reach levels 1 and 2, so there is an equivalent provider out there that can do that, working with the hospitals.
The important thing is that the patient understands exactly what the healthcare worker does. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, describes a healthcare support worker as an individual whose work is “routinely delegated to them”. That is crucial. It is not someone who does something off their own bat. My hospital employs many hundreds of healthcare workers, most of whom do a very good job. It is very important that the noble Earl knows that they are very conscientious when working with other practitioners, clinical or otherwise, who do not do what they are supposed to do. We have many healthcare workers who check that consultants’ arms are bare to the elbow. They are very conscientious and they want recognition that they are people who care about patients. They want to know that the value that they bring is recognised. It is no threat to the health service; speaking as a provider chair, I can say that it is a total advantage.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, we are once more discussing the important matter of the power to regulate healthcare support workers in England. I am pleased to have added my name to the amendment. I spoke about this at Second Reading and in Committee. I agree with the Royal College of Nursing that mandatory regulation and registration of these support workers is important in order to safeguard patients’ safety and to ensure standardised training so that there is a skilled and suitable workforce.
I have yet to meet anyone who understands the situation who disagrees about this, except some members of the Government. Nurses who have been struck off their register can then work as care assistants—again, putting patients at risk. The Government are considering a voluntary register, but this will not cover the undesirable people who get jobs as care assistants because they cannot get employment elsewhere. Clinical physiologists have found that self-regulation, which they have had since 2001, is not as effective as statutory regulation. Should we not learn from this?
We know of the tragic cases at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, where the deaths of hundreds of patients were associated with bad care. It makes one wonder how Mid Staffs was approved for foundation status. We also know of the horrific bullying by care assistants at Winterbourne View care home at Bristol. Since Committee, we have heard of Malcolm Cramp, who was convicted of seven counts of ill treatment and sent to prison for abusing dementia patients at Brockshill Woodlands, a care home in Leicestershire. In another case, Sean Abbott, a caseworker, was jailed for a year for assaulting vulnerable residents at St Michael’s View care home in South Shields. Daphne Joseph, another person at that home, was given a nine-month suspended sentence when she admitted the ill treatment and neglect of a patient, who died. The judge at Newcastle said that she had not had enough training. He also said that she was operating,
“in a regime which was inadequate and not fit for purpose and in which there were too many patients, not enough planning, and too few staff, let alone trained staff”.
This concerning situation is happening up and down the country. Is it not time that better safeguards for patient safety were put in place? Statutory regulation and the registration of healthcare workers could help. Many of them are now undertaking procedures that only doctors and nurses did but they have little training to do it.
Lord Turnberg
My name is attached to this amendment, which I believe is an extremely important one. I find myself in the somewhat unusual—indeed, unique—position of, for the first time, not being able to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newton. We have had many debates in this Chamber in which the standards of care in our hospitals and nursing homes have been examined and, in too many places, found wanting. We have had many other reports showing the same thing. Many institutions and many care workers are outstanding but, as we know, there are too many places where patients are neglected and their basic needs not addressed.
Of course, all these failures cannot be put at the door of healthcare support workers. Where they occur, these failures are systemic and go right across the hospitals and homes. The employers, doctors, nurses and everyone in the institution should bear responsibility. However, all too often it is at the level of the healthcare support worker—who provides the basic care of feeding, washing, toileting and a host of other responsibilities and is often in closest contact with the patient—that we hear complaints from patients and their families. Healthcare support workers are at the end of the line and are too often left to themselves.
I fear that when we lost our SENs—our state-enrolled nurses, who did not need a university degree—in 2000, we lost a group of professionals who were trained and educated to do their job. If we are to regain the sense of professionalism and pride that my noble friend talked about that full registration would bring to a cohort of well trained and regulated young men and women, then we must move to full and proper registration. I do not believe that a voluntary register gives that degree of control. It certainly does not give sufficient recognition to the importance of the job. I hope that the Minister will agree.
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein
My Lords, I apologise to the House for not being here at the start of this amendment. Unfortunately, I had to seek the help of the health service this morning for a touch of bronchitis. I apologise particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, for not being here on time.
I strongly support the amendment. I have spoken on this matter on each occasion that the call for statutory regulation has been debated in this Bill. I also referred to this issue in the debate on front-line nursing which we held last December.
The Government argue that voluntary registration is sufficient unto the day. I beg to differ strongly. As a nurse, I cannot agree that the present state of affairs should continue, and I do not think that I am a lone voice. The health committee in another place, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and all the staff organisations representing healthcare assistants all support statutory regulation.
History has a habit of repeating itself—wheels turn full circle. In the 1930s, financial pressures brought about huge increases in the numbers of support workers, or assistant nurses, as they were called. There was no provision then for regulation. It took the work of two committees—the Athlone Committee in 1937 and the Horder Committee in the early years of World War II —to lead to legislation which allowed for registered and regulated status for assistant nurses. We had state-enrolled assistant nurses as a consequence, and I think that it was in the early 1960s that the word “assistant” was removed from the title.
By the 1980s, the role of nurses on the first and second parts of the register was blurred. As a consequence, and as part of the move away from hospital-based training into higher education, the enrolled nurse training for first-level nurses was discontinued. It was always a mistake to leave that vacuum when the enrolled nurse training ended—a matter referred to by my noble friend Lord Turnberg.
The outcome is entirely predictable. That wheel has, indeed, turned full circle. We have had, again, huge increases in support staff; we have, again, financial stringency; and, as in the 1930s, there are now campaigns for proper regulation and training for those who assist nurses. However, the roles have been blurred this time not between the enrolled nurse and the registered nurse but between the healthcare assistant and the registered nurse. That is the very issue that led to the ending of enrolled nurse training, but this time there is no fall-back—there is no fail-safe for the patient—because there is no standardised training; there is no legal obligation in the Bill to require standardised quality training; and there is no obligation for registration, regulation, accountability and, not least, a code of conduct for support staff. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, will do much to resolve that issue. Most importantly, it is about patient safety. The amendment is specific—it is not about all support workers working in the hospital service or care homes; it is about those staff to whom are delegated what are, by any standards, nursing duties of registered nurses. It is not good enough for the Government to keep saying that voluntary registration is sufficient and that everything else is a matter for employers.
That is the present situation and it is far from satisfactory. I suggest that it will get worse in the future. We all know that the ratios between nurses and healthcare support workers are often worse than the generally accepted 60:40. The financial squeeze will certainly mean further changes—and not for the better. Voluntary registration does not work. For a long time, for example, clinical physiologists have been trying to make the case to the Government that voluntary registration has failed, and the coalition Government have turned their face. The leaving-it-to-the-employer approach will leave the patient at risk, and neither the registered nurse nor the healthcare support worker is protected in these situations if something goes wrong. Increasingly, the employer will be exposed as well, as there may well be more cases such as that of Mid Staffordshire as a consequence of financial pressures and getting skill mixes wrong—not least when these decisions are made by human resources people with little or no proper nursing input.
In my submission, the patients are not always clear about who is providing care for them. My recent six months as a patient in two teaching hospitals confirmed that—virtually everyone in a uniform was a nurse to most patients. That is not surprising. Healthcare assistants routinely carry out observation rounds; they carry out clinical procedures such as cannulation and catheterisation; they give injections; and they undertake venapuncture to take blood. That is just to name some of the procedures that they might carry out. Patients would be very surprised if they were told that the staff carrying out these clinical procedures were neither regulated nor registered.
Regulation and standardised quality of training does not, in itself, guarantee that matters will not sometimes go wrong. That can—and does—happen in all regulated professions. However, statutory regulation and registration is the best way forward to give better surety to patient safety. I strongly support these amendments.
Baroness Young of Old Scone
My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, from two perspectives. One is as the chief executive of Diabetes UK, where we increasingly hear stories from patients about the care that they receive in hospitals. One in 15 of all patients in hospitals at the moment has diabetes. They may not be there as a result of their diabetes but they have it—it is, of course, a serious condition. There is strong evidence that poor care in hospitals exacerbates that condition rather than improves it. I shall just mention two issues: people lose control of their own insulin and glucose management and they develop pressure problems—particularly foot and leg problems, which can dramatically escalate and lead to amputation.
Patients increasingly tell us that one of the major problems that they face in receiving care as an in-patient is that readings, checks and procedures are undertaken by healthcare support workers who are insufficiently trained and knowledgeable to alert qualified staff to take action. Just yesterday, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Diabetes heard the distressing story of a gentleman who had been admitted to hospital and who went into a hypo through insufficient management of his glucose levels as he lay in a hospital bed. The healthcare support worker said, “I thought you were a bit strange when I gave you your lunch”. If people with diabetes “go a bit strange”, any qualified nurse will know instinctively that this is serious and needs to be dealt with. It is unforgivable that patients in a healthcare establishment have worse control over their diabetes than when they are in their own homes. I am not laying that at the feet of healthcare support workers entirely but, increasingly, the care given to people in beds, day in and day out, is given by people who need to be accredited and qualified.
The second perspective from which I want to speak is as the ill-fated chairman of the Care Quality Commission who set up the regulator for health and social care. I confess that one of my great regrets, when I resigned from that post, was not to be able to take forward work that I saw as absolutely vital. It had become abundantly clear to me, from the regulatory work in healthcare, that the key to quality was very dependent on the quality of nursing care. It is absolutely central to quality as a whole for people in healthcare. What has also become clear to me—and the evidence is borne out in many cases of poor care—is that it is not published standards or agreed levels of care that are important but the knowledge, education and skill of the nurses and healthcare support workers who are providing that care. It is about how they feel about the job and about their commitment to the job—not just seeing it as another job but seeing that improving things for patients is at the centre of what they do.
Had I stayed as chairman of the Care Quality Commission, I was intending—and I had already begun discussions with the Royal College of Nursing and others —to mount a major campaign to ensure that the nursing process, and with it, at its heart, the healthcare support worker, was improved and that formal registration and regulation of healthcare support workers was introduced. The Minister may well say that these improvements can be tackled through a voluntary register but, from my experience, I do not believe that this is the case. This is so important that a formal statutory register is absolutely required.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I support the amendment. I note that one of the reasons given for not considering statutory regulation for this group is that there is a very high turnover of staff in this grade. This seems to me to be a symptom of an unsatisfactory situation and perhaps points to the poor job satisfaction and lack of prospects for healthcare workers. My noble friend has pointed to the problems with skill mix. I think that she was really talking about skill mix across the whole range of mental and physical healthcare settings and not just physical healthcare. Within that, she would have included people with learning disabilities.
It seems to me that there must be some minimum requirements for training and supervision. I know that the Government suggest that it is the responsibility of the employer, and perhaps also of the commissioner, to ensure that the service which is provided reaches minimum standards. Perhaps that requires that, in order for commissioners to contract with an employer, a service has to have been appropriately accredited. A service which has been accredited has of course been accredited for the whole service, not just for the work of individual staff, who are subject to their own regulatory authority.
This morning, I revisited the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ accreditation standards for adult in-patient wards for people with learning disabilities—I should remind noble Lords that I am a past president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a psychiatrist myself. The college’s general standards very helpfully include attending to recruitment and retention of staff, training, supervision, management of complaints and so on. It is helpful to think about the relationship between the necessary accreditation of services and the need to attend to the training and aspirations of all those staff who work in such services: retention and job satisfaction are key to this.
Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, I join with others in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, for her tenacity and commitment in keeping the issue of healthcare assistants before your Lordships’ House. She may not be my noble friend in the political sense, but she has been my friend in the professional sense for many years.
I am sorry, therefore, to disagree with her on this particular issue. Indeed, it seems that I am a lone voice disagreeing with her. I certainly want to emphasise that I do not disagree about the problem with regard to healthcare assistants which has been so thoroughly and persuasively set out by her and other noble Lords. But the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, the organisation which I chair, disagrees with her, as she knows, about statutory regulation being the solution to these problems. The CHRE has had the opportunity of speaking to many of your Lordships in two seminars organised by the Minister, so I do not need to take up time here repeating the arguments. I will say only that mechanisms already exist to deal with the difficulties which your Lordships have set out. These include ensuring that those supervising healthcare assistants take their supervisory responsibilities seriously. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is providing strong direction on this with its codes. Employers are required to ensure safe systems of work, which include giving support to healthcare professionals in delegating and supervising effectively. There is also the vetting and barring scheme, whose aim is to prevent unsuitable people from entering or remaining in the workforce.
Add to this the expense and relative slowness of statutory regulation and it seems to add up to a case showing that the increased public protection that we are all seeking can be achieved by applying existing mechanisms more firmly. We should consider other ways of making this large group of workers, low paid as they are and with a 30 per cent turnover, as we have been reminded every year, feel more acknowledged and valued. There may well be a role for a professional association with a voluntary register, but principally we must use existing processes effectively before we embark on statutory regulation.
With regard to voluntary registers, which have been mentioned so much this morning, or accredited registers, as proposed by the Bill, much work has already been done by the CHRE. We are using the term “assured registration” to distinguish it from the old notion of voluntary registers and to describe the process of organisations assuring the individuals on their register and then the CHRE accrediting the organisations and their registers, thus creating accredited registers. I remind your Lordships that the whole purpose of such a scheme is to enhance consumer protection. The standards to be met by organisations which hold accredited voluntary registers will include standards of competence, education and training, registration of complaints and information provision. I certainly do not want to argue that this is the same as statutory regulation, but for many professions it offers further safeguards for patients and public, and that is what we are all seeking.
Lord Kakkar
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Emerton moves a very important amendment that comes to the very heart of this Bill. The purpose of this Health and Social Care Bill is to ensure ultimately that quality is driven throughout the healthcare system and that standards are driven to the very highest levels. It seems counterintuitive that such an important group of healthcare professionals as healthcare support workers is not subject to any mandatory training or mandatory continuing professional development or, indeed, any form of statutory regulation. I suspect that many of our fellow citizens would find that a very peculiar situation, which they would not automatically recognise, when going into the hospital environment.
I would like to ask the Minister two questions, specifically with regard to proposals for ensuring strong voluntary registration of this particular group and members of other disciplines who are responsible for the provision of healthcare. The first relates to the role that the Secretary of State might play with regard to standing rules and providing guidance to commissioning groups on the action they should take and the requirements they should make of qualified providers. Will it be the case that commissioners will be in a position to demand of a qualified provider that all of their healthcare staff, be it doctors, nurses, or other healthcare professionals, are members of some form of registered regulatory scheme, be it a regulatory scheme for certain healthcare professionals or voluntary schemes for others? Will it therefore be possible for clinical commissioning groups in the future to refuse to commission from a potential qualified provider if that provider was unable to demonstrate that all the staff it employed were registered appropriately?
My second concern relates to a plurality of registers for a single discipline of healthcare worker. That seems counterintuitive: surely, if there is going to be a voluntary register for healthcare support workers, there should be a single register, not multiple ones, because multiple registers would provide less confidence to the general public. The general public should know that there is a single regulatory body and that that body has responsibilities with regard to setting certain standards, with regard to ensuring that there is appropriate training and with regard to the possibility of receiving complaints and disbarring individuals from working in that professional area.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, I agree with those noble Lords who have said that this is a critical amendment. I do not understand how more than one register will ensure a uniform standard across the whole of the NHS. There is a real problem at the moment with healthcare assistants being used as substitutes, rather than having “delegated” tasks, as in the wording of this amendment.
I am concerned about relying overly on the employers themselves. We have seen in the nursing home sector that this has failed. Where there has been substandard care, nursing homes have not got rid of those staff about whom they have had questions and those who have been commissioning services from those areas have not been able even to close down nursing homes because they often have not known where else they could move the residents of that area. In the mainstream hospital sector, it is down to an individual nurse to decide what she delegates to a healthcare assistant. The beauty of having a statutory register is that there will be clear expectations of what healthcare assistants can and cannot do and the level to which they should be trained, with clarity of roles and values, which I believe will also increase their own self esteem, and their own sense of occasional involvement in their role in clinical care. It has been suggested that it would be in the interests of unions to have such a statutory register. I fear that there has even been confusion in the minds of some people between the role of a trade union and the role of a regulatory body. It will be very important that a register is completely separate to any type of union activity. When the Minister comes to answer, I would be grateful if he could explain how the standards to be set by a voluntary registration process will be overseen and monitored, and what levers the Government would have to improve and extend the criteria required by a voluntary register of those who are registered on it, in order to increase standards.
Lord Patel
My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, which has been moved by my noble friend Lady Emerton. The case for statutory registration, which I strongly support, has been made in a tempered way by my noble friend. Perhaps I may first try to address the lone voice of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, because she must be concerned about being the lone voice. She said that we should allow the current regulations and procedures to take effect before making a decision. Currently, we have no procedures. There are proposals to put procedures in place both for training and possibly for registration, but we have nothing apart from that. I went to the seminars, although with respect I have to say that they were not very helpful. There are two points I want to make as a result.
When asked about the question of voluntary versus statutory registration, the response of the officers of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence—I wrote it down at the time—was that it is based on the “likely risks”; that is, if the risk is high there must be statutory registration, but if the risk is low it could be voluntary registration. Ample evidence has been provided by two former nurses in this House, my noble friend Lady Emerton and the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, to show that we are talking about a high-risk situation. The second comment was that it was not within the power of the CHRE to decide whether registration should be statutory or voluntary. Of course it can take a view, and if that view is based on evidence, it would be taken seriously. However, the evidence presented by all the speakers in today’s debate is quite contrary. On both of those counts, the council’s arguments are weakened. I shall leave it at that.
I accept that we are talking about a huge workforce, one of 450,000 or perhaps more. It could be higher than that if healthcare support workers are employed in the community, in care homes and institutions for mental illness and care. So while I welcome the Government’s plans to introduce new minimum standards of training for healthcare support workers, they do not go far enough to ensure professional competence. While there would be an expectation that employers will both provide training and support a code of conduct, there will be no legal obligation to do so. I may be wrong and no doubt I will be corrected, but I believe that a mandatory, standardised approach to both training and regulation is essential in order to maximise public protection.
The noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, referred to the long list of activities in which healthcare support workers now engage. It is quite different from what I was used to. Nursing auxiliaries would undertake essential nursing care and sometimes domestic duties. Those support roles have now been extended, to the point of what the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, described as cannulation and catheterisation. As well as the issues of public safety and protection referred to by my noble friend Lady Emerton, there is a lack of clarification on areas of responsibility, delegation and accountability. Evidence shows that the responsibilities and tasks given to healthcare support workers vary across the country, and even within the same setting—for example, between different wards in the same hospital. In addition, the relationship between individual registered nurses and the healthcare support workers working alongside them can sometimes determine what duties they are asked to perform rather than recognition of their education, training, experience and competence. This variation across and within settings has led to a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities.
Regulation and standardised training would give healthcare support workers much more clearly defined roles, and I agree with the Government’s intentions on this. This would help to ensure that support workers are only asked to perform tasks that are suitable for their competencies and would provide them with a code of conduct. They would be protected in circumstances where they are asked to undertake tasks for which they are not competent or about which they are unsure. I support that and I am glad that the Government, together with the professional organisations, are beginning to set out their intentions. No doubt the Minister will comment further on that.
I turn now to the issue of voluntary versus statutory registration. I believe that voluntary registration over the long term will lead to fundamental weaknesses. Those individuals and employers who most need to be regulated may not sign up to a voluntary register or could abuse the flexibility of its voluntary status. Through the proposed reforms in this Bill, an increased number of service providers is expected, and that might confuse the situation even more. There will be greater mobility in the workforce which could create the possibility for professionals to avoid reprimand following poor conduct by seeking employment with a different employer. Over the long term, voluntary registration will allow any organisation, employer, representative body or third party to establish a register. Some of those registers may well be successful and could, for example, achieve a “kitemark” standard. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, referred to “assured registration”, but I do not know what that is. Is it a halfway house to statutory registration or is it half way down the road to inadequate voluntary registration? I presume that it would be a halfway house to statutory registration, which is a good idea.
There would also be the possibility of an individual gaining access to another voluntary register following their expulsion from one. Without national standards, it is not clear what the registers will take into account when accrediting an individual. These issues engender a lack of consistency. One single statutory register with clear terms of reference would not present such a problem. A mandatory register would also provide a single point of contact for potential employers when checking the employability of an individual, and differing levels and standards of registers would not exist.
I recognise, as did my noble friend Lady Emerton, that we are talking about the registration of a large workforce, and that prior to doing so training has to be provided for that large workforce. We need to consider the direction of travel: where we are, where we want to be and how we are going to achieve that. It is an important issue and I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I shall be extremely brief in supporting what my noble friend Lord Patel has said. I have listened with care to the debate. This is a huge workforce in which at the present time the standards of professional behaviour and competence are immensely variable, where the standard of education among the individuals performing these tasks is also extremely variable, and where it is clear that an improvement in standards not only of care but of responsibility and training is absolutely vital. The question we have to ask is how this can best be achieved.
I found the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, very persuasive, and of course I understand the stance she is taking as the chairman of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence. It is soon to have its name changed, but a rose by any other name will smell as sweet. It will have responsibility for accrediting the voluntary registration of a large number of individuals working in the National Health Service. She is persuaded that a voluntary register for these healthcare support workers would be adequate and satisfactory. However, as my noble friend Lord Patel has asked, what will prevent those individuals who are responsible for or who own care homes taking on board and employing people who are not voluntarily registered? This is a crucial issue, as indeed is the point —it has not been effectively clarified to my satisfaction—about what sanctions may be applied to people who do not fulfil all the eligibility criteria that are to be established for that voluntary register. Having said that the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, was very persuasive, I am afraid that I find my noble friend Lady Emerton infinitely more persuasive.
For that reason, I have not the slightest doubt that I strongly support the amendment. It is not suggesting that a new register and national body for care assistants or a support workers’ national council needs to be established. The virtue of the amendment is that individual healthcare support workers in England would be regulated in accordance with the terms of the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, which is already a statutory order. It seems to be a neat solution to an extremely difficult problem. For that reason, I strongly support the amendment.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate, but I want to strike what might be a slightly discordant note at this point in the proceedings. I have a question for the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, and the noble Earl in relation to clarification.
I will speak later in relation to social workers and that bit of social care which we seem to have forgotten. What has concerned me most in this debate is the total confusion between social care workers and healthcare workers. What really concerns me about the amendment is that it appears to be the health professional who must give instruction to those working in a variety of establishments. I declare an interest as someone who is responsible as a trustee for a large number of elderly and disability care homes. In some of those places, someone qualified in social care and not healthcare is in charge of the establishment. They are therefore responsible for ensuring that the programmes of care are designated with some healthcare professionals, because in nursing homes you need both working together.
I want to be absolutely sure that we do not arrange more confusion, which we will be discussing later today in relation to social care, and undermine even further those people who are looking after the real day-to-day care, not the medical health needs. You need people looking after medical health needs in these establishments, but you also need to worry about stimulation, relatives visiting, the psychological approach to the people in the home, how they will get to hospital and helping the hospital to understand what people with disabilities are saying. All of those things are crucial and need equal registration and care.
I am attracted to the voluntary register because it means that we can look at all these people who are working in the field who have their own professional positions but are different. I would like some clarification and for the House to understand that there is not just a medical group of people caring but a whole tranche of people out there in establishments and in the community looking after those needs, which I am sure noble Lords, if they were in that position, would also want to have looked after.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this has been a good debate and I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, on her initiative in bringing forward her amendment. I should remind the House that I chair an NHS foundation trust and, like my noble friend Lady Wall, we employ many hundreds of healthcare support workers. I agree with everything my noble friend said.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised an important point. We are coming on to the issue of social care regulation and the House will know that I am very concerned about the transfer of social care regulation to what is essentially a health body. The noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, will want to respond, but it seems to me that what she has tried to do is to allow the House to have a specific debate on healthcare support workers. The amendment is very much a statement of principle and we will come on to social care workers in a later debate.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may raise two points with him from his great experience of the health service. First, is it appropriate for the fundamental provision to be an amendment to a statutory order rather than for it to be done through primary legislation? Secondly, on delegation, the amendment states that,
“a health care support worker shall be an individual whose work is routinely delegated to them by a registered nurse or midwife”.
Could not a healthcare support worker have an independent assignment from the employer? In other words, it would be not be delegation from a registered nurse but direct employment on that basis. I would like help on that if possible.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, when I was in government, I was always very wary of interventions from the noble and learned Lord when he required help on an answer that I had given. I should probably let the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, answer for herself, but perhaps I may make two points. First, the noble Baroness has been very inventive in using this Bill as a way of raising these concerns. As a number of clauses, to which we shall come shortly, relate to regulation, her amendment is quite in scope. Secondly, this is very much a debate on the principle. I have no doubt that, if the noble Baroness were to press the amendment to a vote and was successful, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, would come back at Third Reading or in the other place with a tidying-up amendment which dealt with the issues that the noble and learned Lord has raised, respecting the intent of the House but ensuring that the statute was as tight as it could be. It is probably not for me to answer for the noble Baroness.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, this has been another excellent debate about a critical issue: how we ensure that the staff who deliver NHS care have the training, support and appropriate regulation to enable them to do so. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, for her advocacy of this cause, which is of course of central importance.
This amendment would require the Nursing and Midwifery Council to regulate healthcare support workers on a mandatory basis. I hope that I do not need to convince the noble Baroness that we have given this considerable thought. The Government’s view, like that of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, is that compulsory statutory regulation is not the only way to achieve high-quality care. It is no substitute for good leadership at every level and the proper management of services, which is perhaps the most relevant issue in the context of the examples of poor care cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to whom I listened with great attention.
Regulation can respond to concerns about the practice of professionals when they arise, but the regulator cannot be in the room all the time. On the other hand, employers are often in a position to act early, when concerns first arise and before harm occurs.
Let us remember that there are existing tiers of regulation that protect service users, particularly the vetting and barring scheme, through which unsuitable workers can be barred from working with vulnerable adults and children. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, in particular, that that includes where regulated nurses are struck off. If there are concerns that they may pose a risk, they should be referred to the Independent Safeguarding Authority. The Care Quality Commission also enforces standards for providers of health and social care services.
There is no difference between the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, and the Government on the central issue. We recognise the need to drive up standards for support workers and to facilitate employers appropriately to employ, delegate to and supervise health and social care support workers. To this end, we have commissioned Skills for Health and Skills for Care to work with professional stakeholders on the development of a code of conduct and minimum induction and training standards for healthcare support workers and adult social care workers in England. The noble Baroness has expressed her doubts about that decision, but I noticed with interest that, in its recent addendum to its response the House of Commons Health Select Committee, the NMC stated clearly that it supports the Government’s announcement that Skills for Health and Skills for Care have been commissioned to do this work and to develop a delegation standard for nurses and midwives that will provide an effective framework for public protection.
We confidently expect Skills for Health and Skills for Care to engage with nursing professionals, including educationalists, in taking this forward. There are registered nurses on the proposed membership of the steering group for the work that we have commissioned from Skills for Health and Skills for Care, and I am happy to suggest in response to the noble Baroness that a university lecturer should also be included. More generally, we would expect a broad programme of engagement as part of the work to take this forward. We expect the standards to be agreed ahead of the establishment of voluntary registers for healthcare support workers and adult social care workers, which could be operational from 2013 onwards; so, to be clear, those workers meeting the standards of training and conduct would be able to be included on an assured voluntary register. We will ensure that the delivery of training for health and care assistants who are entitled to be included on a voluntary register is professionally led, and I can confirm that, following this debate, I will be writing to Skills for Health and Skills for Care to make this absolutely crystal clear.
Lord Newton of Braintree
Will my noble friend give way just briefly? I was at the other end of the Chamber, but I have shifted ends. Leaving aside the point about tracking, on the point about whether there will be one or more register I am conscious that, in the area of ombudsmen, there is experience of rival ombudsmen. Frankly, especially since it is in the choice of the provider not the customer, the providers go to the one who they think will give them the easiest ride. I do not want to see that situation here. Serious consideration needs to be given by whatever means to making sure that, if there is a voluntary register, it is one register and not a choice between a good one, a bad one and an indifferent one.
Earl Howe
The key here lies in the standards and the training. If we have standards laid down that are uniform across the piece, I am not sure that having more than one register is a significant issue. As I said, this is something that the professional standards authority is bound to take account of when deciding whether to accredit another register.
The noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, expressed the view that voluntary registration does not work. The Government’s proposals are for assured voluntary registration. We believe that the effective assurance of the standards of healthcare support workers can be delivered by an assured voluntary register that is underpinned by clear standards of conduct and training and supported by the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s updated guidance on delegation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked how standards will be monitored. We will expect the professional standards authority to assure that any standards set for a voluntary register are appropriate as part of its initial accreditation process. It will keep the operation of any register under review and we will expect it to set out any concerns that it has about standards. The authority will also have powers to remove the accreditation of registers if any of its concerns are not addressed in a timely fashion.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked what criteria would apply in individual cases. In its council paper, Voluntary Registers—Proposed Model for the Accreditation Scheme, the CHRE has stated that all voluntary registers seeking accreditation will be required to complete a risk assessment tool that will assess the risks inherent in a profession’s practice and the means by which those risks are and could be managed. The authority will also keep under review the management of risks by an accredited register. That will be part of its role.
However, having listened to the concerns raised in this House, the Government have given further consideration to this whole issue. Once a system of assured voluntary registration has been established for this group and has been operational for three years, to enable it to demonstrate its effectiveness the Government will commission a strategic review of the relative benefits of assured voluntary registration compared with statutory regulation. The review will involve all relevant professional bodies and trade unions. Such a review would include consideration of any further measures needed to assure the safety of patients and the public, including consideration of the case for compulsory statutory regulation or—and I say this in particular to the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Hunt—making standards of training mandatory for employers through the use of standing rules for the NHS Commissioning Board and standard contracts for providers.
The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, raised what I thought was a very astute point about the NHS standard contract. I can confirm that, yes, the Secretary of State will have the power to include in the standard contract the fact that relevant workers must be on a particular voluntary register. We see this as a strong lever, and we would want to consider it very carefully before deciding to use it in a particular instance, but wherever there was clear and demonstrable evidence that doing so would ensure quality of care, we would give it very serious consideration.
I can confirm that the question of whether to move to statutory regulation will be viewed openly, with full consideration of the potential benefits that it might be able to bring. I can say to my noble friend Lord Newton once again that the power to introduce statutory regulation already exists, in Section 60 of the Health Act, if a decision were to be made to deploy it. The Law Commission is in fact consulting at the moment on an even broader regulation-making power in the future. In the mean time, we are committed to exploring the evidence base on ratios of qualified to non-qualified staff. I totally agree with the noble Baroness that this is a key point. We will look carefully at the evidence from ongoing work by King’s College.
I have tried to set out what one might term, picking up a phrase from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, the direction of travel here. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, will understand our commitment to seeing defined standards and improved skills in the healthcare support workforce. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, asked whether it is not time to have better safeguards in place. Yes, it is. I agree with her. Where we part company is on what a set of new safeguards should be. I strongly feel that a combination of voluntary registration and training is the more appropriate and proportionate solution to what I agree is a problem that needs to be addressed. The work that we have commissioned takes us on that road.
I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords of our commitment to strengthening the assurance processes in place for health and social care support workers, and that, perhaps with reservations but nevertheless more confidently than before, the noble Baroness—
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
I have listened carefully to what the noble Earl has said and there are two areas that he has hardly mentioned—indeed, he has not mentioned one at all—but which he should perhaps refer to. What consideration has he given to the fact that, if you talk to healthcare assistants—and I mean literally hundreds of them—you find that they want this qualification and registration to illustrate the value that they have not just to themselves but also to colleagues around their hospitals? This is also the case for patients: if you do any survey of patients, they say that they want healthcare workers to be registered, so that they understand and have the assurance of that. I wonder how much consideration of those factors has gone into the deliberations that he is talking about.
Earl Howe
I apologise to the noble Baroness for not covering that point. We are well aware of precisely that view among the workforce. With the creation of a voluntary register, the process that she refers to will gather its own momentum because people will see the opportunities open to them to accord themselves the status that they clearly crave. It is important, from the point of view of the patient, that hospitals—and, indeed, care homes—are employing people of a certain standard of accreditation and skill. I think, therefore, that this will be self-fuelling and I hope that, once the register is on offer, substantial numbers of healthcare support workers will be encouraged to join it.
Lord Quirk
I wonder whether the noble Earl could address the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, about social workers as distinct from health workers in this group.
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was, of course, quite right, because we have a mix of skills in so many settings. I did not share her view that, if I can put it this way, the skills of social workers were being belittled by the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton—not at all. She was, however, right to point out that the role of social workers can be just as critical for the well-being of patients and service users as the role of a healthcare assistant. We should not automatically think of these skills as medical skills; they are, in many cases, wider than that. We recognise that there are two distinct groups of workers here—that is the reason why we have asked Skills for Health and Skills for Care to work together to define standards of training. Despite the differences between the groups, there will be similarities; we want to tease out what those are and to define them accordingly. I hope that this is helpful. I hope, too, that the noble Baroness will be reassured and feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Emerton
My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate this morning. It has highlighted and pinpointed one of the essential needs that must be addressed very quickly in terms of the future of the health service. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that he thought that I had probably put down the amendment as it was worded in order to raise a debate. He was right—I was concerned to get a debate raised on the whole issue. It is unfortunate that despite the Bill’s title—the Health and Social Care Bill—social care has not been included yet. We know, however, that social care will come, and I have been a great supporter of mentioning support workers as we have gone through the various briefings. I take the point made by my noble friend Lady Howarth that social workers are just as important as the healthcare support workers. However, I had to draw a line somewhere as to the title of the debate and how we moved it forward, and I thank noble Lords for their contributions.
I have listened very carefully to what has been said, including by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. If I have heard correctly, I think that he has given a reassurance and a commitment about how things might emerge in the next few months in terms of developing the care standards for the training. He has also given an assurance that there will be a review later on, after the establishment of the training, as to whether statutory regulation would be possible or whether voluntary registration had been satisfactory. The noble Earl knows that we have been waiting a very long time for the examination of the regulation of healthcare support workers. I will take away what he has said and I will read very carefully in Hansard what has been said—a lot has been said in nearly two hours of debate—but, for today, I will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, we now move on to another group on the regulation of healthcare workers, and social care workers as well. In debate in Committee, I made it clear that I was concerned about the decision of the Government to abolish the General Social Care Council and to transfer responsibility for regulation of social care workers to the Health Professions Council. I am concerned for two reasons. First, I know that the General Social Care Council had rather a bumpy ride to start with and was the subject of a review, which was critical of the way in which it performed. However, it is right to pay tribute to the tremendous work undertaken in the last two years under its current leadership and the chairmanship of Mrs Rosie Varley to improve and enhance the quality of the regulation by the council. It is very disappointing that the Government have decided that, just at the time when the GSCC is starting to prove itself, the whole thing is to be dismantled and the function transferred to the Health Professions Council.
I also do not understand why the Health Professions Council is considered to be the right regulator for social workers. There is a difference between social work and health work. We touched on that in the last debate. I agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said in response to the noble Baroness when he reflected on the value of social care workers but also on the difference in role. The Health Professions Council regulates a number of bodies, but they all have a health basis in the main. Therefore, it stretches the imagination to see how this body will effectively regulate social care workers in the future. The profession of social work is pretty fragile and having its own regulator is one of the building blocks for boosting the status, confidence and quality of the social work profession.
I oppose the abolition of the GSCC and the transfer of social worker regulation to the HPC in principle. If I am unsuccessful in persuading the Government, even at this stage, to change their mind, I suggest that a number of issues would help to reassure me and many social workers about the way in which the HPC will perform. This is why I have a number of amendments, which seek to ensure that there is an appropriate definition of “social worker”. I think that it would be appropriate, inside the HPC, to establish an office of chief social worker. I also think that the name of the HPC should recognise that it is regulating the social work profession. I have not yet had any rational answer as to why “Social Work”, or something of the sort, should not appear in the title of the HPC. We know that the reason is that the HPC has refused to have it. I think that the department is finding it difficult to tell the HPC that it is subject to parliamentary provision and that it is not enough, simply because it does not want “Social Work” in its title, not to agree to it. I refer the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to the Bill before us. It refers, in these clauses, to a number of orders, including health and social work orders. Therefore, there clearly cannot be an objection in principle to the use of “Social Work” in the title. It is totemic, but it is at least a way of showing the 100,000 individuals in the social work profession to be covered that in fact the HPC is not going to continue with a medical model of regulation.
My final point is this. I invite the noble Earl to state clearly that it is not his department’s intention that the HPC should eventually take over the regulation of nurses and doctors. He will know that a review is being undertaken of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and I gather that there are also proposals to change the governance of the General Medical Council. A number of people in the health service have told me that they think the eventual aim is for the HPC to regulate all the healthcare professions. The noble Earl would provide a great deal of reassurance if he would say that it is not his department’s long-term ambition to turn the HPC into the sole regulator of all the health and social care professions. I for one would be very concerned about that. I beg to move.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 241C, which is tabled in my name. I also support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I was tempted to add my name to them, but I was a bit late yesterday. These amendments concern the implications of abolishing the General Social Care Council and the dilution or indeed the elimination of some of the functions carried out by that body. I thank the Minister for the briefing meeting that he held yesterday. At the tail end of this most unpopular of Bills, and after what I gather have been more than 100 meetings with Peers and others, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary work that the noble Earl has done throughout.
The social work profession is perhaps the most battered profession in this country and, if I may say so, the previous Government did not help in that. A certain Secretary of State for Education in the other place took what I thought was completely unreasonable action following the Baby P incident, which left the social work profession pretty much on its knees. The idea of having a chief social worker in this country who would act as a spokesperson for social work—someone who would promote and defend it—is enormously justified at a time when the profession, as I say, is on its knees. It is very difficult to appoint good people because of the reputation of the profession and because of the actions of that Secretary of State. He happens to be a friend of mine, but I think that he made a terrible error on that occasion.
Amendment 241C seeks to ensure that best interest assessors under the Mental Capacity Act continue to have their training regulated. I realise that the Government’s agenda is to reduce regulation wherever possible and I broadly support that objective, because we have had too much regulation in this country. But there are limits to that process and I believe that this is one issue over which the Government have in fact gone beyond a reasonable limit. Post-qualification training is currently regulated by the General Social Care Council, but under the Bill only the training of approved Mental Health Act practitioners will be regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Although the GSCC accepts that it could have done a better job with that regulatory power, to do away with it altogether seems to be the absolute opposite of the right answer.
Why is this important? It is because the issue here is often about the deprivation of liberty of elderly patients with dementia and those with severe learning difficulties. Civilised countries always take extra care in protecting individuals where their liberty is being taken from them. It is somewhat arbitrary that these groups happen to fall into the ambit of the Mental Capacity Act on the one hand and that of the Mental Health Act on the other. I am sure that in time those two pieces of legislation will be brought together, but in the mean time we have to manage the fact that people are being detained either under the Mental Health Act or the Mental Capacity Act and that very similar processes are under way in the two sets of circumstances. Mental Capacity Act clients in residential homes or nursing homes, for example, who do not have the capacity to make their own decisions about their lives, are in essentially the same position as psychiatric patients who are not able to make a rational decision about whether they need to be detained in hospital.
Psychiatric patients are assessed by approved Mental Health Act practitioners to determine whether they warrant that detention. In Mental Capacity Act cases, the professional is assessing whether a particular decision is in the best interests of the patient or resident, assuming that the patient does not have the capacity to make the decision for themselves. In both cases this is likely to involve assessing whether the individual can live safely at home. That is the whole point. People are assessing pretty much the same thing under the two different pieces of legislation. It is true that in some cases approved mental health practitioners have to assess the risk to others, but the issues are honestly very similar. Is there any logic, therefore, in regulating one and not the other? We know that abuse of these adults is commonplace. Relatives may of course be absolute angels in terms of protecting their family members, but they may not be, and the best interest assessor is there to protect vulnerable people when relatives let them down.
The words of Mr Justice Peter Jackson in his ruling in the London Borough of Hillingdon v Steven Neary and Mark Neary and the Equality and Human Rights Commission highlight the importance of the deprivation of liberty safeguards. The deprivation of liberty safeguards were designed to protect the human rights of some of our most vulnerable people. Employers and supervisory bodies have to be sure that the professionals they charge with undertaking this vital role are competent, compassionate and able to approach the situation from both a practice and legislative basis. With the closure of the GSCC, I urge the Minister to put in place a system at least as robust as the current one, and ideally more robust, to ensure that the providers of training for best interest assessors can clearly demonstrate their ability to produce and, importantly, assess potential best interest assessors. That would go a long way towards protecting some of these very vulnerable citizens.
I want to turn briefly to a number of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. The first concerns student registration, which we discussed in detail at the briefing meeting yesterday. I shall not go into all the detail again. However, it has to be said that if it is justified to register social workers, it has to be justified to register social work students. That is because these people are unknown and untried. They go into vulnerable people’s homes on their own and they are probably more of a potential risk to their clients than qualified social workers. There is once again an issue of logic here, which I hope the noble Earl will take seriously.
A further concern is that, as I understand it, the Health and Care Professions Council will not introduce the satisfactorily assessed and supported year in employment as a requirement before someone can be accredited as a fully qualified social worker. This is another important safeguard, as people have to prove themselves over the course of a year’s work. There is no great administrative problem about this. It is simply a requirement so that employers meet certain standards. I would argue that it is not a bureaucratic nonsense; it is an important requirement.
Finally, there is to be no regulation of social care workers. The arguments that were rehearsed in the previous debate probably apply just as much to this one. The case for statutory regulation where vulnerable people and low-paid workers are concerned seems absolutely overwhelming. Again, I hope that the noble Earl might agree also to have a review of this area. At the minimum, is the process of voluntary regulation really working?
I fear that the Government have gone too far in dismantling the protections for vulnerable clients. Of course employers and universities have important responsibilities for their workers and clients, but I hope that even at this late stage the noble Earl might want to maintain some state responsibility for the protection of these most vulnerable clients when their liberty may be taken from them.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, if the noble Earl thought I was being unkind to the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, he may think that I am being even more unkind when I come to address him. I want to make it absolutely clear that I was asking the noble Baroness whether she had seen the defect in her amendment. Delegated powers would go from health professionals to the social care professionals and not from the social care professional leaders in establishments down to social care providers. That was a significant defect which I think the noble Baroness herself noted, as did other noble Lords, during the course of the debate. That was all I was raising but it leads on to this debate about the social care profession and how it is valued when compared with other professions. That is why this debate, at this moment, is crucial to social workers.
I ask the Minister this question. Is it the Government’s intent to remove the profession of social work from the nation’s vocabulary? That may sound an unkind question, but social workers are beginning to feel that they do not belong anywhere. Their name is not in any of the Bills. Indeed, their professional organisation is being wiped out, as they see it. I will not repeat the points made my noble friend Lady Meacher about some of the protections around people practising and training with clients. They have to practise alone. They are not supervised day-to-day by having someone with them who is also registered in a proper way. All of these things undermine the profession.
When the Conservatives were in opposition, the Conservative Party set up an inquiry to look into social work, taking the view that it wanted to encourage and enhance the social work profession. I was very grateful and felt that it had made a real difference to the way that social workers were valued. In that inquiry, the Conservative Party acknowledged the difficult work that social workers undertake with disruptive families, the mentally ill, children, the disabled and those with learning difficulties—in fact most of the groups in our society that other people do not wish to have to deal with day to day. Those people can be intransigent, difficult and often stubborn and social workers have to develop new skills in order to move families on into change, particularly in the present environment. That moved on to the Munro review of child protection and the hope that social workers would gain more control over their lives and the way that they worked, lessening the bureaucracy and enabling them to do more.
However, to have their designated regulatory body removed and to be absorbed into what they see as a healthcare organisation will detract from all of that. The people you meet out there who are involved in social work worry about where they stand in terms of the whole of the social care sector. If you talk to them alone, you will find that they are pretty low, depressed and fragile and that affects the way that they carry out their work. It affects the enthusiasm and joy with which social work can be carried out.
I am having real difficulty. Perhaps the clerks will recognise that. I do not want to speak at length because what I have said is to the point. I will not go through the amendments. Other noble Lords will do that in detail. Of course, a principal social worker would make a difference. In a former position, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, made a huge difference to the social work profession. It felt that someone, somewhere, was there on its behalf. We have people in the Department of Health, but they are not given the strength and status that Herbert had when he stood in that position and made that difference.
There were difficulties with the regulator, but I have just spent eight years working in another organisation that had difficulties. If you work hard enough and long enough, you can get it right. It is not right to give up in the middle and to change things so fundamentally that people do not recognise that it has anything to do with them. Certainly, social workers are not recognising that the new regulator will have anything to do with them.
I am sorry to speak so strongly and so generally but, sooner or later, someone has to speak up for those people who are doing what I call the dirty work of the nation on behalf of all of us. It may be that my cold is not helping and I am not my usual gentle self, but I feel extraordinarily strongly that, unless the Government take it upon themselves to encourage and make social workers feel valued, understand their work and differentiate them from the medical care area, we will have fewer social workers of ability on the ground and they will make more mistakes. More mistakes will mean more difficulties for children and old people, never mind the field day that the press will have, and we will be on a downward spiral. I ask the noble Earl to look at the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is raising and to do what he can to stop that from happening.
Baroness Pitkeathley
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who I deservedly call my noble friend. I very much hope that the Minister will give her the assurances that she seeks. With regard to my noble friend’s amendments on the General Social Care Council, I take the view that we are where we are, however much I wished that different decisions had been taken. Noble Lords will appreciate that, as the first chair of the General Social Care Council, I would say that, wouldn’t I?
However, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the councils and staff of both the General Social Care Council and the Health Professions Council for the professional and mature way that they have approached the difficult situations in which they found themselves. Their behaviour has been an example to us all and particularly, as far as concerns the GSCC, the fact that high staff morale has been maintained throughout this process is nothing short of a miracle and a great tribute to its leadership.
I agree with other Lords who have called the social work profession fragile. It needs to be promoted and defended if we are to maintain and extend the recruitment that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has reminded us is so important for those people who do the difficult work in our society—which is rarely recognised until the tabloid press attacks it. I must draw your Lordships’ attention to the College of Social Work, which has just been established, which will have the promotion and defence of this fragile profession as part of its remit. It has had a difficult start, as is well known, but I believe that it has the potential to promote and support the profession to which we are all so indebted.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, I have my name to two amendments in this group. They do not affect social work and therefore I have waited to intervene until the debate on social work had been completed.
I want to discuss two groups: clinical perfusion scientists and clinical physiologists. The clinical perfusion scientists are responsible for the single most invasive tool used in surgery today and are routinely responsible for the administration of potentially fatal controlled drugs. The numbers are small—there are only 350 clinical perfusionists—and they operate in a regulatory vacuum; they are the only non-regulated members of the cardiac surgical team. Yet their management routinely involves significant life-threatening risks to patients daily. Because they are not a regulated profession, in July 2009 the Department of Health produced a good practice guide to clinical perfusion in response to the Gritten report of 2005. It states that the Government fully recognise the need for clinical perfusionists to be regulated by statute and it draws attention to the fact that the document is an interim measure until they are subject to statutory regulation. Indeed, the document states that this has implications in law for their role in working with medicines.
Since the Gritten report in 2005, about a quarter of a million cardiac patients have had their hearts stopped for surgery by perfusionists, who use highly toxic substances and blood products. They feel that they need statutory regulation so that they can be supplementary prescribers, as there is a questionable legality at the moment around drug administration. They are in a unique position. It is this supplementary prescriber role that causes them much concern, because they would like to be assured that what they are doing falls fully within the Medicines Act. I hope that when the Minister responds he will be able to explain quite clearly precisely how, if they are not subject to a statutory register, everything they do complies fully with the Medicines Act.
As for assessing the risk and the need for a profession to be registered, the review of the Professions Supplementary to Medicines Act was debated in another place in 1999. The key test stated in that review is,
“whether there is the potential for harm arising either from invasive procedures or application of unsupervised judgement made by the professional which can substantially impact on patient/client health or welfare”.
In response to that test and in relation to clinical perfusionists, the right honourable Andrew Lansley, said:
“It seems to me that perfusionists entirely match that criterion”.
It seems odd, having had that debate and that being on the record, that clinical perfusionists are still trying desperately to argue that they should be subject to statutory regulation and feel that they are failing to achieve that.
The other group that I want to discuss is clinical physiologists. I suggest again that they fall within that criterion. They are a very skilled group of people who are often alone with patients, including children, in situations in which they are responsible for conducting sometimes complex investigations and interacting closely with whoever is the patient in front of them. For the past 10 years, they have had a voluntary register, which they feel is flawed and demonstrates the need for statutory regulation. As a group they will not gain either in status or financially by having a statutory register. They want it because they are concerned about patient safety. Their view is that there is currently no incentive to register; they are in short supply anyway and can get another job without too much difficulty.
As a group, they sent me an individual case study, which I found quite worrying. I will try to summarise for the House briefly, because this is Report. They cited a clinical physiologist who had been working unsupervised in a room alone with children and working one to one with them. Following a holiday to Amsterdam, he was found to be in possession of child pornography, prosecuted and placed on the sex offenders register. Among his papers, the police found that he was a clinical physiologist and alerted the appropriate group. They alerted the employers but discovered that even though he lost the job he was in, he was rapidly re-employed in another hospital, which they also alerted. They followed it up to find that he had changed his name and, under another name, again had sought employment. They are very concerned that this is one they know about but that there may be others they do not know about. The group does not see how its voluntary registration system gives patients and the public the protection that they ought to have.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of my noble friends and Amendment 254 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Clinical physiologists have had voluntary self-regulation for years and they say that it is not as effective as statutory regulation. They have been trying to get statutory regulation since 2004. All clinical physiologists work independently, and while the overall standard of practice is high there is a significant level of risk to patients as practitioners provide services that directly affect the diagnosis and management of patients. Most patients are unaware that clinical physiologists are not statutorily regulated when they are undertaking invasive or high-risk procedures. The clinical physiologists say that there are about 10,000, of which only about half are voluntarily registered. This debate for clinical physiologists has been running on for too long. They are getting frustrated. They want better patient safety, which they feel statutory registration will help to provide. They feel that the Government could easily give them this. I ask the Government: why not? They are a significant and important group doing work with a high risk to patients.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I, too, support these two amendments on the regulation of clinical physiologists, and I think that the case my noble friend Baroness Finlay made about clinical perfusionists is extremely strong.
Clinical physiologists work across a wide range of disciplines. Some work in cardiac investigations, some in respiratory investigations, some in gastrointestinal investigations, but my particular interest relates to clinical neurophysiologists, who carry out a wide range of different investigations involving patients.
Many years ago in my early days as a neurologist, I was involved in the interpretation of electro- encephalograms, and I also introduced into the north-east a technique of electromyography, which is a means of identifying and studying the electrical activity of muscles in health and disease. In all these activities, I was supported by well-trained clinical physiologists. In those early days, those individuals quite often became members of the EEG society, as it was called, of which I was a founder member.
Later, as the interests and the techniques broadened and became much more extensive and much more sophisticated, that organisation, which included doctors working in the field as well as the people called technicians, who were in a sense clinical physiologists, changed its name to the British Society for Clinical Neurophysiology, and the so-called technicians became part of a body called the Electrophysiological Technicians Association—the EPTA—an organisation that later became the Association of Neurophysiological Scientists. It is now very well trained. It works not only in EEG and EMG but in techniques including evoked potential recording, peripheral nerve studies—the measurement of nerve conduction velocity as an aid to diagnosis in disease—and techniques of magnetoencephalopathy. A whole series of new techniques has been developed in which these clinical scientists or clinical physiologists—technicians as they once were—are very deeply involved. They are sufficiently well organised in their professional bodies, which represent their interests, and in the voluntary registers, of which many of them are already members, that they fully deserve registration under the Health Professions Council. Such a statute is long overdue. For that reason, I strongly support the amendments.
Lord Rea
My Lords, Amendments 253, 254 and 255 concern various clinical scientists, particularly clinical physiologists. In Committee, I declared an interest in that I have received skilled care from clinical physiologists for nearly five years in monitoring my pacemaker. From 2008 to 2010, when the previous Government were in office, I asked four Questions for Written Answer, pointing out that the Health Professions Council had recommended in 2004 that clinical scientists be included in its regulatory regime. This recommendation was accepted by the Secretary of State at the time. The Answers that I received respectively from my noble friends Lady Thornton and Lord Darzi said, in impeccable ministerial speak, “This will be done not this year, perhaps next year, but certainly some time”. However, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, suggested in Committee that it would be sufficient to continue the voluntary registration scheme that exists now.
Perhaps I may read a small extract from a note sent to me by the Registration Council for Clinical Physiologists, which compiles a voluntary register. The council states that it has,
“substantial evidence suggesting that voluntary self-regulation is not effective for clinical physiologists. Our register has no power of enforcement and is completely toothless because it cannot protect patients from continuing to be treated by practitioners who have not been registered and who are potentially unfit to practise. Where a complaint is made and upheld about a practitioner, he or she usually ‘disappears’ from the voluntary register, which means it is impossible for the RCCP to do further investigations, while the practitioners under investigation are able to find employment elsewhere”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, gave an example of precisely that. Surely that should not be allowed to continue, and I hope that the noble Earl will reconsider his position and agree that statutory registration is the way forward for this very important group of skilled health professionals.
Earl Howe
My Lords, the amendments deal with two discrete areas. The first set of amendments relates to our proposal to establish a system of assured voluntary registration and seeks to extend compulsory statutory regulation to clinical perfusionists and clinical physiologists, and to make further amendments to legislation to account for this.
The second set relates to the transfer of the regulation of social workers in England from the General Social Care Council to the Health Professions Council, to the protection of the function of social workers, to the office of the chief social worker and to the approval of the training of best-interests assessors. Also included in this second group is a minor and technical government amendment intended to correct an inconsistency in drafting.
As for assured voluntary registration, the vast majority of workers give the very highest quality of care. However, a minority let patients down. This is a cause for concern for all of us and it is right that there is discussion about how we can ensure high standards of care. The Government’s view is that compulsory statutory regulation is not the only way of achieving this and can detract from the essential responsibility of employers to ensure that any person whom they appoint is suitably trained and competent for the role.
As I reminded the House earlier, there are already existing tiers of regulation that protect service users, including the standards set by the Care Quality Commission and the vetting and barring scheme. We also need to be clear that professional regulation is not a panacea. It is no substitute, as I said previously, for good leadership at every level and the proper management of services. It can also constrain innovation in some circumstances and even the availability of services.
Experience clearly demonstrates that a small number of workers who are subject to compulsory statutory regulation from time to time fail to ensure that their practice is up to date and delivered to the standard that we expect. In these circumstances, it is too often the case that regulation can react only after the event. The regulation of individuals will not prevent another Mid-Staffordshire, but strong and effective leadership of the workforce may do, and we believe that employers and managers who are closest to the point of risk must take responsibility for ensuring standards.
The Government believe that a system of assured voluntary registration will support commissioners, employers and supervisors to deliver their responsibility for assuring standards by providing independently assured standards of conduct and training for those on accredited registers. We believe that this approach will work well for clinical physiologists, clinical perfusionists and other groups of health and social care workers. Here, we are building on the work started under the previous Government.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is right that clinical perfusionists are not subject to statutory regulation, but I assure noble Lords that where failures or risks on the part of clinical perfusionists have been identified in the past, action has been taken action to address them. The Department of Health issued guidance in 1999 that the NHS should use only accredited clinical perfusionists, and further guidance in 2009 that clarified the systems and processes needed to ensure high-quality perfusion services. However, employers, commissioners and patients currently have no objective or independent way of determining how robust the accreditation arrangements are, as they not subject to independent scrutiny. In future, if the voluntary register is accredited by the PSA, they will be subject to such ongoing independent scrutiny.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked me about the administration of drugs by perfusionists and compliance with the Medicines Act. Perfusionists cannot prescribe drugs, although they do of course administer perfusions. I would say in my defence to the noble Baroness that compliance with the Medicines Act is rather a technical legal point. If she will allow, I am happy to write to her on that legal position.
Both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, indicated their view that voluntary registers already exist and do not work. Voluntary registers do exist, so standards for these professions exist as well. It has to be said that the Department of Health has little if any evidence of a general problem with the standards of practice for these groups, but, as I said previously, we currently have no objective way of saying to employers that if they rely on professionals who are on existing voluntary registers they can be sure that they are meeting appropriate standards. In future, where voluntary registers are accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, that will be possible.
Lord Walton of Detchant
Will the noble Earl accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, clinical physiologists, and in particular clinical neurophysiologists, have been aware for years that they have produced a very satisfactory standard of voluntary regulation and registration? They have been talking about the possibility of achieving statutory regulation for years. It has been hinted at by Government after Government. They now feel very strongly that the failure of Governments to accept their need for statutory regulation is, in a sense, a kind of downgrading of the status of their respective professions alongside other professions of individuals who work with patients which are regulated by the Health Professions Council: physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and many more. They feel that it is in fact a mark of a lack of respect by the Government that they are being refused statutory registration.
Lord Rea
I hope that it is in order to ask the noble Earl a question. When he was talking about the registration and regulation of clinical physiologists, he spent quite a long time saying how voluntary registration could be improved and how good and suitable it was, but he has not actually said why the Government have such a big objection to statutory regulation. I do not quite see why the Government are so unwilling to go ahead immediately with this.
Earl Howe
My Lords, if the clinical physiologists feel as the noble Lord, Lord Walton, says they do, I would simply urge them to read what I have said about the merits of assured voluntary registration. It is true that this issue has been on the table for a number of years. The difference between the start of that debate and the point that we have now reached is that there is more than one option on the table. Assured voluntary registration did not exist 10 years ago, but it is now about to become a reality. We come back to the basic point that regulation in itself is not a panacea. Those who think it is need to examine those cases where failures of care and services have taken place. It is much more about upskilling people, making sure that employers are aware of their responsibilities and ensuring proper supervision in the care setting.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
The noble Lord, Lord Walton, raises the point that the physiologists may well feel themselves to be treated as a second-rate profession. One of the finest things about the Bill is the way in which it extends the whole concept of treatment to people beyond those who are registered members of the medical profession, to those who belong to professions ancillary to medicine. I wonder whether the noble Earl might take into account the fact that we really need to move towards equal status between people who are involved in the profession, including in the commissioning groups, where some of those who will be on the governing bodies will be people who are not themselves doctors, but who are crucial to delivering an integrated medical outcome. I think the noble Lord, Lord Walton, has made the point that registration has become, in a sense, almost a recognition of status. I see that point.
Earl Howe
I very much agree with my noble friend that we want to see a breaking down of silos, if I can put it that way, and a mutual respect and dependence appearing at commissioning level. I am not aware of any examples of clinical physiologists or perfusionists being involved in the commissioning of care. On the face of it, that seems unlikely, although not impossible; I would not rule it out. I take my noble friend’s point about our general wish to see a raising of quality not only in commissioning but also in the provision of care. It is a point well made.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
The Minister has spoken about assured voluntary registration being available now. He has said that the Government will monitor it and, if gaps are revealed, would then reconsider statutory registration. It strikes me, first, that we need to know what the criteria are that would trigger moving from an assured voluntary register to a statutory register and, secondly, that these professional groups are in a Catch-22 situation. They have been seeking statutory regulation to drive up and maintain high standards of clinical care. They have been doing all that they can to maintain high standards of clinical care. If they carry on being able to maintain those high standards, gaps will not be revealed. The only way that gaps might be revealed is, in fact, if they drop their standards. It seems like a Catch-22 situation, but I think that I have probably misheard the Minister.
Earl Howe
We are talking about controlling risk. The noble Baroness is right that the Government will retain an open mind about statutory regulation. I hope that that is clear. We have not closed the door to that by any means. However, clinical physiologists, for example, say that risks are apparent to them which some clinical physiologists pose to patients. We have never seen evidence of those risks. In the past, when the Health Professions Council made recommendations about regulation, it has not considered risks. However, we agree with the previous Administration that the extension of regulation should be based on risk. That is the key point. If it is shown that, notwithstanding everybody’s best efforts, assured voluntary registration has not been sufficient to protect patients then, of course, any responsible Government would wish to see a strengthening of the measures around registration.
I revert now to social workers, as I hope that I have covered the points raised. We can most effectively bring improvements to the regulation of social workers in England by transferring their regulation to the Health Professions Council. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, it may well be that the GSCC could have delivered improvements in the way that social workers are regulated. However, reforming the GSCC’s procedures to ensure that they were fit for purpose would have taken time and, I can tell the noble Lord, would have required very considerable resources. The cost involved, among other considerations, would have been prohibitive.
The Health Professions Council is an established and effective regulator. The proposed transfer of functions to it would bring a number of benefits to the regulation of social workers in England, and I have outlined those. The name “Health and Care Professions Council” was decided upon with reference to the views of the Social Work Regulation Oversight Group, of which both the chair of the Social Work Reform Board and the chief executive of the GSCC are members. As part of the process of renaming the Health Professions Council, the name “Health and Social Care Professions Council” was considered. However, following research commissioned by the Health Professions Council, it was decided that the name “Health and Care Professions Council” most effectively reflected the new remit of the council in a way that was clear to the public, registrants and employers, while maintaining name recognition for service users, employers and registrants. However, to ensure even further clarity for the public, the Health Professions Council’s new name will be supported by a strapline: “Regulating health, psychological and social work professionals”, so it is not as though “social work” has been omitted entirely from the heading of this organisation.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his lengthy response, particularly in relation to clinical psychologists and clinical perfusion scientists. I am sure that noble Lords will have noted with interest his remarks, and indeed we have had further discussions about it. The debate has shown that there is a weakness in the continuation of voluntary regulation that will not go away.
Turning to social work regulation, I must say that I am disappointed by the noble Earl’s response. Unless this is a Department of Health contribution to the review of public bodies and it is simply a way of getting the number it is responsible for down, I still do not understand the logic. There is no doubt—here I pay tribute to my noble friend for her sterling efforts, which have been continued by Mrs Rosie Varley—that the General Social Care Council was getting to grips with the issues identified in the review, so I cannot understand why it could not have continued. The advantages mentioned by the noble Earl in relation to the HPC could all have been developed by the GSCC. I come back to the points raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady Meacher, about the fragile confidence of the social work profession. Replacing its regulatory body with an all-singing, all-dancing essentially health body is not the best way to give it confidence.
On the title, I do not think that a strap-line is good enough. I simply point out to the Minister Clauses 216, 218, 219 and 220, which refer to the health and social work professions order. All the spurious arguments that have been made as to why this body cannot have social work in its title are given the lie by the fact that in this legislation the noble Earl is relying on that order. I would have thought that if the HPC was serious about wanting to develop confidence within the social work profession, it would have agreed to have the words “social work” in its title. However, I will not press Amendment 241A concerning the protection of the functions of social workers.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
(a) omit the “or” preceding paragraph (c), and(b) after that paragraph insert “; or””
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, I remind the House that Questions will be at 2.30 pm. If necessary, we will interrupt an amendment at that point or just before.
Amendment 249
Lord Patel
“Public health specialists
(1) In section 25(3) of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002, (regulatory bodies regulated by the Council for the regulation of health care professionals), after paragraph (j) insert—
“(k) those statutory bodies responsible for the regulation of public health specialists including those from backgrounds other than medicine, for whom a statutory register will be established by the Health Professions Council.”(2) In this Act “registered public health specialist” means a person recognised as such on a register maintained by those statutory bodies responsible for the regulation of public health specialists, including those from backgrounds other than medicine.”
Lord Patel
My Lords, Amendment 249 is related to statutory registration. We have been talking about voluntary or statutory registration for the past three hours. I shall be happy if at any time the noble Earl interrupts to stop me trying to make a case for statutory registration for public health specialists because he has already made up his mind that he is likely to accept if not this amendment then statutory registration. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, is trying to intervene.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, a great deal of attention has been paid to public health in this House and we very much welcome that and the efforts by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others. We recognise that public health specialists play a critical leadership role in protecting the public from harm. The Government recognise the strong support for a compulsory statutory regulation system for all public health specialists. I think that that is what the noble Lord was going to say. We agree that it is absolutely essential that all public health specialists, including those not currently subject to compulsory statutory regulation—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen)
The noble Lord has not moved the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
The noble Lord must move the amendment. Does the noble Lord wish to move the amendment?
Lord Patel
I was going to do so after I had heard the noble Baroness speak, because she interrupted my speech. I beg to move the amendment.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, it is important to amend the amendment, if only because it should say “backgrounds other than medicine” or dentistry.
Lord Patel
I should like the noble Baroness to finish her sentence, because I think she was leading on to say professions other than in medicine or dentistry.
Baroness Northover
If noble Lords are happy, I will continue. I will be happy to answer any questions. All public health specialists, including those not currently subject—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, wanted an early indication as to whether the noble Baroness was going to accept the amendment and then allow the debate. He is not looking for a winding-up speech at this point.
Baroness Northover
Noble Lords will know that the Government have already announced their intention to regulate all public health specialists so that we address the anomaly whereby some were regulated and others were not. If that is the answer that the noble Lord was looking for, put briefly, I hope that he will welcome it.
Lord Patel
I welcome those comments. As I understand it, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, is saying that the Government intend through secondary legislation to establish statutory regulation of all public health specialists, including those not in medicine and dentistry. I am grateful for that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ribeiro
“( ) But provision made under subsection (8) may impose a requirement on a local authority, or a description of local authorities, only if the requirement relates to—
(a) the exercise by an authority of any of its functions under section 2B or 111 of, or paragraphs 1 to 7B or 13 of Schedule 1 to, the National Health Service Act 2006;(b) the exercise by an authority of any of its functions by virtue of section 6C(1) or (3) of that Act;(c) anything done by an authority in pursuance of arrangements under section 7A of that Act.”
Lord Ribeiro
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 257. I have tabled the two amendments for the following reasons. The Bill makes provision for local authorities to fund public health drugs and treatments. It also enables provision to be made for the replication of the funding direction to require the NHS to make available funding for NICE-recommended drugs and treatments. However, as currently drafted, the provisions in Clause 236 to enable replication of the funding direction for NICE-recommended drugs and treatments currently exclude their application to local authorities. Subsections (8) and (9) make provision to enable replication in regulations of the effect of the funding direction that currently requires PCTs to make funding normally available for drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE technology appraisal guidance. The amendment would permit other bodies that fund public health services to finance these suggestions as PCTs are phased out of the system, creating a more uniform and streamlined system for patients to manoeuvre through the different health services offered.
As the Bill currently stands, it is impossible for regulations to require local authorities—which take on health functions under new paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) in my Amendment 256—to comply with NICE recommendations to fund such proposals. While these local authorities are likely to be responsible for the funding of such treatments under their public health functions, without codification of their ability to do so in the Bill, there will be no authority to take over the funding of such recommendations to which PCTs remain currently obligated, thus creating a gap in care as health functions are transferred between PCTs and local authorities.
Furthermore, as enshrined in the NHS constitution and its accompanying handbook, NHS organisations are also required by a direction from the Secretary of State to finance drugs and treatments suggested by NICE which are based on sound research evidence. Although the funding direction concerns mainly high-cost drugs or treatments used in NHS secondary care, there have been two or three NICE appraisals that concern public health drugs and treatments. For example, NICE has appraised and recommended a smoking cessation drug, Champix—noble Lords will know of my interest in smoking—which is currently covered by the funding direction. To ensure that this gap in funding does not occur, my amendments would extend the scope of the regulation-making power, enabling requirements to be placed on local authorities exercising their public health functions so that the effect of the funding direction which currently applies to NHS organisations could apply also to them. It is important to note that, while local authorities will have the ability to fund NICE recommendations, this extension relates only to matters dealing with public health. Moreover, regulations will be unable to place a requirement on local authorities to comply with or have regard to NICE recommendations relating to social care, putting limitations on the funding capabilities of local authorities.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I should declare an interest as honorary vice-president of the Local Government Association. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, on closing a lacuna and promoting integration, which has been a strong theme of our debates. He has spotted a difficulty and has dealt with it extremely competently. I trust that the Minister will be able to accept the amendment, which makes great sense and should contribute to the fulfilment of local authorities’ obligations in this sphere.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ribeiro for tabling these amendments, which address the important issue of ensuring that patients have consistent access to appropriate and cost-effective drugs, whether a service is commissioned by the NHS or by local authorities.
As the House will know, NICE’s technology appraisals provide important recommendations on the clinical and cost-effective use of medicines and other technologies in the NHS. The funding direction that applies to recommendations in NICE technology appraisals has helped to ensure equity of access to NICE-recommended drugs and treatments wherever patients live in England.
While technology appraisals are perhaps most commonly associated with specialist drugs or interventions used or initiated in NHS secondary care, they also make important recommendations about drugs and interventions for use in other care settings, including preventive interventions. In future, these are likely to fall within the scope of local authority commissioning responsibilities for public health. My noble friend mentioned the example of Champix. He is right: technology appraisals could address drugs to aid smoking cessation and treatments to tackle substance misuse.
I agree with my noble friend that extending a funding mandate to NICE-appraised drugs or treatments commissioned by local authorities would bring important benefits. It would guarantee patients access to appropriate and cost-effective drugs, whether a service was commissioned by the NHS or by local authorities. In doing so, it would protect patients’ existing rights as set out in the handbook to the NHS constitution, to which he rightly made reference. I am very pleased that I am able to support these amendments and I hope that your Lordships will feel able to support them as well.
Lord Ribeiro
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for accepting the amendments. I thank also the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his kind words.
“( ) For the purposes of this section, a failure to discharge a function properly includes a failure to discharge it consistently with what the Secretary of State considers to be the interests of the health service in England or (as the case may be) with what otherwise appears to the Secretary of State to be the purpose for which it is conferred.”
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, this might be a convenient moment for the House to adjourn until Oral Questions at 2.30 pm.
RAF: Fukushima Accident
(12 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Lee of Trafford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what role the Royal Air Force Regiment played in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)
My Lords, I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of Signaller Ian Sartorius-Jones from 20th Armoured Brigade Headquarters and Signal Squadron; Lance Corporal Gajbahadur Gurung, attached to the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment; Senior Aircraftman Ryan Tomlin, from 2 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment; Sergeant Nigel Coupe from the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; and Corporal Jake Hartley, Private Anthony Frampton, Private Christopher Kershaw, Private Daniel Wade and Private Daniel Wilford, all from the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, who have recently lost their lives in Afghanistan. The whole country owes them all a debt of gratitude for the sacrifice they have made. My thoughts are also with the wounded, and I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude in which they face their rehabilitation.
A three-man RAF Regiment radiation monitoring team, along with an MoD health physicist, deployed to the British embassy in Tokyo from 21 March to 21 April 2011. They conducted air and soil sampling around the embassy and local area and monitored equipment and vehicles for contamination to advise and reassure embassy staff. The team also devised plans to protect UK personnel working at the embassy in the event of a further release from Fukushima.
Lord Lee of Trafford
My Lords, I should like first to join these Benches in the tributes to all those who died in the IED massacre. Perhaps I may also express on behalf of this House our condolences to the relatives of those Afghans who were brutally killed in the recent horrific shooting.
My understanding is that the team that went to Tokyo was part of the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear wing of the RAF Regiment. Is this not yet another excellent example of where service personnel are called on to help in a serious civilian situation of a non-military nature?
Turning now to the major role of the RAF Regiment, may I ask my noble friend whether the regiment is training Afghan forces in Afghanistan in their major role of airfield protection so that they are able to take over when we withdraw our main combat forces?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I join my noble friend in remembering the Afghan civilians who were murdered the other day. I also agree with him that the RAF Regiment’s ability to deploy rapidly and assist in the way that it did is an excellent example of military aid to the civilian authority. The unique skills of the RAF Regiment go far wider than just on the battlefield. As for mentoring the Afghans, members of the RAF Regiment have mentored Afghan police from Helmand’s provincial response company, put them through basic and advanced training and deployed with them in a mentoring role over the past six months. Detailed planning for the redeployment of personnel from Afghanistan is ongoing, and it is too early to say when the RAF Regiment will return.
Lord Rosser
We would wish to join the Minister in offering our sincere condolences to the families and friends of the nine members of our Armed Forces who have recently lost their lives in Afghanistan while in the service of our country. Mere words cannot lessen the pain of separation but we want their families and friends to know that our thoughts are very much with them at the present time.
Could I ask the Minister whether the British nuclear industry has been able to learn any lessons from the knowledge gained from the RAF involvement in the aftermath of the Japanese nuclear power plant accident?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, safety is always our number one concern for the British nuclear power industry. Fukushima changed the energy debate around the world. Questions were rightly raised about the extent and safety of nuclear power—people wanted to know what happened and whether it could happen again. Our chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, undertook a full lessons-learnt analysis on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and my noble friend Lord Marland reported the findings through a Written Ministerial Statement on 11 October last year. Copies of the Weightman report were placed in the House Library.
Lord Stirrup
My Lords, the Royal Air Force Regiment is an example of good practice that is admired and to some extent envied by our US colleagues. In that regard, it contributes to the relationship that was so lauded in today’s edition of the Washington Post by President Obama and the Prime Minister. However, that same edition of the Post warned that the relationship could come under strain because of the defence expenditure reductions that have been made in this country. In his announcement of the SDSR outcome, the Prime Minister personally committed himself to an increase in defence expenditure in the years beyond 2015. Can the Minister say if that personal commitment remains today?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord is trying to put words into my mouth that I would rather not say with the Budget coming up next week.
Lord Jopling
My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware that NATO has annual exercises in doing exactly what the Royal Air Force Regiment has done in this case. In the past those NATO exercises have had minimal involvement from the United Kingdom. Will the Minister be good enough to have a look at all of this again and see if we could play a more positive part in these annual exercises in future?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. I give him my word that I will take it back to the department and see what I can do.
Baroness Harris of Richmond
My Lords, the RAF Regiment is the acknowledged military expert force for CBRN capability. Will my noble friend assure me that there are no plans to reduce its numbers either now, when its work for this country is absolutely critical, or in the foreseeable future?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. I also pay tribute to her for her very strong support for the RAF Regiment over many years. We have announced changes to the number of RAF Regiment field squadrons from 2015 onwards, at the end of operations in Afghanistan, and wider reductions in the overall size of the Royal Air Force that enable a rebalancing of its structure. Two force protection wing headquarters and two field squadrons will draw down over the coming years. However, even with this drawdown, we will continue to have a robust and effective force able to support all future operational requirements, including CBRN protection.
Viscount Slim
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some years ago, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and I spent some hours during the night with the Royal Air Force Regiment in Afghanistan observing its infantry and patrol tactics? It showed the very highest level of operational expertise, and the Government should in no way weaken the Royal Air Force Regiment.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I very much take the noble Viscount’s point and quite agree that the RAF Regiment is playing a very important role. I was in Afghanistan the week before last and saw for myself the important role that it is carrying out.
Public Disorder: Compensation
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Naseby
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of victims of the 2011 summer riots are still awaiting compensation, and what action they propose to take to deal with the situation.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, around 90 per cent of businesses and individuals affected by the riots were insured and the majority have received full or part payment. For those without insurance, the Government set up a claims bureau to manage their claims under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. As of February 2012 over half of all valid uninsured claims have been settled.
Lord Naseby
My Lords, the position on dealing with the domestic claims seems to be pretty reasonable. On the business side, however, the position is not quite so healthy. In particular, is my noble friend aware that the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 requires the police to clear with the insurers that it was technically a riot before full payment can be made? To the best of my knowledge that has not happened yet. Secondly, there is no provision in the Act for payment for business interruption. Finally, the businesses that have suffered greatly have to seek planning permission for rebuilding. Can my noble friend ensure that the police act under the 1886 Act; that some help is found for those who have suffered from business interruption; and that local authorities are asked to speed up the planning process and not charge any of those who apply for such planning permission?
Lord Henley
My Lords, my noble friend has asked quite a number of questions. Although I can assure him that we have urged the police authorities to ensure that compensation is paid as swiftly as possible to all those who are entitled, we want to make sure that it is paid only to those who are entitled. He is right to address the point that the 1886 Act—which, obviously, was passed some time ago—does not cover business interruption. That is why we think that there should be a review of the Act, and we will consider all options in due course. As I stressed earlier, we believe that some 90 per cent of those who suffered, whether businesses or otherwise, had insurance, and as likely as not that insurance would have included business interruption. The 1886 Act comes from another era when these matters were not considered. As for the planning point, I will take that on board and consult colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel. The Minister has just told the House that 90 per cent of individuals making claims to insurance companies have been paid, and the Association of British Insurers has a similar figure—85 per cent—for small businesses, and yet only half of those claiming under the RDA have been paid. Can the Minister account for the difference? Does he think there is any truth in the rumour that the reason there is such a big difference is that police authorities are setting such a high standard for the evidential basis and the paperwork, which is way in excess of that required by commercial insurance companies? Does he think that that is causing the delay?
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a valid point, and I pay tribute to the work that she did earlier on these matters. However, it is also important to look at the fact that those who were not insured were the sort of people who probably did not have adequate records about what they had in their shops—and I am thinking particularly of shops—and one therefore needs to conduct the loss-adjustment process very carefully. As she will know, people often make what one might describe as overgenerous claims when they do not have the appropriate records of what they had in their particular shop or business, and those things need to be looked at carefully. However, as I made clear in my response to my noble friend, it is important that we make sure that the police deal with these matters as quickly as possible. That is what we have been urging them to do and that is why we have set in motion a number of measures to speed up the process.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that in the review of the 1886 Act not only will great effort go into defining the categories of claimants and types of claim but anxious thought will be given to the most central and existential question of whether it should be police authorities that bear the full responsibility for such damages, bearing in mind that the society in which we now live differs very greatly from that of 1886?
Lord Henley
My Lords, when I first answered this Question I was keen to emphasise that it was an 1886 Act. For that reason, the noble Lord is right to emphasise that we are in a very different world from 1886—it is now 125 years on from that date. All I can say about the review is that we will consider all options for reform. Perhaps I may give just one example. The 1886 Act, quite obviously, did not look at damage to motor vehicles, for the very simple reason that they did not exist in 1886.
Lord Cotter
My Lords, setting aside the issues about loss adjusters and suchlike, did not the Government announce in August that there would be £20 million to support small businesses and help them with minimum bureaucracy? Although these issues are being followed up, is it not very unsatisfactory that, in the mean time, this fund has not been dipped into sufficiently quickly? Exactly how much has been paid out under that fund?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I cannot answer my noble friend’s point absolutely but I can say that the Government have made payments of over £71 million to police authorities in respect of both operational costs and riot damages claims. Obviously, as I have been trying to make clear in the course of this Question, we are concerned about the speed which this has been dealt with. That is why we have been urging the police authorities to deal with these matters as quickly as possible. I can give an assurance to my noble friend that, on top of that, my right honourable friend the policing Minister has seen representatives of both the policing authorities and the insurance companies to make sure that these matters are dealt with as quickly as possible.
Planning: Ancient Woodland
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Redesdale
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve ancient woodland protection in the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, ancient woodland and the substantial contribution it makes to our environment is very important to the coalition Government. We will reflect this importance in the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework, but noble Lords will understand that I cannot anticipate its content before it is published.
Lord Redesdale
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, there is a great deal of concern that the caveat placed on the value of economic development as a reason for granting planning permission could be seen as a worry, especially as it is sometimes quite difficult to put an economic value on ancient woodland, which is clearly irreplaceable. Secondly, has the Minister considered dipping into his own pocket and contributing to the Woodland Trust’s Jubilee Woods campaign? It includes a copse for parliamentarians. Perhaps I may add before the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, laughs that I am sure that he will be contributing as well.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the first point is that no economic value can be put on ancient woodland, because it is irreplaceable. The consultation draft framework maintained a strong protection but, as with current policy, it did not entirely close the door on any loss of ancient woodland. For example, a loss might be justified where a local highway authority wants to make a road junction improvement to save lives. However, as we are carefully considering all the responses on this policy, I am not going to speculate about the content of the final framework.
The Earl of Clancarty
My Lords, will the Minister take note that the destruction of ancient woodland is not just a threat but a reality as, appallingly, we have lost 111 such areas in the past 10 years? Will he also take serious consideration of the wider picture of the potential loss to development of large areas of important woodland through council sell-offs, such as, indeed, the recent decision by Somerset County Council to sell a sizeable area of the Quantocks, a decision which many hope will be reversed—land which Wordsworth and Coleridge once roamed across and the public have had access to for a very long time?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Earl refers to incidents affecting ancient woodland. That was an incident of ancient woodland being taken but I suspect that it does not necessarily mean that the whole of the wood has been taken. When ancient woodland is sold, perhaps by a local authority, it does not alter the need to obtain planning consent for any development; and as noble Lords know, it is very difficult to get planning consent if it involves taking ancient woodland.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
My Lords, trees and woodlands are enormously important to us and to the future of our world, and the tree planting scheme to mark the Diamond Jubilee is yet one more example of that. However, can the Minister assure me that within the National Planning Policy Framework there will be proper protection for undesignated trees and woodland areas and an encouragement to create more community-owned woodlands in this country?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am sure that there will be protection for undesignated woodland. However, the point is that there is very strong protection for ancient woodland because it cannot possibly be replaced or replicated.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, as the Minister will know, the provisional ancient woodland inventory of England and Wales was prepared by the Nature Conservancy Council and is now commonly referred to as the provisional ancient woodland register. Is he satisfied that the ancient woodland register, being provisional, is an adequate basis for the protection purportedly afforded ancient woodlands by paragraph 169 of the NPPF?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am satisfied that the NPPF will protect ancient woodland.
Lord Tope
My Lords, the Minister has said that he will not speculate on the content of the final version. Can he tell us when our speculation will end, when it will be published and when we can judge for ourselves whether the final version of the NPPF gives equal weight to longer-term environmental and social concerns, as it undoubtedly will to more immediate demands for economic growth?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the short answer to my noble friend is: the end of the month.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Like other noble Lords I have been waiting patiently for the noble Earl to respond to the other question from the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, about whether he will contribute to the fund that has been established.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, in the present economic situation, would the Minister not agree that British woodlands and forests should be developed in the most commercial way possible while making allowances for ancient woodland? Does he also agree that such woodlands can be treated as quite small areas, rather like sites of special scientific interest?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, all noble Lords understand the environmental benefit of ancient woodland, but it has some commercial benefit as well. Interestingly, hardwood production in the UK amounts to half a million tonnes and total softwood production is 9.5 million tonnes.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I should perhaps declare that I own a small tract of ancient woodland in south Suffolk. Given the increasing recognition of the revitalising influence of woodland in an increasingly denatured culture, are the Government sympathetic to trying to encourage the laying down of new deciduous woodland?
Syria
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Chidgey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for providing humanitarian aid and security assistance to help relieve the unfolding crisis in Syria.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, we continue to fund humanitarian organisations working in the region to provide help to those in need and have already given £2 million to that effect. We have also increased core funding significantly to humanitarian agencies this year to cover their ongoing work. The stabilisation unit operated jointly by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence is looking at what future support Syria might need from the UK and the international community to make a political transition to an open, democratic and stable state. It has also organised the recent deployment of an expert team to the region to collect evidence of human rights violations and atrocities committed by the Syrian regime.
Lord Chidgey
I thank my noble friend for that full reply. However, following reports on Australian television by the director of Human Rights Watch, Nadim Houry, confirming that the Syrian army is now sowing landmines along its borders directly in the path of fleeing refugees, threatening yet another atrocity, will the Government redouble their efforts to persuade other nations, particularly Russia, China and Turkey, to try to press Assad into allowing independent observers into Syria? As an extension to my noble friend’s Answer, will he give me more detail on timing in relation to deploying the stabilisation unit and security resources when the transitional period has started?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend is quite right. Access for independent observers or, indeed, access for humanitarian relief is the problem in this very dangerous situation. We have been working hard at the United Nations. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has been working extremely hard and taking the lead in trying to persuade Russia and China to take a more positive and co-operative attitude in all aspects, including, of course, getting a more effective UN resolution forward which would, we hope, increase the heat and pressure on Mr Bashar al-Assad. That is what is going on at the moment.
As for the mine situation, I have seen the reports of mines being laid. Syria is not—regrettably but perhaps not unsurprisingly—a signatory to the international prohibitions against land mines. This is yet one more area where we will increase to the maximum volume and ability our pressures on the Syrian regime to behave in a less uncivilised and more understanding way.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
The Minister referred to the human rights mission that has been sent to the region. Would the Foreign Office classify decisions by the Syrian regime to prevent humanitarian access to the areas that need it most as a breach of international humanitarian law which may, one day, need to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court?
Lord Howell of Guildford
That is certainly possible. The position vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court is that the commission of inquiry of the UN, as I think the noble Lord will know, clearly stated its concerns that crimes against humanity have been committed in Syria and that this may be a matter for the International Criminal Court. The United Kingdom will not rule out referral to the International Criminal Court, as suggested by Mrs Pillay, the human rights commissioner. The COI report does not specifically recommend a referral to the court, nor does the Human Rights Council have the power to refer cases. It would be for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC prosecutor. That is the formal position and I must stick closely to those words about it.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, is not the difficult thing that human rights abuses are being carried out every day? Does the noble Lord have any information about the appalling report that boys over the age of 11 are being arrested and face a very uncertain and horrible future in the city of Homs? Does he agree that, without the courageous reporting of people like the late Marie Colvin, we do not have the information on a day-by-day basis? We have it only retrospectively. What we need to know is what is happening while it is happening. Can the Minister give us any information about what our colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, has been able to say following her visit to President Assad?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I have to agree with almost all that the noble Baroness says. Our friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, has, indeed, been there and did get some access to Baba Amr. She has reported back to the United Nations in very grim terms about what she found; practically every building had been destroyed. As for the other news we get— inevitably not directly because of the access problem and the fact that not a single journalist alive remains in the area—that may well be true. There are clearly horrific events and horrific murders and atrocities taking place. Not every one can be corroborated, but it is unquestioned that there are evil doings almost beyond the power of words being conducted in the name of the Syrian Government and perhaps on the opposition side as well. These are revolting events and in due course I hope all responsible will be held to account for them properly.
Lord Wright of Richmond
Can the Minister confirm that the Government still support the efforts by the former United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, to bring a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria? I am delighted to hear from the noble Lord that we are channelling our assistance through international organisations and humanitarian organisations. Does he agree that we should also be sure that any assistance given to Syria does not complicate the mission of Mr Kofi Annan?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I am sure that that approach is right, but the difficulty is, as Mr Kofi Annan himself has found in his most recent discussions with Bashar al-Assad, that the Syrian President seems very reluctant to move from his present policy of giving certain reassurances while the violence and killing carry on. That is the difficulty. As the noble Lord knows, Mr Lavrov was there, accompanied by other senior Russian officials. They thought that they could get some undertakings from Bashar al-Assad; and, indeed, words were given. However, even while they were speaking, the killing was continuing. So I am afraid that at the moment, while one appreciates that there has to be a twin track of trying to get this man, this president, to desist from his all-out violence of the most atrocious kind, all efforts by Kofi Annan and others have so far not proved successful. This remains the line to go forward. We are working with the Russian and Chinese officials and ambassadors, and with the United Nations, to make them see that we must have a combined approach.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that in bringing Russia to the table it is important to recognise that Saudi Arabia’s and Qatar’s attempts to arm the rebels will only prolong the conflict, not help to bring it to an end? Does he further agree that Russia’s long-standing animosity to Saudi Arabia, not least as regards Afghanistan, will not make it come to the table unless we reduce the arms and hostility going into the conflict from other players?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend may be right. The Arab League as a whole has taken a strong lead. Some members of the Arab League—my noble friend mentioned Qatar and Saudi Arabia—say that they want to go further and provide arms. We are not sure at this moment whether they are doing so. They may have a case for taking that action in particular areas. However, our general approach is the same as that of my noble friend. We believe that the best course is to try to get peaceful transition, to get both sides to desist from the killing, and particularly and obviously to get the Syrian Government to desist from their atrocious and murderous attacks on communities in Homs and other cities. That must be the approach. Pouring in arms on a large scale would certainly not help.
Companies Act 2006 (Amendment of Part 23) (Investment Companies) Regulations 2012
Baroness Wilcox
That the draft regulations and orders be referred to a Grand Committee.
Health and Social Care Bill
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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15:31 - Division on Amendment 292 - Ayes: 187 / Noes: 244 - Amendment 292 disagreed.
16:55 - Division on Amendment 292A. - Ayes: 196 / Noes: 253 - Amendment 292A disagreed.
18:07 - Division on Amendment 300A - Ayes: 178 / Noes: 237 - Amendment 300A disagreed.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, I shall speak also to the other 41 amendments in this group, some of which, I stress, are minor, technical or consequential.
Part 9 establishes the information centre in primary legislation, setting out its powers in relation to the collection, analysis, publication or dissemination of information. Several noble Lords, as well as the British Medical Association and the NHS Future Forum, have expressed a keen interest in the need to ensure an appropriate balance between the protection of patient information and the use and sharing of information to improve patient care. For example, I recall that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, stressed the need to provide,
“safeguards that are strong enough to protect patients”.—[Official Report, 21/12/11; col. 1802.]
She is, of course, absolutely right. We are sensitive to these concerns.
Your Lordships have already approved amendments that raise the threshold required for the board and CCGs to disclose personal information. Government Amendments 268, 280 to 282, 284, 285 and 287 to 289, which are supported by the BMA, further strengthen the protections in the Bill in relation to confidential personal information. Government Amendment 268 would in effect restrict the bodies that are able to request the centre to collect confidential personal information to the principal bodies—that is Monitor, NICE and the CQC—or any other body prescribed in regulations. It also restricts the making of such requests to a person to whom information may be lawfully disclosed—for example, because they have obtained consent or have a power in statute to require such disclosure—or where the information may be lawfully disclosed to the centre.
Government Amendment 272 limits the circumstances in which the information centre may require provision to it of confidential personal information. Government Amendments 280, 281, 282, 284, 285, 287 and 288 clarify when dissemination by the information centre of information which identifies or enables the identity of an individual to be ascertained would be permitted, and when the information centre may be directed to disseminate or not to disseminate information. Government Amendment 289 would require the information centre to publish a code of practice for health or social care bodies or anyone providing publicly funded health or social care on how to deal with person-identifiable or other confidential information.
We believe these amendments strike the right balance between appropriately protecting an individual’s confidential personal information and ensuring that the wider benefits of safely and securely sharing information, which include improvements in the quality of services and treatments, can be realised. There are also a number of minor and technical amendments to improve the drafting of the clauses and to ensure that they can be effectively exercised in practice.
Government Amendments 291A to 291D and 297A to 297D are intended to provide a further degree of future-proofing to ensure that the exact requirements for the future development and delivery of informatics systems to support the health and care sector can be met. Last week, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health highlighted our approach for delivering informatics systems in the future. We intend that the board and the Secretary of State will be supported in the management of informatics systems and services by a lean delivery organisation that will take over from NHS Connecting for Health from April 2013. We are currently looking at where these delivery functions will sit, with the information centre as an option to house some or all of this work. These amendments would enable provision to be made so that the centre could exercise the functions of the Secretary of State or the board in relation to delivering these systems. The amendments will also help to future-proof the legislation so that the provisions can support a more flexible, agile approach to delivering informatics systems in the future. I beg to move.
Baroness Wheeler
My Lords, I welcome and support the government amendments in this group. In Committee, I stressed our strong support for placing the Health and Social Care Information Centre on a firmer statutory footing and replacing the current special health authority. The centre, male-midwived by my noble friend Lord Warner, as he put it, was set up by the Labour Government and has enjoyed a large measure of success, particularly in developing the bedrock quality improvement initiatives in the NHS. I stressed then that if we are able to get the patient confidentiality issues right, the UK has a huge opportunity to lead the world in health research.
The government amendments go a long way towards meeting the concerns expressed by me and other noble Lords on safeguarding patient confidentiality and the need to place a greater emphasis on obtaining consent from the patient when this information is collected or published. The information centre now has to obtain consent before it publishes information that could identify a person.
The new clause in Amendment 268, in particular, which establishes what type of information is confidential and how the information centre must deal with information, is a major step forward, as is the new clause outlined in Amendment 289 requiring the information centre to develop a code of conduct on confidential information.
The noble Earl quoted me from Committee stressing the need for safeguards that are strong enough to protect patients. As that is the first time that I have ever been quoted by the Government, I think I can legitimately claim credit for the subsequent amendments. The extra safeguards to protect patients—for example, detailing when the Secretary of State can request information and who can request the information centre to collect information, and ensuring that consent must be obtained where the information is deemed confidential—are all vital to ensure public and patient confidence that information will be properly acquired, stored, used and published.
We also strongly support Amendment 268, limiting the range of bodies that can request that the information centre collect personal or confidential information to principal bodies, such as Monitor, CQC or NICE, which are able to make a mandatory request because they have obtained consent and have the power under statute.
On the code of conduct, I hope that the noble Earl will assure us that there will be widespread consultation on the development of a code. I should also be grateful if he could reassure the House that the code will provide further detail about the proposed mechanisms that the centre will need to obtain the consent of patients. It is obviously important that we get this issue right. What will be the process for obtaining consent where people are unable to provide it—for example, patients who are unable to make decisions for themselves under the Mental Capacity Act 2006?
Finally, the Government’s Statement in the House on 6 December on UK life sciences announced their intention to share much more patient information with the private and independent sectors in an anonymised form to aid medical research and development. I believe that there are to be discussions with the BMA and other appropriate organisations on that matter to ensure strict safeguards that will instil public confidence. We particularly want to be clear how the Government will judge to which companies they will make that information available and what criteria they will use in those circumstances. I should be grateful if the Minister could update the House on progress on that issue.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her broad welcome for this group of amendments. She is absolutely right: they improve the provisions for patient confidentiality and, at the same time, the sharing of information where that is appropriate. I also welcome her endorsement of our approach to the information centre, which, as she rightly said, was set up under the previous Government and, we believe, has proved its worth in the mean while.
She asked a number of questions. On the first one, relating to consultation, yes, we will work with a range of groups in developing the code and will publish proposals in due course. On her other questions about the mechanisms for consent and obtaining consent from patients who are unable to give it because of mental incapacity, I hope that she will allow me to write a letter to save the time of the House but also because I want to get my answers absolutely correct, and I fear that I would leave important things out if I tried to answer her now.
Baroness Wheeler
My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, what about the point relating to UK life sciences and the information given to the private and independent sectors?
(a) it is made by a principal body, and(b) the body considers that the information which could be obtained by complying with the request is information which”
“(i) the code of practice prepared and published by the Centre under section (Code of practice on confidential information), and(ii) ”
“Requests for collection under section 254: confidential information
(1) A request under section 254 is a confidential collection request if it is a request for the Information Centre to establish and operate a system for the collection of information which is in a form which—
(a) identifies any individual to whom the information relates who is not an individual who provides health care or adult social care, or(b) enables the identity of such an individual to be ascertained.(2) A person may make a confidential collection request under section 254 only if the request—
(a) is a mandatory request,(b) relates to information which the person making the request (“R”) may require to be disclosed to R or to the Information Centre by the person holding it, or(c) relates to information which may otherwise be lawfully disclosed to the Information Centre or to R by the person holding it.”
“(2A) But the Information Centre may not impose a requirement under subsection (1)(a) for the purpose of complying with a confidential collection request falling within section (Requests for collection under section 254: confidential information)(2)(c).
(2B) In such a case, the Information Centre may, however, request any person mentioned in subsection (2) to provide it with any information which the Centre considers it necessary or expedient for the Centre to have for the purpose of complying with the request.”
“( ) If the Information Centre considers it appropriate to do so, the Centre may make a payment to any person mentioned in subsection (2)(b) who has provided information to the Centre pursuant to a request made under subsection (2B) in respect of the costs to that person of doing so.”
(i) the relevant person has consented to the dissemination, or(ii) ”
“( ) the information is in a form which identifies any individual to whom the information relates who is not a relevant person or enables the identity of such an individual to be ascertained and the individual has consented to the dissemination;”
“(3A) The Information Centre may also disseminate, in such form and manner and at such times as it considers appropriate, any information which it collects pursuant to a direction under section 253 or a request under section 254 (whether or not it falls within subsection (2)) to any person to whom the information could have been lawfully disclosed by the person from whom the Centre collected the information.
(3B) The Information Centre may also disclose information which it obtains by complying with a direction under section 253 or a request under section 254 (whether or not it falls within subsection (2)) if—
(a) the information has previously been lawfully disclosed to the public,(b) the disclosure is made in accordance with any court order,(c) the disclosure is necessary or expedient for the purposes of protecting the welfare of any individual,(d) the disclosure is made to any person in circumstances where it is necessary or expedient for the person to have the information for the purpose of exercising functions of that person conferred under or by virtue of any provision of this or any other Act,(e) the disclosure is made in connection with the investigation of a criminal offence (whether or not in the United Kingdom), or(f) the disclosure is made for the purpose of criminal proceedings (whether or not in the United Kingdom).(3C) Paragraphs (a), (b) and (f) of subsection (3B) have effect notwithstanding any rule of common law which would otherwise prohibit or restrict the disclosure.”
“( ) For the purposes of this section and section (Dissemination: directions under section 253 and requests under section 254) the provision by the Information Centre of information which it has obtained by complying with a direction under section 253 or a request under section 254 to the person who gave the direction or made the request is to be treated as dissemination by the Centre of that information to that person.”
“Other dissemination: directions under section 253 and requests under section 254
(1) A direction under section 253 may require the Information Centre to disseminate information which it obtains by complying with the direction if the information falls within subsection (2).
(2) Information falls within this subsection if—
(a) the information is required to be published under section 258;(b) the information is in a form which identifies any relevant person to whom the information relates or enables the identity of such a relevant person to be ascertained and—(i) the relevant person has consented to the dissemination, or(ii) the person giving the direction, after taking into account the public interest as well as the interests of the relevant person, considers that it is appropriate for the information to be disseminated;(c) the information is in a form which identifies any individual to whom the information relates who is not a relevant person or enables the identity of such an individual to be ascertained and the individual has consented to the dissemination;(d) the Centre is prohibited from publishing the information only by virtue of it falling within section 258(2)(c) and the person giving the direction considers it would be in the public interest for the information to be disseminated.(3) A direction under section 253 may require the Information Centre to exercise—
(a) the power conferred by section 259(3A) in relation to information which it collects pursuant to the direction, or(b) any other power it has under or by virtue of any other provision of this Act (other than section 259(1) or (3B)) or any other Act to disseminate information which it obtains by complying with the direction. (4) A request under section 254 may request the Information Centre to exercise—
(a) the power conferred by section 259(1) or (3A) in relation to information which it obtains by complying with the request, or(b) any other power it has to disseminate such information under or by virtue of any other provision of this or any other Act.(5) A direction under section 253 may require, and a request under section 254 may request, the Information Centre not to exercise the power conferred by section 259(1) or (3A) in relation to information which it obtains by complying with the direction or request.
(6) Section 254(3) does not apply in relation to anything included in a mandatory request by virtue of subsection (4) or (5).
(7) A requirement imposed on, or a request made to, the Information Centre in accordance with this section to disseminate information may include a requirement or request about the persons to whom the information is to be disseminated and the form, manner and timing of dissemination.”
“Code of practice on confidential information
(1) The Information Centre must prepare and publish a code in respect of the practice to be followed in relation to the collection, analysis, publication and other dissemination of confidential information concerning, or connected with, the provision of health services or of adult social care in England.
(2) For the purposes of this section “confidential information” is—
(a) information which is in a form which identifies any individual to whom the information relates or enables the identity of such an individual to be ascertained, or(b) any other information in respect of which the person who holds it owes an obligation of confidence.(3) Before publishing the code, the Information Centre must consult—
(a) the Secretary of State,(b) the Board, and(c) such other persons as the Centre considers appropriate.(4) The Information Centre must not publish the code without the approval of—
(a) the Secretary of State, and(b) the Board, so far as the code relates to information concerning, or connected with, the provision of NHS services.(5) The Information Centre must keep the code under review and may revise it as it considers appropriate (and a reference in this section to the code includes a reference to any revised code).
(6) A health or social care body must have regard to the code in exercising functions in connection with the provision of health services or of adult social care in England.
(7) A person, other than a public body, who provides health services, or adult social care in England, pursuant to arrangements made with a public body exercising functions in connection with the provision of such services or care must, in providing those services or that care, have regard to the code.”
“( ) For the purposes of this section, a failure to discharge a function properly includes a failure to discharge it consistently with what the Secretary of State considers to be the interests of the health service in England or (as the case may be) with what otherwise appears to the Secretary of State to be the purpose for which it is conferred.”
“(d) requiring the Centre to exercise such systems delivery functions of the Secretary of State or (as the case may be) the Board as may be specified.”
“( ) A function required to be exercised by a direction given by the Secretary of State or the Board by virtue of subsection (1) is subject to directions given by the Secretary of State or (as the case may be) the Board about the exercise of the function.”
“( ) A power conferred on the Secretary of State under subsection (1)(d) must provide that a direction may include provision about payments by the Secretary of State to the Information Centre for things done in the exercise of the function in respect of which the direction is given.
( ) A power conferred on the Board under subsection (1)(d) must provide that a direction must permit the Information Centre to charge the Board a reasonable fee in respect of the cost of complying with the direction.
( ) A power conferred under subsection (1)(d) must provide that the giving of a direction does not prevent the Secretary of State or (as the case may be) the Board from exercising the function in respect of which the direction is given.”
““systems delivery function”—
(a) in relation to the Secretary of State, means a function of the Secretary of State which is exercisable in relation to the development or operation of information or communications systems in connection with the provision of health services or of adult social care in England;(b) in relation to the Board, means a function of the Board which is exercisable in relation to the development or operation of information or communications systems in connection with the provision of NHS services.”
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this returns us to a debate that we had in Committee on the future of the National Patient Safety Agency. I am a former chair of the National Patient Safety Agency, which was established following work by the former Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, looking at the experience of the airline industry, which over the years has developed a very effective system of learning from mistakes.
In the airline industry, airline pilots have the confidence to report near misses and other incidents because that is done on the basis of no recriminations. The evidence from those reports is put together to help the airline industry to become safer and it has been outstandingly successful over the years. That was the intention of the National Patient Safety Agency. It undertakes many roles but the core role is the national reporting and learning system which is aimed at carrying out the same process as in the airline industry.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. As a Minister, I, too, had responsibility for the NPSA and I was responsible when we introduced the reporting system. It is easy to forget how difficult it was to secure agreement across the NHS to that reporting system. There was a great deal of nervousness about it and it has certainly taken time to build up the confidence, across the country, that ensures that most service providers are now engaged with reporting these incidents. If we put that reporting system under a powerful body that is responsible for commissioning, there is a real danger about maintaining the support for the level of reporting that we have achieved. There is a risk that, without a few more safeguards in the arrangements, we may see a dropping off in the reporting of those incidents. Providers will be nervous about how commissioners will interpret the reporting of those incidents. That is the nub of the issue. I think we have a real problem about how we can carry on building on the good work done by the NPSA on that reporting system and ensuring that we continue to give confidence to the NHS to report these incidents in the service of the greater good. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about protecting the gains that we have made so far in this area.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, I speak in support of what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. There is real anxiety that people will be frightened to admit to and report errors, if they feel that that could threaten, in any way, the contracting of the service that they are working in. Who in the new system will be responsible for rolling out training that has come from the cataloguing and analysis of problems, and how will the lessons learnt in devolved nations be fed into the system for the UK as a whole. Indeed, how will lessons learnt in England be fed out to the devolved nations?
Lord Patel
My Lords, I speak as somebody who has been involved with the National Patient Safety Agency for longer than the noble Lord, Lord Warner, as a Minister, or the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as its chairman, as I chaired it for four years. What is important is that the National Patient Safety Agency, as it is currently, has been unable to be effective. It has not been effective because it is not mandatory to adopt, implement or use the learning produced from the reports it receives from all healthcare providers on systems failures that may cause harm to patients. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that whatever the new arrangements are, the learning produced from systems failures will be implemented, or will be expected to be implemented.
I do not know whether the Commissioning Board is the ideal place for it—I understand that it is taking over the group that looked after the analysis of the reports. Therefore, it will be its task to disseminate all the learning that comes from it. The actual collection of information or data will be outsourced on a contractual basis to Imperial College. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that. The important issues are that the information on systems failure is collected and that the lessons learnt are available to all those who commission and provide healthcare. They must be implemented.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I hope it goes without saying—I think that all noble Lords would agree—that patient safety has to be the key priority for all those working in the health service. We cannot allow it to be an add-on or an afterthought. For that reason, the Bill puts safety at the heart of the NHS, not at arm’s length. Currently, the National Patient Safety Agency’s core function is to improve the safety of NHS care by promoting a culture of reporting and learning from adverse events. It does that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly mentioned, through its national reporting and learning system. As noble Lords are aware, it is our intention that Clause 22, or new Section 13Q, will give the NHS Commissioning Board responsibility for this function, including the collection of information about patient safety incidents, the analysis of that information and the sharing of the resulting learning with providers of NHS care—those who contract with clinical commissioning groups or directly with the board.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked whether it was sensible to do as we propose. Safety is, of course, a key domain of quality and we believe that the board, as the body legally responsible for ensuring continuous quality improvement in the NHS, will be best placed to drive a powerful safety agenda through the NHS. The board will use its leadership, expertise and oversight of the system, including oversight of the national reporting and learning system, to lead continuous quality and safety improvement. Its unique perspective would allow it to ensure that appropriate levers are used to drive safety improvement across the system, based on the needs of the NHS. Embedding safety across the system is vital to increase the pace of development, and it is the intention that the patient safety function will be conferred on the shadow body—the NHS Commissioning Board authority—in June of this year.
It is intended that the operational management of the NPSA’s national reporting and learning system will transfer on a temporary basis to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust on 1 April 2012. From April, Imperial College will manage the team responsible for the existing NRLS function for a temporary period of two years. During the two-year period a full tendering process will be developed by the NHS Commissioning Board that is intended to identify the future specification of requirements for a national system to capture and analyse patient safety incident data.
Within the board there will be a patient safety team of around 40 staff led by the director of patient safety and bringing together policy, insight, advice and guidance. The arm’s-length bodies review recommended the abolition of the National Patient Safety Agency. It made clear that the agency’s functions, while necessary within a system supporting wider quality and safety improvement, did not need to be performed at arm’s length. For me, one of the key arguments for making this change is that the National Patient Safety Agency did not have the authority or position to exploit fully the information gained from the national reporting and learning system. In contrast, the board will have the necessary authority and be positioned at the very heart of the system, and therefore be better placed to lead and drive improvements.
The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Warner, questioned whether the board was actually the right body. I understand the noble Lords’ concerns regarding the independence of the NRLS, but I feel as well that the board will prove to do an excellent job. In particular, it is worth remembering the board’s specific duty with regard to this in new Section 13Q.
As regards conflicts of interest, the NPSA is not being placed within the Commissioning Board as an ALB organisation; it is being abolished. We are putting safety at the heart of the NHS. The NHS Commissioning Board will assume responsibility for securing some functions of the patient safety division of the NPSA relating to reporting and learning from patient safety incidents so that we can embed patient safety into the health service through commissioning and the contracts that commissioners agree with providers. If incident reports suggest that commissioning is the problem, this would be picked up by the system.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked me what the proposals will mean in the context of the devolved Administrations. There is provision in the Bill for the NHS Commissioning Board to make information on reporting and learning available to others as it deems appropriate. Such information may be shared with devolved Administrations, and the board will have powers to enter into agreements with them to provide services.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked who would be responsible for making the information available and acted upon. The board will have responsibility for provision of all appropriate guidance and advice. It is for the board to determine how best to ensure that this information is made available, particularly in the NHS. Clinical commissioning groups must have regard to that advice and ensure, through their contracts with providers or otherwise, that appropriate steps are taken to reduce risks and secure the safety of patients. The board would have to ensure that the advice and guidance that it provides is effective. The Bill also provides the board with the ability to deliver any of these functions through those that it considers best placed to maximise safety.
Patients rightly expect that any service provided through NHS funding will be safe, and making the board responsible for the key functions on safety will place responsibility for the safety of care where it should be—at the centre of the NHS. In saying that, however, I pay tribute to the positive contribution made by the National Patient Safety Agency and to make clear that its abolition is not at all to belittle its functions. It is, rather, a consequence of ensuring that vital functions are carried out in the best place in the new system. I believe that this is at the heart of the NHS—with the board—rather than at arm’s length.
I hope that I have sufficiently reassured the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I must say I am very uneasy because I think that the arm’s-length bodies review completely missed the point. It was my understanding that the NPSA itself was not charged with improving safety. The whole point about setting it up was to have an independent body to which people in the NHS could report adverse incidents. Information would then be used in different ways, first in the issuing of safety bulletins and reports on a pattern of safety incidents, which would improve safety in the health service. It was always the expectation that responsibility for safety rested with the health service and the regulator, CQC.
Baroness Greengross
“Human Rights Act 1988: provision of certain personal care and health care services to be public function
(1) A person who is commissioned to provide—
(a) personal care to an individual living in their own home, or(b) a health care service,shall be taken to be exercising a function of a public nature in providing such a service.(2) In subsection (1)(a) “personal care” in relation to England has the same meaning as in paragraph 2 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010 and in relation to Scotland has the same meaning as “personal care and personal support” as defined in section 2(28) of the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 and section 1(1)(c) and Schedule 1 to the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2001.
(3) In subsection (1)(a) and (b) “functions of a public nature” has the same meaning as in section 6(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (acts of public authorities).”
Baroness Greengross
My Lords, if I am a very frail, vulnerable, sick person in need of support or care, and I go into a residential home, my human rights will be protected. In this case, that means the right to dignity, respect, and privacy if I am having intimate care. If I have exactly the same needs and exactly the same services provided for me in my own home, my human rights are not protected. But I am the same person. My human rights now depend on whether I am down the road in a residential home or have the same services in my own home. That cannot be right. This amendment is designed to close the loophole in the law that allows this. It means that if a public body has arranged or contracted the service, it is a public function within the meaning of Section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act, so it brings certainty that I will get my human rights protected. These are not controversial rights—it is just decent care.
We know that almost half a million older people receive essential care in their own homes, commissioned by their local authority in England, excluding the other devolved areas. Approximately 84 per cent of these people lack the protection of the Human Rights Act because their care is provided, as we now know, by private or third sector organisations. We received compelling evidence of the extent of human rights breaches in home care settings in the findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s formal inquiry into the human rights of older people receiving home care. As the lead commissioner on ageing, I was part of that inquiry.
This amendment is supported by many organisations. Among them are Age UK, the British Institute for Human Rights, Disability Rights UK, the Equality and Diversity Forum, Justice, Liberty, Mencap, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. In its report Implementation of the Right of Disabled People to Independent Living, published on 1 March 2012, the Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended that the Health and Social Care Bill should be amended in this way.
My understanding, however, is that while the Government have no argument with the view that the Human Rights Act should apply to private and third sector organisations providing publicly commissioned home care, it seems that they consider that the law provides this coverage already and that this amendment is therefore unnecessary. I share the commission’s view that private providers of services, under arrangements made with the relevant statutory bodies under the NHS Act as amended by the Bill, will not necessarily continue to be carrying out a function of a public nature. The Equality and Human Rights Commission feels that the Department of Health’s analysis of current case law is a bit overoptimistic. Were this question to be determined by a court, the outcome could not be predicted with any certainty.
I want to thank the Minister for giving a huge amount of his time and consideration to these issues. I know that he is wholeheartedly in support of the principles behind my amendment. It is plain that he has an undoubted commitment to avoiding human rights abuses in health and care settings. However, the fact remains that any relevant assurances that he might give us, while very welcome, must fall short of providing the urgent legal clarity about the scope of the Act that I believe to be very important. They would not provide service users with clear legal redress for human rights abuses or breaches, or give providers an immediate legal incentive to apply human rights standards to service delivery.
I am not suggesting that legislative provisions are the only guarantee of human rights protection, but I would argue that they are an important part of the solution. I recognise that, going forward, the Government’s policy agenda could—and, I hope, will—provide opportunities to embed more effectively a human rights approach in health and social care. Seeking change in service culture and practice of services is very important. However, while these policy opportunities are very worthy of consideration, closing this legal loophole would put down a clear legal benchmark that would positively help to build cultural change in the health and social care sector. Such policies that the Government now have, however well-intentioned, are not a substitute for clear legal obligations under the Human Rights Act. Those would give individuals the right of redress against service providers for human rights breaches.
The Government might also have reservations that making express reference to human rights in a health context could cast doubt on other areas beyond health or social care where public services are provided by private bodies. However, I do not agree that a reference solely in health and social care would cast such doubts on other policy areas. Thinking about the operation of such a reference in reverse, it would be difficult to see how a specific reference in justice or education legislation could reasonably affect social care or healthcare.
In closing, I must reiterate that I feel that the law is not certain. In my view, the current legal position is evidently unsatisfactory. There may good arguments to support the view that providers should consider themselves bound by the Act and the duty. There are also legal arguments against that position. There is no way to predict what view a court might adopt. Support for this amendment will clarify beyond doubt the fact that a person commissioned to provide home-based social care or healthcare is performing a public function with the responsibilities that are within such a function and within the meaning of the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act. I hope that the Minister will find it possible to support this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Rix
My Lords, I wish to support Amendment 292A, tabled by my noble friend Lady Greengross. As I am sure your Lordships will appreciate, I approach this issue from the perspective of people with a learning disability and would argue that the provisions of the Human Rights Act should be universally applied and not dependent as to whether an individual receives personal care in a residential setting or in their own home. Such a disparity is both unfair and unjustified, and it is right that we take the necessary steps to clarify matters.
For example, let me remind your Lordships of the appalling abuse highlighted by the BBC’s “Panorama” programme in May of last year. Winterbourne View, near Bristol, was a privately owned assessment and treatment centre where residents with a learning disability were subject to an horrendous culture of ongoing bullying combined with physical and psychological abuse.
I make reference to the abuse at Winterbourne View because, following an amendment in 2008 to the then Health and Social Care Bill, which is now the Act, the law was changed to ensure that care homes in the private and third sectors, when providing care that is publicly commissioned, were within the scope of the Human Rights Act. This was the correct step to take and ensures that all legislation, regulations and guidance regarding personal care which is publicly commissioned and provided for in residential settings is underpinned by the tenets of the Human Rights Act.
For those who face the ongoing consequences of prejudice and discrimination every day of their lives—such as people with a learning disability—the Human Rights Act can have benefits that go well beyond the preconceptions of those who are eager to dismiss it as a dangerous irrelevance. However, while the individuals concerned who suffered abuse in Winterbourne View or any other residential setting are able to turn to the Human Rights Act in seeking recourse for what occurred, if a similar type of abuse happened while they were receiving publicly funded personal care within the parameters of their own home, it may be assumed by victims, local authorities and others that they would not be able to do so due to the lack of clarity. This is self-evidently a completely unacceptable state of affairs and we should not be willing to tolerate such an absurd inconsistency. I would also add that if the CQC had the resources to undertake a greater number of unannounced inspections in all residential settings, it would be easier to identify abuse at an even earlier stage.
When applying the Human Rights Act the principle question must be, “To what extent has an individual’s human rights been violated?”. It should not be, “Under what type of roof did the alleged abuse take place?”. In my view, abuse is abuse is abuse, and it is as simple as that. Respecting an individual’s human rights should be universally applied and not subject to arbitrary levels of determination, such as the situation in which we currently find ourselves.
The Government claim that the loophole does not exist and so there is no need for the matter to be clarified in the way that the amendment requires. What is not in doubt is that, under the current circumstances, it is explicit under statute that when receiving publicly funded personal care services in residential settings, an individual’s human rights can be upheld via the Human Rights Act. However, when that care is received in their own homes, the situation is much more ambiguous and less certain. Therefore, I remain hopeful that the support of Ministers for this amendment will be willingly and freely given.
Lord Low of Dalston
My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment because it seems very clear to me that we do need legislation to clarify the uncertain state of the law relating to the provision of health and social care services commissioned from the private and voluntary sectors. We know how we got to this point. Despite the intention of the then Government that responsibility under the Human Rights Act should generally follow the outsourcing of state functions, in the case of YL v Birmingham City Council the House of Lords held that a private company providing residential care under a contract with a local authority was not carrying out a public function for the purposes of the Human Rights Act. This human rights loophole was closed by Section 145 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, but only for residential care services. The YL case did not directly deal with the question of health or home care services contracted out by the NHS or local authorities, so neither did the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in seeking to undo the YL decision. Thus there remains a lacuna in the law which needs to be addressed.
During the debates on this Bill in Committee, and in a subsequent letter to Peers, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, raised no objections to the Human Rights Act applying to home care provided by private and third sector organisations. Indeed, his letter maintained that publicly commissioned home care is already covered by the Act.
Similar considerations apply in relation to healthcare, because the current Health and Social Care Bill will mean more independent providers being commissioned to provide NHS services. In correspondence with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Government raised no policy objections to the Human Rights Act extending to outsourced NHS services. Indeed, here too the Government have indicated that providing outsourced NHS services already qualifies as a public function under the Human Rights Act, so there is no need for the law to be clarified.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission, after exhaustive legal analysis, has concluded that the matter is by no means so clear-cut. I have a detailed legal briefing here, but your Lordships will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to read it out.
Lord Low of Dalston
There speaks a lawyer. Suffice it to say that everything about the matter is extremely complex and open to question, interpretation or qualification. The YL case took many by surprise. It was hardly clear-cut—the Law Lords were split three to two. They used a factor-based approach to determining whether an organisation other than a public authority is performing functions of a public nature. However, it is fair to say that each and every one of the factors employed is hedged about with qualifications.
In support of its view on outsourced NHS services, the Department of Health cites the Weaver case, where the Court of Appeal decided—once more by a majority—that a registered social landlord was performing a public function when allocating and managing social housing. However, some legal commentators thought that this was a surprising decision too, because it sits oddly with the YL case. This again emphasises the ambiguity of the case law and indicates that the outcome of future cases cannot easily be predicted. Indeed, an opinion obtained by the EHRC from senior counsel suggests that the reverse is the case. After detailed legal analysis of the statutory framework and case law, counsel concluded that each aspect of the Law Lords’ negative reasoning regarding residential care in the YL case applies equally to the provision by private care providers of home care services.
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member the British Institute of Human Rights advisory board, and I apologise for my failing voice. I simply want to add to the very eloquent testimony we have heard so far that surely common sense suggests that an organisation which carries out a public service function that is mandated by a public body and takes public money for that function should be bound by the responsibilities of public service. If it is not, fellow citizens whose rights are abused—and as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and others, this is not uncommon, particularly in old-age care—will have a lesser right of redress. Furthermore, and almost more importantly for the prevention of abuse, providers of this level of care will have little incentive to train individual carers in those notions of dignity and respect that we call human rights.
We have the Government’s response on the record in a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, on 27 February, that all providers of publicly funded health and social care services should consider themselves bound by the Human Rights Act. The Government think that a court would find that the provision of publicly funded personal care at home is a function of a public nature. This is not the same as being legally binding and, perhaps more importantly, the references to “personal care only”—that is to say the all-important Article 8 right to private and family life—are not in the picture at all. So I hope that the Government will accept this amendment.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, in my view, the Human Rights Act applies already to the matters raised in this amendment. The reason for that is fairly straightforward. As your Lordships know, when the Human Rights Act was passed, many functions previously exercised by public authorities were by that time exercised by private individuals and companies. Therefore, the Human Rights Act contained the provision that public authorities should include those in respect of whom certain of their functions are functions of a public nature. That was deliberately adopted to deal with the situation where the public service was in fact given by a private individual or a private company that was not itself a public authority. For the purpose of enforcing the Human Rights Act, bodies that had as any of their functions a public function were responsible in respect of it as if they were a public body.
The case of YL has been referred to. That was not a health case but a case under the National Assistance Act where the local authority had put the lady into a private home. A majority of the House of Lords held that that was not a public function in respect of the private home. It was of course a public function in respect of the local authority, Birmingham City Council, but not in respect of the private home. The Government of the day decided to reverse that decision, not because they thought that the principles of the Human Rights Act should be altered but because they believed that the outcome in that case was wrong. That is what has happened in relation to that type of case, leaving untouched the general principles settled in the Human Rights Act itself.
At the time, the then Government decided to have a consultation on whether the Human Rights Act needed to be amended in some way to deal with these situations. The result of that consultation, so far as I understand, was that nothing needed to be done. The Government put forward an amendment in respect of the YL decision, whose introduction in this House was, I think, in the hands of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. In accordance with what the Government thought about the matter she said:
“Therefore, it remains the Government’s view that, in general, the provision of publicly arranged health and social care should be considered a function of a public nature. The Government will therefore continue to treat those exercising such functions as being subject to the Human Rights Act”—
and ever since that has been the position. She went on:
“I reiterate one important point from the letters. It remains the Government’s firm view that independent providers of NHS care under the National Health Service Act are, as the law currently stands, exercising a function of a public nature”.—[Official Report, 22/05/08; col. GC 632.]
That is to say that independent providers operating under the health service were carrying out a function of a public nature, and therefore the protection of the Human Rights Act applied.
In YL, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, who was one of the minority, expressed the matter in this way: he thought the answer to the question in that case was clear. Unfortunately, not everybody sitting in the case thought the same, but that was his answer. He said:
“When the 1998 Act was passed, it was very well known that a number of functions formerly carried out by public authorities were now carried out by private bodies. Section 6(3)(b) of the 1998 Act was clearly drafted with this well-known fact in mind. The performance by private body A by arrangement with public body B, and perhaps at the expense of B, of what would undoubtedly be a public function if carried out by B is, in my opinion, precisely the case”,
which here is covered,
“by Section 6(3)(b)”.
In his opinion, that was the case in YL. Parliament has gone along with that in the amendment and has said that the minority in the YL case were correct. In particular, it has been affirmed that this applies to the Public Health Act.
Some of the situations that have been mentioned by those who support the amendment have occurred in private residential homes. That does not mean that the Act does not apply; it means that for some reason the Act was not observed in these homes. Sadly, that can happen anywhere in relation to the Human Rights Act. It does not mean that it does not apply; it just means that it has not been carried out.
This amendment is supposed to clarify the law. Your Lordships will notice that its heading states that it applies to certain parts of the health service: it is not in any way a universal provision. The heading states:
“Human Rights Act 1998: provision of certain personal care and health care services to be public function”.
It refers to certain services, not all. I submit that that applies to all in the light of the statute as I have explained it.
As I say, the amendment seeks to clarify the law and close a loophole. Unfortunately, when you start to investigate particular cases of this kind, you are apt to get into areas of risk. What happens if a lady who is getting personal care is staying with her daughter and is not in her own private home? This amendment would not apply to that situation. This is a very difficult area. Those who originally framed the Human Rights Act bore that in mind, and the Act was very carefully framed by the Labour Government of that day. My noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg was extremely careful in selecting the language that was used. As I said, in 2008, when the amendment was made in respect of the National Assistance Act, the position in relation to the health service was very clearly restated. I submit that this amendment is unnecessary, undesirable and risks not covering the whole of the National Health Service provision, as, indeed, it does not attempt to do.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, it is a privilege to act as junior counsel to a leader as distinguished as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. His speech makes it unnecessary for me to speak for long. I respectfully agree with everything that he has said but wish to add a few further points. I am very sorry to disappoint so many of my friends from civil society and their representatives whose eloquent speeches we have heard today. However, I do not think that there is a loophole and, if there were, I do not think that this amendment would remove uncertainty; it would, in fact, increase it.
I am particularly glad to say this in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. He will remember that he was Minister when I was trying, as a GOAT in the Brown Government—noble Lords will know what that means—to persuade his colleagues that we should do something about the YL problem by way of further legislation. Unfortunately, the previous Government were unable to muster support for that and the present coalition Government have given that general problem to the Commission on a Bill of Rights, on which I serve, as one of the issues to consider in the context of whether there should be a Bill of Rights for the United Kingdom. Therefore, the general problem is on the agenda of that commission. When it reports by the end of this year, the Government can then take stock of what to do about it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Low, indicated in his completely accurate account of some of the background, the origin of the problem lies in the majority decision of the Law Lords in the YL case. I believe that the majority in that case asked themselves the wrong question. Instead of asking how to apply the test in Section 6 of the Human Rights Act to cover private care homes, they said to themselves—and made clear—that it was somehow unfair to place greater obligations upon public sector bodies than private sector bodies. I think that was completely the wrong question and they were very bold in deciding not to follow Lord Bingham and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, whose speeches I found completely convincing in logic but also, more importantly, completely in harmony with the intentions of the legislation when it was enacted in 1998.
Lord Wills
My Lords, in supporting the amendment, I hope that it might be helpful to your Lordships’ House if I were to provide more background from the previous Government, for whom I shared ministerial responsibility in this area, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, alluded to. I am privileged to follow him on this, because I have found so often in our past relationships that we share many common objectives but do not always agree on the best way of getting to them.
As we have heard, the problem that the amendment seeks to address arose unexpectedly from a decision in the House of Lords, narrowly decided by a majority of three to two, which removed from vulnerable people basic protections that until then had been widely assumed to be entrenched. The arguments for addressing this problem have been compellingly outlined by other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. These arguments were clear to the previous Government. As the Minister responsible for human rights, I felt that the YL decision did not reflect what Parliament had intended. I will not go into that because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has set out cogently exactly why that is the case. I felt that it would be necessary to legislate to put that beyond dispute.
However, as always, it was necessary within government to agree on the scope of any change and to find an appropriate legislative vehicle. As your Lordships well know, this can often take some considerable time. In 2008, the Health and Social Care Bill, as it then was, was the first opportunity that the previous Government could find to make some progress in putting right the consequences of the YL case. I will come back to this, but here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that this was only a start and did not address the more fundamental problem that the case had thrown up. The change in the 2008 Act was narrow in scope. As we have heard, the changes were limited to residential care services. They did not address the status of health services or home care services that were contracted out by the NHS or local authorities, and contracting out is only likely to increase under the legislation being brought in by this Government. The previous Government ran out of time in making a settled decision on how best to go further. Sadly the noble Lord, Lord Lester, had decided to stop being a GOAT, even before that process was concluded.
Therefore, in the light of all this and the YL judgment, I am not sure why the noble Earl seems to believe that all care from all providers is now covered beyond dispute by the Human Rights Act. I should be grateful if the Minister could set out in detail why he believes that advice to the opposite effect—including, as I understand it, from counsel to the HRC—is wrong. Why is that advice wrong?
The Government also appear to be concerned that accepting the amendment might cause legal uncertainty in other areas outside health and social care. I understand these arguments. I heard them many times when I was in government, but such bureaucratic caution could be extended to arguing against ever legislating for anything. However, in this particular case, if the Government are seriously worried, I suggest to the noble Earl that they may be too late. The 2008 Act has already opened that door. The Government’s suggestion that all these services are already covered, whatever the legal status of that commitment by the Government, has opened the door still wider. The Minister would therefore be unwise to rely on their line of argument, if that is what he is tempted to do in resisting the amendment.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
Can the noble Lord explain what is meant by “certain personal care”, which is unclear, and what is meant by a “health care service”, which is not defined in the Bill? He is saying that we need it clarified. I do not understand how that can be done.
Lord Wills
I am very sorry; the microphone was not working for the beginning of that. If the noble Lord was asking a specific question that he actually wants me to answer, I would be very grateful if he could repeat it.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I am asking whether the noble Lord has any answer to my point and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, about how the references to certain personal care and a healthcare service, which is not defined anywhere in the Bill, will resolve uncertainty rather than create greater uncertainty.
Lord Wills
I understand that fundamental point. That does not argue against the Minister rejecting this amendment in principle. If he believes that that point in itself will create uncertainty, it is very open to the Government to redraft the amendment and specify it more precisely. I would be very content to support this amendment if the Minister said precisely that—that he would accept the amendment, subject to revising and clarifying that particular point. There will always be some areas of ambiguity in any legislation. That is why the courts exist and that is how the noble and learned Lords in this place have made their careers. That does not concern me very much. I would be perfectly content if the Minister stood up and said he was content to accept an amendment along these lines, subject to clarifying what the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord have already identified as an issue.
I also understand that the Government are worried that they may be pre-empting the role of the Care Quality Commission and that this amendment may be unnecessary because of the protections that have been offered by that. Of course it has a role to play but that role should never substitute for the fundamental protections offered to the individual by human rights legislation.
As we have already heard, there is a serious problem of flagrant human rights abuses of older people. They need the protections offered by the Human Rights Act, but it is not just a question of the sort of brutal abuses that we have already heard described today. There are protections against those anyway, but I ask the Minister to consider this: the protection of the Human Rights Act offers fundamental dignity and respect to elderly and often very vulnerable people. I think here of the case of an elderly couple who had been together for 60 years or so but were about to be separated by a local authority. From memory, one of them had dementia and the local authority wanted to provide care for that partner in a specialist facility for dementia care, while the other partner went into more mainstream residential care. They had no protection against that. They were not being refused care. They certainly were not being abused in any of the ways that we have heard about already, but they wanted to spend their remaining years together. The Human Rights Act was the only protection that they had. The case was taken to court. They won and were able to spend their last years together. That is the sort of dignity and respect that elderly, vulnerable people are owed. That is the protection that the Human Rights Act offers them, and that is what this amendment seeks to extend.
Even then, there is a further benefit from extending the protection of the Human Rights Act in the way that this amendment wants to do. Important work that was carried out for the EHRC two or three years ago by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and Professor Klug at the EHRC showed how basic human rights principles of dignity and respect can help transform the culture of public service delivery. The Government could signal the importance that they attach to this by accepting this amendment today.
Throughout the long passage of this Bill, the Minister has been notable for his willingness to listen to and engage with argument and, where he has felt able, to change course. I hope that he will not now seek refuge by pushing this off to the forthcoming White Paper on social care. If media whispers are to be believed, No. 10 does not want that to see the light of day any time soon. Even if it appears, there is no guarantee that this issue will be satisfactorily addressed. Even if it is, it could then be years and years before any appropriate legislative vehicle could be found to make the necessary changes.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I simply say to the noble Lord that he should not believe everything he reads in newspapers.
Lord Wills
Believe me, I try extremely hard not to do so, but I noticed that the noble Lord did not deny the account given in the Daily Telegraph. I hope that it is wrong.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
For the record, I deny the account given in the Mail, in the Telegraph, by Dr Pinto-Duschinsky on the BBC, and anywhere else.
Lord Wills
I am extremely glad to hear that. I hope that the journalists concerned have noted that important denial, which I am grateful to hear from the noble Lord.
If this issue is delayed, we could be looking at years and years when vulnerable elderly people will be denied that fundamental protection. When I was Human Rights Minister, I was certain that we needed to go further than the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in tackling this problem. We ran out of time. The Government now have the time and the vehicle to do what I wish that the previous Government had been able to do. I hope that the Government will seize this opportunity and accept the amendment.
Lord Newton of Braintree
Having listened to the debate, I differ a bit from the noble Lord, Lord Wills. I have heard enough from the two distinguished lawyers who spoke beforehand to come to the view that my noble friend would be very unwise to rush down this path without more time than whatever there is—less than a week—before the intended Third Reading of the Bill to sort out the issue.
As always, my head has been left spinning by the lawyerly contributions from my noble and learned friend here and my noble friend down there. I just want to raise a couple of innocent layman’s questions that may even be a bit naive but which relate to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, raised: what is the definition of all this?
I observe that the heading of the new clause does not talk about provision at the request of a public body, just provision of certain services, implicitly by anybody, whether or not commissioned by a public body. The first sentence reads:
“A person who is commissioned to provide”,
these services, undefined. Private people commission private services from private bodies in many areas—private hospitals, private residential care homes, private chiropodists, private this, that and the other. As far as I can see, the amendment extends the definition of public body to bodies that are not public by any reasonable definition and are not commissioned by public bodies to provide a service. That seems to me to be the natural construction. This is at least as much a question for the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, as for the Minister, but that is how I read it. If that is its purport, it is not sensible and we should not rush into it.
Baroness Wheeler
My Lords, these Benches strongly support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Rix, to which I have added my name. It is frustrating that we appear to have moved no further forward from Committee, when the noble Baroness, a plethora of respected organisations representing older people, mental health, disability and human rights organisations, as well as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, were saying that there was a real problem which needed to be addressed by primary legislation. There are powerful arguments for amending the Bill in line with the amendment. They have again been ably made by noble Lords and I do not need to go over them again.
I believe that my noble friend Lord Wills addressed key points raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and other noble Lords—as far as I was able to follow as a non-lawyer—and indeed acknowledged that this was unfinished business on the part of the previous Government. We amended the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to address this issue in respect of residential care. What has changed dramatically since then is that well over two-thirds of home care services are now provided by the private and voluntary sectors and this Bill is likely to increase the proportion of contracted-out provision still further.
The Government’s view, expressed in Committee, that any further legislation would cause uncertainty in other areas outside health and social care is a strange one. In this light, the obvious counter-argument is that the 2008 Act has already opened the door and, in my view, that factor only strengthens the case for the loophole to be closed off. Analysis by key human rights lawyers, counsel for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, key charities and civil liberties organisations have all endorsed this approach and stressed that case law does not support the Government’s view. As we have heard only recently, the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on independent living again called for the current Bill to be amended to extend the public function definition to the provision of care at home. For me, that is the key point. All these organisations still argue strongly that there is a loophole that needs to be addressed.
Moreover, the Government’s argument, again in Committee, that the YL v Birmingham City Council judgment has not been challenged to demonstrate that home care services are not covered by the Act or existing legislation is also weak, in my view, and does not inspire confidence in what might happen in the future. My understanding is that the subject of the YL judgment was residential care and the scope of the 2008 Act is therefore limited to that.
I hope that the noble Earl will have good news for us that the Government have rethought this issue and recognise the very real problem and concern that exist for the future. I hope that he will accept this amendment. We all agree about the importance of taking a human rights approach to care provision, with dignity and respect for older people embedded. The current loophole in the provision of personal care in the home by third or voluntary sector providers is of deep concern to thousands of recipients of home care. We need to ensure that this key opportunity to achieve clarity in this matter in the current Bill is not missed.
Earl Howe
My Lords, we have heard many excellent speeches in this debate, not least from the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I know that the noble Baroness and all those supporting her are motivated by a determination to ensure that everyone who uses publicly funded health and social care services is protected from abuses of their human rights. I want to make it clear that I absolutely share that determination.
It is crucial that we ensure that vulnerable people are protected, no matter what age they are, no matter whether they have a disability, and no matter where they happen to live or where they happen to be at any given time. The requirement for people to have their human rights protected and respected is not negotiable. This is absolutely fundamental in a civilised and democratic society. The question we have before us today is how best to achieve that, and whether the proposed amendment would help or hinder us in doing so.
Amendment 292A is intended to provide certainty about the coverage of the Human Rights Act with respect to healthcare and home care providers. I understand the noble Baroness’s arguments for her amendment, and I completely agree about the importance of the Human Rights Act and the public sector equality duty. It may provide reassurance if I state clearly and unequivocally that the Government’s view is that all providers of publicly funded health and care services should indeed consider themselves bound by the Act and the duty. This is the position that we expect private and third sector providers to follow and the position that we would argue for if a case were to be brought; and we think there are good arguments with which a court would agree.
Of course, legislative provision is far from the only mechanism we have for ensuring protection for those using healthcare and domiciliary care services and for improving the quality of that care. In fact, we would argue that in order to ensure that users of those services are protected from the kinds of tragic abuses that the noble Baroness and others have spoken about so eloquently, we need to focus efforts on changing the culture and practice of services which provide poor care. We are working hard on several fronts to drive improvements in the way that people, including older people, experience health and social care services. We know that this is essential, and much of it predates the excellent EHRC report that resulted from the inquiry led by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross.
To offer just a couple of examples of the work that we are doing to this end, we have made the Care Quality Commission responsible for assuring quality of care from April. The CQC will undertake a programme of inspections of 200 home care providers that will specifically look at supporting home care workers, the care and welfare of those receiving home care, and the involvement of people in planning and managing their own care. The new disclosure on barring service will replace the vetting and barring scheme in November this year and will make it easier for home care employers to check the suitability of their staff by providing a seamless service and introducing portable criminal record checks.
We know that legislation has a role, which is why we intend to put adult protection on a firm statutory basis for the first time ever by requiring local authorities to convene and manage local safeguarding adult boards, by legislating for their key roles and responsibilities, and by requiring them to be in touch with and accountable to local communities. We expect to see much better sharing of information and action that will help to drive up the safety and quality of services. The forthcoming White Paper on social care, which we intend to publish later this spring, will set out the broader strategic context not only on safeguarding adults but on improving quality in care services overall. The Government also intend to respond to the Law Commission report on adult social care law by creating a single statute for social care supported by statutory principles which place the well-being of individuals at the centre of the decisions made about people.
To return to the amendment itself, I am afraid that, despite the persuasive case put by the noble Baroness and others, I am not able to support it, and I hope that noble Lords will allow me to set out why. The problem is that while, on the face of it, this amendment simply provides helpful certainty about the coverage of the Human Rights Act with respect to health and homecare providers, in reality it has very serious and unhelpful implications for the wider interpretation of the Act. This may sound like a rather dry, legal argument, but it is an extremely important one with very practical consequences. By stating expressly that providers of healthcare and homecare services were covered by the Act, we would cast doubt on whether all the areas beyond health and social care were covered by it. However we framed it—whether we made it an avoidance of doubt provision or a deeming provision—we would weaken the applicability of the general test, suggesting that a narrow interpretation of the Act was appropriate and raising doubt about the Act’s applicability to all those bodies that had not been specified explicitly in the legislation.
We would also encounter the significant problem, referred to by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, of how to ensure that a specific provision of this type did not have the unintended consequence of making the situation less clear with respect to healthcare and homecare services. When noble Lords think of the wide range of services that fall under the banner of homecare services, I am sure they will appreciate the difficulty of drafting legislation that covers all relevant services and avoids any potential loopholes. My noble friend Lord Lester made a similar point. We can see how the proposed amendment, as drafted, makes the situation unclear. It is not clear how it applies to a person receiving care in the home of a family member—a point made by my noble and learned friend—or whether it applies to services provided under direct payment arrangements rather than being commissioned by a local authority or NHS body.
It is for those reasons that the Human Rights Act is quite deliberately designed to make broad provision that applies to all public bodies across the whole range of services. As my noble friend Lord Lester said, the Act is very carefully put together. Any amendment of the Act must be done by looking at it in the round, otherwise we risk destabilising its careful construction. That brings me to another point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Lester.
Lord Wills
Can the Minister clarify one point? Is his objection to the amendment a drafting one—in other words, in an ideal world, were there more time, could a draft be found that would meet the various objections that he has just outlined—or is it one of principle, and is he saying that no such amendment to cover this loophole could conceivably ever be drafted?
Perhaps I may take just a little more advantage of the Minister’s time. He mentioned earlier that, in the Government’s judgment, were a case along the lines described ever to come along, the court would find in favour of the Government’s judgment. If that were not to be the case, can the Minister say whether in those circumstances the Government would be prepared to consider an amendment along the lines of that put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
Before my noble friend replies, perhaps I may have a go as well. The problem is that the more specific the amendment, the more the Latin maxim applies that says that, by expressing something, you are deemed to exclude something else. Therefore there is a great danger in ambiguous specificity.
Earl Howe
My noble friend expresses the position exactly. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, if a court in the future were to arrive at a judgment that all of us here would consider adverse, of course the Government would intervene. However, in our view, it is now highly unwise at this point to try to frame an amendment to put these matters beyond doubt in the way that the noble Baroness seeks to do because any attempt to do so is almost certain to lead to ambiguity and doubt about the applicability of the Act in other areas. That is the point. Of course I can pick holes in the drafting of this amendment, but that is not the central issue. The issue is the wider one to which I alluded earlier.
Lord Pannick
Would not any court regard this amendment as specifically designed to deal with the YL problem? It would not regard it as casting doubt on anything else.
Earl Howe
No loophole is created by YL. That was closed in Section 145 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. While I listened with care to the noble Lord, Lord Low, who set out the background to the YL case very ably, I disagreed with him completely. This is not unfinished business from YL. That matter was decisively closed by the previous Government in the 2008 Act.
I move to another point raised by my noble friend Lord Lester. The Government have established an independent commission, due to report at the end of this year, which is looking across the board at how human rights are protected in the UK to see whether things can be done better. The topic of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act featured in various responses to the commission’s consultation last year and has already featured in the commission’s discussions. The Government’s view is that the receipt of the commission’s final report will provide the right moment for us to consider rights protection in the round, including any issues surrounding the scope and operation of Section 6.
I recognise the noble Baroness’s point about the amendment made in 2008 to specify that providers of residential care are bound by the Human Rights Act. However, that does not change my argument. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, reminded us, the 2008 amendment was necessary in order to overturn the contrary court judgment in the case of YL, but the Government at the time deliberately resisted any wider change for the very reason that I am resisting wider change today. I realise that my response is not the one that many noble Lords wish to hear.
Lord Wills
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. It was not the case that the previous Government resisted the amendment. I was deeply and intimately involved in this. It is true that we did not get our act together in time; we ran out of time. I refreshed my memory from my own papers on this point. I agree with the Minister that it is a difficult issue. It is absolutely true that there were different views within government, and no settled decision was reached. There was agreement at the highest level and agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that public function—the wider issue that lies at the heart of this issue—did need to be addressed. That is what this amendment is trying to do. However, we did not resist it in the way that the noble Earl is suggesting. I appreciate that he is not perhaps as painfully familiar with the details of the previous Government as I am afraid I am.
Earl Howe
I am grateful to the noble Lord. My main point is that, whether by accident or design, the previous Government did the right thing in our view, and that is clearly the advice of the Ministry of Justice, which is in the lead on human rights matters.
I hope I have explained why I cannot support this amendment, despite the Government’s wholehearted support for the principles involved, and that I have demonstrated how seriously we take the issues that the noble Baroness raised. To that end, I can today make four very clear statements. I can confirm that the Government maintain an expansive view of the interpretation of Section 6 and, where we have the opportunity and it is appropriate to do so, we would intervene in legal cases in support of that interpretation. I can confirm that human rights will of course be part of the underpinning framework in adult social care law. Any reforms to the law on care and support will need to ensure consistency with the obligations placed on local authorities by the Human Rights Act. I can commit to hosting a round table, along with my honourable friend the Minister of State for Care Services, to bring together all key partners, including, if she wishes, the noble Baroness, to establish how our strategy on adult social care ensures protection of human rights. Finally, I confirm that if the independent commission on human rights makes any recommendations in its final report about the reform of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act, the Government will give them serious consideration.
On this basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will recognise the extent to which we have tried to address her concerns and will feel able to withdraw her amendment. If not, I beg noble Lords to think twice before voting for it.
Baroness Greengross
My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he has just said, which was extremely encouraging. I have never doubted his commitment to getting this right. I am not a lawyer, but listening to the discussion, I think there was some misunderstanding about the wording of the amendment and the context in which it stands. For example, the word “certain” is defined in the next paragraph as,
“personal care to an individual living in their own home”.
I agree that there could be ambiguity if somebody goes to stay with their daughter and I agree that there could be ambiguity in the drafting, although the amendment was not drafted by me but by the EHRC with the help of very learned lawyers who have worked on this extremely hard. It is limited not to services provided by anybody but to services commissioned or arranged by a public body. Therefore, those particular points that were raised by noble Lords do not apply, although if I thought they did I would agree that it would be a bit silly to try to insist on this amendment.
I feel that in spite of the Minister’s very welcome commitment—we have had time together when he has expressed this so I know that he feels this way—I would like to see the work that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, referred to carried forward, as so many other good policies have been, as there is no party-political disagreement about the aims of particular bits of legislation or the desire to get things right. I would like this to be the case. I am really sorry that the Government feel that we have to wait for those very worthwhile undertakings and pieces of work to be taken on board before we can protect these very vulnerable people who are just not being protected because they happen to be doing what all older people seem to want, which is getting services in their own home rather than going to a residential home. That is what the Government seem to want them to do, and that is what most older and vulnerable people want, as well as many younger disabled people who want to live independently, and many people with learning disabilities. This is not just about one group, although it primarily concerns older people. I just feel sad. I ask the noble Earl to continue with his good intentions but to build on them by incorporating a redrafted amendment in those intentions. On that basis, I feel bound to say that I should like to test the opinion of the House.
“( ) For the purposes of this section a failure to perform a function properly includes a failure to perform it consistently with what the Secretary of State considers to be the interests of the health service in England or (as the case may be) with what otherwise appears to the Secretary of State to be the purpose for which it is conferred; and “the health service” has the same meaning as in the National Health Service Act 2006.”
Lord Clement-Jones
“Contravention of section 64 of the Medicines Act 1968: due diligence defence
In section 67 of the Medicines Act 1968 (offences under Part 3), after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) But it is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (2) in respect of a contravention of section 64 to show that the person exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.””
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, in moving Amendment 297, I shall speak also to Amendment 301. First, I declare an interest as chairman of the council of the School of Pharmacy, University of London. For the avoidance of doubt from the outset, I will not press these amendments.
In Committee, I moved an amendment to provide a due diligence defence to the currently strict liability criminal offence committed under Section 64 of the Medicines Act 1968. This has the potential to operate very harshly on those making single errors dispensing medicines, whether in retail or hospital pharmacies. The intent of the original amendment was to remove the injustice that pharmacists and some others among healthcare professionals face criminalisation through single dispensing errors.
It was also very importantly designed to increase patient safety by removing barriers to a learning culture within the pharmacy profession and to ensure that pharmacists who wish to declare a dispensing error in the interests of patient safety are not penalised. The formulation of a defence, which gains universal acceptance among the pharmacy profession, has however proved more difficult than originally anticipated. Although the regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council, has been supportive of the proposed amendment, there is as yet no consensus with the pharmacy professional bodies as to the best way legally of formulating a defence that meets these objectives.
There is, however, a unanimous view among professional pharmacy bodies that it would be better not to amend the Act at this juncture in this way but to wait for the full review of offences under the Medicines Act due to be carried out by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the MHRA. There have of course been helpful discussions to this effect with the chief pharmacist and his colleagues at the department, and agreement, as I understand it, that we should go forward on this basis.
In this context, it would extremely helpful for all concerned if the Minister could confirm the timetable for the scoping of the sanctions and penalties in medicines legislation review to be carried out by the MHRA and any other details of the review that he can give at the present time, such as the procedure, the timetable, and the involvement of the regulator—the GPhC—and professional bodies.
Although this is not directly within the gift of the Minister, it would be extremely helpful if he could also indicate that the department will engage with the DPP and the Crown Prosecution Service to encourage them in the mean time to engage with the profession and the regulator in reviewing the prosecution guidelines for offences under the Medicines Act. That would be extremely welcome to all those concerned in the profession. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I must say that I am surprised that the noble Lord moved this amendment. He told me yesterday that he was not going to and did not have the courtesy to tell me that today he is. The amendment raises a very interesting question. No doubt we will be very interested to hear the response of the noble Earl, Lord Howe. He might perhaps add the membership of the review team to the details of the review.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend, to whom I should like to pay a particular tribute for his work to bring interested parties together on this important issue to see whether a common view could be found on a practical way forward.
Both I and my ministerial colleagues are determined to ensure that we address the concerns of pharmacists and registered pharmacy technicians about the risk of prosecution for inadvertent as opposed to wilful or reckless dispensing errors. We and the profession want to see a learning culture that encourages the reporting of dispensing errors so that any helpful lessons can be learnt. Equally, we must make sure that any changes we introduce continue to give patients protection under the law and do not in any way compromise patient safety. It was therefore disappointing to me that, after a great deal of dialogue in recent months, there has not been a sufficient measure of agreement to proceed on a specific legislative change at this time. I have to accept the reality of that, despite everyone’s best efforts.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. First, let me say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that no discourtesy at all was intended. We may have misunderstood each other. I never intended to press the amendment, but of course wished to raise the issue in order to get a response from the Minister about the way forward in the absence of this amendment being incorporated in the Bill. I apologise if I inadvertently misled the noble Lord.
We all have the same purpose, which is, as the Minister said, to encourage a learning culture within the profession so that it no longer has hanging over it a lack of a defence to the absolute liability in Section 64 of the Medicines Act; and, it may well be, other aspects of the Act as well, which no doubt will be uncovered as the MHRA carries on its work. I, too, share the Minister’s disappointment that we were not able to agree a suitable solution between the department, the regulator and the pharmacy profession.
I thank the Minister for showing us the way forward with the MHRA review of the scoping that will be done by September 2012. I very much hope that, as he said, the DPP will consider this debate very carefully, and that he will respond favourably and engage in a review of the guidelines. I also reiterate the Minister’s wish and hope that the profession will engage very closely with the MHRA in this review and in any review of the guidelines by the Crown Prosecution Service. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“The Special Health Authority known as the NHS Business Services Authority | The Health and Social Care Information Centre” |
“The Health and Social Care Information Centre” |
“The Special Health Authority known as the NHS Business Services Authority | The Health and Social Care Information Centre” |
“The Health and Social Care Information Centre” |
“( ) the first regulations under section 84 (licensing requirement: exemption regulations);”
“( ) the first order under section 87 (approval by Secretary of State of licensing criteria);”
Baroness Thornton
“(A1) Part 3 of this Act shall come into force, by order, on a date to be determined by Parliament, which shall not be before April 2016.
(A2) Before bringing forward any order to bring Part 3 of this Act into force the Secretary of State shall consult the NHS Commissioning Board, the Independent Regulator of Foundation Trusts, the Care Quality Commission, patients or their representatives, and staff delivering NHS services or their representatives, and shall report to Parliament on the outcomes of the consultation.
(A3) Any such order must be laid in draft and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, as we near the end of our deliberations on Report, I hope to set out the case for changing not the policy but the pace of implementation. We have discussed extensively the policy background and the legal and other implications of this Bill. We have agreed on some things and disagreed on others. The case for Amendments 300A and 300B is simply that we have learnt a great deal in the past 13 months since my noble friend Lady Wheeler and I asked 18 other noble Lords to join us in organising seminars about this Bill because we felt that the House needed to understand it better. I have to say that 13 months later I am not sure whether we do understand it any better. However, what is quite clear from those seminars and our discussions since the autumn is that there are risks involved in this Bill. There are credible claims that detrimental consequences brought about by the scale of change are already being felt. There are some extreme assertions, such as from regional risk registers, that patient care could be seriously impacted.
In these remarks I am really only going to assert what we know. We know what is in those risk registers, we know the risks that we have discussed and we know that this is the largest reorganisation that the NHS has ever undergone, including the one that set it up. The evidence that we collected in our seminars raised the scale of those risks. During our debates risks have been mentioned time and again—risks to children, to older people and to people with long-term conditions. The Health Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have both added weight to those expressing concerns about the scale and pace of change, and that is the point of these amendments.
We still do not know what the key risks are in the risk register, which is a grave disappointment, but that may actually add to our concerns. Our concerns should also be heightened by the poor track record of the Department of Health to oversee and manage change on this scale. The wisdom of ex-Ministers in this House is such that they know very well how hard change is to manage within our NHS. Added to this particular programme is one of the worst impact assessments that I have ever seen and, one suspects, a deficient risk management process. The level of organisational change was acknowledged when the coalition agreement specifically ruled out any such major programme.
In adding to the risk inherent with the implementation of this Bill, we have put forward an amendment that is intended to ensure that part of the Bill is deferred and the major part of the Bill is proceeded with. That is what this amendment is about, and I think it has advantages. First, we have to allow time and bring about some stability for the Nicholson challenge, as it has been called, to deliver the savings. We know that economic regulation is not a key factor in delivering those savings, as evidence to the Health Select Committee demonstrated. Reforms in both commissioning and provision can continue as now in advance of economic regulation in the full market. That is the first reason. The Nicholson challenge and the savings need time to embed themselves and to work their way through the system.
Secondly, many in this House and outside have expressed concerns that the role of Monitor as the independent regulator of foundation trusts should not be weakened. To some extent that has already been acknowledged in the changes made to the Bill, but the addition of new rules and duties to Monitor is, we believe, in itself a risk. Under our amendment, Monitor would complete its role in authorising foundation trusts and be well on its way to moving to a light-touch regulation, so that the inevitable conflicts of interest, which many noble Lords have raised during the course of this Bill and outside the Chamber, would be lessened. The pipeline of expectant foundation trusts is still long and will not decrease any time soon. It seems that there is a job of work for Monitor to do in managing things such as mergers, takeovers, and franchising for laggards. That process, of itself, is enough, and we want to reduce the risks of failure in those processes.
It also seems that developing and building the capacity and capabilities required in a wholly new regulatory regime will and should take time. There is much to do, and we think that undue haste brings with it its own risks. The emerging clinical commissioning groups will be commissioning with billions of pounds of public money, yet they are young organisations with only light governance. They will need time to grow and to build capacity, capability and experience before they have the additional complexities of market regulation, and this amendment allows for that.
The most compelling reason for sequencing—a term that I openly acknowledge I first picked up from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—is that it will give time to work with those who have to implement the changes, as opposed to forcing those changes upon them. Even those in the Government and on the Liberal Democrat Benches cannot really pretend that the widespread opposition to this Bill and the arguments for it to be reconsidered are all part of some Labour plot, as has been suggested. Would that it were that the Labour Party had such influence and strength. I do not think that is the case, but calling distinguished academics and leaders of professional bodies Labour stooges is both offensive and counterproductive. There is widespread opposition to and fear of the risks that this Bill brings. They are not borne of ignorance and ideology but based on knowledge, evidence and experience, so the Government would be wise to take time to win people over to what they want to achieve. As the Prime Minister himself said last year, he would not wish to move forward with these reforms without the support and commitment of the National Health Service’s staff and patients.
My final point is about the consequences of sequencing. At the outset, we heard claims that the NHS was in urgent need of competition to drive through reforms to improve outcomes, but evidence has been compiled to show that while our NHS is far from perfect—and indeed may need reform—it is still arguably up there with the best in the world. Where we lag behind, we are closing the gap, which is testimony to our support and investment in the NHS. We believe that there is no urgent reason for implementing Part 3 of this Bill, either for clinical or financial reasons. On the positive side, we are not suggesting any delay in developing other aspects that have wider support, such as clinically informed commissioning, health and well-being boards, HealthWatch and much else. These changes need not be delayed if our amendment were passed—indeed, they are pretty much going ahead anyway—but could proceed with less risk. By sequencing the changes, the risks posed to patients can be lessened and the prospects of delivering the Nicholson challenge increased.
While other parts of the Bill bed in and foundation trusts can be regulated and registered as far as possible, it seems to me that May 2016 is the right time to implement Part 3 of the Bill. At some point in this Bill, the Government had set that date for getting foundation trusts set up, as far as they could be. That will be when all the other work has been done and is bedded in, and has perhaps built up some support with less fear and hostility than it does at the moment. I beg to move.
Lord Owen
My Lords, the case has been made extremely well for accepting that one of the most vehement elements of criticism could be somewhat defused if this amendment was accepted by the Government. After all, some people have argued that the whole of Part 3 should be abolished. By accepting that the Government are going to go ahead but just asking that the relevant measures should be phased in seems to me a very rational and reasonable way of acknowledging that there is very deep-seated and justifiable criticism of this legislation.
Reference has been made to the primacy of the need to make the efficiency savings and the need to carry the people in the health service with regard to the provisions in the Bill. I do not want to weary the House by listing the royal colleges that are now opposed to this legislation but it is a staggering development. Nobody can deny the phenomenon that we are seeing; it is unprecedented. I would never have conceived it possible that there would be this degree of professional criticism of the Bill when I first started to look at it and realised that it was in my judgment a very bad Bill. Indeed, it remains so in my judgment. However, I am not here to argue all these cases. This seems to me an important amendment which is geared to accepting that the Government will certainly resist the dropping of Part 3, but may be amenable to phasing it in. Indeed, the Minister might propose a different phasing-in period. It would seem to be a very wise course to deal with the essential elements—the efficiency savings—then bed in some of the other aspects that are new in the Bill and may well be accepted within a short period of time, and leave the element which causes the most deep-seated opposition until later. I hope that the Minister will listen to the argument, reflect it in his speech and be ready to make this important concession to his critics.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, as regards supporting the amendment. However, I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has adopted a much more emollient line on Amendment 300A, is not making a full frontal attack on the whole Bill and is looking simply at Part 3. There is certainly an argument to be explored in what she had to say but I cannot understand the logic of why, of all the parts of the Bill that she has talked about today, she is focusing on Part 3. I find it extraordinary that throughout the debates that have taken place on the Bill the Opposition have refused to accept that the National Health Service Act 2006 introduced price competition into the NHS. If Part 3 did nothing else but plug some of the competition problems in the 2006 Act, I would support it.
Baroness Thornton
Would the noble Lord care to tell me to which part of the 2006 Act he is referring because, according to my recollection of the Act, it does not mention the word “competition” anywhere?
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, that is precisely the point and that is precisely why the Labour Government were avoiding any argument because that is where the big loophole lies. Any competition lawyer will tell you that that was the point where EU competition law started to bite in the NHS. That is a fact which you cannot deny. The establishment of independent treatment centres constituted a major introduction of the private sector into the health service by the Labour Government. That process was far more unregulated than it will be in the future under this Bill. There were major flaws in the 2006 Act which have never been fully acknowledged by the Labour Party throughout these debates. The noble Baroness’s speech could have been written three or four weeks ago. The Opposition refuse to accept the value and benefit of the amendments that have been made to Part 3 just in the past two weeks. I will not adumbrate them all. I refer the Opposition to the House of Commons paper that has just been written which sets out in great detail something like 2,000 amendments that have been made to the Bill since it started its passage through the House of Commons. We have had Future Forum, we have had 1,000 amendments tabled in this House alone and we have had changes to the Competition Commission’s involvement.
Baroness Thornton
What is the noble Lord’s answer to the question which I put? I was not attacking him and his party. I realise that he has to attack; that is his method of dealing with issues. That is a shame as I have from time to time tempted him not to do so. However, does he accept what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, said about the hundreds of thousands of people and professionals who are fearful of this Bill? Attacking me as much as he likes will not alter that fact.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I really enjoyed the noble Baroness’s intervention. Today’s news about the change in attitude of the Royal College of General Practitioners shows that we have reached a genuine watershed. It may not have changed its mind absolutely, although it appears that membership pressure is being applied to the leadership of the royal college, but this is a real watershed whereby the acceptance of the fact that the Bill is going through is changing hearts and minds—not just minds but hearts as well. I am far more optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Owen, because I believe that the other royal colleges will follow suit. They are actually looking at the substance of the Bill, not at some of the alarmist propaganda being put out. They are considering how mergers between foundation trusts will be regulated, how Monitor will do its duty and the additional powers that Monitor will have following consideration by Future Forum and Members of this House. They are also considering the impact of EU competition law following the Pepper v Hart statement that was made the other day. They are looking at the substance, which is exactly the way to look at the Bill. I believe that Part 3 is one of the most valuable parts of the Bill. I did not believe that it was acceptable to start with. That is precisely why I put down amendments in Committee and on Report. I am very pleased to say that it is much improved. The Bill should not be held up because of Part 3. In fact, it should be celebrated because of Part 3.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, those who have been here will have realised by now that this is one of my “good boy” days. At the risk of seeming sycophantic, even beyond being a good boy, I support every word that my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has just said. I will refer back in a moment to something the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said about former Ministers. This chunk of the Bill—Part 3—is largely about Monitor and includes a lot that the House has been pressing for in terms of increasing Monitor’s power to intervene and do sensible things in a sensible way. It also includes all the stuff about pricing and tariffs, which in my view need to be addressed now, not in four years’ time.
My main point concerns what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said about former Ministers knowing about the problems caused by upheaval. We do. I became very much aware that the publication of a White Paper was the start of a process, not the end. Too often Ministers think that all they have to do is publish an edict and everybody on the ground will carry it out. These things take time, trouble and involve culture change. However—this is the point here—what is equally or even more damaging is year upon year of uncertainty, which is what this amendment seeks to bring about.
I have referred on a number of occasions to the merger/takeover proceedings in which I was involved last year with the health trust that I then chaired. That occurred partly against the background of Monitor and the competition matters that are being changed in this Bill for the better. The worst thing was the uncertainty for everybody involved—the way it was dragging on and nobody knew what the future was. Good people started to leave or think about whether they had a future with the organisation. It would be insane to go down this path and I strongly recommend that the House should not do so.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, I fully understand the fervour and passion with which my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones spoke, because he feels very strongly that he, with the help of others, brought about a real change in Part 3. I make no pretence about the fact that I began by being totally opposed to Part 3. I was on public record as saying that I thought it was a very bad thing indeed, but very sweeping changes have been made to it, and on that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree.
However, I do not want to stop at that point. My noble friend said that we were at a watershed and I believe that we are. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for tabling this important amendment, and I shall explain why. In this House, we have a great deal of trust in the Minister. Repeatedly and rightly, huge tribute has been paid to him throughout these debates for his understanding, his patience, his willingness to go a very long way to meet the needs and requirements of other people and, if I may say so, his permanent consciousness and awareness of why the British public love the NHS so much. More than virtually any other politician that I can think of, he has real empathy with what people want and expect from their health service and it is important to recognise that.
The noble Earl has punched—if I may say so politely—well above his weight. His weight is not, of course, that great but his punch is terrific. He has persuaded a great many of us—not, I suspect, only on this side of the House—with the elegant and generous way in which he has put forward compromises and concessions. Many of us have accepted these or, like the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, decided to wait a little longer to see what might come out of what he said. That is an immense personal contribution.
We would be in a world of illusion if we did not recognise that outside this House and the other place, where my honourable friend Mr Burstow is doing his very best on the social care side, there is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly said, massive distrust and disbelief in what we are trying to do. We have to address that or we can forget altogether about doing what the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, rightly said we need to do—to give the National Health Service some stability, some confidence and some sense that it has a future. This is the most labour-intensive public service. Our whole capacity for addressing the Nicholson challenge and the problems of an ageing and often chronically troubled society, and for delivering what most of us want and which is enshrined in the words that we wrote into the Bill at the very beginning of its passage in this House—the responsibility and accountability of the Secretary of State for a comprehensive health service free at the point of need—will go with the wind without the support and morale of the professional services, the staff and the public.
As Members of this House will remember, we owe a great deal to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for the Conservative Party, we owe a great deal to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and her team for the Labour Party, and we owe a very great deal to the Cross-Benchers for the steady support they have given to maintaining the stability and future of the National Health Service, which all of us recognise as probably the greatest single social achievement of this country since the Second World War.
What I like very much about the amendment is the second section, where the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, point to the need for consultation before there is a move towards bringing Part 3 into full effect—I would go wider and say before bringing into full effect the Bill itself. It is vital that, when the Bill has completed its passage, the Government and the Department of Health in particular seek to hold a wider consensual discussion, bringing in the main bodies but also the main people who have been involved in the Bill, regardless of whether they stood for or against it, in order to give the National Health Service the foundation it needs to address the huge scale of the problems it faces.
Lord Crisp
My Lords, I had not intended to speak on the amendment, but I want to say a word or two in support of what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has just said. She and others have referred to the rift that has been created as the Bill has gone through Parliament and been discussed in the country. I am sure the Minister recognises that, but I know that he also recognises that now is the time to move towards healing that rift. Many people have, for whatever reason, been scared by what has been said and many people have also been scarred by what has been said. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to draw attention to the second part of the amendment and the opportunity that it gives to start to bring people together around the practicalities. We talk about the legislation but many people out there have to talk about the practicalities and how you make it happen—something with which many Members of your Lordships’ House, including the noble Lord, Lord Newton, are very familiar.
This has also been about failing communication. I believe there is now more that unites people than divides them. There are many things that people agree on. There are still some very significant differences and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I am not a fan of the Bill. It has been a damaging process but now is the time for healing. It would be good to see some cross-party approaches to bringing people together in a positive fashion to deal with the practicalities, rather as is laid out in the second part of the amendment.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I think that it is important for me to begin by acknowledging fully the force of the wonderful speech by my noble friend Lady Williams, and indeed acknowledging the powerful points made by other noble Lords regarding the climate of opinion among the medical royal colleges and others in relation to the Bill. I cannot fail to be conscious of the suspicion and doubt expressed by many members of that community, although I have to say that opinions vary as to what the real views of some of the royal colleges are, bearing in mind that only a small percentage of their members were canvassed. However, I cast that aside because I am very aware of the validity of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Owen. The Government are undoubtedly fighting a battle to convince the medical community of the merits of the Bill, a battle that we have so far not won. I can therefore very readily confirm to my noble friend that the first thing we would wish to do once the Bill reaches the statute book is to build bridges with the royal colleges, the BMA and all those who have an interest in seeing this Bill work, to make sure that its implementation is securely grounded. I completely agree with her that the Government should work with NHS staff, all our stakeholders and, indeed, patient groups during the coming months to make sure that implementation really is a collaborative process. I hope that the undoubted wounds that have been created will be healed, and healed rapidly.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. In particular, I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, had to say, as I always do. The question posed by her amendment is, on the face of it, “How can we improve Part 3?”. The answer that she has given us is, “To postpone it”. However, the subtext of her question is, “Why should we have Part 3 at all?”. I am happy to set out once more exactly why it is essential that we have Part 3 —and not just have it, but have it without delay. We need it for two compelling reasons: to protect patients’ interests, and to help the NHS meet the significant quality and productivity challenges it faces. They are benefits that I am afraid the amendment would stop in their tracks.
Part 3 sets out a clear, overriding purpose for regulating NHS services—to protect and promote patients’ interests. That contrasts with Monitor’s duty under the National Health Service Act 2006, which is merely,
“to exercise its functions in a manner consistent with the performance by the Secretary of State of his”
functions. That 2006 duty is not adequate as it stands. It does not mention patients’ interests and it is unclear. However, that duty is what would apply if Amendment 300A were accepted. The amendment would also discard the recommendations of the NHS Future Forum that Monitor should have additional duties: first, to involve patients and the public in carrying out its functions, as my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Warner, rightly emphasised; and, secondly, to enable integration.
It needs to be made clear that the provisions in the Bill interlock and are interdependent. Deferring Part 3 would not achieve the continuation of the status quo, but it would leave an NHS without strategic health authorities and primary care trusts and without a comprehensive and effective framework for sector regulation. There would be no organisation with the powers needed to support commissioners in developing more integrated services. That is something that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and others have rightly demanded. There would be no organisation capable of enforcing requirements on providers regarding integration and co-operation. Neither would there be sector-specific regulation to address anticompetitive conduct that harmed patients’ interests. The powers that currently exist to enforce advice of the Co-operation and Competition Panel would no longer be available. Instead, it would be reserved to the OFT to consider complaints under the Competition Act, rather than by a sector-specific healthcare regulator with a duty to protect patients’ interests.
I mentioned protecting patients for a good reason.
Baroness Thornton
Surely the Co-operation and Competition Panel still exists, will continue to exist, and can deal with any competition issues that are raised—as it already does.
Earl Howe
My Lords, the proposal that we have made in the Bill is for the Co-operation and Competition Panel to be part of new Monitor. If the noble Baroness’s amendment runs a coach and horses through those new arrangements, they are clearly very seriously destabilised.
Part 3 provides for a comprehensive system of regulation, covering all providers of NHS services and so protecting all patients whenever they use the NHS. The amendment would mean that patients using services supplied by the independent sector, social enterprises or charities would continue to be denied those protections. The protections would not, for example, apply to the 500,000 people in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire who receive NHS services from the City Health Care Partnership, a community interest company established under the previous Administration. The partnership offers a range of community-based treatments as well as early interventions to help minimise the need for acute care in hospital and promote healthy lifestyles. Monitor does not currently regulate the partnership, because it is a social enterprise.
Part 3 will extend equivalent safeguards to protect patients’ interests, irrespective of who provides their treatment. That is a huge step forward. For the first time, there would be regulation to protect patients from the risk that poor management decisions may put essential NHS facilities and continuity of services at risk. By contrast, the amendment would perpetuate the situation whereby such protection exists only where patients receive essential services from foundation trusts. This would not recognise the nature of our NHS as a comprehensive service delivered by a diverse range of providers.
As well as providing for comprehensive regulation, Part 3 provides for effective regulation that will benefit patients by better enabling positive change. The noble Baroness mentioned the Nicholson challenge. Change in service delivery will play a vital role in achieving the Nicholson challenge of realising up to £20 billion of recurrent productivity improvements in the NHS, for example by providing older people and those with long-term conditions with more integrated care outside hospitals.
Part 3 will enable such change by empowering clinical commissioners to decide how best to improve services and when, where or, indeed, if to use competition as a means to that end. The amendment would leave no provision for sector-specific rules of this kind. Let me explain what that would mean. It would mean that clinical commissioners would face continuing risk of legal challenge whenever they decided to secure services without competition. It takes little imagination to see how that would stifle enthusiasm for clinical commissioning and potentially prevent the sort of innovative, integrated solutions needed to meet the demands of caring for an ageing population.
Part 3 would also enhance the NHS’s ability to deliver positive change by improving the current pricing system. Improving the pricing system is important for three reasons: to strengthen incentives for improvement, to enable integration and to remove incentives for cherry-picking. Part 3 will establish a transparent, legally enforceable pricing system that rewards providers for treating NHS patients. Money will follow the patient, and providers will be paid a fair price for treating complex cases. Again, this is central to the Nicholson challenge. Reform of the tariff in a systematic way will encourage service redesign and better integration. The current system, under Department of Health control, has, I am afraid, often failed to achieve these aims. For example, although foundation trusts should have been paid for every NHS patient treated, that has not always been happening. There have been unacceptable levels of cross-subsidy, and prices for complex cases have sometimes been woefully inadequate.
These and other problems have been highlighted by the royal colleges and are well documented, including in the recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. However these are also complex issues that will take time to solve, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, herself has said, it has taken time and is likely to take time. Therefore time is of the essence. The NHS cannot afford further delays. For all of these reasons, there is a clear, compelling and urgent case for moving forward with Part 3 of the Bill. I hope that I have been able to able reassure noble Lords exactly why it is that we need it.
Baroness Thornton
I thank the noble Earl for his, as usual, extremely expert and very technical response, and I think that he completely missed the point. He did not address the risks that I mentioned all the way through the Bill, the risks that are contingent on implementing so much change so quickly and simultaneously. We will be back here very soon, I suspect, when we will be trying somehow to manage and mend.
I want to make just one or two remarks and will not keep the House very long on this matter. I would like to read to the House a Motion that Liberal Democrat MPs have tabled in the debate that is going on in the Commons right now. Both ends of this building are, as we speak, engaged with their concerns about the Bill. In seeking to amend the Labour amendment in the other place, colleagues of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, have said that they decline,
“to support the Bill in its current form”,
and they call for,
“an urgent summit of the royal colleges, professional bodies, patients’ organisations and the government to plan health reforms based on the coalition agreement”.
Lord Clement-Jones
Would the noble Baroness like to say how many Liberal Democrat MPs have put their name to that particular Motion?
Baroness Thornton
It does not really matter. Five of his colleagues have put their names to it. The point I am making to the noble Lord is that I agree with them about the way forward. It echoes very much what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was saying about recognising the disquiet, hostility and fear that exists towards this Bill, particularly this part.
At the end of the day, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the other royal colleges, trade unions, nurses and doctors are the people who will save our NHS, whatever the Government have decided to do to it. They are the people who will actually deliver the healthcare. That is what the royal college of GPs is saying now. It did not say that it resiled from its position about this Bill; not at all. It is acknowledging that, along with the nurses and everybody else, it will deliver this Bill. It will put patients at the heart of the health system. I think that we should all pay tribute to that and be reassured by it.
The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said that mergers will still proceed. They will still proceed regardless of whether this amendment is agreed. However, he also said that good people leave when there is disruption in the health service. That is very true. They are leaving in their droves. We are losing hundreds if not thousands of good people from the National Health Service because of the past two years, the White Paper and the Bill.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for his remarks—I think he was very wise—and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for hers. She is quite right. I am flattered that she took my remarks seriously, because this is not about wrecking the Bill. I did not tackle any of the policy issues that the noble Earl chose to stand up as Aunt Sallies and then knock down. When I introduced the amendment, I said that this was about doing things in an orderly fashion, in a way that would help to save our NHS. That is the point. The noble Earl did not tackle any of the risks that I raised about how to deliver the Nicholson challenge simultaneously with all the other changes in the Bill. In fact, he went close to saying that we have gone too far anyway to stop that. I was not convinced by his remarks about the risks and how they might be mitigated. We need time to work on this. We need time to get support for it, if it goes through. The amendment allows us to do that. I wish to test the opinion of the House.