House of Commons
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Prayers
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
1. What steps he is taking to safeguard native tree species from the threat of disease.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
Last October I introduced a ban on the movement of ash trees, and as recently as last week I introduced tighter controls which require notification by importers of consignments of certain oaks, sweet chestnuts and plane trees, allowing plant health inspectors to target inspections.
I instructed Professor Ian Boyd to convene the independent taskforce on tree and plant health, chaired by Professor Chris Gilligan. I welcome its interim recommendations, which presented radical ideas to safeguard Britain’s trees from disease, and I keenly await its final report, which will be published in the spring along with the updated Chalara control plan.
Caroline Nokes
Hillier Nurseries, which is in my constituency, is the United Kingdom’s leading grower of trees, and one of the largest growers in Europe. Last year it supplied trees to the Olympic park. It is imperative for the control plan for ash dieback and other tree diseases to be robust and responsive, but what reassurance can the Secretary of State give the company that the Government will support a programme involving the breeding of disease-resistant trees?
Mr Paterson
My hon. Friend has asked exactly the right question. We know from scientific evidence that Chalara cannot be eradicated, but that there is likely to be a percentage of resistant trees. I have asked DEFRA’s chief scientist, Professor Ian Boyd, to work with experts in genetics, as a priority, to establish the best ways of identifying and developing the sources of that resistance. He began his work in December. We are also working closely with industry—including splendid companies like the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency—on an updated version of the Chalara control plan, to be published at the end of March.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The truth is that the Forestry Commission is in absolute chaos. A total of 530 posts have been lost, 60 of them—60!—in forest research. The Secretary of State has the gall to stand at that Dispatch Box and act as if the world is all right and what he is saying has put everything in order. That is not the case, and he needs to get a grip.
Mr Paterson
I think that there may have been a question lurking in the humbug somewhere. The fact is that we have enormously increased research on plant diseases. I pay tribute to all those in the Forestry Commission and the DEFRA agencies who conducted a totally unprecedented survey of the whole United Kingdom—2,500 pieces of land, each 10 kilometres square—and analysed where the disease had come from. We know that, sadly, it has blown in and that there is a genetic strain, and we will work with companies such as Hillier’s to find it.
Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)
16. What role does my right hon. Friend think the public can play, not only in the response to ash dieback but in our wider approach to tree health?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his much more constructive question. The public can play a key role. We know that there is a genetic strain that is resistant; we have seen it in Denmark and Holland. Organisations such as the Woodland Trust can play a vital part in helping us to identify the trees that are resistant so that we can start to breed from them.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State may know of my interest as chair of the John Clare Trust, which runs a campaign called Every Child’s Right to the English Countryside. The likelihood of any child’s visiting any green space is halved in a generation. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), we need an army of people to go out into our forests and woods, to act as detectors of disease, and to help us to fight it. We need that army of people to go into the country’s green spaces and act in the same way as the membership of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who are good at noticing any decline in the bird population.
Mr Paterson
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is exactly the way in which we will confront some of these diseases. As I have said, a number of trees are resistant, and it would be enormously helpful if the public became involved in searching for them. There are some 80 million ash trees in the country; officials cannot spot them all, but the public can, and that could be immensely beneficial. I pay tribute to the members of the public who paid a key role during the week in which we surveyed the entire United Kingdom.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
2. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the response to the recent floods.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
The Government are grateful for the response from our front-line emergency services, which were deployed around the clock, including during public holidays. The staff of the fire, ambulance, police and other rescue services, local authorities, the Environment Agency, the voluntary sector, and local communities worked tirelessly in response to the floods. The Flood Forecasting Centre consistently provided high-quality forecasting and was able to predict risks accurately, which enabled timely action to be taken on the ground.
Sheryll Murray
I thank my hon. Friend for the interest he took in the flooding that occurred in my constituency over the two weekends prior to the Christmas break. How can he best help communities in my constituency in the aftermath of the floods?
Richard Benyon
Like other hon. Members, my hon. Friend contacted me during those severe floods and kept me informed. I was able to use the information she gave me in my discussions with the Environment Agency and others, and I am coming down to see for myself the issues in her constituency in the near future. We are better prepared for flooding events than ever before, but that does not mean we are in any way complacent. We learn from every flooding event, and I assure her and her constituents that we will learn and that if improvements can be made, they will be made. I will make sure that we are working across government to achieve the results that her constituents deserve.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
On 26 November, the Secretary of State told the House that he would consider targeted emergency funding for communities affected by flooding, such as those in my constituency. Will the Minister tell the House what he has decided to do?
Richard Benyon
The hon. Lady will be aware that a long-established scheme, the Bellwin scheme, is there to assist local authorities when their recovery costs rise above a particular threshold. I understand that a number of authorities got some funding over 2012 and some did not. I want to work with her and others to ensure that where we can help, we are doing so, and that there is a co-ordinated response to these devastating flood incidents. Nearly 8,000 properties were flooded in 2012, and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can to help them.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
Hundreds of homes were badly flooded in my constituency last June, following a freak 36-hour rainstorm. Thousands of my constituents now face problems with flood insurance; I am told of excesses in the tens of thousands of pounds. May I emphasise to my hon. Friend, in his negotiations with the insurance industry and others, the importance to my constituents of finding a replacement for the flood insurance statement of principles as a matter of urgency?
Richard Benyon
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and I am coming down to his constituency to hear the concerns of his constituents. I can assure him that we want to achieve something better than the statement of principles, which does not cover all properties and has no element that affects affordability. We recognise that there are real concerns about this, including in my constituency, where insurance premiums are being hiked dramatically. We want to protect those on low incomes who are at flood risk.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
The statement of principles runs out in June 2013. The Association of British Insurers considers the negotiations with the Government to be at crisis point and estimates that 200,000 people will be without insurance. What do I say to my constituents who are coming to my surgery asking me what they should do about insurance? This is in absolute disarray.
Richard Benyon
I entirely reject the idea that our talks with the ABI are at crisis point—nothing could be more different; they are progressing at a very high tempo. We are negotiating with the ABI, with meetings happening on a seemingly daily basis and at the highest level in government. We want to achieve something that is better than the previous Government negotiated with the industry. We are dealing with large international financial institutions. We want to get this right for the taxpayer and those at flood risk, and we are working hard to achieve that.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
Six communities in my constituency were flooded three times in 2012—in July, November and December—and people there are naturally desperate about what to do. I realise that there is no money, because of our high-spending predecessors, but can the Minister find any extra resources to put into flood defence and prevention schemes to help my constituents cope with what may happen in the future?
Richard Benyon
I am glad to inform my hon. Friend that we are spending a lot of money—£2.3 billion of taxpayers’ money—on what the Government should be doing, which is building flood defences. In addition, we are looking carefully to ensure that we are supporting all the relevant agencies, such as the Environment Agency, to ensure that watercourses are flowing and that we are addressing all the factors that contribute to flooding. I entirely understand the desperation that his constituents must feel as a result of repeat flooding events, and we are working hard to deal with those.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
3. How many properties were protected from the recent flooding by flood defence schemes.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
4. How many properties were protected from the recent flooding by flood defence schemes.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
The Environment Agency estimates that more than 22,000 properties in England and Wales that would otherwise have flooded in December have been protected through a combination of flood defences, maintenance work, storage basins and temporary defence measures. In addition, 183,000 properties were protected between April and November.
Damian Collins
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is important that the Environment Agency’s flood maps are as clear and accurate as possible? When the Dymchurch sea wall was completed in my constituency, it took a considerable time for the benefits of the scheme to be known to home owners and industry.
Mr Paterson
My hon. Friend raises an important point. The Environment Agency’s national flood risk assessment assesses the likelihood of flooding and that information should be transferred to insurance companies when the new data are available. I understand that local circumstances meant there was a delay in his constituency, but the map will be updated in April.
Harriett Baldwin
I thank the Secretary of State for paying a visit to Upton upon Severn to see how the new flood defences protected the community through last winter’s floods. Will he consider carefully the business case and bid for flood defences for the market town of Tenbury Wells when they come to the Environment Agency later this year?
Mr Paterson
I enjoyed visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency. I pay tribute to those in the Environment Agency, councils and other public services who worked so hard over Christmas and the new year. She is an indefatigable supporter of her constituents’ demands and the Tenbury Wells scheme is in play as part of the extra funding that is being made available, but I cannot make any announcements today.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
In government, Labour provided funding to protect 160,000 households from flooding over two years. This Government will take four years to protect the same number of properties. Why?
Mr Paterson
That is a slightly dotty question. Some flood schemes take several years to plan and this really is not a party political issue; schemes were built by the previous Labour Government from which we are benefiting now and we are building schemes now that will last for a generation. There are substantial schemes in play. The circumstances have been incredibly difficult because of the awful mess we inherited—we still have the worst deficit in western Europe—but despite that we plan to spend £2.1 billion to protect 145,000 properties. In the spending round in November we got an extra £120 million that will over time protect a further 60,000 properties. These are good schemes and the hon. Gentleman should support them.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
5. What progress his Department is making on negotiations with the Association of British Insurers to ensure that affordable home insurance against flooding is available to householders in Cleethorpes constituency and elsewhere.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
Constructive discussions with the Association of British Insurers on behalf of their members and with others about the future of flood insurance continue at the highest levels of government. A range of options are on the table and no final decisions have been taken. We need a solution that ensures affordable insurance bills for those at flood risk but does not place unsustainable costs on wider policyholders and the taxpayer.
Martin Vickers
The Minister will be aware that many residents of Cleethorpes and other towns live in areas that are designated as high risk by virtue of their postcode as a result of Environment Agency mapping even though they might not have flooded for 50 years or more. Will he take on board those concerns and bear them in mind in his negotiations with the insurers?
Richard Benyon
I entirely understand that frustration, but the Environment Agency now provides mapping down to a 50 metre by 50 metre square, which is a lot more accurate than using postcodes. Insurers sometimes take different approaches to assessing flood risk and, in addition to Environment Agency data, most companies will use past claims history. I urge my hon. Friend and his constituents to use their local Environment Agency office, which is, I think, in Lincoln, as it can provide details of individual properties that are at risk. That can be extremely useful for householders in their negotiations with an insurer.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
I have absolutely no doubt that the Minister is working very hard to strike a deal with the ABI. However, the same answer was given at the last Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions pre-Christmas. Will the Minister update the House on what real progress has been made since then and on what the sticking points are?
Richard Benyon
I would love to be able to announce that a deal had been reached. As I have said before, I am afraid that we cannot negotiate these issues on the Floor of the House. They are sensitive—and market sensitive, too—and we want to ensure that when we come to the House we have a rock-solid case that is watertight and that will last for a long time. I know that this matter is a great concern to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and I am delighted that preparatory work has started on the flood scheme in Morpeth. The real comfort will not come, however, until his constituents have the assurance they need on insurance.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
How much does the Minister think premiums will rise by next year if he is not able to reach agreement with the insurance industry?
Richard Benyon
The real problem is that premiums have been rising pretty dramatically while the statement of principles has been in place. There is no affordability element to the statement of principles. We want to protect those on low incomes in flood-risk areas, and we think we have a method of doing that. We are at an advanced stage in negotiations; I will come to the House shortly, I hope, with details.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
6. What policies his Department is implementing to boost the rural economy.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
A £165 million package of measures from the 2011 rural economy growth review is helping rural communities. It includes support for five rural growth network pilots, which are expected to create around 3,000 jobs and 700 new businesses, and rural development funding. We are improving superfast broadband infrastructure in the remotest areas and boosting key sectors such as tourism. We are increasing export potential and unblocking barriers to growth by removing red tape.
Gordon Henderson
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s remarks, particularly those relating to broadband, because improving broadband reception in rural communities will help their economy. Is he as concerned as I am about the apparent reluctance of BT to pay its full contribution to funding the roll-out of superfast broadband?
Mr Paterson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I cannot think of any measure that we are undertaking that will do more to help a whole range of economic activities in rural areas. I had a meeting with Ian Livingston, the chairman of BT Group, the week before last. We also discussed the issue in Cabinet, and the Prime Minister himself chaired a meeting on it this week. This is an absolute priority for the Government. We are determined to reach the target of 90% of premises being connected to superfast broadband, with the remainder having a standard of 2 megabits. If my hon. Friend has data on issues affecting BT, he should write to me.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
17. Does the Secretary of State accept that, according to the Government’s own estimates, the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board will take £250 million out of national rural economies and hit 14,000 workers in Wales? Will he listen to what people are saying outside the House about that abolition, and in particular will he listen to what is being said about it in another place, so that he understands the strong feeling that the proposal should be rejected?
Mr Paterson
I am afraid that I just disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. The board is a dinosaur relic from 1948. The rural economy is now dynamic. Those in agriculture are skilled people—cowmen are like hen’s teeth, and skilled tractor drivers are in demand—and many of them are paid well over the minimum wage, which did not exist in 1948.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
11. In December, I was delighted officially to reopen the Trawden post office in my constituency, which has been modernised and has extended opening hours, thanks to investment from the Government. Will my right hon. Friend say more about what he is doing with Ministers from other Departments to support small businesses in rural areas, such as the Trawden post office?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As a previous secretary of the all-party group on sub-post offices, I wholeheartedly concur with and support what he says. Unlike the last Government, we have supported sub-post offices. There has just been an agreement on the subject with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Department for Transport, and I talk regularly to my Cabinet counterparts about the benefits that rural post offices bring to the rural economy.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
If the Agricultural Wages Board is abolished, about £250 million will be removed from the rural economy according to the Government’s own figures. Prime Minister Thatcher never did it; neither did John Major, and the Minister of State signed parliamentary motions against the abolition—that was before the ministerial trappings trapped him. What does the Secretary of State say to the tens of thousands of lowest-paid farm workers who may face a race to the bottom in pay and conditions because, after a four-week consultation, he knows better than them?
Mr Paterson
I am just sorry that the Labour party wants to head back to the 1940s. I see a dynamic, growing structure in our rural economy. In contrast, will the hon. Gentleman join me in celebrating the £19 million investment by Müller Dairy in a butter plant that will turn 100 million litres of milk into 45 million tonnes of butter? That will stop import substitution and bring jobs to rural areas. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) should preserve his melodic tones for when he is on his feet, rather than in his seat.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
The coalition Government have brought a welcome fresh impetus to rural economic growth, but skills shortages are still a problem. Will the Secretary of State share with the House the benefits that the skills and knowledge framework fund of £20 million could bring?
Mr Paterson
I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend back in her seat and now released to ask pertinent questions, such as the one she just asked. She makes a key point—that we will not grow the rural economy if we do not have suitably trained and skilled young people, and the measure she mentioned is vital in developing the right taskforce for the right jobs.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
7. When he last discussed with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government the use of green fields for urban development.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
In the normal course of business, I have regular discussions with ministerial counterparts in the Department for Communities and Local Government about a range of planning issues. The national planning policy framework sets out the Government’s approach to encouraging sustainable development and provides strong protection for the countryside. It is for planning authorities to consider how best to optimise development for economic growth, and such considerations will include green fields in their areas.
Sir Bob Russell
I recognise what the Minister has just said, but it does not appear to be what the planning Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), is saying. Will this Minister give me an assurance that green fields are an important feature surrounding our towns, and that brownfield sites must be developed before any of those green fields are built on?
Richard Benyon
I refer my hon. Friend to the excellent national planning policy framework, which DEFRA was closely involved in drawing up. The requirement to reuse land previously developed—brownfield land—is contained in paragraph 111. The best and most versatile land is also protected—national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and, importantly for my hon. Friend, greenbelt land as well.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
If a council decides to build all its housing inside the village and town envelopes, rather than on green fields used for farming, and a developer appeals to the Government, who is the Minister’s inspector going to back?
Richard Benyon
The hon. Gentleman seems to ask me to conjecture on individual planning decisions. We have the national policy. All our local authorities will have their own policies. Where those policies are found to have been breached, the planning inspector will presumably point to that. We can go around the country and see some daft developments that have taken place over the decades. Too many houses have been built on floodplains or have been badly sited around small and large communities. We can all point to that. That is why a new planning policy which protects the countryside and green fields is being taken forward.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
8. What steps his Department is taking to deal with Schmallenberg virus.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
Schmallenberg virus is carried by vectors, including midges, which are difficult to control. Infection outwith pregnancy has minimal impact and the resulting immunity protects from the effect on offspring in the subsequent pregnancy. I understand that several pharmaceutical companies are developing a potential vaccine and these will require to be licensed as safe by the veterinary medicines directorate. Use of the vaccine will be for the livestock keeper to decide in consultation with their veterinarian.
Glyn Davies
The increasing devastation caused by the Schmallenberg virus is taking place at a particularly difficult time for the sheep industry, with unfavourable weather and rising costs. Will the Minister go further and give the farming industry some idea when the vaccine will be available, so that it can have some confidence in protection for future flocks?
Mr Heath
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an exact answer as to when the vaccine will be available. When a new disease occurs, companies can apply for a provisional marketing authorisation in the UK, and a rigorous scientific assessment process is required to ensure that any vaccine is safe. Once satisfied with this, the veterinary medicines directorate will grant a provisional marketing authorisation for that product. It is widely reported that one company has recently submitted a dossier of relevant information to the veterinary medicines directorate for its consideration.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
Farmers will be very pleased that there is the possibility of a vaccine for the disease, but the Minister will know that the management of sheep varies considerably from the lowlands to the uplands. Will the Department be in a position to give advice to vets and farmers about how to optimise the use of the vaccine, depending on their management schemes for their sheep?
Mr Heath
I certainly hope that we will be in a position to do that. I also think that there are some key issues about flock management; the key is whether infectious midges are around at the same time ewes are in lamb. As I said, if infection occurs before the ewe is pregnant, that provides immunity, rather than disease, so we might also need to take into account synchronisation in production and in the tupping period. I am shortly to bring together representatives of the sheep and cattle industries and vets so that we can discuss some of these issues.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to assist the dairy farming sector.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
I am always happy to impart information, Mr Speaker; that is what Question Time is for.
I am encouraging early progress to implement the industry’s excellent code of practice. I am consulting on ways dairy farmers can strengthen their position in the supply chain through producer organisations, and £5 million of new funding has been made available to boost collaboration and growth under the rural development programme for England. I am encouraging the industry to explore new markets at home and abroad to help develop its long-term potential.
Heather Wheeler
I thank the Minister for his reply. I was disappointed to see Arla Milk Link’s recent milk price reduction of 0.23p per litre. Farmers were given just one day’s notice of the cut, but they would have to give between 12 and 15 months’ notice before being able to leave their contract. That is against the commitments made in the voluntary code of practice and runs counter to the good progress made in the past few months by other processors, such as Dairy Crest, which is based in my constituency of South Derbyshire. For the voluntary code to work, we must ensure that there is a level playing field—
Heather Wheeler
How does the Minister intend to ensure fairness for both my dairy farmers and processors?
Mr Heath
I understand that the Arla price reduction was triggered by its agreed price formula, rather than made simply at its discretion, but I appreciate the concerns about the timing of the announcement and compliance with the industry code. That is why at last week’s Dairy UK board meeting I pressed for all processors to get on with implementing the industry code in their farmers’ contracts. I reminded them that if the code fails to deliver the desired outcomes over time, I will consider legislating.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Last year, Compassion in World Farming investigated a random selection of dairy farms in Germany, Spain and Denmark and found recurring evidence of cows being pushed to their physical limits to produce high milk yields and being chained indoors by the neck, in some cases all year round. Will the Minister back Compassion’s call for specific European legislation to set minimum welfare standards for dairy cows across the European Union, as we have for pigs, chickens and calves, which would help to set a level playing field for dairy farmers in this country?
Mr Heath
We always need to be aware of welfare issues in farm animals. This country has nothing to be ashamed of in the standards we have, compared with those of many others. We continually press at European level for common agreement on levels of farm animal welfare, and we will continue to do so.
Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
18. Dairy farmers in Hazel Grove are on the front line of the spread of bovine TB from the south, and they are astonished that DEFRA will not release information about infected herds in their area. Will the Minister take a second look at the reply he gave to me in a written answer and meet my farmers to discuss the issue?
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
10. How his Department plans to encourage innovation in the dairy industry.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
We are already taking action to support innovation and to help the industry achieve its potential. I have launched a £5 million RDPE—rural development programme for England—dairy fund to boost competitiveness and help businesses grow. I am working with UK trade international experts to develop a dairy exports summit, offering support to businesses that see export as a route to growth. We are also putting £2.5 million into research on sustainable proteins for feeding livestock, including 15 projects for the dairy sector.
Guto Bebb
I thank the Minister for his response. Will he join me in celebrating the work of the Tesco dairy centre of excellence, a partnership with Liverpool university located on a working farm in the Wirral? The centre ensures that best practice guidelines are offered to the supply chains for Tesco, many of whom are located in Wales. It is a great example of how the supply chain can work for the benefit of the industry.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
Following the excellent work that the Government have done to secure the access of pigmeat from this country into China, for example, what work is the Minister able to do to encourage dairy processors to look slightly to the longer term in developing these markets, given that the more low-hanging fruit might be just to explore opportunities in this country?
Mr Heath
We continue to press all the opportunities that we can for export potential. Indeed, the Secretary of State was in Shanghai recently pressing for exactly what my hon. Friend is asking for, which is opportunities for dairy exports in China. The industry needs to grasp opportunities, when they are there, to develop new export markets and find the right products for the right place so that we can expand our industry.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
12. What progress he has made on creating long-term sustainability in the fishing industry.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
We are making good progress towards sustainable fisheries. We secured an excellent, science-led result in the annual fisheries negotiations, setting sustainable fishing opportunities for 2013. We are negotiating genuine reforms of the broken common fisheries policy to eliminate discards, require sustainable fishing rates, and introduce regionalised management. We are working to address over-capacity issues within the English fleet and supporting market-led initiatives to help fishermen to get the best return for their catch.
George Hollingbery
The Minister will be unsurprised to know that I have a question about recreational sea angling. What work has the Department undertaken to assess the importance of this sector to the creation of sustainable fishing, and thus to fishing communities?
Richard Benyon
I am very grateful for the co-operation of recreational sea anglers in a project that we ran last year to find out how many there are, their contribution to the local coastal economy, what they are targeting, and their huge value in being the eyes and ears of the natural environment. Recreational sea angling is a key part of our policy to support coastal communities and the marine environment.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that the disgraceful over-fishing of mackerel by Iceland, leading to the Marine Stewardship Council removing mackerel from the list of sustainable fish, exposes the folly of the idea of repatriation of fisheries policies?
Richard Benyon
The Marine Stewardship Council has not delisted mackerel; another organisation downgraded it. It is certainly still right to buy British-landed mackerel—it is still a sustainable stock—but, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, we have serious worries about the activities of the Faroe Islands and Iceland in declaring a unilateral total allowable catch and not being willing to negotiate. We are working very hard to try to bring them back to the table, and we will use every measure we can. This is the most important stock for the United Kingdom industry, and most of all we want to protect it for the future.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
DEFRA’s focus remains on growing the rural economy, improving the environment, and safeguarding animal and plant health. As well as responding to events such as the flooding that affected the west and south-west of the country over Christmas, we continue to explore new ways of ensuring that we are able to deliver DEFRA’s priorities more effectively, placing our economy and environment on a sustainable footing. This ranges from triennial review of our delivery bodies—the Environment Agency and Natural England —to a new integrated system for common agricultural policy payments. We must strive for better outcomes through greater efficiency, integration and innovation.
Stephen Phillips
Given the devastating impact that bovine tuberculosis continues to have on our farmers, will my right hon. Friend update the House on the most recent assessment he has made with regard to the deployment of a vaccine in cattle?
Mr Paterson
Last week I met Commissioner Borg, the EU Health Commissioner, to agree a way forward for developing a workable cattle vaccine. A provisional timetable has now been agreed, and a copy of the letter outlining this to me has been placed in the Library this morning. It acknowledges the UK’s leading role in pressing forward on a cattle vaccine. and for the first time recognises that we are on course to deploy a vaccine. The legal and scientific process could take up to 10 years. In the meantime, we will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to check the progress of this terrible disease.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I am in receipt of evidence showing that several horses slaughtered by UK abattoirs last year tested positive for phenylbutazone —or bute—a drug that causes cancer in humans and that is banned from the human food chain. It is possible that those animals entered the human food chain. Is the Minister aware of this?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
I understand that the Food Standards Agency carries out checks in slaughterhouses to ensure that equine animals presented for slaughter are fit for human consumption, in the same way as it does for cattle, sheep and other animals. In addition, the FSA carries out sampling and testing for phenylbutazone and other veterinary medicines in meat from horses slaughtered in this country. Where positive results for phenylbutazone are found, the FSA investigates and takes follow-up action to trace the meat.
Mary Creagh
I am not clear whether that was yes, the Minister knew, or no, he did not. Either way, I am astonished that he has not raised the issue. The public have a right to know. It is a very serious development. What steps will he now take to ensure that illegal and carcinogenic horsemeat stops entering the human food chain? Last week, when I asked about difficulties with horse passports, he dismissed my concerns. Will he now review his short-sighted and reckless decision to scrap the national equine database?
Mr Heath
I think that the hon. Lady misunderstands what the national equine database did. The records of horse passports continue to be retained by the passport issuing agencies. There is no difficulty in tracing the use of a horse passport, so to suggest that the national equine database was required to do that is simply erroneous.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
T2. One of the largest employers in my constituency is Edwards of Conwy, the makers of the finest sausages in the United Kingdom. It has recently won a significant new export order to Malaysia. What work can the Department do to ensure that this country’s fantastic food producers get as much support as possible to export our product?
Mr Heath
The one controversy that I will not enter into is the question of who makes the best sausages in the country, because it will never end. I congratulate Edwards of Conwy on its success and entrepreneurism. Export is a key way of creating growth and I am committed to supporting our farming and food and drink sectors in doing so.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
T3. We are still waiting for an announcement on irresponsible dog ownership and dangerous dogs. When will we have that announcement and what will it cover?
Mr Heath
I can only say that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have published a consultation on the issue. We have received 27,000 responses and we have to do justice to them. We will make an announcement about the way forward soon and I am sorry that I cannot give a more explicit assurance.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
T4. What assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the national wildlife crime unit?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
We believe it is a valuable tool in the fight against wildlife crime, not only domestically but internationally, where there is great and worrying evidence of large-scale organised criminality that is affecting the survival chances of some of the most iconic species. I am delighted that we, along with the Home Office, have been able to continue the funding of the unit and we hope that it will continue its great work.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
T5. Last year the Secretary of State said that there would not be a Commons vote on repealing the Hunting Act 2004. Will he reassure the overwhelming majority of the British public who support retention of the Act that there will be no vote at any time in this Parliament?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is declared coalition policy to have a free vote on this issue at the appropriate time.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
T8. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for launching the global food IF campaign yesterday. The UK runs a large deficit in food, so what can the UK do to increase food production and make its contribution to the global situation?
Mr Heath
The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. When we talk about sustainable agriculture, we need to have in mind our need to feed not only the people of this country but the people of the world. We have to have a clear strategy on how to get to the point where every sector of agriculture in this country has not only maximum efficiency and effectiveness but sustainability.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T6. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that cuts to the Food Standards Agency have not and will not compromise meat hygiene inspections or the agency’s ability to ensure that meat is legal and safe?
Mr Heath
I seem to have answered a lot of questions recently about the Food Standards Agency, which is a matter for the Department of Health, but I will soon be giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on exactly that subject, and I hope that I will be able to set out exactly what the FSA does and does not do. I hope the hon. Gentleman will look at that evidence session and the conclusions of the Committee.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
As a prelude to my hon. Friend’s much looked forward to visit to the Committee, will he assure us that there is less chance now of horsemeat entering beefburgers and other parts of the food chain, and that the checks on frozen and processed food are as strong as those on fresh food?
Mr Heath
I certainly hope that that is the case after all the publicity over recent weeks about what was done in Ireland, and that we can assure my hon. Friend’s Committee that the FSA is working effectively and in collaboration with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland to ensure that every single abuse of the process is tracked down and dealt with effectively.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
T7. It took the Government nearly two years to respond to the original consultation on irresponsible dog ownership, and it is now 10 months since they announced their further consultation. Ministers are showing appalling complacency on the issue, and Members want to know when they are going to get their act together on it.
Mr Heath
Many colleagues behind me are asking, what about the 13 years of the Labour Government when nothing was done? I have already said that we plan to bring proposals forward soon. My noble Friend Lord de Mauley is working closely with the Home Office on a variety of associated issues, and we will make an announcement shortly.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his impassioned speech at the Oxford farming conference in defence of agricultural innovation. As we consider areas in which we might renegotiate our relationship with Europe, will he comment on the importance of a European framework that supports science and innovation in agriculture?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his work in pushing for development of the agri-science sector. That was one issue that I discussed with Commissioner Borg last week, and we are determined to push ahead and examine every technology that could help advance our agricultural industry.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
At last week’s fisheries talks, the Scottish pelagic fleet took a 15% cut in mackerel quota, in line with scientific advice, to compensate for the overfishing of Iceland and the Faroes. What action will the Minister now press the European Commission to take, and when can we expect to see it?
Richard Benyon
I had a meeting with the pelagic sector yesterday, at which I assured it that we would take every measure that we possibly could. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that the UK fleet has done the right thing despite the fact that the advice of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea was based on the activities of countries such as Iceland and the Faroes. I am absolutely with her, and we will do our best next week in Brussels to ensure that the Commission understands how important the matter is to Britain.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
The second wave of city deal bids offers great potential to rural communities in wider areas. Has the Minister seen the Swindon and Wiltshire city deal bid so that he might consider whether that partnership offers a blueprint for extending the benefits of city deals into neighbouring rural economies?
Richard Benyon
I am really impressed with what is happening in Swindon and Wiltshire, and I want to use it as a model around the country. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it further.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
T9. Will the Minister confirm that legislation to ban wild animals in circuses will be included in the next Queen’s Speech, or can we expect more delays on that important animal welfare issue?
Mr Heath
As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said in the debate on a private Member’s Bill on Friday, we will very shortly introduce a draft Bill. That will then be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and it would be quite wrong for Ministers to prejudge what further progress that will result in.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
1. What recent representations he has received on the implications of same-sex marriage for the Church.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)
The Church has had a series of discussions with the Government Equalities Office and officials over the past few weeks regarding the drafting of the Government’s Bill. There have also been meetings between senior Church representatives and the Secretary of State.
The Church of England’s position on the issues of principle were set out clearly in the published submission from the two archbishops last June. I understand that the Bill is to be published later today, and I would prefer to defer any further comment on the detailed drafting of it until Second Reading, which I understand will be soon.
Miss McIntosh
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. Will he give an indication of the timetable that the Church would need in order to implement the rather complicated system envisaged in the Bill?
Sir Tony Baldry
That will depend largely on the timetable set out in the Bill, and my hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to clarify one important point. The Church of England is not asking for any special treatment or protection under this legislation; the issue is simply that the Bill should be drafted to ensure that the Church of England has the same freedoms as all other Churches and denominations to decide these matters for itself, and that, of course, must reflect the unique legal position of the Church of England.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Speaking as someone who had a heterosexual marriage celebrated and registered in church, I hope that the Church Commissioners will explain to Colin Hart, the self-appointed campaign director of the so-called Coalition for Marriage, that having unity and diversity is a good idea, and that nobody in the Church of England ought to be worried about same-sex couples having the same opportunities of marrying as those of the opposite sex.
Sir Tony Baldry
These are issues that we will each have to address on a free vote on the Bill’s Second Reading, which I understand will take place soon. It may be for the convenience of the House if I give a brief summary of the submissions made by both archbishops in response to the Government’s earlier consultation, so that there is no ambiguity about the Church of England’s position. In their summary, the two archbishops said:
“The Church of England cannot support the proposal to enable ‘all couples, regardless of their gender, to have a civil marriage ceremony.’ Such a move would alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history…To change the nature of marriage for everyone will be divisive and deliver no obvious legal gains given the rights already conferred by civil partnerships. We also believe that imposing for essentially ideological reasons a new meaning on a term as familiar and fundamental as marriage would be deeply unwise.”
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
2. Whether the Electoral Commission is taking steps to make it easier for UK citizens resident abroad to vote in UK elections while ensuring safeguards against electoral fraud.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
UK electors overseas currently have two options to vote in certain UK elections: by post or by appointing a proxy. The commission has been calling for the Government to review the electoral timetable since 2003, and it therefore welcomes the provision in the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill to extend the timetable for a general election from 17 to 25 working days. That will give overseas voters more time to return their postal votes. The current security arrangements for postal vote applications will still apply.
Michael Fabricant
There are 3.5 million expats living abroad—1.5 million in Australia and the United States, 800,000 in Spain, and many, many more, yet only 1% are registered and get to vote.
Michael Fabricant
And as my hon. Friend says, that is shocking. Will the commission investigate precisely why we are in this appalling state of affairs, and explain what it is going to do about it?
Mr Speaker
Given the illustrious post held by the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), I am not sure it is fitting to wave a pen at him.
Mr Streeter
I completely agree and I did feel rather intimidated, although it was only a cheap biro. My hon. Friend raises an important point that many colleagues on all sides of the House have raised over the years, and it is time for action to be taken. Any change in the law or procedure is obviously a matter for the Government and this House, not the Electoral Commission. However, I am persuaded by my hon. Friend’s rhetoric that more needs to be done, perhaps by conducting some qualitative research into why more Brits living abroad do not register to vote. I will make that suggestion to the Electoral Commission, and it will be up to that commission whether to take it forward.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
3. What assessment the Church Commissioners have made of ways in which religious education teaching could be improved and ensuring that teachers have an understanding of basic Christianity.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)
The Church of England’s board of education and diocesan education team share the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend about the quality of RE teaching. The Church is working with the Religious Education Council and other national bodies to ensure that the profile of religious education remains high. I welcome this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend and that of the all-party parliamentary group on religious education, which does so much to highlight those issues.
Fiona Bruce
Does my hon. Friend agree that RE is important because it has a crucial role in the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of children; a pastoral role in creating space in classrooms where they can safely explore ideas about some of life’s most profound challenges and values; and a role in promoting mutual tolerance and understanding? However, does he also agree that, for that to happen, we need good quality RE teacher training and support?
Sir Tony Baldry
I fully agree with everything my hon. Friend says. That is why we are concerned about the removal of postgraduate certificate in education places for religious education and the minimal amount of time primary teachers receive to address religious education in their training. However, rather more encouraging is the fact that student take-up of religious education at GCSE has been at substantial levels for many years. The number of people sitting RE exams demonstrates that young people are indeed curious about faith and religion.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
4. What the policy of the Church of England is on celebrating civil partnerships.
Sir Tony Baldry
The Church of England’s position remains as set out in the House of Bishops pastoral statement of July 2005. A working group chaired by the former Northern Ireland Office permanent secretary, Sir Joseph Pilling, is reviewing the Church’s approach to sexuality more generally and will submit a report to the House of Bishops by the end of this year. A private member’s motion seeking to authorise the registration of civil partnerships in Church of England churches is due for discussion in the General Synod in due course.
Mr Bradshaw
As the hon. Gentleman will know, a number of senior Church of England bishops have, in the context of the debate on same-sex marriage, expressed their support for civil partnerships, but would the Church of England’s opposition to same-sex marriage, and the distinction it tries to draw, be more credible and have more authority if it allowed Church of England parishes that want to conduct civil partnerships to do so?
Sir Tony Baldry
The right hon. Gentleman makes his point well. Given the sensitivity of the issue, the most sensible thing for me to do is to ensure that his comments and those of any other right hon. and hon. Members are drawn to the attention of Sir Joseph Pilling.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
5. What assessment he has made of whether the informal discussions among General Synod members in February 2013 will lead to significant progress on enabling women to become bishops.
Sir Tony Baldry
I refer the hon. Lady to the letter from the secretary-general of the General Synod, which was placed in the Library of the House on 19 December. I understand that the working group established by the House of Bishops had a good first meeting on 3 January. It meets again next Wednesday. The facilitated discussions in early February will be followed immediately by a further meeting of the House of Bishops. I know that all concerned understand the urgency of the situation.
Diana Johnson
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the document that was produced and put in the House of Commons Library shows no acceleration of the usual glacial way in which the Church of England operates? Does he also accept that in 2015 we could still find ourselves dealing with an unrepresentative laity stopping the Measure? Surely we can something more quickly.
Sir Tony Baldry
The hon. Lady is being uncharacteristically uncharitable. Anyone present at the meeting in the Moses Room with the Archbishop of Canterbury-designate would have been left in absolutely no doubt that the Church is determined to take the matter forward with all due speed and diligence. A working group was set up immediately and facilitated discussions will take place next week. It is important to try, as quickly as possible, to find a way forward that enables fresh legislation to be brought before the General Synod in July.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
6. What recent guidance the Electoral Commission has issued on ways of increasing participation in elections.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The commission undertakes public awareness work to raise awareness of elections and how to participate in them, including by encouraging people to register. Electoral registration officers and returning officers have a statutory duty to promote participation locally, and the commission provides guidance to help them to do so. The guidance focuses on ensuring that people know how to participate.
Hugh Bayley
Given the consequence of the experiment in individual voter registration in Northern Ireland, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the commission that those people who already have their names on the electoral register throughout the United Kingdom should have their names kept on the register until the time of the next general election so that they should be able to vote at that election?
Mr Streeter
Yes I do, and, more important, so do the Government, which is precisely why it is going to happen.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
One way to boost electoral turnout is to have candidates who are able to enthuse positively the electorate. Does the Electoral Commission have any plans to crack down on nasty, negative and dishonest campaigning?
Mr Streeter
In the many conversations I have had with the Electoral Commission over the months and years, this specific issue has not cropped up.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Given the situation in Northern Ireland that has already been referred to, where the current state of the electoral register is so bad that it is estimated that only about 70% of people who should be on the register are on the register accurately, will the hon. Gentleman ensure that lessons are learned from Northern Ireland and that efforts will be made in conjunction with the Electoral Commission there to ensure that something is done urgently?
Mr Streeter
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Lessons have been learnt from the situation in Northern Ireland, not least the fact that people who are on the register in summer 2014 will automatically be on the register for the general election in May 2015.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
7. What assessment the Church Commissioners have made of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights that British Airways acted unreasonably in banning an employee from wearing a cross at work.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)
The Church of England welcomed the recent judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. The victory of Ms Eweida is a straightforward victory for common sense. In a free country, the wearing of symbols of one’s religious faith should be entirely uncontroversial. I do not believe that Christians, just because they are Christians, should have any greater rights than anyone else in the community, but certainly Christians, because they are Christians, should not have fewer rights.
Andrew Stephenson
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Although Nadia Eweida won her case against British Airways, which I wholeheartedly welcome, a nurse lost her case regarding the wearing of a cross at work, something she had done for 30 years. The Right Reverend the Bishop of Exeter has described the laws as balanced against the rights of conscience and faith. Does my hon. Friend agree with those of us who believe that we still need to do more to protect religious freedoms and tolerance in the British workplace?
Sir Tony Baldry
Personally, I think the ECHR got the balance on religious symbols about right. While fully upholding the right of Christians and others to wear discreet religious symbols at work, this, like many other rights, cannot be an absolute. In the case of Ms Chaplin, we fully accept that the need for hospitals to preserve the highest standards of hygiene, and safety has to come first.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
8. What steps are being considered within the Church of England as to how the House of Laity may be made more representative of church congregations.
Sir Tony Baldry
Last year, the Synod voted to explore alternatives to the present system under which the House of Laity is elected by deanery synod members. I understand that the report, with options for change, will be discussed by the synod at one of its meetings this year.
Martin Vickers
I thank the Church Commissioner for that reply. The unrepresentative nature of the House of Laity is clearly holding the Church back, involving it in interminable, internal debates. Very few congregations are aware of the process of election and very few members of congregations get involved in election. Will he use his good offices to ensure that, as a matter of urgency, new proposals are brought forward?
Sir Tony Baldry
I think my hon. Friend’s comments will be shared by many throughout the Church, which is why it is exploring alternatives to the present system under which the House of Laity is elected by deanery synod members. I am sure that the comments my hon. Friend makes will be borne in mind when that report comes to be debated later this year.
Business of the House
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
The business for next week will be as follows:
Monday 28 January—Remaining stages of the Succession to the Crown Bill.
Tuesday 29 January—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, followed by remaining stages of the HGV Road User Levy Bill.
Wednesday 30 January—General debate on Europe.
Thursday 31 January—Consideration of opposed private business nominated by the Chairman of Ways and Means, followed by debate on a motion relating to the Liaison Committee’s report on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers. The subject for this debate has been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 1 February—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the following week will include:
Monday 4 February—Second Reading of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 5 February—Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.
Wednesday 6 February—Opposition Day [16th allotted day]. There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Democratic Unionist party. Subject to be announced.
Thursday 7 February—Debate on a motion relating to subsidies for new nuclear, followed by general debate on the closure of A and E departments. The subjects for these debates have been nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 14 February will be:
Thursday 14 February—Debate on eating disorder awareness.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week.
Yesterday’s Opposition day debate on the disgraceful blacklisting of trade unionists who raised safety concerns, along with other workers in the building sector, was very powerful. Members highlighted the devastating impact that the practice had on construction workers and their families across the country over many years. Although there is legal action by some of those affected, we still do not know the extent of the practice or who was involved, which is why we called in yesterday’s motion for a full inquiry to get at the truth. The Government did not oppose our motion yesterday, which we welcome, so could the Leader of the House ask the Business Secretary to make a statement quickly on what action Ministers will now take to stop this practice ever happening again?
This week the International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for the UK, and this morning its chief economist called for a reassessment of the Government’s fiscal policy. Moreover, December’s figures showed Government borrowing up 4% year on year. It is up because the Government’s economic strategy is failing, and it is hard-pressed families who are paying the price.
Yesterday in this House the Prime Minister was asked about food banks. The chief executive of the Trussell Trust said that his answer was “manipulating the numbers”. The number of people turning to food banks for support has increased by 90,000 since the election. This year it is expected that 250,000 people will need help from food banks to get by. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions obstinately refuse to visit a food bank to see for themselves the consequences of their failing economic strategy, so may we have a debate in Government time on food banks?
Ministers claim that the Government’s flagship energy efficiency programme, the green deal, will enable thousands of householders to take out a loan to make their homes more energy efficient. Having scrapped schemes introduced by the last Labour Government which helped to make thousands of homes more energy efficient, the Government have a new scheme, which has been months in preparation. Forty organisations are involved and 600 trained builders are on stand-by, ready to spring into action, but the Department of Energy and Climate Change admitted this week that just five households had benefited. The Federation of Master Builders had a simple explanation for this failing policy: it said that the Government had done too little, too late to promote the scheme. Given the recent freezing weather and the inevitable impact on people’s energy bills, could the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on the latest Government shambles?
Last week I warned that those on the increasingly fractious Government Front Bench were at risk of turning on each other. On cue, we had a petulant outburst from the Department for Education, when a Government source blasted the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), a former Education Minister, as a
“lazy incompetent narcissist obsessed only with self-promotion.”
I am puzzled by who the DFE source could be. It could not have been a civil servant or a special adviser, because what happened is clearly against the special advisers code of conduct. Who does that leave? Could we have an urgent statement from the Education Secretary to clear the matter up?
The Leader of the House has announced a debate next week on Europe. Ahead of that debate, could the right hon. Gentleman say whether enabling legislation would be needed for a referendum to happen? Could he also confirm that the reason why there has been no Government statement on Europe is that the Prime Minister in his speech yesterday was not announcing Government policy? In next week’s debate, therefore, will the Foreign Secretary be speaking for the Government or the Conservative party?
The Leader of the House will recall that, a little over a year ago, he and I both voted against an in/out referendum. It is not immediately apparent what seismic events have occurred in European affairs to prompt Conservative Ministers to have a damascene conversion on this issue. Two Government Parliamentary Private Secretaries were fired for voting in favour of holding an in/out referendum. Will those Eurosceptic martyrs now be reinstated to Government? Will they be reinstated now that the Prime Minister has joined the headbangers in obsessing about Europe rather than tackling the effects of his failing economic policies?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her further questions. I was grateful to her and other Opposition Members for giving the House good notice of yesterday’s Opposition day debate on blacklisting, following our exchanges at business questions last week. That certainly assisted the debate, during which the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable) said that the evidence available to date did not merit a new inquiry, but that it would be a serious matter if new evidence came to light that those practices were continuing. He asked anyone with information about the practice continuing to get in touch with the relevant authorities. I echo that request.
The shadow Leader of the House asked about economic forecasts. Our forecast was set out in the autumn statement by the Office for Budget Responsibility. It was produced independently—something that was never done under the previous Government, who published their own manipulated forecasts. The International Monetary Fund has forecast that growth in the United Kingdom this year and next year will exceed that of the eurozone. So, notwithstanding the OBR’s statement that the crisis in the eurozone has been a “major drag” on performance in this country, given that that is our principal market, we are none the less able to expect higher growth than the eurozone.
We have discussed food banks at business questions, and I have said that I visited a food bank in Loughborough with my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). The Prime Minister has also answered that question at Prime Minister’s questions on many occasions. I will simply reiterate that, on 9 January, the director of the UK food bank network said:
“I think the need has been there for a while. The growth in volunteers, and awareness about the fact you can get this help if you need it, help to explain the growth this year.”
The hon. Lady made no reference, of course, to the employment statistics that were published yesterday. They showed that employment is now at a record high, and that it increased last year by 552,000—the largest increase in one year since 1989. Time might not have permitted her to refer to the crime statistics published this morning, which show an 8% reduction in crime, year on year, to September 2012. That is extremely welcome.
The hon. Lady referred to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s speech on Europe. I fear that she did not explain what the policy of the Labour party was, however, but I think we know. The Leader of the Opposition told us yesterday that Labour was opposed to an in/out referendum. So, as we discovered last week, the right hon. Gentleman believes that powers should come back to this country from Europe, but he has no mechanism by which he would seek to achieve that. He also has no basis on which to ask the British public for their consent to such a settlement. I am afraid that the Labour party has a problem. It has no interest in a new vision for Europe, such as the one the Prime Minister set out yesterday. That vision is attracting support right across Europe, including from the Finnish, Czech, Dutch and Danish Governments. They recognise that what is required is a more flexible, more competitive and more open Europe that is democratically accountable. As Leader of the House, I believe that what the Prime Minister said about the primacy of national Parliaments in securing democratic accountability was most important. But Labour has no vision for Europe, no trust in the British people and no support for democracy.
My final point is that the shadow Leader of the House might have a small problem with democracy. There was a local government by-election in her constituency in the Wirral. In that by-election, sadly occasioned by the death of the sitting member, in Leasowe and Morton East—a ward Labour won last year by a majority of 318—Ian Lewis, the Conservative candidate won by a majority of 265 votes. On the same day, in the neighbouring constituency of Wirral South, in a by-election in Heswall ward, the Conservative Kathryn Hodson overturned a Labour majority and won the seat, pushing the Labour party, which held the seat last year, into third place.
Mr Speaker
I am sure that, from now on, questions and answers will relate exclusively to the business of the House for next week and the provisional business for the following week.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Does the Leader of the House have any views on what will happen in next week’s local government by-elections following the Prime Minister’s speech on Europe? I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend has granted a debate on Europe so that all the party leaders can make their position quite clear—with the Prime Minister saying we want an in/out referendum, the Leader of the Opposition opposed to it and the Liberal Democrats facing both ways.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes a good point. It seems to me that next week’s business, including as it does a general debate on Europe, affords an excellent opportunity for the Foreign Secretary to set out the Government’s position—and in so doing, he may well refer to the Conservative party’s policies for beyond the next election. That should provide a real opportunity for the Conservatives to maximise the Conservative vote at any by-election.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Should we not have a statement today from the Home Secretary on the 16,000 immigration cases that have been found by the chief inspector of borders and immigration—in addition to the number of cases found last year—with boxes being found in all kinds of places, unknown to the UK Border Agency? When is the Home Secretary going to get a grip on the situation after nearly three years in office and stop blaming her predecessor?
Mr Lansley
As the hon. Gentleman should know, this is an historical problem. It would not arise now because the reconsideration of those rejected applications could not happen under the current policy. My hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration has made it clear that this is being dealt with and that such a situation would not be allowed to arise again. As I have made clear in business questions before, the chief inspector of borders and immigration is equally clear that performance is being turned around. The Minister has said that he is not satisfied with the performance of the UK Borders Agency and the chief executive is not satisfied with it: they are taking every measure to ensure that it is improved in the future.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
May we have a debate on the mis-selling of interest rate swap products by the banks to small and medium-sized enterprises, on the speed with which these matters are being resolved and on the fact that businesses across the country are facing bankruptcy?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I know is a matter of concern for many Members that have small businesses across their constituencies. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I cannot recall precisely who is investigating the problem at the moment—it may be the Office of Fair Trading, but I am not sure.
Mr Lansley
The FSA—I am grateful to my hon. Friend for prompting me. The FSA is investigating the matter. As we have discussed at business questions before, it is important to try to help small businesses in the interim, but it is particularly important that the FSA pursues its investigation with rigour. I know it will.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
May we have an urgent debate on the Government’s red lines on their negotiations with Europe? We know that the Prime Minister is going to take a tough line on this issue, but we do not know what he is taking a tough line on. Will he make a statement to clarify what the red lines are?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will have noted that I announced a general debate on Europe next Wednesday. I know that one key aspect of that debate will be the Foreign Secretary setting out how the balance of competences review is under way. The Government are pursuing that now. The first set of reports covering four semesters has already been published and is open for consultation. I hope Members will have an opportunity to respond before February.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
Tomorrow, I will be hosting an event at Warwickshire college with the Minister with responsibility for creative industries. This event is partnered by the Gazelle Local initiative and is spearheaded by the college’s principal, Mariane Cavalli. The aim is to create an entrepreneurial college, building on partnerships with employers, entrepreneurs and social enterprises, with the potential to make our colleges engines for growth. Will the Leader of the House commit Government time for a debate on how our further education colleges can collaborate better with businesses to prepare our young people for work?
Mr Lansley
Yes, my hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I welcome his comments about FE colleges getting together with employers in his constituency. Colleagues from across the House and I met the principals of FE colleges who visited Westminster yesterday evening to discuss just these issues. There are many opportunities now for FE colleges, which they are taking, to get involved, together with local enterprise partnerships, to maximise participation in apprenticeships programmes and work experience. What the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), recently said about traineeships adds to the opportunities for FE colleges to equip young people for work.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House may be aware of the tragic case of my constituent, the Indian student Souvik Pal, who went missing on new year’s eve in Manchester, and whose body was tragically found this week. The right hon. Gentleman may or may not also be aware of the huge publicity that this case has received in India. Taken together with the callous and brutal murder of Anuj Bidve in Manchester on Boxing day last year, there is now growing concern that Indian students and their families will be put off studying in the UK. May I ask for a statement or some Government action on this important issue?
Mr Lansley
I am indeed aware of these tragic and very disturbing cases, as I know the House is, and we share the concern that the hon. Lady expresses on behalf of her constituents. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was recently in India and had the opportunity to discuss with the Indian Government many issues, including students coming here, and was able to reassure them. However, I will talk to my right hon. Friend and see whether there is any further means by which she can provide the necessary reassurance.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
May we have a statement on departmental responses to letters? Despite 11 attempts over five months to get a response from the Treasury to a constituent’s query, I have so far failed. I very much hope that the Leader of the House can help to sort this out.
Mr Lansley
If my hon. Friend or Members across the House experience failures on the part of Departments, I hope Ministers will respond and take action. However, if I can be of any assistance, I will. I will certainly be in touch with the Treasury and will perhaps encourage my colleagues there to respond to my hon. Friend before they answer questions here next Tuesday.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to give a rather positive answer to a question I asked last week about whether the debate on preventing violence against women could happen on the international day of action against violence against women, on 14 February. Can he say whether he expects the Backbench Business Committee to be allocated that day, so that I can see whether we might get our debate?
Mr Lansley
I if may, I shall simply smile delphically at the hon. Lady. These are matters that we keep closely in touch with the Backbench Business Committee about.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The Ormiston Forge Academy in my constituency is using its new freedoms to develop innovative relationships with business to improve the teaching of science and other technical subjects. May we have a debate about how academies are using their new freedoms to improve the educational experience of children in such subjects?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I agree: it has been extremely encouraging to see the considerable progress that has been made, not least with academies and free schools taking such opportunities. For example, on EBacc take-up, in 2013 the number of pupils taking triple science will have gone up by 82%. That and other increases in the number of science students are very important for the future competitiveness and success of our students.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Leader of the House will be aware that a massacre of London’s police stations, including Wanstead police station in my constituency, is under way. Apart from anything else, it is funny that Boris did not mention it until his campaign was over and he had been elected. Given the number of closures that are in the pipeline, may we have a statement from the relevant Home Office Minister?
Mr Lansley
As the hon. Gentleman will know, consultations are taking place about police stations across London. Responsibility lies with the police authority and with the Mayor in his capacity as commissioner, but I will of course raise the hon. Gentleman’s point with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking all the postmen and postwomen who have worked so hard to deliver residential and business post during the period of bad weather? May we have a debate on Royal Mail and the provision of 4X4 vehicles for rural areas, which would enable parts of Shropshire that have not received their post to start to receive it if the snow continues?
Mr Lansley
I share my hon. Friend’s appreciation of the postal service. My constituents and I have experienced no interruption in mail deliveries, which is important and welcome, and I congratulate Royal Mail on its work. I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) whether the Department, or indeed Royal Mail itself, could tell my hon. Friend a little more about how Royal Mail is equipping itself to ensure that deliveries are not interrupted.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
When can we expect an announcement about future business in the Northern Ireland Grand Committee?
Mr Lansley
Regrettably, I am not in a position to add to what I have said thus far, but I will write to the right hon. Gentleman if I have any more information about the future business that is planned.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
May we have a statement on motorway safety and the use of chevron markings? Many accidents occur because cars are travelling too close to each other, and the markings are a simple and cost-effective way of encouraging the keeping of safer distances between them. I have not been able to establish from answers to parliamentary questions whether there is a strategy for the provision of more markings. The M3 has none at all. I should appreciate the support of the Leader of the House.
Mr Lansley
I understand the benefit of chevron markings. There is a point on the M11, which I use a great deal, where they are very helpful in maintaining space in traffic, particularly as it is a two-line highway. I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) whether my hon. Friend, and perhaps other Members, could be given more information about the road safety programme on the highways.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May we have a debate on fair access to universities? Yesterday’s announcement that AS-levels would no longer count towards A-levels was greeted with almost universal opposition. The University of Cambridge, for instance, said that the change would
“jeopardise…a decade’s progress towards fairer access”.
Is not ignoring everyone’s views on a subject a particularly dangerous form of narcissism?
Mr Lansley
I am pleased to note that, having not managed to introduce his argument during questions on yesterday’s statement, the hon. Gentleman has returned to it now. I like to think that business questions give Members a second chance.
The University of Cambridge, part of which is in my constituency, has sought on occasion to use its own attainment test because of its lack of confidence in its ability to distinguish between candidates on the basis of A-levels. Yesterday evening I spoke to the principal of Hills Road sixth-form college in Cambridge, which used to be in my constituency, and which sends as many candidates to Oxford and Cambridge as any institution anywhere in the country. I am confident that, along with other routes, the retention of AS-levels, although they will no longer contribute directly to A-levels, will give that college an opportunity to demonstrate that its students have the capacity to excel at the best universities.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
May I echo the call from my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) for a debate on science and technology, because 100 years ago Birmingham and the west midlands was known as the workshop of the world and in this century it must be the science lab of the world? May we have a debate on not only how we encourage students to study those subjects, but how we encourage scientists and technologists into the classroom to inspire them?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I entirely agree with him. Our Government’s reforms to curriculum, qualifications, teaching and the schools system will support better science and technology education. They include: a strengthened mathematics and science curriculum; more rigorous key stage 4 qualifications; and, not least, attracting more graduates with the appropriate qualifications into teaching by offering bursaries of up to £20,000. We all know that the ability to teach science and maths effectively for students often depends on teachers having the appropriate specialist qualifications.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
As we do not appear to be overwhelmed with Government business, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the plight of disabled people under this Government? Like many other hon. Members, I am now receiving letters from disabled people who are in despair at the cuts they are facing. One gentleman wrote to me last week saying that he believes the answer for him is the introduction of voluntary euthanasia. Is it not about time we had a proper debate on these issues?
Mr Lansley
I am sorry if anybody should ever feel that, because it is absolutely not necessary. As the Prime Minister has clearly said, and as I have reiterated, the changes to benefits for disabled people, including the personal independence payments, will focus more resources on those most in need with disabilities. I also dispute what the hon. Lady said about the business. This week five Government Bills are being considered in this House and five are being considered in the other House—that is a busy programme.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May we have a debate on the use of police cautions? This week, we have had the case of a burglar who admitted 113 offences and was given a caution by Surrey police. Surely that is a totally inappropriate use of a police caution. That person should not have been seen at a magistrates court; somebody who commits 113 burglaries should be dealt with at a Crown court.
Mr Lansley
I am interested in what my hon. Friend has to say. Of course, we must be careful, as the Executive, not to trespass on the prosecuting decisions of the prosecuting authorities, but I will raise the points he makes with my colleagues at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Leader of the House share my concern about the large number of bankruptcies, including the recent ones at Comet and HMV, and those at many small businesses up and down the country? Is he also concerned about the growing evidence of a big question mark over the ethics of the people who carry out the process and administration of bankruptcy? The way they work it means that they suck all the lifeblood out of what remains in the business and leave nothing for the creditors. May we have a debate on this corrupt process, which goes to the very top of some of our big accountancy companies?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will understand that I make no comment on his closing remarks. In this Parliament, we have legislated for a reform of insolvency practices. A review is under way to look at some of the ways in which the claims of creditors can best be met during insolvency. I share his concern where bankruptcies occur, but I would also point out that in the past year for which figures are available—I believe it was 2011—we had the highest rate of new business formation in this country for a long time.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
My constituent Jason Durk was recently charged £60 for an urgent prescription that was unavailable from local pharmacies, apart from the hospital dispensary. The alternative for him was to visit accident and emergency, where he would have paid only £7.20. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on joined-up budgets in primary care to prevent this very unfortunate situation where somebody who was desperate to receive medical attention had to pay a ridiculous sum of money?
Mr Lansley
If I may, I will ask my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health to respond to my hon. Friend on that point. There is a distinction between access to prescription medicines, which attract the normal prescription charge—my hon. Friend and the House will recall that some 90% of all prescriptions are free—and access to medicines that are supplied in an emergency, which attract a higher charge. That is not about a prescription but about the cost of providing medicines in an emergency.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), the Leader of the House might be interested to know that a written answer I received on 15 January showed that between 2010 and 2012 the number of days it took to receive a decision on tier 1 visa applications made from within the UK went up from 30 to 83. In the same period, the number of cases taking more than four weeks to process has gone up from 25,000 to just under 64,000—all while this Government have been in office. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Home Secretary or a Home Office Minister makes an urgent statement on that process, as those figures do not show the progress he mentioned earlier?
Mr Lansley
I will not reiterate the points I made earlier. My hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration has made it very clear that he does not yet regard the performance as satisfactory, and nor does the chief executive of the UK Border Agency. I will of course encourage my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department to find opportunities to update the House during questions and at other times about improvements in performance at the UKBA.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
Yesterday in the European Parliament there were some important votes on reform of the common agricultural policy. That subject is important for producers and consumers of food. Will the Leader of the House set aside some time so that Ministers can set out their views and hon. Members can reflect their constituents’ concerns about this important matter?
Mr Lansley
As my hon. Friend rightly says, that is important. He will know that as those measures make progress the opportunity to consider them will be offered to the European Scrutiny Committee, which will decide whether it should be debated in Committee or on the Floor of the House. We will have to wait and see, but reform of the CAP has been a continuing priority of this Government. As the Prime Minister’s speech set out yesterday, it is an illustration in one very important area of the importance of the single market and of how the single market must promote competitiveness, ensuring that not only producers but consumers get the best deal.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
May we have a debate on the challenges facing Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust? The Leader of the House will know from his former role that there is a question mark over whether the forthcoming review of services will result in the retaining of key services, such as a full maternity unit, at Furness general hospital. There is also a need for lessons to be learned about the great failings at the trust over recent years.
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman is right—I am very familiar with the issues at the trust and had opportunities in the past to meet the staff and visit Furness general hospital. I will not venture any view about the outcome of the review, but I shall certainly ask my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health to correspond with him and give him an idea about the process and any emerging conclusions.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education has taken significant steps to reintroduce rigour into the examination system, yet my constituents will not necessarily benefit from that because of the devolved settlement and the different approaches taken in different parts of the UK. May we have a debate on the examination system to provide clarity and certainty to employers and universities who want to know the differences in the approaches of the various authorities around the UK?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point, not least because he speaks from a Welsh perspective. There was recently a debate in Opposition time on reform of the exam system, which provided an opportunity for my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department to demonstrate that our reforms are replacing GCSEs with rigorous world-class examinations, for example. We are setting out to ensure not only that standards are set and maintained in core subjects but that our examination system and curriculum match the best in the world.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Ovarian cancer is called the silent killer, as its symptoms go unrecognised and spread quickly. We could save the lives of 500 women a year if our services matched the best in Europe. Can we have a debate on how to improve awareness of the symptoms among both women and GPs, so that we can catch this cancer earlier?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The disparity in survival outcomes for some of the main cancers is at the heart of the improving outcomes strategy for cancer that the Government set out; indeed, I set it out when I was Secretary of State for Health. I visited the very large-scale research project on ovarian cancer. From memory, I think 200,000 women formed part of that trial, which should soon—in the next couple of years or so—start to give us results that might lead to much better options for screening for ovarian cancer, and hence early access to treatment.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Can we have a debate on the long-standing problem of interference on licensed radio stations, particularly in London and south-east England, from illegitimate broadcasters?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend tempts me a little. He will remember “The Boat that Rocked”, a recent film that was in part about trying to suppress pirate radio stations. When I watched it with my wife, I had to confess to her that in the mid-1980s, as Private Secretary in the Department of Trade and Industry with responsibility for the Radiocommunications Agency, I was the official sending teams out to shut down pirate radio stations. Happily, that is now Ofcom’s responsibility, and I will of course ask the chief executive of Ofcom to let my hon. Friend know what steps it is taking to ensure that the integrity of broadcasting on the spectrum is maintained.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Britain is now set to renegotiate its relationship with the European Union. May I suggest to the Leader of the House that a first priority in the negotiations should be to seek to withdraw from the common fisheries policy and re-establish Britain’s historical fishing limits? May I also suggest that in next week’s debate, the Government come forward with proposals on the common fisheries policy, and perhaps think about using the Norwegian model as a basis for the future?
Mr Lansley
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity of next Wednesday’s debate on Europe to raise those issues. I know the Prime Minister referred, in his speech yesterday, to reform of the common fisheries policy as an issue, and included in that is the question of the balance of powers and competences. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will hear from the Foreign Secretary in that debate about how our balance of competences review, which will be conducted by the Government during this Parliament, will inform the renegotiation and allow us to secure some return of powers.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
In the Prime Minister’s speech on the European Union yesterday, he properly and rightly drew our attention to the importance of the single market, and said that it should include energy. I would say that the key theme should be competition and connectivity. Will the Lord Privy Seal have discussions with his ministerial colleagues to make sure that we have something significant to say on that soon?
Mr Lansley
I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s view. Indeed, one of the most remarked-on things about the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday was that it was directed not just at Britain, but the whole of Europe. All of us in wider Europe need to create a more flexible and competitive Europe; that goes particularly for eurozone countries, whatever their needs may be in terms of integration in the eurozone. As for energy, when it comes to being part of a single market and meeting the 2014 deadline, delivering that kind of competition is exactly what we need to do to demonstrate the benefits of European Union membership.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Yesterday, my constituent Terry Renshaw came to London, alongside his more famous former workmate, Ricky Tomlinson, and other members of the Shrewsbury 24 group, to get the Government to consider releasing papers relating to their 1972 trial. May we have an early debate on the release of those papers, particularly as the Government signed an order this very month to prevent their release until 2022, which will impact considerably on the group’s ability to put to the Criminal Cases Review Commission the case for looking at the matter again?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the matter on behalf of his constituents and others. I will ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to respond to him. I will also, if I may, take an interest in that response, because these are not issues with which I am very familiar, but I will be glad to see what she has to say on the matter.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Primary schools in my constituency have told me of the challenges that they are facing from the growing demand for places and the pressure that this is causing, particularly on capital budgets. I do not think that it is just a local issue. It is affecting primary schools up and down the country. May we please have a debate to discuss what is being done to ensure that schools can cope with the growing demand for places?
Mr Lansley
Yes; my hon. Friend raises an important point. The problem is not confined to his constituency. The number of live births in this country began to rise in 2001 and since then, through to 2011, there has been about a 16% increase, so we have rising rolls in primary schools. The Building Schools for the Future plans of the previous Government did nothing to help primary schools respond to that. My hon. Friends in the Department for Education have been doing that, and through the spending review we are making available £2.7 billion to target local authority areas needing to provide places. I know that my hon. Friend will have seen in the capital allocations particular emphasis on meeting basic needs in the education system, which of course includes areas where demography demonstrates that capacity of schools is not sufficient.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
May we have a debate on why the Prime Minister says in a Tory party advert that he plans to pay off the nation’s debt, when in fact the Prime Minister plans to increase the national debt by 60%, according to his own Treasury forecast—a percentage that would be larger than in any other European nation?
Mr Lansley
It gets a bit rich, doesn’t it—the Labour party talking about debt. The debt would have been so much worse if we had carried on in the profligate way of the Labour Government. We came together as a coalition Government recognising that in the national interest we have to reduce the deficit. We have reduced the deficit by a quarter. It is a programme set out by the Chancellor in his original Budget in 2010 and maintained ever since to eliminate the structural deficit. It is a formidable task. It will not happen in one year. It will happen by 2017, and from that point we will stop the growth of the national debt, which doubled under the previous Government.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Plymouth university, the city council and the chamber of commerce are all seeking to bid for the Government’s city initiative. Will my right hon. Friend consider holding a debate on how such Government initiatives are helping cities and towns such as Plymouth, where 38% of working people work in the public sector, and how that can help to rebalance the economy?
Mr Lansley
The initial city deals in the largest cities demonstrated how those can energise economic potential by bringing people together and allowing them to think not in terms of what local authorities, universities, chambers of commerce, local enterprise partnerships and central Government do individually, but to put all that together. I will not be parochial, but Cambridge is also submitting an expression of interest in the next round of city deals. I will talk to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury about whether we might find an opportunity for some of the cities that are coming forward with new expressions of interest in city deals to have, in effect, a shop window to say how they would use that flexibility.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
In Hull North seven members of the Hooper family, including a disabled five-year-old child, will lose £80 a month because under the coalition’s bedroom tax, they are under-occupying their four-bedroom house. On 8 January, Hull city council told me that it had 73 one and two-bedroomed properties available for households needing a smaller property, but 4,700 tenants will be hit by the bedroom tax. May we have a debate on the Floor of the House about the shambles that this unfair policy will cause up and down the country?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Lady and her party need to recognise that when, as I and many hon. Members know, very large numbers of people are seeking access to social housing and we have large numbers of under-occupied houses, it is necessary to do something about it. If the hon. Lady wants to raise the issue, she will have the opportunity at questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and his colleagues on Monday.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Concerns have been raised in my constituency about problem gambling and the operation of fixed-odds betting terminals. Will the Leader of the House consider having a debate on the impact of problem gambling on local communities?
Mr Lansley
There will be a debate on offshore gambling tomorrow, so if my hon. Friend is here and able to contribute he might find that it will be in order to refer to some of those issues. Although gambling is an important and legitimate industry, I entirely share his concern, and there are limits that we must be sure we understand and police. As he will know, some useful analytical research has been done to help to understand what impact changes in the legal framework for gambling might have had on problem gambling.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Payment protection insurance mis-selling appears to have spawned another abuse: people are being subjected to unsolicited texts, e-mails and phone calls. In addition, spurious claims then have to be defended by businesses, such as those in my constituency, which is putting them at risk. Is it not time we had a debate on the behaviour of claims management companies?
Mr Lansley
My memory is that the issue was raised in the Backbench Business Committee’s discussions, but I cannot be sure at the moment. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House and I might talk with the Chair of the Committee. I think that it might have scheduled the debate and that it has already taken place, but I just do not remember entirely. However, there are certainly important opportunities for us to debate that.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen early-day motion 965, which is about using the extra revenue raised by the new 45p rate of tax?
[That this House notes newspaper reports that the top rate of income tax is expected to raise more money when it falls to 45 pence, not less, as fewer will avoid it; further notes that the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Treasury have estimated that £7 billion was lost when the top rate was raised by the previous administration to 50 pence; concludes therefore that when the economy recovers, any extra revenues gained from the rich by the cut in the top rate should be used to pay for lower taxes on lower earners, for example by restoring the starter 10 pence rate of income tax; and finally notes that a new generous 10 pence band between £9,440 and £12,000 would be worth at least £250 annually to British workers, and would lift everyone on the minimum wage at least halfway towards earning the living wage in cash terms.]
Will he consider having a debate on the subject so that we can see whether we could use the extra revenue to restore the 10p income tax rate and lower tax for lower earners?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I have seen that early-day motion—we have discussed it in previous business questions. My hon. Friend has been assiduous in raising it, including, if I recall correctly, during Northern Ireland questions. He is so assiduous in these matters that I think no Government Minister can be unaware of the point he is making. However, it is of course a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
The Prime Minister yesterday acknowledged the If campaign on world hunger and confirmed that he wants to see the issue addressed at the G8 summit he will host. We also know that many other issues are being canvassed for consideration at the summit, ranging from tax evasion to the impact of speculation on commodity prices, climate change and banking. Will the Leader of the House give an assurance that he will ensure that there will be adequate debate in Government time in advance of the summit to address those issues so that they do not all have to vie with each other for hard-pressed Back-Bench business time?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who makes an important point. The House had an opportunity to debate global hunger yesterday in Westminster Hall, and I know that will not be the last opportunity. It might be for the usual channels, and indeed the Backbench Business Committee, to discuss how and when the priorities for the G8 summit, including, as he rightly says, the Enough Food for Everyone campaign, are debated by the House prior to the summit.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
May we have a debate in Government time on the success of our free schools policy? The Hindu free school in my constituency is heavily oversubscribed and the I-Foundation is now applying for a network of Hindu free schools across the country so that parents, if they wish, can choose a Hindu ethos for their children’s education.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am surprised that the Labour party appears to be openly sceptical about free schools, 79 of which have opened in little more than two years. They are playing an important part in increasing the diversity and character of state education. No doubt my hon. Friend has in mind the Avanti House free school in his constituency. I hope that it and other free schools will continue to demonstrate that they can create not only a more diverse and appropriate range in state education, but higher standards by responding directly to the needs and wishes of parents and pupils.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Last year, one of Lancashire’s best public schools, Queen Elizabeth’s grammar school in Blackburn, applied to become a state school under the Government’s free schools programme. If approved, this will mean that a school to which for years only the wealthy could send their children will be open to all, free of charge. Does the Leader of the House agree that that is a great example of the Government’s free schools policy in improving choice in education? May I therefore join other hon. Members in calling for a debate on the free schools policy?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is very encouraging that we do not have to see a binary divide, as it were, between independent education and state education, and to know that there is an opportunity for the very best to be available to pupils, wherever they come from and whatever their circumstances. I know, as he does, that free schools are part of that. In addition to the free schools that are already open in my area, 100 more are due to open this year, including one in my constituency.
Points of Order
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. At Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs orals earlier today, the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), raised serious and valid concerns over the possibility of horsemeat treated with a substance called bute—phenylbutazone, a potentially carcinogenic substance—entering the human food chain. Those concerns have been raised by the Government’s own independent veterinary advisers as well. The Minister seemed unaware of the issue and did not respond to these valid concerns. Could you, through your good offices, in concert with the efforts that we will make, try to ensure that the Minister or the Secretary of State appears here on Monday, or at the very earliest opportunity, to give an oral statement and answer questions on this vital issue of concern to human health?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. I know that he would not seek to draw me into a matter of contention, because that would be a wrong thing for him to do, and he would not knowingly do any such thing, I feel sure. What I would say to him is this: first, he has made his point; and secondly, the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House are present in the Chamber and will have heard his concerns. It is of course up to a Minister to decide whether he or she wishes to volunteer a statement, although the hon. Gentleman, who is an experienced Member of the House and a shadow Minister, will be aware that there are means by which Members can seek to engage Ministers in matters of interest to them and more widely.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. After the next business, we move on to a debate on voting at 16. Most Members of the House and most people outside were not able to watch the debate on that subject by the Youth Parliament. Would it be possible for you, Mr Speaker, or another occupant of the Chair to provide some time today information on the web link, if that is available for others to look at, so that they can see the young people’s debate on the subject that we are about to come to?
Mr Speaker
That is a very helpful point of order from the hon. Gentleman; I should not say that with such a note of surprise in my voice. I would want to be able to accommodate his request, although I cannot say for certain how quickly it can be done. He is right that the Youth Parliament had a very important debate on the matter, and it would helpful if there were wider access to it. I thank him, and we will try to oblige.
Bill Presented
Marriage (Same Sex Couples)
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Maria Miller, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Theresa May, Secretary Michael Gove, Secretary Eric Pickles, Hugh Robertson, Lynne Featherstone, Mrs Helen Grant and Jo Swinson, presented a Bill to make provision for the marriage of same sex couples in England and Wales, about gender change by married persons and civil partners, about consular functions in relation to marriage, for the marriage of armed forces personnel overseas, and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 126) with explanatory notes (Bill 126-EN).
Backbench Business
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Voting Age
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
14:13 - The House divided: - Ayes: 119 / Noes: 46 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the age of eligibility for voting in all elections and referendums in the United Kingdom should be reduced to 16.
It is a great pleasure to follow the previous business. I certainly support same-sex marriage and look forward to giving the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill a good and safe passage through this House.
Today I am talking about another reform whose time has come—extending the franchise to 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds. There is widespread support for this proposed measure among parliamentarians from all parties. It is also supported by a wide coalition of youth charities, including the British Youth Council, Barnardo’s and the YMCA, as well as youth representation groups, such as the National Union of Students and, as the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) just mentioned, the UK Youth Parliament, which debated this very subject on these Benches under your chairmanship, Mr Speaker.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Those who listened to those young people debating the issue will know that they did not have to deal with all the dusty arguments that were used in the past to oppose votes for most men, any woman and people under 18. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the registration age for voting came down to 16, the average age for those registering to vote in a general election would be 18, because general elections do not come along every year?
Stephen Williams
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Indeed, I will make a similar point later.
This proposed constitutional measure is not in the coalition agreement, because there is a difference of opinion between the leadership of my own party and that of our fellow coalition members, the Conservative party. Because the motion is outside the coalition agreement, the Government will not introduce it. It is down to the rest of us as parliamentarians to deliver this particular change.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that the age of adulthood is a mess in so many areas? It is possible to buy cigarettes at one age, drink alcohol at another and drive at yet another. Surely the answer is not just to look at what the voting age should be, but to tidy up the law and equalise the age of adulthood for everything.
Stephen Williams
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I disagree with him and will explain why later. I do not think there is an absolute age at which young people acquire the rights and responsibilities for every single facet of their young lives. I think that it is appropriate to have different ages, and will come to that later.
Given that the motion is outside the coalition agreement, I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for granting me the opportunity to introduce this debate. I am also grateful to my co-sponsors from all parties in the House, particularly the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who accompanied me on one of the occasions that I made representations to the Committee.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly since I am one of the co-sponsors who, sadly, was not able to attend the bid to the Backbench Business Committee. Does he agree that a strong reason for supporting the motion is the evidence—I am sure he is aware of it—from countries such as Austria, where lowering the voting age has led to increased voter turnout, and that, given that voter turnout is something that we all care about, this proposal would be a very good way of achieving that?
Stephen Williams
The hon. Lady, whom I am delighted is one of the motion’s co-sponsors, makes a very good point. I will come to international comparisons later.
Just over seven years ago, on 29 November 2005, I was the last Member of Parliament to provoke a Division on this issue, and we lost by just eight votes. I think that the mood of the House and the country has now changed and that it is worth while to make another attempt.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I support this debate, but am passionately against the motion and will make a speech later. The fact of the matter is that too many people on the hon. Gentleman’s side of the argument exaggerate the level of support. Has he seen the recent polls in Scotland, which show there is no support for votes at 16 or 17?
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
That is rubbish. There is support—56% support it.
Stephen Williams
I will leave matters relating to Scotland to other contributors. If you permit it, Mr Speaker, we will hear from that corner of the United Kingdom later.
The case for lowering the voting age is usually made—the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has alluded to this—on the grounds of other rights and responsibilities that young people already have at 16 and 17. I will come to those later, but I would prefer to justify lowering the franchise age to 16 on the principal grounds that I believe that 16 and 17-year-olds have sufficient maturity and knowledge to cast a vote, if they want to do so. We do not have compulsory voting in this country, so we would simply be affording 16 and 17-year-olds the opportunity to vote if they wished to do so.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is setting out his case very well. I spent my whole life working with 16 to 19-year-olds until I came to this place, and my experience suggests that they are as good at making decisions on voting as the people who are assembled here.
Stephen Williams
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who leads me neatly on to my next point.
Although I have not worked in the further education sector, as an MP, and as a candidate and a county councillor before that, I have about two decades of experience of speaking to sixth-formers and those at further education colleges, and I have always been impressed by the depth and range of their knowledge both about matters that are purely about Bristol and about those that have global implications.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
When I visit further education establishments, people are intrigued and impressed by the idea of being able to vote, yet somehow when they leave further education they do not take advantage of that. We need to tap into their enthusiasm while it is there and get them into the habit of voting.
Stephen Williams
As I said, there is widespread support for the change in all parties, and there we have another revelation from a Conservative coalition colleague that there is growing support for it.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way to so many Members so early in his speech.
The hon. Gentleman’s motion refers to
“voting in all elections and referendums in the United Kingdom”.
Does he accept that if there are elections in one particular part of the UK—Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales—there may be a case for saying that the devolved legislatures should consider the matter? In the case of the Scottish referendum, for instance, the Scottish Parliament will decide on the age of the participants, because that decision has been devolved. Is the scope of the motion not too wide, and should not the place of the devolved legislatures be respected?
Stephen Williams
I and my party colleagues are fundamentally committed to the principle of devolution, not just to the nations of the United Kingdom but, from my perspective, through growing empowerment for local government and city regions. I would like local government to decide its own franchise arrangements. First past the post is a clapped-out, ludicrous system. In Bristol, where we have genuinely competitive four-party politics and all the mainstream English parties compete, Bristol city council ought to have the power to alter its electoral cycle and decide on its franchise. I am therefore fully with the right hon. Gentleman in believing in such subsidiarity in decision making.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on tabling the motion and am delighted to be one of its supporters. Does he agree that registration is another issue that should be considered? Many young people, particularly students living in houses in multiple occupation, do not get themselves on the register and therefore miss the first opportunity to vote. With general elections every five years, it can be a long time before they have another opportunity. Starting at 16 would make it easier for them to get on the register earlier.
Stephen Williams
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I will return to the composition of the franchise later and refer to the experience in Northern Ireland, which is ahead of the game compared with the rest of the United Kingdom.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Although I am not listed as a supporter of the motion, I would have been delighted to be, because I am fully in sympathy with it.
The hon. Gentleman’s point that the time has come for the change is pertinent, because citizenship is now taught in schools, and in Wales we have the Welsh baccalaureate, which lends itself well to the change. He, I and other Members go into schools and debate pertinent issues of the day on a multi-party basis. I want young people to make their decisions on those issues and go out and mark their cross in the ballot box. It is wrong to deny them that opportunity.
Stephen Williams
I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said, except the part about the cross in the box—I would prefer it to be a 1-2-3 arrangement.
The hon. Gentleman leads me on to the curriculum, which has changed markedly over the past decade. History and religious education are taught quite differently from when most of us studied them in school, which enables young people to understand their place in society and weigh up controversial issues. Personal, social, health and economic education has been introduced to the curriculum, as has citizenship. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) presided over an inquiry into the teaching of citizenship when I was a member of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, and it is now well embedded in schools, particularly in England and Wales, and has transformed young people’s knowledge of our democratic processes.
Stephen Williams
I see that the hon. Gentleman is now going to disagree with me.
Mr Sheerman
Yes, the hon. Gentleman was on that Committee with me when we looked at citizenship, and at that time citizenship was up and coming and thriving. Since 2010, however, partly through the policies of the Government of whom his party is part, we have seen a steep decline in citizenship being taken seriously and delivered, and it has been totally marginalised. Is he proud of that?
Stephen Williams
Tempted as I may be to go into that, this debate is about the franchise. I am trying to be as collegiate as possible, and I hope colleagues will do the same.
The teaching of citizenship, to whatever extent, has transformed the ability of young people to understand and engage with the political system. Indeed, the Hansard Society’s latest audit of political engagement—which I am sure we have all studied in great detail—offers the teaching of citizenship as an explanation for why, over the nine years in which it has studied public engagement in Parliament and politics, the only growth in an understanding of Parliament among the population was in the youngest cohort. When the society started its audit, only 17% of young people aged 18 to 24 felt that they had some knowledge about the workings of Parliament, but that has now grown to 31%. Some improvement is still needed, but that cohort is now broadly in line with the rest of the population.
Extra-curricular activities have also changed enormously over the past decade. The UK Youth Parliament debated in this Chamber and in the other place, as has been mentioned, and I should also mention Parliament’s own education outreach service, of which I am sure we have all had good experience. It has transformed the ability of school visiting parties, and the outreach programme in our constituencies helps schools that are not able to come to Westminster to understand how we make law and run elections.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I fully support the motion and hope to vote on it in the Division. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the most offensive argument against this motion is that only some—not all—16 to 18-year-olds would want to vote in elections. Does not that holds true for all ages and demographics across the country? I find that the most offensive of all the arguments, and I know that all 16, 17 and 18-year-olds in my constituency fully support the measure under debate.
Stephen Williams
It is interesting how colleagues across the Chamber are neatly anticipating in their interventions the next points I will be making. We have never had an electoral competence test in this country, although I have heard people advocate one. We have all, I am sure, been canvassing and been outside the shopping centre or even the school gate, and rolled our eyes or walked down the path in despair after hearing opinions that may not have been that well informed from people in their 40s, 50s and 60s. We would never say that the franchise should be withheld from people just because they are stubborn in their opinions or have got a fact completely wrong. We do not have an electoral competence test for people aged 18 and over, so we should not apply it to those aged 16 and 17. Were we to have such a test, I think 16 and 17-year-olds would pass it with flying colours, but I could not have the same confidence for people who are much older than them.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I have been in command of soldiers aged 16 and 17 who are desperate to go on operations but are not allowed to because this country considers them still to be children. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that a 16-year-old should be able to vote—presumably to send our soldiers to war— but cannot go to war themselves until they are 18. Extraordinary!
Stephen Williams
I do not think it is extraordinary. As I said earlier to the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), I have no problem with having different ages for different rights and responsibilities. Some people disagree with me about that and want 16 to be the common age, but that is not the position I hold.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
One of my constituents had not reached his 18th birthday when he was killed in Afghanistan. What direction of travel should the Government be taking? If we are to protect our youngsters from being killed, we should not be forcing extra responsibilities on them when they should be doing their exams at school.
Stephen Williams
With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think he should compare giving a person the opportunity to vote—voting takes five or 10 minutes every five years, or every four years for council elections—with sending them to war. The debate is purely on the merits of giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote. Those who support that change believe they have the maturity to exercise that right and responsibility. I make no comment about other rights and responsibilities.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman says it is a matter of people having the maturity to make such decisions, but not too long ago, the House, presumably with his support, voted to increase the age at which people are allowed to buy cigarettes from 16 to 18. If he and the House believe that people at age 16 are not capable of making a decision on whether or not to smoke, why does he believe they are capable of deciding which party should be in government?
Stephen Williams
We have heard four similar interventions from coalition colleagues, and I have the same answer. I do not believe there is an absolute age at which every single right and responsibility accrues. As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, I agree that there are very good health grounds for tobacco control and for making 18 the responsible age for consuming a product that is harmful to health. I would say exactly the same about alcohol.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
May I say, through my hon. Friend, to our more doubtful colleagues, that the overwhelming reason is that youngsters at school are, in my experience, educated to be citizens and to play a full part? If we separate the date when they have the education and the interest is aroused from the date when they can register and do something, we lose them—bluntly—potentially for five, 10 or 15 years, or for ever.
Stephen Williams
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He was the first Member to attempt to make this change—in, I believe, 1999, when he was crushed by 400 votes to 36. I hope we will have a markedly different result today. He is right that this generation of young people have had all the educational opportunities to understand the democratic system, yet we continue to withhold from them the opportunity to put that knowledge into practice. We should not continue to withhold the vote from the best-educated generation of young people.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
Before the hon. Gentleman moves on, one important point to make—I want to make it before the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) leaves the Chamber, because it relates to a point he made—is on under-18s dying when they go to war. Surely decisions on who goes to war and when affect 16, 17 and 18-year-olds. If they can die for their country, surely they should be able to participate in making the decision on whether their country, for which they are dying, goes to war in the first place.
Stephen Williams
I entirely agree with the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. Mercifully, very few people die in modern warfare. Interestingly—I have looked at debates on the matter from around the world—the US originally lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 because of the Vietnam draft. The hon. Lady’s point has therefore been well made in other places.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
People gave many reasons why women should not have the vote, but for many years, women had the vote and were not allowed to go to war. To argue that certain people are not allowed to go into the theatre of war and therefore should not have the vote is somewhat false. Are hon. Members saying that women should not vote on going to war because they are not able to go into theatre?
Stephen Williams
The hon. Lady is right. As a student of psephology and political history, I know that all sorts of peculiar characteristics of the franchise have existed in various parts of the country going back hundreds of years. The debate is on removing another undue restriction on the franchise.
As well as being very well educated, this generation of young people also has the opportunity to be very well informed. For this debate, I reread Hansard from 1968, when the Representation of the People Act 1969 was first debated—I also reread it prior to my debate seven and a half years ago. Members at the time expressed their worry that young people aged 18 were not mature enough to cast independent judgment, and in particular judgment that was independent of their parents or older siblings. As the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) alluded to, those arguments have been advanced every single time the franchise has been altered. Going all the way back to 1832, different excuses have been made why particular sets of the population cannot be trusted with the right to vote. Similar things were said about the rights of women in 1918 and prior to that, and about poor working men.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
I partly endorse what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Certainly, what I see when I meet 16 and 17-year-olds in my constituency at various schools and colleges supports the fact that they can make some informed choices. However, if we say, on health grounds and so on, that people have to be over the age of 18 to be able to make an informed choice about alcohol, smoking and pornography, we cannot dissociate the two—we have to be uniform.
Stephen Williams
I do not know whether my hon. Friend was here earlier when I answered similar points from his Conservative colleagues. I do not believe in a single age of rights and responsibilities. There are ages when rights accrue, but they happen before the age of 16. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is a barrister and will correct me if I am wrong, but the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 12, so we have different ages for a variety of rights and responsibilities. I see no reason why that is an impediment to extending the franchise to 16.
Stephen Williams
I am going to make a little progress. I have given way to everyone who has intervened for the first time, and I know many other hon. Members wish to speak.
As I was saying, these excuses have been used every time anyone has proposed extending the franchise, but in 2013 young people do not just have a good education, they have information at their fingertips via their phones and iPads. They are able to absorb information from all over the world in a completely different way to that contemplated by anyone back in 1968 when this House last debated and then voted to lower the franchise. Family pressure will always be there. We have all met people who say that they vote Labour or Conservative because their family always voted that way. Now, however, there are plenty of countervailing views not just in school or college, but in the bedroom and living room via the internet, where people can weigh up how they see the world and how they want to play their part in changing it, or indeed keeping it the same, if that is their political persuasion.
The longstanding justification for changing the voting age has been the range of rights and responsibilities that various Members have mentioned. There is a long list, from the right to drive a car, the right to join the Army or a trade union, and the right to receive benefits or pay taxes. The waters have been a little bit muddied in this area, partly because of my party being in the coalition, because young people on the minimum wage no longer pay income tax thanks to the fact that we have raised the income tax threshold. Of course, they still pay national insurance and VAT, so Jefferson’s maxim of no taxation without representation still stands.
Philip Davies
On that point, people pay tax based on their income, not their age. Presumably, massively talented child actors who earn an absolute fortune working on films pay tax on their income if it goes above a certain threshold. If an eight-year-old child star earns a fortune and therefore has to pay tax on that income, is the hon. Gentleman putting forward the view that that eight-year-old should be able to vote?
Stephen Williams
I advise the hon. Gentleman not to pick an argument with somebody who was a tax consultant before he became an MP. Such a person—Daniel Radcliffe or whoever else he was thinking of—would probably have that income held in trust by their parents until they reached the age of 16, or whatever the trust says, and the tax allowance goes with the parents. It used to be a classic bit of tax avoidance.
There are plenty of different ages where there are different rights and responsibilities, from the right to be tried in court for a criminal act performed from the age 12 onwards to receiving different amounts of minimum wage up until the age of 21. I think the most compelling comparison of all is the right to marry, which will be extended when the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill is introduced, and the age of consent to sex. Surely the act of bringing another human being into the world is much more fundamental than the opportunity to vote. If we think that young people are capable of being good parents at the ages of 16 and 17, surely they can have the right to go and vote.
Giving young people the right to vote would also rebalance the changing demographics of the franchise. We all know the power of the grey vote and the higher tendency of pensioners to turn out and vote. The Inter- generational Foundation has recently published an interesting report—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are very interested in the output of the Intergenerational Foundation, about which the hon. Gentleman will seek to advise us in a moment. We are listening to his speech with great interest and he has generously taken a large number of interventions, but I hope I can predict with confidence that he is approaching his concluding remarks, as a large number of other Members wish to speak and I am keen to ensure that they do.
Stephen Williams
Thank you, Mr Speaker. With that advice—not only to me, but to other colleagues perhaps not to seek to intervene on me—I will be able to get through the rest of my speech quite quickly.
The Intergenerational Foundation has published a report on the rise of what it calls the gerontocracy—to summarise, the fact that the will of the old is trumping the needs of the young. We have had all sorts of debates recently—about the winter fuel allowance and so on—that are characteristic of that. It is a statistical fact—there are many statistical facts in that report—that there are more 63-year-olds who are able to vote than 18-year-olds. However, this is not simply about the absolute numbers of older people who are able to vote. We also know that their tendency to turn out and vote is higher, while 18 to 24-year-olds under the current franchise have the lowest tendency to turn out.
That takes me back to an earlier intervention. One of the reasons why that cohort has a low tendency to turn out is that most people in that group miss the opportunity to vote when they turn 18. It happened to me—I was 18 in 1984, and so was not able to vote for the first time until the 1987 general election. Now that we have guaranteed five-year Parliaments, someone who turned 18 in, say, mid-May 2010 will be 23 before they can vote in the next general election. Lowering the franchise from 18 to 16 will bring down slightly the average age at which people first cast their vote, from their early 20s to about 19 perhaps. The idea that swathes of 16 year-olds will be deciding the election is therefore simply not true.
Lowering the voting age to 16 also makes it more likely that people will vote while they are in the stable environment of home and education. Voting is habitual. We know from various studies that if someone votes for the first time when they are just 18, they pick up the pattern of voting for later life. Lowering the voting age also makes it easier to register—a point made earlier. In Northern Ireland, where individual voter registration is ahead of England and Wales, 16 and 17-year-olds are now registered in school. Registering 16-year-olds would be quite easy to do and add 1.5 million to the franchise—about 2,500 voters in each English constituency and different amounts in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
If my 2005 Bill had been accepted, the UK would have been a trailblazer, but not now. Austria, which has been mentioned, extended the vote in 2007. In German local elections, the Bürgermeister of Hannover can be elected by 16-year-olds, but those wishing to vote for the mayor of Bristol, which is twinned with Hannover, have to wait until they are 18. Brazil—the fourth largest democracy in the world—gives the right to vote to 16-year-olds and Argentina extended that right just two months ago. However, it is here in the British Isles that the most fundamental change has taken place: 16 and 17-year-olds are now able to vote in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, but it is in the devolved nations that the most profound change has taken place. On 4 July the Welsh Assembly voted to reduce the voting age to 16, and on 6 November the Northern Ireland Assembly did the same—but the power lies with us. Most profoundly of all, in the Scottish referendum, which I am sure we will hear about shortly, 16 and 17-year-olds will be given the right to cast their votes, in what I think will be a much more important referendum than the one we heard about yesterday—one that decides the future of the United Kingdom. If Scottish 16 and 17-year-olds can vote on the future of the UK, surely it would be untenable to withhold that right from their English, Welsh and Northern Ireland counterparts.
The genie is now out of the bottle. An old political maxim is “Trust the people”. We trust young people to be parents, we trust them to defend our country and we trust them with the future of the United Kingdom. Surely it is now time for us to trust 16 and 17-year-olds with the right to elect us to this House.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) on securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to take place. It is important, at this stage of this Parliament, and after so many years have elapsed since the hon. Gentleman’s original Bill, that we should have the chance to debate—and, I hope, to vote on—this important subject.
Like most Members of Parliament, I spend quite a bit of time visiting sixth forms and meeting members of school councils, and teachers and pupils. Just last Friday, I was at Roundhay high school in my constituency, where I met the politics AS-level group—a group of about 20 16 and 17-year-olds. We had a discussion for about an hour and a half, and it would have been longer if they had not had to go to a different class. The quality of the teaching and, more important, the quality of the opinions and the questions, was absolutely brilliant. That made me realise that I was right to co-sponsor the hon. Gentleman’s debate this afternoon. Listening to those 16 and 17-year-olds, I felt that they were well ready to make a decision about who should represent them in this Parliament, who should be the Government of the day and—something that we have perhaps overlooked—who should run their local authority. Local authorities are still important bodies in the lives of the young people in our towns, cities and regions. I felt reassured, listening to those young people.
I have been to many different schools, as we all have. I have visited Allerton high school, Allerton Grange high school, Carr Manor high school and Cardinal Heenan Catholic high school. I have listened to sixth-form groups in those schools discussing politics. They have asked me deep, searching questions about why I became a politician, what we do in this place and how that affects their lives. I feel that it is really time for them to have a chance to make their judgment, locally and nationally, in our elections.
Philip Davies
When the hon. Gentleman was in those schools, telling the young people how well educated, well informed and intelligent they were, and how they should be able to make all those decisions, did he also explain to them why he did not think they were intelligent, informed or educated enough to make a decision on whether or not to smoke?
Fabian Hamilton
I share the view of the hon. Member for Bristol West that there is not one age for everything. We allow our young people to drive at the age of 17, but not to vote at that age. Why are they deemed old enough to be in charge of a vehicle that could be a lethal weapon, but not old enough to vote? Why do we allow them to join the Army or get married at the age of 16, but not allow them to vote? There are different ages for different activities in our society. Also, protecting young people from the pervasive influence of the dangerous habit of smoking—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) wish to intervene on me again?
Philip Davies
It was the hon. Gentleman who was leading with his chin and telling us how well informed and well educated those young people were. They are either well informed and well educated, or they are not. If they are so well informed and well educated, surely they are more than capable of making a decision on smoking, too. We cannot say that they are well informed in one area but absolutely clueless about everything else.
Fabian Hamilton
I do not believe that they are clueless; a lot of young people are well informed. The issue of smoking and health is different from marriage, driving a vehicle or fighting for one’s country.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Could not the question of whether young people are well informed enough to make a decision about smoking be tested by giving them the vote, so that their representatives here could reflect what they thought on a range of issues, including their capacity to get a mortgage, an affordable pension or a job? All the decisions that we take here affect their lives, yet they have no say in those matters at the moment. The decision to smoke is just part of that parcel. The solution lies in giving them the vote.
Fabian Hamilton
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Indeed, if young people aged 16 were able to vote, perhaps their representatives here in the House of Commons might change their minds on smoking not being allowed until the age of 18.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Our colleague and hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) may have helped us a bit. The question essentially comes down to whether giving teenagers the opportunity to register to vote at 16 will do any harm. The answer is clearly no. Can it do any good? The answer is yes. On the point about smoking, only teenagers take it up: it is not an adult thing to do but a childish thing.
Fabian Hamilton
There is little I can add to the hon. Gentleman’s points. I agree wholeheartedly with them.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Before my hon. Friend moves on from this point, let me say that the issue is also about our behaviour and how we respond to young people’s concerns. We hear a lot about the grey vote, but we do not hear much about what younger people think or are worried about.
Fabian Hamilton
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is all the more important, now that we have an ageing population—as the hon. Member for Bristol West said, a much higher proportion of older people cast their votes—that we extend the franchise to 16-year-olds as well. As I said earlier, I believe them to be more than capable of making a judgment about who they want to represent them at the local authority level and at the parliamentary and governmental level.
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe)—and he is real friend, not just in the formal sense—put forward a ruthless logic, but that logic leads to the question “Why not 14; why not 12?” Adopting his logic, where should we set the age for voting?
Fabian Hamilton
I would answer my hon. Friend—and he is a very good friend—by saying that we have to make a judgment, and that young people have to demonstrate whether or not they are able to make the sorts of judgments we expect in their choice of who they want to represent them. In my experience—and, I am sure, in my hon. Friend’s experience—a 14-year-old does not quite have the maturity or ability to make that judgment, whereas most 16-year-olds certainly do. The point was well made by the hon. Member for Bristol West—we will not have loads of 16-year-olds suddenly heading off towards the polling station when they become 16. In fact, the young people are more likely to be 17 or 18 when the election comes about—unless it is in local government, as many of our towns and cities have annual elections three out of four years.
The age may well come down to 14 as young people get more mature, but we are debating votes at 16. In that case, I think, as many hon. Members and most of my party colleagues think, that from 16 onwards young people are mature enough, bright enough and educated enough to make those judgments. [Interruption.] That is my view; I know my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has a different view.
Let me move on to the issue of school councils. I do not know whether many Members have attended elections for school councils or spoken to any school councils, but I have been invited, as I know have many Members, to meet them—including often to primary school councils, too. [Interruption.] I am staggered—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Shipley wants to keep on making comments from a sedentary position, I will allow him to make an intervention. Otherwise,I would be grateful if he stopped.
Philip Davies
If the hon. Gentleman is using school councils as an argument for extending the vote, he should remember that he himself said that they take place at primary school level, too. By that ruthless logic, I presume he is now going to advocate giving primary school children the vote.
Fabian Hamilton
I answered that point when I responded to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield. My judgment, as a parent of three children and as someone who regularly meets young people, is that 16-plus is the age at which young people are mature enough to make the sort of decisions we expect when they cast a vote. I do not believe that that is the case for five and six-year-olds are, although they vote in some school council elections.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I would like to tell my hon. Friend about the young mayor of Newham, who has a £25,000 budget. In the most recent vote for our young mayor, 13,500 young people voted. That shows a thirst for engagement, and I think it is a thirst that we should recognise.
Fabian Hamilton
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is precisely the point I am trying to make. I was coming on to talk about school councils, because I have been impressed by the enthusiasm for voting, and by the interest, knowledge and understanding of what happens in a primary or a secondary school and of what a school council can achieve. It is on a very small scale, but it is a very good start. As the hon. Member for Bristol West said, if people get into the habit of voting at that young age, perhaps we will see a much higher turnout at elections.
I want to take Members back to what was a low point in this country’s electoral history: the police and crime commissioner elections. I am not going to rehearse the reasons why those elections had such a poor turnout—in west Yorkshire, it was 13.7%—but I venture to suggest that if 16-year-olds had had the right to vote on 15 November, turnout might have been over 15%. That is still an absolutely appalling figure, but it would have made some difference. There was a thirst for and an interest in voting among young people—even in those elections, which were so badly publicised. Indeed, when I visited Roundhay high school last Friday, I was asked about the turnout of those elections and the reasons why they had taken place in November in the first place.
When I was at school—a long, long time ago, in the ’60s and ’70s—we studied a subject called civics. I know that that has since evolved, but I found civics very useful, and its modern counterpart, of course, is far more useful. The point about that subject was to understand the institutions of government, both locally and nationally. How many Members have had e-mails and letters from constituents—many such constituents are pretty mature, certainly well over 16 or 18—saying, “Dear Member of Parliament, I want you to do something about the state of the streets in my area”, or saying that they want them to sort out their council house, their property, or the windows? They believe us to be councillors, too. I even got an e-mail the other day from somebody that began, “Dear Councillor Hamilton”. She wanted me to sort out what was purely a local authority issue, and I had to point out that I have not been a councillor for 15 years.
My point is that if 16-year-olds were able to vote, the education they were receiving at school about our governmental institutions, about how our constitution actually works, would be far more pertinent and relevant, because the next year or the next month—whenever they pass the age of 16—while they were still studying, they could cast their vote in a local authority election that has a direct relevance to them, and now, of course, in the five-yearly police and crime commissioner elections, too.
We have an age of consent of 16. At 16, people can drive a scooter. At 16, people can fight for their country—[Interruption.] Sorry; people can join the Army at 16. At 17, they can drive a car. At 16, they can get married with parental permission.
Fabian Hamilton
Yes, with parental permission.
We had a youth Parliament in the city of Leeds, as many cities do. The awards were given in the banqueting suite of our Leeds civic hall, and they were handed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). The turnout was brilliant. The enthusiasm and support from parents and young people were absolutely magnificent. That told me that increasingly our young people are able to make a judgment about who they want in this House; who they want to run their Government, because that affects them; and who they want to run their local authority. I therefore urge this House to vote for votes for 16-year-olds.
Mr Speaker
I am calling the hon. Lady because only recently have Members on the Government Benches started standing, which is perfectly within their prerogative. I am saving them up.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
I would quite happily have given way to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I really am looking forward to hearing what he has to say—and I suspect that I will disagree with every word of it. It is a shame not to be able to engage more directly before he says what it is I imagine he will say.
I want to thank the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) for an incredibly thorough speech in which I think he mentioned every single aspect of why the voting age should be lowered to 16. I hope I do not simply repeat what he said. I fully endorse every part of his speech, during which he was very generous in giving way.
I want to focus on the constitutional issues that this subject raises. One reason we are having this debate is that two things have changed: the proposal to lower the voting age to 16 for the referendum in Scotland; and the new fixed-term Parliaments, which mean that voting takes place every five years and not before. The important point was made, but it is worth repeating, that that means that if an 18-year-old’s birthday happens to fall the day after the general election day, they will be 23 before they are able to vote. Nobody is proposing that we raise the voting age. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) referred to the things that people gain the right to do overnight, as it were, when they become 16, 17 or 18. The situation is totally different with the voting age, because people do not usually wake up on their 18th birthday to discover there is a general election; usually, the election will occur at some point during the subsequent five-year period. I doubt whether the Members who oppose this motion are making the case for raising the voting age, so we need to look at lowering the voting age to make sure that more young people can participate.
Engagement is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East spoke eloquently about school councils and citizenship classes, which the hon. Member for Bristol West also mentioned. We must be honest—the experience of citizenship classes is patchy. In some places, citizenship is taught excellently by dedicated citizenship teachers; in others, it is not so good. However, if we lowered the voting age to 16, citizenship, the importance of democracy and the role of political parties would be taught better at schools. It would encourage MPs, local councillors and other elected representatives to visit schools and make the case for why politics is important.
The counter-argument, which I hear quite a lot, is that politics should not be taken into schools. I totally disagree. Politics is important to 16-year-olds, just as it is to older young people. Politics decides what kind of schools we go to. Politics has ensured that there is access to free education for all. It is politics that meant that the school sports partnerships were abandoned. It is politics that decides what people learn at school—which classes are compulsory and which are not. In Derbyshire, the youth services have been seriously undermined; it was children and young people who were campaigning to keep their youth services open and active. This is straightforward politics, and it is good for young people to engage in it.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) mentioned the youth mayor in Newham. Let me give an example from my own constituency of young people taking responsibility. A budget was given to the school council at one of my primary schools, and after much discussion with the teachers, the school council decided to spend the entire £50 on rabbits. The teachers recommended that it not do so, pointing out that they would take a lot of looking after, but it decided to go ahead. Sure enough, they did take a lot of looking after, but those children learnt that if they make such a decision, contrary to advice, there are consequences, and that they had a duty of responsibility to those rabbits. I hope those rabbits are still alive—I have not visited them recently. Even though that is a small story, it demonstrates that if we give young people responsibility, they have to learn how to deal with it properly.
I also think that it is a matter of respect. We as parliamentarians should be saying to young people, “We respect you enough to allow you to make your own decisions about matters that affect you.” This is an important issue that concerns the widening of the franchise and human rights.
The United Kingdom is a signatory to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is shaking his head, but the convention states that when decisions are made that affect young people, they should have a say in those decisions. As has been pointed out today, we make decisions in the House about the age at which people are allowed to join the armed forces—as opposed to the age at which they are allowed to go to the front and lose their lives—and the age at which they are allowed to go to work and pay tax and national insurance. They can do those things from the age of 16 onwards. We make decisions that affect young people, but they have no way of voicing their opinions about what we do.
Mr Sheerman
As my hon. Friend knows, I interrupt her speech with deep reluctance, because we are on very good terms. She knows, however, that the UN convention is about the preservation of childhood. It contains nothing about the voting age; it is about preserving childhood as a precious space, a principle that has been entirely absent from the debate so far.
Natascha Engel
My hon. Friend and I have had long discussions about this issue. I do not disagree with him about the preservation of childhood—in fact, I entirely agree with him about it—but I also think that lowering the voting age to 16 will not encroach on people’s childhoods. What it will do is give them responsibility, which is very different from taking their childhood away. My counter-argument is that, although we make decisions here that affect the day-to-day lives of people aged 16, 17 and 18—and, in my view, those aged up to 23, because many people are knocking on 23 before they are able to vote—we have taken away their right to have a say in issues that affect them. That is what I find so deeply offensive and wrong.
The hon. Member for Bristol West made a strong point about the widening of the franchise. I think that this really is a matter of human rights. It is slightly different from the issue of giving the vote to women, but I agree with the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) that the sky will not fall in if we give 16-year-olds the vote. The sight of a 16-year-old in a polling station putting a cross on a ballot paper—not one, two, three—should not panic people. This will not mean that the entire polling station is full of 16-year-olds; it will merely mean that younger people too will participate in the decisions that we make in the House. It is a shame that people are so fearful, and worry so much about 16-year-olds taking part in a general election.
The Scottish referendum will give us an opportunity to see how giving 16-year-olds the vote could work. Why should we not view it as a pilot? After 16, 17 and 18-year-olds have had their say in the referendum, we can look at how it went. I agree that the genie is out of the bottle once 16-year-olds are able to vote in a referendum, because after that it will be very difficult to say to them that they are to be denied a vote in the general election that will take place in the following year.
I have some sympathy with the view of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who has described this as an important constitutional matter. Issues were raised earlier about the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each of them has voted overwhelmingly to lower the voting age to 16, but none of them can do so until we in this Parliament have made the decision for them.
I think it important for us to have this debate, and important for all views to be aired. However, I hope that when we go through the Lobbies, all of us—not just Labour and the Liberal Democrat Members—will vote in favour of seeing what happens in Scotland, and then lowering the voting age throughout the United Kingdom.
Mr Speaker
Order. It may help the House if I explain that the debate is scheduled to end at approximately 2.15 pm, and that the Chair intends the Front-Bench winding-up speeches to begin at approximately 1.45 pm. As the House knows, there is no formal time limit on Back-Bench speeches, but a rough calculation suggests that a six-minute speech by each Member would enable the 12 Members who are seeking to catch my eye to succeed in doing so, and would allow all to contribute.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I will do my best to stick to that time scale, Mr. Speaker, because I am anxious for other Members to have an opportunity to speak.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). As she knows, I admire her greatly. On this particular issue, however, I am afraid that I cannot support her.
It is a topsy-turvy world that we live in, Mr. Speaker. Today I found myself agreeing with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman)—I had thought it very unlikely that I would ever find a subject on which I could agree with him, but I am delighted that we have finally settled on at least one—and also listening to members of the party of the nanny state on the Opposition Benches giving lecture after lecture about the benefits of giving people responsibility for making decisions about their own lives.
I have been in the House for eight years. For eight years I have sat opposite Labour Members who have lectured us on how we cannot let people take responsibility for their own lives. People cannot make decisions for themselves; the state must intervene and make the decisions for them. Yet, today of all days, we have been told that it is absolutely crucial for us to give people responsibility for their own lives and trust them to make decisions. I hope that the same pattern will be followed when it comes to other issues, and that from now on the Labour party will adopt the approach of trusting not just 16 and 17-year-olds but people over the age of 18 to make their own decisions on how they live their lives. If that is the only consequence of today’s debate, it will have been worth while.
I tried to jot down the arguments that I heard today for reducing the voting age to 16. A common theme emerged: Members had visited local schools, had spoken to 16 and 17-year-olds at colleges and in sixth forms, and had been so impressed by the quality of the questions that were asked and the opinions that were formed that they concluded that it was time to give those young people the vote.
Philip Davies
I would normally, but I want everyone to have an opportunity to speak.
Let me say from the word go that I spend a lot of time visiting schools in my constituency—primary and secondary schools—and that, in my view, some of the most challenging questions that a Member of Parliament is ever asked are asked by people who are at school. I have thoroughly enjoyed debates with very talented people of all ages in schools, some of whom have been greatly interested in politics and some of whom have had no interest in it at all.
As with so many other issues, the voting age is always a matter of judgment. There will always be exceptions to rules. There will always be 16-year-olds who have the deep interest and maturity that would enable them to make informed decisions when voting, and there will always be 18-year-olds who do not possess the same level of maturity and interest. There will always be anomalies of that kind. This debate is not about individual cases; it is about what we think should be the general principle. That is the judgment that must be made.
In my view, the argument that many 16 and 17-year-olds ask very intelligent, very searching questions and are able to engage in a sensible debate is not a sufficient argument for giving them the vote. In fact, I would contend that the most searching questions that I am asked as a Member of Parliament come from kids at primary school rather than from 16 and 17-year-olds. Primary school children tend to throw questions at us that we would never have expected, and which we have never heard of or thought of before. They catch us totally off guard.
Philip Davies
I would like to, but, as I said earlier, I want to give others an opportunity to speak.
The point is that although those young people are capable of asking very intelligent and searching questions, it does not immediately follow that we should give them the vote. If that were the basis on which we were making these decisions, I would have to agree to give seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds the vote because they ask some of the most searching questions. So it is completely spurious to trot that argument out as a way of saying that these people should be able to vote. This is not just about people’s education, intellect or ability to ask searching questions; it is about people’s life experience, too. That is what gives people the basis on which to vote. It seems to me that 18 is a far better cut-off point than 16. I am perfectly happy to concede that these are matters of individual judgment, but I believe that 18 is the right point.
The main point I want to make relates to this idea about people’s education and intellect, and how well-informed they are. Hon. Members have been telling us that that level is higher than ever. If this was a matter of principle, I would have more respect for their opinion. If they held a deep-seated principle that 16-year-olds have the education and information to make these informed decisions, I would have more respect for it, even though I might not agree with it. But that is not the case, because all the people who have so far advocated reducing the voting age to 16 are exactly the same people who voted to increase the age at which people could decide to smoke from 16 to 18. The point is that people are either informed or they are not—they are either educated or they are not. They are not educated on one matter of voting but completely clueless on everything else. They can either make an informed decision or they cannot. I agreed with increasing the age at which people could buy cigarettes to 18, because I believe that 18 is the right age at which to trust people to make such decisions. It is entirely logical to have the voting age and the age at which people can buy cigarettes at 18, because 18 is the age at which people should be able to make those decisions.
Philip Davies
I cannot give way because of the time pressures. It is completely illogical to say that people are so well-informed that they should be able to vote but they have no idea about whether or not they should smoke. People say, “Well, smoking is harmful for you”; the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) says that it is a matter of public health. But that is an argument for banning smoking altogether. If people wish to say that they want to ban smoking altogether, let them say that—but they do not do so. They say, “We want people to be 18 before they are able to make that kind of informed choice.” People have not been arguing for banning smoking; they have been arguing for raising the age limit to 18. The same should apply to voting as applies to smoking. It cannot be that one is suitable for 16-year-olds and one is suitable for 18-year-olds, as that is simply illogical. Therefore, it is not a matter of principle for people that 16-year-olds are able to make these informed choices; it is a matter of convenience.
There is nothing so nauseating and ridiculous as seeing MPs trying to court the youth vote—trying to appear trendy by wanting to pursue these sorts of youth matters. That is what this is all about; it is about MPs trying to look trendy and youthful in their constituencies. To be perfectly honest, it is rather pathetic. It would be better if they at least had some sound logic behind their views and really did trust 16-year-olds to make decisions—all decisions. What we have heard today is hon. Members saying that they believe that 16-year-olds are capable of voting but are not capable of making other decisions that affect their lives. Voting can be very harmful. I say to hon. Members that if the public ever decided to put the lot on the Labour Benches into government again, that would be very harmful to them. So it is not just smoking that is harmful when people make a bad decision at 16; voting can be a very harmful thing, too.
I believe that people should make a decision at the age of 18 on all these matters, be it whether to smoke, whether to drink alcohol and whether to vote. The people who take an opposite view have not yet persuaded me and they have not come up with any logical reason to support their belief that the smoking age should be increased from 16 to 18 whereas the voting age should be reduced from 18 to 16. It is a nonsensical argument and I do not support it.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I speak in support of lowering the voting age because I start from the perspective that extending the franchise has historically always been a good thing and that in a democracy people should have the right to shape the decisions that affect them, unless there is a really good reason why not. My starting point is not, “Why lower the voting age to 16?” but, “Why not lower the voting age to 16? Why prevent people from voting until they are 18 or even 23, as in the case of some young people voting in a general election for the first time? My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) made that point.
I acknowledge that there are arguments of some merit against such a move, and I will spend a little time discussing them, because some young people themselves make those arguments. Recently, I went to talk to a large group of young scouts who had very mixed views about lowering the voting age. They were marginally in favour as a group, but many of them were against. Some talked about the problem of maturity, but far more of those young people talked about a lack of knowledge and the difficulty of gaining the necessary tools and information to make meaningful choices of political parties. That is why I agree with so many hon. Members that lowering the voting age should go hand in hand with good-quality citizenship education in all our schools. Also, so many young people have made the point to me that citizenship education should not be an afterthought or an add-on; it should be a high priority for schools in enabling young people to make those choices.
I want to go further than that, because I am a huge supporter of the UNICEF rights respecting schools programme, which some hon. Members may have seen in action and which is incredibly important. We have heard the argument, “Why stop at 16? Why not go earlier?” We have debated that, but from a very young age children can and should be involved in shaping the institutions and communities they are part of, thus having an impact on the decisions that affect their lives. I say to hon. Members who say that that somehow does not protect childhood that it is an active part of childhood; children are people—they are citizens—who live in communities and they are not atomistic individuals who should be seen only through the lens of their parents. The UNICEF rights respecting schools programme is incredibly important, because it enables children to learn about politics in an active and not a passive way; surely we want those sorts of adults in the future.
The argument that some people do not want the vote and that some will not use it completely misses the point. The point is that many 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds do want the vote and do want to use it. Hon. Members have referred to evidence from overseas, and, in particular, from Austria and Germany, which suggests that if young people start voting at 16—this is the crucial point—when they are still in formal learning, they continue to do so. The argument that 18 to 24-year-olds are less likely to vote therefore again misses the point. Now is a very opportune time to introduce this measure, because we are raising the participation age so that young people stay in some form of formal learning until 18. That is often advanced as a reason not to give young people the vote, but all the evidence suggests that it is in fact a reason to do so, as they will still be in formal learning and can be given the information and skills they need to make the decisions.
I agree that young people mature at different rates, and that is reflected in the different ages at which we allow people to do different things. I will not rehearse those differences, because we have had a great deal of discussion about them, but I wish to make two points. First, I do not believe that representation should be directly linked to taxation. Lots of people in this country do not pay tax, for whatever reason; unemployed people are one such example. I hope that most hon. Members would not agree with the idea that such people should not have the vote—that idea appals me. The argument that someone has to pay taxes before they are allowed to vote is completely spurious.
Secondly, the fact that young people mature at different rates surely cannot be a reason to say to all 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds that they are simply not allowed to vote. We have not always got right the ages at which we decide that people are mature enough to do things—in my view, the age of criminal responsibility is far, far too low in this country—but the fact that we are even having a debate about whether young people should wait eight years from when we hold them criminally responsible for their actions to when they are allowed to have a say in the criminal justice system that we are catapulting them into is completely wrong.
I argue for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to have the choice about whether to vote, not the responsibility to vote; voting is not compulsory in this country and I do not think anybody is suggesting that it should be. They should have that choice as we all do.
I say to hon. Members who have raised the issue of protecting childhood that I do not see any justification for saying that we somehow keep our children safer by denying them the right to be active members of and citizens in their communities. The idea that teenage girls on the streets of Doncaster would be protected by not being allowed to vote until the age of 18 strikes me as ridiculous.
Over the past few years, we have seen starkly how the decisions we make affect young people from an early age. Young people have taken to the streets to defend the education maintenance allowance, to oppose the rise in tuition fees and to occupy multinational companies that refuse to pay their taxes. Those young people are campaigning on issues that will not affect them—those decisions have largely already been taken—but they are taking to the streets to defend the rights of the young people who come after them and to make a case for the sort of society in which they want to live. They are highly political, optimistic, energetic and ambitious—we know that from the evidence—yet they have little say in the decisions we make.
Every time we delay decisions on issues such as care for the elderly, pensions, the environment and child care, we are storing up trouble for future generations. The decisions we make and those we do not make will have profound repercussions for the generation of young people growing up today. It will fall to them to solve the problems we create and I am appalled that they do not have a say in the decisions that affect them.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I am conscious of the fact that we have only just over an hour before the start of the wind-ups, so I shall keep my comments brief.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and although I disagree with her general argument, she made a very good point about the fact that even among young people there is no single view on the matter. I accept that many statistics show that a majority of 16 and 17-year-olds, when asked, suggest that they would be in favour of having the right to vote. That is not surprising, is it? At that age, young people want to get on in life and to get things quicker than the law allows. I am sure that if we were to ask them whether they would like to be able to go into a pub and buy alcohol, the majority would probably say yes.
It is encouraging that 16 and 17-year-olds are interested in political matters and the political process. I have no doubt that that interest means that many of them would like to vote, but we know from the turnout figures that very few 18 to 21-year-olds vote—often less than half. I do not say that that is a reason for not giving the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds, because, as has been said, people do not have to vote. We do not have compulsory voting in this country.
Let me clear up one point made by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) about young people having to wait five years before they can vote in a general election. That is true for people who turn 18 the day after the last general election now that we have fixed-term Parliaments, but it was equally true in 1992 and 2005, when there were five-year Parliaments. In all areas of the country, there will be opportunities to vote in local elections before the next general election. Of course, millions of young people in metropolitan areas will be able to vote in elections three years out of every four. That is true of my constituency, as it is of the whole of Greater Manchester.
It has been mentioned that some countries have reduced the voting age to 16 or 17, but there are also countries where the voting age is higher. It is 20 in Japan and 21 in Pakistan and Malaysia, so there are international comparators where the age at which young people can vote is higher. There is an argument that making young people wait until they are 18 before they can vote shows how important and serious the act of voting is. The Youth Citizenship Commission examined the question of lowering the voting age in 2009 and found that it was not the main factor affecting engagement in the political process. It stated that
“the issue is not the principal factor in encouraging young people’s interest and involvement in politics and citizenship.”
Back in 2004, the Electoral Commission carried out a full review of the age of electoral majority and concluded that the minimum age for voting should remain at 18.
Stephen Williams
The Electoral Commission concluded at that time that the voting age should not be reduced, but said that it should be kept under constant review. That was nine years ago, which is why we are having this debate today.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point and congratulate him on securing the debate. It has given the House the opportunity to give the subject an airing, for which I am sure we are all grateful, whichever side of the debate we are on.
It is not that long ago in the history of this country that the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 and we are now debating whether to reduce it from 18 to 16.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to give way. I was one of the first beneficiaries of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government’s decision to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18. I was born in 1952 and voted in my first general election aged 18 in 1970—the first general election in which there were 18-year-old voters. It seems to me that all the arguments being made against reducing the voting age could have been and were made in the 1960s, and it is now many years later. The hon. Gentleman says that it is not very long ago, but I am old enough to have a senior person’s railcard now. It is about time we moved on and allowed younger people, who are better educated now than I was then, to vote.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but he reinforces my point. If a decision was made to reduce the age of majority to 16, in three or four decades’ time this House would be full of people saying, “That was years ago, we ought to consider making it 14. People made that decision long ago and they are far away.”
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I apologise for missing the start of the debate, but I was in a Select Committee. My hon. Friend has already stated that if the age were reduced to 16, turnout would be very low. Does he think that adding a whole set of people to the electoral roll when the majority of them will not vote will in any way enhance our democracy? The simple fact that people cannot vote at that age does not stop them from being politically engaged.
Mr Nuttall
Indeed, there is nothing to stop a young person who is politically motivated from going along and joining Conservative Future—or, if they were particularly misguided, the equivalent group in the other parties.
I am conscious that I have used up my unofficial allocation of time, but I think I have made some points that give the other side of the argument. We do not want only to hear young people’s views. Millions of people in this country think that the age at which people can vote should remain at 18 and it is important that those arguments, as well as all the others, are heard today.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). As I think he knows, I joined the Labour party in Bury as a 15-year-old, and when I was 16 and 17, I spent my time doing my best to help dislodge his Conservative predecessor, who is of course now the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)—although the hon. Member for Bury North may think that that reinforces his argument and detracts from mine.
I shall be brief. I started thinking about this debate a few weeks ago, and came to the issue with a genuinely open mind. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who I think said from a sedentary position earlier that he was worried about the squeeze on childhood. I will have to disagree with him. At 16, people can give consent to medical treatment, leave school and enter work, pay income tax and national insurance, obtain tax credits and welfare benefits, get married, change their name by deed poll, become a company director, join the armed forces, and become a member of a trade union. Given that there is already a long list of things that people can do at 16, it seems reasonable that they should also be able to vote.
Jonathan Ashworth
I would rather not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, because the Deputy Speaker is keen for us all to get in.
In recent days, I have held a survey in my Leicester South constituency. Interestingly, apart from the over-50s, those who have taken part in my survey are overwhelmingly in favour of allowing 16-year-olds to vote.
Jonathan Ashworth
I understand that the respondents are arguably self-selecting, and it is not a scientific survey, but the results are interesting none the less. On the other hand, just for balance, there was a vox pop on Radio Leicester this morning, in which people said that they did not think that 16-year-olds would understand the issues or be interested. I have to say, as many other Opposition Members have done, that when I speak to year 11 groups, or to sixth forms, as I will tomorrow at Madani high school, I find that young people are very much engaged. They may not be interested in the cut and thrust of party political debate in this place, but they are certainly interested in the issues that affect them.
All my life, I have seen Chancellors of the Exchequer of both parties pull rabbits out of hats in the Budget statement in this place, and it is usually some sort of give-away to pensioners. Whatever party the Chancellor is from, the party members behind him cheer and wave their Order Papers. We do it because we know that we can put that give-away on our leaflets and in our direct mail, and we know that pensioners vote. I suspect that if 16-year-olds had the vote, we would be less cavalier about trebling tuition fees to £9,000, abolishing the education maintenance allowance, and levels of youth unemployment, because we would be worried about those young people having their say at the ballot box. It is entirely fair that they should. They do not all have to vote; we are talking about giving them the opportunity to vote.
I hope that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) divides the House; I get the impression that he will. If it is the will of the House that 16-year-olds should have the vote, will the Minister think about allowing them to vote in next year’s European elections? Then we could look at the level of engagement, and at whether that galvanises people. Perhaps she will comment on that when she sums up. The proposal seems entirely fair and right; let us just get on with it.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am grateful to my hon. and good Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) for introducing the debate, and to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to it. It is absolutely right that we should debate the subject. Like the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), I, too, was a beneficiary of the change in the voting age from 21 to 18. When I was 18, I could not vote, but by the time I was 21 I had got the vote, because the law had changed, and I cast my first vote in the 1970 election. It was an exciting moment. I went with my dad back to where we had moved from, and I felt the importance of being able to play my small part in that general election.
Ever since then, I have been persuaded that we need to keep asking ourselves whether young people are properly engaged in politics. I chair the governing body of a primary school, and of course there are bright and engaged youngsters in that school, but as some hon. Friends have said, nobody seriously thinks that they are yet sufficiently engaged and interested to be able to vote. I am the trustee of a secondary school; the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) and others spoke about going to secondary schools and meeting youngsters, most of whom are really engaged, interested, informed and active. A couple of evenings ago, I was with some friends in my constituency. Their under-18 son was at the dinner table, and nobody could argue that he, doing his A-levels, was not as competent to cast a vote as many other people.
Hugh Bayley
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the habit of voting is usually learned young, and that the chance of getting a 30-year-old who has never voted into a polling station is small? If we had voting at 16, large numbers of 16, 17, and 18-year-olds at school or in higher education would feel peer pressure to vote, and might acquire the habit for life.
Simon Hughes
That, in a way, is my central argument, and I will come back to it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West was kind enough to remind the House that I was the first person to introduce this proposition. I have checked; it was in Committee stage of the Representation of the People Bill on 15 December 1999. Mike O’Brien, whom we all remember with affection, was the Under-Secretary of State, and he opposed the proposition on behalf of the Labour Government, although we reported that Paul Waugh of The Independent had written an article on the previous new year’s eve saying that the Labour Government were thinking about whether they should propose changing the law. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West was right to say that we did not get the measure through; the votes were 36 in favour and 434 against.
One of the then Minister’s strongest arguments was that a person could not stand for election until they were 21. That has changed; people can now stand in local elections when they are 18, and they do—and get elected. The discrepancy has narrowed. My key point is this: if we educate young people to understand the issues, as the House’s education department does, and as we do when we go into schools; if, when children are still at home, parents educate them on the issues; if, as colleagues in all parts of the House have said, we are keen for people to be more competent to make financial decisions when they leave school; if we want to make sure that young people understand how to apply for work, and look for training, a university or college, apprenticeships and so on, and have the information that they need; we should logically link that with the ability to see what the options are in life, and who makes those decisions.
Who decides whether a person can be housed locally? The local council, and therefore it matters who the local councillor is and whether they are likely to be responsive. Who makes the decisions in London about policing? The Mayor of London. A young person might have very strong views on the subject, and might want to do something to influence the decision of who becomes the Mayor. Who makes the decisions about licensing laws and ages, and about drugs? Parliament, and young people might want to influence it if they have very strong views on those issues.
The crucial point is the one that the hon. Member for York Central and I made. If we educate young people—we do it increasingly well with an increasingly bright cohort—and there is a gap of up to five years before they can apply what they have learned, what happens? First, when they can vote, they may not be at home; they may be struggling to find somewhere to live, and be moving around. Relationships are often all over the place. There are uncertainties to do with study, training and work. People then generally do not find that voting is a priority, because they do not have the stability that they had at school, college or home.
In the past, people voted much more often in the way that their family did Now, if young people are at home, it does not necessarily mean that they will vote the way their parents do, but they are much more likely to be encouraged to go to vote with their parents, and to be shown what to do. Some people do not vote because they do not know what to do, and they are terrified that they will be embarrassed when they go.
Fabian Hamilton
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that those of us who are parents, whether in the House or outside, have a crucial role in ensuring, well before our children are 16, that they will have the understanding and ability to vote at 16, and that we can therefore play a part in making sure that votes at 16 work?
Simon Hughes
That is right, and I say to those Conservative colleagues who are nervous about the idea that of course we have different ages for different things; we will never get to a situation in this country where every right comes at 16, 17 or 18; that is unrealistic. However, it is often young people who are the most idealistic in the world—who want to change the world, and live out what they believe. If we start saying, “No, you can’t get involved at this age. I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait. You can’t do anything about it till you’re 19, 20 or 21,” by then the idealism may have gone and we will have dampened their enthusiasm.
We want more people to stand in political elections. All political parties, including the Tories, allow people to join and to vote at well under 18. At 15, I think, one can be a voting member of the Tory party, choosing the party leader. For heaven’s sake, let us realise that although not all the world has yet arrived at this conclusion, we must go on opening up opportunities to young people, not making them do anything, but giving them the opportunity to become the full citizens that they will be if they can exercise the vote in this country.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always difficult, knowing that one is going to be pretty much a lone voice on the Opposition Benches opposing the motion. I have to tell my colleagues that I have done it before and it is good for the soul, and I will probably do it again. May I make a confession? I used to be in favour of lowering the voting age. Then I became Chairman of the Education Committee, then Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee. It was my experience as Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee that changed my mind.
From the evidence that we heard across a range of inquiries, it became clear to me that we live in a world where childhood is being truncated and squeezed all the time. We live much longer. We are all going to live to 90 and goodness knows what age—I think it is predicted that children born now will live to 100. As a percentage of the lifespan, childhood is a very brief period. I want to celebrate childhood. I want children to be able to indulge in it and have a wonderful time. Childhood is about so many things—education, experience, learning, fun and being irresponsible in so many ways. I passionately believe that we should not squeeze childhood.
In my lifetime, childhood has been squeezed inexorably. Just look at the commercial pressures on young people today. Take advertising. Look at the pressures on children to conform—to buy the right trainers, to have the right computer and the right mobile phone. The pressure on childhood from the commercial world is tremendous. We as politicians have done pretty little about defending childhood from commercial pressures. Indeed, the one time I deeply fell out with my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) was when, as Minister, he allowed product placement on television. What do we drink? Coca Cola, because there it is on the screen. The commercial pressures on childhood have been extreme over recent years. [Interruption.] It may be hilarious that there is commercial pressure. I do not think it is hilarious. I think it is deeply worrying.
I have increasingly spent time looking at the very vulnerable children in our society. We should all reflect on how many young people were involved in the Jimmy Savile case and other cases, and on the gangs in our towns throughout the country. There is a famous case going through the courts at present and there have been many more over the winter where vulnerable girls—particularly girls, but sometimes boys as well—have been targeted. There are protections in our laws that take childhood through to 18. I know that we cannot apply that to everything, but 18 gives us a standard by which to judge how far childhood goes. Eighteen is the maximum age. Others have argued that people can get married at 16, but that is only with their parents’ consent.
I am in favour of keeping childhood. I am also in favour of keeping the protections of childhood. As we allow these to slip to a younger and younger age—
Mr Sheerman
No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman, who is a great friend of mine, made quite a long speech. I want to carry on making my case.
I believe that pushing childhood back makes many young children vulnerable at a crucial age. Those of us who have spent time with children—I have four children and oodles of grandchildren—know that they are very vulnerable between the ages of 14 and 18. We can wish that away or pretend it is not the case, but my experience as Chairman of the Education Committee and then of the Children, Schools and Families Committee has taught me that that is a very sensitive age for young people.
I understand where the motion is coming from. It is a fashionable cause at present. When the president of the Liberal party back in those days, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), made that speech and moved that motion, I remember that people said, “Oh, it’s only those trendy Liberal Democrats looking for young votes,” and I said, “No, no, he is a man of honour and he believes this for very good reasons.” My own party has been won over. The deputy leader of my party and others have become passionate about it. I opposed lowering the voting age being in our manifesto and believed it was wrong—again, because I believed it made the protection of children a lesser issue than it might otherwise be.
Mr Sheerman
May I put that point in context? I believe that part of the demand and the fashion of votes at 16 comes from the fact that our parliamentary democracy is in deep trouble. We know that only 65% voted at the last election and that 6 million people did not bother to register. We all know that the three main parties represented in this place have hardly any members in their constituencies—tiny numbers of people active in politics. I know that the Liberal Democrats have believed in proportional representation to do something about that, but we are all floundering around because there is something deeply wrong with the engagement in democracy in our country today.
The demand for votes at 16 is clutching at straws. I understand it and I do not deny that there are arguments for it, but I worry that it is a pretext for not looking at the deeply worrying decay of parliamentary democracy in our country. I hope this does not come to a vote. Everyone on the Labour Benches knows that I am a reasonable man. At the very least, I would like the Government to set up a commission on an all-party basis to look into the matter. If my concerns and worries about the protection of children are ill-founded, an independent commission looking at that might give me cause not to worry any longer, but I believe that the voice that has been silent in the House today has been one arguing for childhood, the protection of childhood and the value of childhood.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). I know what it feels like to be a lone voice, on the nationalist Benches. I totally and fundamentally disagree that allowing the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds has any impact whatsoever on childhood. The voice that we do not hear in the House is that of young people. If we give young people the vote, we will get to hear that voice, and it is a voice that I will welcome.
Pete Wishart
No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman as we do not have much time.
I am immensely proud that it is Scotland that is leading the way in delivering the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, and that the Scottish National party Scottish Government are the first Government in the United Kingdom ever to allow our youngest people the vote. In our independence referendum 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to decide the future of our country, and that is absolutely right. This is an immensely exciting and transformative event and it is the right thing to do.
The Scottish National party has supported votes for 16 and 17-year-olds for decades. Winnie Ewing, who was our first Member of Parliament, spoke about the franchise for 16 and 17-year-olds in her maiden speech in 1967. We believe that 16 and 17-year-olds have the biggest stake in our future and it is right that they have a say. I will not go over the reasons why 16 and 17-year-olds should get the vote, as those reasons have been eloquently put by several hon. Members. If people of that age can marry, pay tax and join the Army, they should be given the opportunity to decide the future of the country, and it is what the people of Scotland want, too.
Of the 26,000 people who responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation “Your Scotland, Your Referendum”, the vast majority agreed that 16 and 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote in a referendum. In fact, 56% agreed and 41% disagreed. Children 1st, Children in Scotland, the Educational Institute of Scotland, the Electoral Reform Society, the National Union of Students in Scotland, the Scottish Youth Parliament, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Unison and Unite—all bodies that have an interest in young people and their welfare and rights—responded positively to the proposal to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in Scotland’s referendum.
We can allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum because of the Edinburgh agreement, reached between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, which passed responsibility on all issues related to our referendum to the Scottish Parliament. It is the first time we have had the opportunity to be responsible for a franchise for a national election—and, by God, we are going to use it.
The Scottish Parliament has already legislated to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote in health board elections and in the crofting commission elections. Where we have legislative responsibility, we will allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. Unfortunately, we do not have responsibility for UK elections. We are not responsible for the franchise for elections to the Scottish Parliament. We are not even responsible for the franchise for local government elections.
It has been ridiculously suggested that because we cannot allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in UK Parliament elections, we should demonstrate our right to allow young people to vote in our referendum. I am sorry, but we are for votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. We believe that it is right that they should get the vote, and where we have responsibility we will allow our young people the vote. We will not be held back by some of the positions of the Westminster Conservatives. If we were to wait for the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) to agree to 16 and 17-year-olds having the vote, we would be waiting a long time.
What are we going to do? The Scottish Government are going to bring forward a Bill to allow all 16 and 17-year-olds to register and vote in our independence referendum. We propose to accelerate the paving Bill, which will allow a canvass of 15 to 17-year-olds as part of the electoral canvass plan for 2013, not just the so-called attainers covered by the existing electoral canvass proposals. We are already working closely with electoral registration officers and other stakeholders to develop the legislation and the practical arrangements to implement it. We will guarantee and ensure that all 16 and 17-year-olds have a vote in the Scottish independence referendum.
What has been disappointing about the debate on votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in the independence referendum is the attitude of parties and politicians who notionally support votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. I respect the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), but his Liberal colleagues in Scotland have been what could only be called prickly, oppositional and generally grudging about trying to secure votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in the independence referendum.
In fact, our consultation showed that 17 Labour Members of Parliament objected to 16 and 17-year-olds getting a vote in the referendum, as did practically all the Liberal Democrats. I find that astonishing, and even shameful. If they believe that 16 and 17-year-olds should be able to vote in all elections, why did they not support their right to vote in the referendum in the Scottish Parliament? It was immensely disappointing to see the Liberals, in particular, opposing and being prickly and difficult about securing votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in our referendum.
The fact that 16 and 17-year-olds cannot vote in general elections has been mentioned, but we cannot do anything about that, because we do not have responsibility for extending the franchise in UK elections. Some have tried to suggest that we are proposing votes for 16 and 17-year-olds for narrow party political advantage—what a lot of nonsense. There is no evidence to support that claim. In fact, one opinion poll conducted among 16 and 17-year-olds showed that a majority were in favour of remaining in the Union. To suggest that we are doing this for narrow party political advantage is absolute and utter nonsense. The attitude of some of the parties that notionally support votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in the referendum has been disappointing. They will have to account to 16 and 17-year-olds when the referendum takes place in Scotland next year.
Bob Stewart
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that 16 and 17-year-olds could be on a jury in a murder trial, for example? I am slightly concerned about that.
Pete Wishart
I do not agree with that. This goes back to the debate that has been well rehearsed and which we have heard so much about today. There are different ages of responsibility between the ages of 16 and 18. There are certain things that 16-year-olds can and cannot do, there are certain things that 18-year-olds can do, and there certain things that people cannot do until they are 21. We sometimes have to draw a line when it comes to these issues, but to say that 16 and 17-year-olds should not be able to vote when they have such responsibilities and such a stake in our society and community is utterly perverse, wrong and bizarre. Of course they should get the vote.
I am a sponsor of the motion and so will, of course, support it. I will continue to support every effort in this House to ensure that we get votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. I make a plea to both the Liberal and Labour parties to stop their opposition to votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in the Scottish referendum and to please help us to deliver it to ensure that we have the first national referendum in the United Kingdom in which 16 and 17-year-olds can vote. Support us, help us, and we will deliver it.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), whose motion is supported by Members on both sides of the House, on securing this debate. A number of Members have suggested that it is timely, but I suggest that it is overdue. As we have been reminded, when the Electoral Commission said back in 2004 that the voting age should remain unchanged, it also said that we should look at the issue again in five to seven years, so by any account we are at least two years late.
I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) sought to diminish the debate by suggesting that those of us who were advocating this cause were simply trying to be trendy. Looking at those Members who have spoken so far, including myself, I do not think there is any chance that any of us will be mistaken for being trendy—[Interruption.]—with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy).
In preparing for the debate, I invited views from constituents. I want to share just one, from Simon Landau who had been out campaigning on the NHS. He said:
“I was very much struck by a young man carrying his baby son in his arms who came up to us on the stall... He was 17, doing his training at Catterick and was due to go to Afghanistan this year. He was interested in our leaflets and the petition on the NHS as he realised its critical importance to his family. He was also aware that he didn’t have a vote, and so he wondered whether he was allowed to sign the petition.”
My constituent’s observation was that the doubt ought to be removed. I thought about that young man. He is old enough to be concerned about the NHS, and rightly so, old enough to join the Army, old enough to have a baby, old enough to be married and old enough to pay tax and receive benefits. If he had chosen a different course, he would also be old enough to be a company director, to join a trade union and, indeed, to vote in trade union elections—another example of the Labour movement setting the progressive path—but he is not judged old enough to vote in other elections. There are currently over 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds exercising those sorts of responsibilities on a daily basis, and they should have a bigger say.
Opponents, including the hon. Member for Shipley and others, say that we restrict many things to 18-year-olds. He cited buying cigarettes, drinking alcohol and gambling. There is a common thread there: we tend to restrict to 18-year-olds the stuff that is bad for people. We do not really want to lump engagement in democracy in that basket.
Although I agree with the hon. Member for Bristol West that there should be varying age limits and thresholds, 16 is a threshold for a significant range of rights and responsibilities. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is not currently in his place, because I do not think that childhood extends to 18.
We should empower 16 and 17-year-olds not only because it aligns their rights with their responsibilities, but because it makes them more likely to participate in politics in the longer term. There is considerable evidence that the younger people are when they start voting, the more likely they are to stick with the habit. If young people do not get the opportunity to vote in a general election until six or seven years after their citizenship education—whatever efforts the Education Secretary is making to undermine that education—that gives the impression that their views are not valid. It gives young people time to feel excluded from politics, even before they have had the chance to express their political views. If people do not vote when they are young, they might never vote again.
My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) referred to our common experience of being beneficiaries when the voting age was reduced to 18. I am sure that many Members of the House at the time voiced exactly the same arguments that have been raised against today’s proposal: that 18 to 21-year-olds would not be mature enough to vote. I guess that the majority of us who benefited would disagree with that argument because we felt we were mature enough to vote, but I talk to many 16 and 17-year-olds in schools and colleges, and I have to say that they are more impressive than many of us would have been at that age.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the biggest examples of that is the Youth Parliament debate that took place in this Chamber, which was absolutely exemplary?
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend makes an important point that is confirmed by the contacts and engagement I have had with youth parliamentarians in Sheffield.
I can see why many in the Government might not want to extend the right to vote to 16, for very practical reasons from their point of view. Policies are often shaped in recognition of the power of the elderly vote, and rightly so—that is what democracy is about. However, young people have borne the brunt of this Government’s policies, with the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, the increase in tuition fees, the scrapping of the future jobs fund, turning the clock back with GCSE and A-level reforms, and much more besides. How differently those issues might have been viewed if 16 and 17-year-olds had had the vote. Just as with the elderly vote, that is what democracy is about. Because of their responsibilities, because they are affected by so many of the decisions made here and by local councils, and because we can trust their judgment, we should take the bold step of extending the voting age to 16.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) introduced this debate very thoroughly and left almost nothing new for the rest of us to say, with the exception of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) called out at one stage, “But this is not popular—have you seen the surveys?” This is not a matter of popular support; it is a matter of democratic principle. In practice, it can and does work elsewhere.
In this country we have 16-year-olds who can leave school, start work, pay income tax, receive benefits and tax credits, give consent to medical treatment, become company directors, join trade unions, join the armed forces, get married and enter into civil partnerships. We regard 16-year-olds as responsible enough to do all those things, but we do not regard them as responsible enough to vote. All those things are determined in law, decided by us as elected politicians. This means that we have about 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds who are capable of making and able to make decisions on those things, and capable of making yet unable to make decisions on voting. That leaves them without a democratic voice on many of the things that can directly affect them most.
I see this ultimately as a matter of citizenship. The discussion about lowering the voting age has a direct link with the citizenship education in our schools—the citizenship education that I am proud our Labour Government introduced in 2002 and deeply disappointed that this Government have now dropped as a requirement for academies and free schools and look likely to drop as an element of the national curriculum for other schools. I regard that as backward-thinking and a backward step.
I said that it is a matter of principle and practice. In practice, the evidence from elsewhere appears to be that lowering the voting age proves to be a good and not a bad thing. Austria did it five years ago, and the evidence appears to be that interest in politics among its young people has greatly increased. The evidence on their voting is that turnout is similar to that among other age groups, as is the pattern of voting. That should lead us to conclude that 16-year-olds are just as capable as adults of any other age of making such decisions and taking such responsibilities. Within Europe, it is not only Austria that has lowered the voting age; it has been done for some elections in Germany, Hungary, Slovenia and Norway, and of course people are looking to do it in Scotland.
The principled and the practical arguments are all pointing in the same direction—the direction behind this motion, which I regard as a case for change whose time has now come.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) on securing this debate. As a former youth worker, I agree with him on how important it is. I have to say to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that it is not “new and trendy”; we have been having debates about votes at 16 ever since I started to do youth work, which, sadly, I must admit was a considerable number of years ago. Leading youth-led organisations such as the British Youth Council and the UK Youth Parliament are very actively campaigning for votes at 16.
Last week I went to St James primary school in Daisy Hill in my constituency to present prizes for my Christmas card competition. I talked to the young people about Parliament and being an MP, and told them about this debate. I took a vote on whether they thought that 16-year-olds should be allowed to vote. Interestingly, all but a handful of pupils thought that they should be given the vote at 16, but all the staff voted against, which I found quite sad. I told them that I would report their vote to Parliament today, as it is representative of the many young people I have spoken to about this issue.
A few weeks ago, I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on youth affairs. This APPG is very different from the majority of APPGs in that different organisations bring in young people to debate issues with parliamentarians. I encourage many more of my colleagues to come along to the APPG. At that meeting, we debated votes at 16 and, again, the vast majority of the young people attending believed that the vote should be given to 16-year-olds.
Andrew Percy
Of course, the young people with whom the hon. Lady is engaging are those who are already engaged in politics. We have a huge problem in this country in that, sadly, the vast majority of young people are not engaged in politics. It would therefore be better to focus on the 18 to 24-year-olds who are not engaged, the majority of whom do not vote at the moment. We should get them voting and then we can extend it.
Julie Hilling
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I believe absolutely that if we start to encourage voting at an early age, where that is supported and people are educated about their rights and responsibilities, we can make voting a lifelong activity, and concentrating on 18 to 24-year-olds misses that huge opportunity. I will say a little more about that later.
Let me talk about some of the things that the young people at the APPG said. Yes, they are young people who are engaged. However, an important point about youth organisations and youth workers is that we actively go out to engage not only with those aspiring young people, but with young people from all walks of life to enable them to have their say in civil society. Carly stated that many young people are dissatisfied with local issues but struggle to know how to become properly involved in politics. She argued that there was a need for better education and noted that not all adults made arguments based on solid reasoning. Another young person stated that political apathy from some young people is not a valid reason to exclude those young people who are engaged, and noted that not all adults vote. Steve said that a lot of older people lacked an interest in political engagement and awareness but the same ideas about requiring a level of knowledge for 16 and 17-year-olds was not placed on people over 18. A number of young people argued that politicians are able to ignore their views because they do not have the vote, and compared the loss of education maintenance allowance and the increase in tuition with the protection of benefits given to the grey vote.
Some voices were raised against enfranchising 16 and 17-year-olds. One young person felt that they should not be enfranchised because they do not have experience of life outside the home, but she was challenged by someone who argued that many people now do not move out of their home until they are in their thirties, so that is not a valid reason to stop them having the vote.
The main thrust of the arguments against changing the voting age was lack of knowledge, and very strong opinions were voiced, both by those in support of votes at 16 and by those against, for the need for effective citizenship education in schools. They also argued that it should be part of the Ofsted inspection framework to ensure that such education was being carried out in all schools in a good way.
I am sure that we have all knocked on the doors of people who do not vote because they do not know how to do so or who to vote for. I believe that we have a duty in a civilized society to educate people about their civil duties, including voting. If done effectively, that should increase turnout by all future voters.
Many schools already undertake a lot of activities, such as mock elections, at the time of general elections, but, sadly, that rarely happens each year, meaning that four cohorts can miss out altogether.
That encouragement to vote—enabling young people to understand the political process and to vote at 16—should be viewed as positive. Voting at 16 would instil a pattern for lifelong voting. However, whether or not we believe that the voting age should be lowered, we clearly should be doing more to educate young people and, indeed, older people about how and why to vote.
We can all bandy polls about and I want to quote an online poll from The Guardian, which found that 53% of people were in favour of lowering the voting age. Of course, if a more right-wing paper conducted a similar poll, it may well come up with a different answer, but one accusation that cannot be levelled against readers of The Guardian is that they are not deep thinkers who will not have considered the pros and cons of lowering the voting age.
Julie Hilling
I am sure about it. The Votes at 16 coalition says that
“16 and 17 year olds are knowledgeable and passionate about the world in which they live, and are as capable of engaging in the democratic system as any other citizen.”
These are people who are already seen as capable of voting for the leader of their respective political parties.
The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly has urged the Committee of Ministers
“to reconsider the age-related restrictions placed on voting rights in order to encourage young people’s participation in political life.”
I share those views about the passion, knowledge and ability of young people.
Of course, our three Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—have already given votes to 16-year-olds. Scotland will allow 16-year-olds to vote in the referendum, and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies have both voted in favour of votes at 16.
Some have argued that young people will not be able to make an independent decision and will vote the same way as their parents. Let us be realistic: it does not matter whether someone is 16 or 61, many people still vote the same way as their parents. I must confess that the first time I voted, I voted the same way as my mother, but I also have to say that I have never, ever voted the same way again. Our challenge is to educate and inform, so that people of whatever age can decide for themselves who to vote for and why.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and a passionate defence of young people’s right to participate in the process. Does she agree that it is important for parliamentarians to engage with young people aged 16 to 17? I am sure she would have been proud if she had heard young people from Trinity school talking on Radio Nottingham this morning about their views on votes at 16, and about how important it has been for me to speak to them, listen to what they have had to say, and to encourage them.
Julie Hilling
I absolutely agree. I do as much as I can to visit schools and I think it is incumbent on us as politicians to be part of that education process. The reality is that young people are passionate, informed and able to mount their arguments and participate.
Finally, given the number of rights and responsibilities that come in at 16, it is a significant age and I believe that voting should be added to that list.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
I rise in support of the motion in the name of the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) and other hon. Friends and hon. Members. Some of the most passionate debates in the long history of this House have been about the extension of the franchise, including those on the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867, the Representation of the People Act 1884, the removal of the requirement to own property in order to be able to vote, the extension of the franchise to women in 1918 and to everyone over the age of 21 in 1928, and, of course, in 1969, the extension of the franchise to everyone over the age of 18. Like those reforms, extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds for all elections is a matter of civil rights. It demonstrates that, when it comes to participating in the democratic process, equality should be our prevailing principle.
Article 25 of the UN covenant on civil and political rights provides that every citizen shall have the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, including the right to vote by universal and equal suffrage. The motion fits squarely in that internationally recognised right.
Barry Gardiner
My hon. Friend has set his remarks in an appropriate historical context. Would he care to recall to the House that wars have been fought over the principle of no taxation without representation?
Mr Bain
Indeed, and I will refer later to precisely how much taxation 16 and 17-year-olds have contributed in the past 10 years. Although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) that that is not the only criterion for citizenship, it is an important factor that should be put on the record in this debate.
In my view, extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds would boost our democratic institutions across the United Kingdom and help boost political engagement, too. Under the Representation of the People Act 2000, a young person who does not turn 18 until just after a parliamentary election would have to wait until they were nearly 23 years of age before they could cast a vote to choose a Government or elect their constituency Member of this Parliament or the Scottish Parliament. Evidence shows that the longer people wait to cast that first vote in a parliamentary election, the less likely they are to vote at all.
A 2010 Demos study showed that 16 and 17-year-olds in work or training had contributed £550 million in taxes to the UK Exchequer in the previous decade, but had no democratic say on how much tax they paid or on how the revenues they contributed should be spent. As has been said, 16 and 17-year-olds can serve as company directors, get married or enter a civil partnership, be members of our armed forces and contribute to and benefit from our welfare state. As the Power commission report said in 2006, reducing the voting age to 16 would reduce the systematic exclusion from democracy of tens of thousands of our young people and increase the likelihood of their taking part in political debate. The report dismisses the argument that overall turnout would fall as not being an adequate reason to oppose extending the franchise.
In Scotland, the section 30 order, which this House and the other place have debated and which is likely to be approved by the Privy Council within weeks, will permit the Scottish Parliament to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds in the forthcoming referendum, so an important precedent will be set. It is for this House to complete the task and ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in all local and parliamentary elections and in future referendums that may be legislated for by this Parliament. It is absurd that 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland will not have the right to vote in the European elections next June or the next UK general election in May 2015, on either side of that critical referendum.
I believe that those in favour of extending democratic rights to 1.5 million young people in our country are on the right side of history.
Mr Bain
I am afraid that I cannot, because time is running short. Forty-four years ago, this House was among the first to support votes at 18. Today we have the opportunity to join progressive countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Austria in beginning the process of legislating for votes at 16. I urge this House to support the motion, to hasten a long-overdue change in our electoral law and, in doing so, to further the cause of equality.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). I simply point out that his historical list could also have included Catholic emancipation, which was a pretty significant battle in itself and faced many arguments.
The debate on this subject raises a range of arguments, and I do not intend to rehearse all the various things that young people have the right and competence to do at the ages of 16 and 17. We have heard a number of arguments against the proposal to change the voting age, but I support it. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) on tabling the motion and on his record of fighting on the issue.
The arguments that we hear against the change seem to range from protecting democracy from childishness to protecting children from democracy. That is essentially what we heard today from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman)—that despite all the things on which we are letting children down, such as product placement and sexualisation, the one point where we can draw the line is by keeping the voting age at 18 to somehow protect their childhood. That is an argument of complete misdirection.
We should consider what reducing the voting age would mean for our democracy and for how people appreciate their status as young citizens. If we want 16 and 17-year-olds to identify themselves increasingly as young citizens, perhaps we should mandate, recognise and equip them as young citizens by giving them the right to vote, which is a basic thing. That is why I support the motion, just as I supported the proposal in the last Parliament.
We have heard a range of arguments as to why we should and should not make the change. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) made the point that the argument for extending the vote to 16-year-olds is not the same as the argument in the past for extending the vote to women. However, the arguments that we hear against it are pretty similar to those that were used against giving votes to women—they do not really want it, they are ill-informed, they would be too frivolous or giddy, they are distracted by other things, and if they do vote they will vote according to what somebody else tells them. Perhaps the danger is really that if they vote, they will not vote according to what somebody else tells them. Those are all the same arguments that were used against extending the franchise to women. The arguments for the change are not the same, but the arguments against are uncannily and disgracefully similar.
We even heard from the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy)—this is my version, which might not be as good as that in Hansard—that we will have a whole load of people who cannot vote and will not vote. Who is he to say that they cannot and will not vote if we put them on the electoral register? They could have as much competence as he or I. Many political parties allow 16 and 17-year-olds votes within the party. People can become members of my party at 14 and vote in it at 16, and other parties allow young people to vote in internal elections, including for party leaders, at 15. Those elections have a pretty significant impact on the country, so if parties allow that in their own democracy, I do not see why people should not be allowed on the register at that age.
Members have mentioned various places that have already moved to allow, and I would mention that a constitutional convention has been established in Ireland by the current Government. It includes parties and non-party interests, including from Northern Ireland, and is examining the issue of reducing the voting age. It is considering a voting age of 17, because that is the age of consent in the Irish Republic. It is not considering an age of 16, because it does not want to open up another debate that might never be resolved, but I hope that the advance to 17 happens.
It is important to recognise that although extending the franchise will allow people to vote, of course many will not do so. It will mean that people have a chance of exercising their first vote at a better age. We have heard that fixed-term Parliaments will mean that the maximum age at which people could have their first parliamentary vote will be 23. If the change to 16 were made, that would mean that that age would be 21. That does not seem unreasonable or shocking to me. It would not be too radical or drastic, and it seems sensible.
The change would also increase the prospects of people casting their first possible vote, because more of them will be at or near home and able to do so. Having the voting age at 18 means that people are often away from home by the time their first vote comes up, and they have not thought about a postal vote, so they miss out. The change would help the integrity of the franchise by ensuring that it counts, and that is why I support it.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
We have had an excellent debate on whether 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds should have the vote. We have had a total of 15 speakers, and Members have made good contributions and put the case well. Of those 15, by my reckoning only three spoke against the change, and 12 made logical cases for the extension of the franchise.
I will not seek to mention all Members who have spoken—I hope they will forgive me—but I will single out one or two contributions. The debate began with an excellent and comprehensive exposition of the case for the extension of the franchise by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) made a passionate case, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) gave us the benefit of her many years’ experience of working in the youth service. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) talked about his experience of visiting schools, which I am sure many Members can replicate, and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) talked about the centrality of the debate and the fact that the concept of empowering young people is in the UN convention on the rights of the child.
My own view is that a strong case has been made for extending the vote to 16-year-olds. I was influenced by hearing about the Votes at 16 campaign back in January 2003. Since then, my support for the principle has grown stronger and stronger.
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend did not mention my speech, of course, and I do not blame him for that. Does he believe, and is it the official policy of our party, that adulthood begins and childhood ends at 16? Is that what he is saying?
Wayne David
That is not what I am saying. This is a Back-Bench debate, of course, and Members are more than able to express their own views. We are not making any broad-brush statements about when adulthood begins, but I am convinced, and I believe the Labour Front-Bench team are convinced, that there is now an overwhelming case for extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds.
It is fair to say that the Power report of February 2006 was seminal in our developing that view. It indicated the shift of opinion that has gradually taken place. It considered why so few people, and fewer all the time, were willing to be involved in the democratic process. Among its recommendations was reducing the age of voting and candidacy to 16. It stated:
“Our own experience and evidence suggests that just as with the wider population, when young people are faced with a genuine opportunity to involve themselves in a meaningful process that offers them a real chance of influence, they do so with enthusiasm and with responsibility.”
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend has just said again that there is an overwhelming case for the change. I think he is a bit of a betting man on the quiet, so let us have a bet. We will have a poll in Caerphilly and see how overwhelming the majority is for votes and the beginning of adulthood at 16.
Wayne David
I have simply expressed my view and, I believe, that of the majority of colleagues on the Opposition Benches. There is indeed an overwhelming case, and experience has shown that when more people engage with the issue, more become convinced that it is the way forward.
Wayne David
I want to make progress because time is short; I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
As well as the important Power report, various other reports have been produced. Since the Power report was published, there has been more active citizenship in our schools, and more young people have become involved in the debate about issues that affect their lives. A number of Members have mentioned the success of the UK Youth Parliament, and I know many Members were genuinely impressed—some, indeed, were surprised —by the maturity and sophistication of its debates.
Wayne David
I am sorry but I must continue in order to be fair to the Minister and her response.
Like many Members I regularly visit schools and youth centres, and I am impressed by how young people want to engage in serious issues that affect their lives. Caerphilly youth forum in my constituency is an excellent example of how young people are being empowered, gaining in confidence and coming forward with strong, well-formulated views. I worked for the youth service for one and a half years and was responsible for helping to develop youth citizenship in Wales. Indeed, I was surprised and impressed by how the more I engaged with young people, the more willing they were to engage with important and complex issues, and by how sophisticated they were.
A number of Members have mentioned that the argument has already been won in the Welsh Assembly, which passed a resolution in July last year; in Northern Ireland; and—significantly—in Scotland, where the independence referendum will be held in 2014 and 16 and 17-year-olds will have a vote. Logically, if 16 and 17-year-olds are able to vote on such an important issue in Scotland in 2014, I suggest they would be equally able to exercise a vote in general elections as a matter of course.
A precedent has been set and I think it should be extended. It is worth noting that this is not merely a Scottish or indeed British debate; it is international. A number of countries throughout the world have embraced this forward measure—Members have referred to Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Norway and many other countries, which are seriously considering how more young people can be given the franchise. A momentum has been established and the time is right for us to give serious consideration to how we can take the matter forward in this country.
If it is possible for 16 and 17-year-olds to consent to medical treatment, leave school and enter work or training, obtain tax credits and welfare benefits, pay income tax and national insurance, consent to sexual relations, change their name by deed poll, get married or enter a civil partnership, become the director of a company and join the armed forces, then logically, and in all fairness, they should have the right to vote.
Issues of concern, whether housing, education, the national health service, crime, youth services and so on, are of great concern to young people in this country. I believe that 16 and 17-year-olds are mature and responsible enough to exercise a vote in the country’s democratic system. It is an idea whose time has definitely come, and I sincerely hope that the House will look favourably on the motion.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
I am happy to take part in this debate, and I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) on securing it, and all hon. Members who attended the Backbench Business Committee. This important and interesting issue often captures the public’s imagination, and particularly that of young people. I add my support and respect for the UK Youth Parliament which also uses this Chamber and does such important work.
Barry Gardiner
I am glad that the hon. Lady has acknowledged the contribution of the UK Youth Parliament and its debates in this Chamber, and I wonder whether she would care to pay tribute to my constituent, Chante Joseph, who spoke in one of those debates and is in the Public Gallery today.
Miss Smith
I am pleased to know that such people are in the Gallery and engaged with this debate, and no doubt watching us on television. While I am at it, I will pay tribute to the Norfolk Members of the Youth Parliament who also came to this place for that debate.
Whether the voting age should be lowered to 16 is a question on which many Members of this House have passionate and strongly held views—indeed, often opposing views—and those have been expressed again during this debate. Some were pro lowering the voting age and some were against, but Members from all sides of the House interacted strongly and respectfully with each other—in particular let me single out the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and his powerful comments about much of the work he does for the protection of children outside of today’s narrow topic.
My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has made clear on numerous occasions his personal view that there is merit in lowering the voting age, and his views are shared by many in the House. My party tends not to agree, although I am happy to concede that if my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) were in his place, he would show that there is never complete unanimity along party lines on this issue. My political interest began at age 16, when from my comprehensive school in Norfolk I tried to set up a youth forum for Norfolk—I suspect I might have been unusual in that degree of engagement. I accept that there are good arguments from all sides about this issue, although I am not persuaded of the merits of a change to the voting age.
Let me respond to the comments made by the Opposition Front-Bench speakers. I was interested to hear their arguments—as I was to hear those of other hon. Members —and to read comments by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) on the internet. I note, however, that neither the right hon. Gentleman nor the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) voted on the 2005 ten-minute rule Bill sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West, and nor did the Leader of the Opposition or a single member of today’s shadow Cabinet. Although I hear that the Opposition’s views are growing stronger, I wonder what they did during 13 years of government if they did not find time to make that passion felt. A clear case for change is needed—
Wayne David
I am the first to say that this is an evolving debate. I am now convinced that the time has come for us to make the change, but a number of years ago I was not convinced. I think that the Government ought to move with the times and listen to what sensible people are saying.
Miss Smith
I hear the hon. Gentleman. As I say, we need a clear case for change and I will use the time available to me today to look at the facts surrounding the issue because I do not think the case is yet made.
Mr Sheerman
Will the Minister address the point that I tried to make in my speech—I was a bit of a lone voice—and my concern about the rights of children and their vulnerability if we take protections away when the beginning of adulthood, as sure as can be, is moved from 18 to 16?
Miss Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman for pressing that point, and I will come on to deal with the fact that we do not have a single age of majority in this country. Hon. Members on all sides have debated whether we ought to have a single age and what it should be, and the debate has covered both axes of the argument. I was taken by the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan)—we should not be protecting young people from democracy.
Andrew Percy
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) did indeed name me, but is not the point that although we may be debating the age at which people can vote, whatever our view on that we all want to see young people engaged? Opposing a reduction of the voting age to 16 does not make us any less in favour of wanting to get more young people involved in the political process.
Miss Smith
My hon. Friend makes part of my argument for me, for which I am grateful.
As I have said, we ought not to amend something as important as the electoral franchise without a clear case for doing so. I note that there are great divergences of opinion in wider society. Most studies and polls show that a majority of 16 and 17-year-olds favour lowering the voting age—perhaps that is not surprising—but the situation is not always clear. A 2009 YouGov survey of 14 to 25-year-olds conducted for the Citizenship Foundation, another organisation for which I am sure hon. Members have great respect, showed that a majority of that age group—some younger and some older than those in the category we are debating—opposed votes for 16-year-olds: only 31% were in favour, but 54% were against. That provides food for thought and gives hon. Members something to think about on the question of who is likely to say, “Yes, I’d like 16-year-olds to have the franchise,” and who is likely to come to other interesting conclusions.
Hon. Members have raised the issue of 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland.
John Healey
Does the Minister accept that the tenor of the debate has been that the case rests on principle and not on popular support?
Miss Smith
What the right hon. Gentleman says has merit, but we have heard all shades of the argument, including divergent opinions on principle, on great questions of practicality, which I will come to in a second, on what 16-year-olds can currently do in this country, and on how popular or difficult people find those things.
The Scottish Government have proposed that 16 and 17-year-olds vote in the Scottish independence referendum. That has come up repeatedly in debates, including in the debate on the section 30 order last week. The UK Government’s view is that the existing franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections ought to be used for the referendum. It is also our view that the franchise for the rest of the UK should remain unchanged.
I am familiar with arguments of both principle and practicality on the rights and responsibilities of 16-year-olds. Sixteen-year-olds can leave school, get a job and pay tax to differing degrees—I welcome the expert knowledge of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on that point. Sixteen-year-olds can pay tax on their earnings or expenditure, marry and join the armed forces, with parental consent—some hon. Members ensured that they mentioned that vital point.
In short, 16 and 17-year-olds contribute to society in a range of ways. All hon. Members welcome that contribution and would seek for it to be increased in terms of democratic and political engagement when the time is right. It is true that society allows a 16-year-old to do certain things, but society and Parliament believe that there are many things they should not be able to do, including smoking, buying alcohol or fireworks, and placing a bet.
Jonathan Ashworth
The hon. Lady is being very generous in giving way, which is to her credit. I am not familiar with the constitution of the Conservative party, but I suspect 16-year-olds can join it in the same way as they can join the Labour party. In the Labour party, and, I suspect, in the Conservative party, 16-year-olds can take part in selecting their parliamentary candidate and in leadership elections, in which they are choosing a potential Prime Minister. If they can take part in those elections, why can they not take part in a general election? [Interruption.]
Miss Smith
The right hon. Member for Tooting suggests from a sedentary position that we ought to protect 16-year-olds from taking part in democracy—I suspect that argument has been made in the debate. As I said in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), I see the merits of engaging younger people in politics. However, it is my job to answer for the Government, and it will not have escaped the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) that we do not have a consensus on this policy within the Government. I make no bones about that—unless Mrs Bone is available.
Hon. Members on both sides of the argument have tried to exhaust the list of what 16 and 17-year-olds can and cannot do. The contents of the list change from time to time, but that is not the key to the debate, because the UK has no standard age of majority at which people move from being a child, with all the protections that entails, to being an adult. Instead, those rights and responsibilities build over time. People gain the right to do some things when they turn 16 and the right to do other things at other ages. They gain the right to vote the day they turn 18, although I note the argument of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who said that they cannot simply walk out of the door and vote at that point unless they are very lucky with their date of birth.
Hon. Members’ arguments have fallen today on the issue of competence, which is a difficult matter of principle. I will not go into the ins and outs of it because hon. Members have done so, and it is important that the voices of Back Benchers come through in a Backbench Business Committee debate.
As I have said, the Government welcome the involvement in politics of young people who are legally old enough to vote and those who are not. We are seeking to increase the level of political engagement among the youth of this country and to increase registration rates among them to ensure that they exercise the right to vote when they are able to do so.
Mr Sheerman
The Government have changed the emphasis on citizenship in schools—it has been pushed to the margins of activity in schools rather than being allowed to flourish.
Miss Smith
I will answer the hon. Gentleman but take no further interventions on that because I have little time. He is confusing the concept of activities in schools with the national curriculum, which are two different things.
We need to give young people a say in the issues and decisions that affect them. The Government have made that a key principle in our “Positive for Youth” policy and are engaging young people in the political process in a number of ways. The British Youth Council has received funding from the Department for Education to promote the voice of young people at national and local level. That includes establishing a new national scrutiny group of representative and elected young people to advise Ministers across the UK Government directly. I look forward to my first meeting with the group. The Cabinet Office is working with Bite the Ballot and Operation Black Vote to pilot different approaches to engaging directly with young people and black and minority ethnic groups in the UK, including in their schools, colleges and communities, to increase their understanding of both the process and relevance of registering to vote.
Hon. Members have argued that 16 and 17-year-olds ought to be able to vote in order to help engage young people at an early age in our democratic and political processes, but they do not yet convince me. I have not seen compelling evidence. The Youth Citizenship Commission, which the previous Government set up in 2008—no doubt it was part of their onward journey—considered ways in which to develop young people’s understanding of citizenship and increase their participation in politics. It also considered whether the voting age ought to be set at 16. In its summer 2009 report, it felt unable to make a recommendation on whether the voting age should be lowered. It suggested that there was a lack of evidence regarding the merits of votes at 16, and noted that there were vigorous views on either side of the debate, which we have heard in the debate. It said that it is
“of the view that the issue is not the principal factor in encouraging young people’s interest and involvement in politics and citizenship.”
That speaks for itself and sums up several strands of the debate.
Those findings were in line with those made five years earlier by the Electoral Commission in its 2004 report on the age of majority. The commission recommended in its report that the minimum age stays at 18 years. It also recommended reducing the minimum candidacy age from 21 to 18 so that voting and candidacy are the same—a number of hon. Members have made that point—and the change was duly introduced.
The evidence is therefore not clear cut. We should certainly continue to consider the question, and I welcome the role of the Backbench Business Committee in that. Perhaps the more pressing question is what we can do to increase registration and turnout in groups who can vote. Registration among young people is lower than among other population groups. Recent Electoral Commission research shows that 55% of 17 and 18-year-olds and 56% of 19 to 24-year-olds were on the register, compared with 94% of over-65s. Those figures are telling.
I also note that the turnout figures for 18 to 24-year-olds have been falling. At successive elections from 1974 to 1992, approximately a quarter of that group did not vote. That is important to know and something we all ought to take seriously and work on. There is clearly an issue about engagement, particularly with younger electors, which goes beyond franchise, and the Government are trying to address it.
We are introducing the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which I know we shall enjoy debating in the House next week. It will go some way towards changing the electoral registration process for the better by introducing individual registration. It will create a legislative framework to allow alternative channels for registration, such as online registration. The move from paper to digital will make registration more convenient and increase accessibility—a significant transition. We want to ensure that during this period we enable as many people as possible of all ages to register to vote. We know we need to go further than those changes alone. I mentioned that the Government are working with a range of organisations to seek to engage individuals and communities from all sections of society into the political process, and specifically to drive up registration rates in under-registered groups.
The Government are fully committed to doing all they can to increase voter registration levels, but, to return to the main theme of today’s debate, there is no silver bullet solution. Increasing democratic engagement is not solely the responsibility of Government. Politicians, political parties, electoral administrators, teachers, young people themselves and others in society all have a role to play in encouraging young people to register to vote, and then to actually use their vote in elections and referendums. We must provide people with compelling reasons to vote.
I pay tribute again to hon. Members and the Backbench Business Committee on securing this compelling debate, one in which evidence and principle have their place, and I hope we have done it justice today.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
To sum up for no more than two minutes, I call Stephen Williams.
Stephen Williams
The Backbench Business Committee wanted me to demonstrate that this topic was interesting and controversial enough to spark a debate. I think that has been proven beyond all doubt today, with more than 30 Members speaking, either through speeches or interventions. There has been huge interest, too, outside the Chamber on Twitter. There are lots of people in the Public Gallery today and I thank the British Youth Council for organising that.
Some hon. Members have said that those of us who are in favour of lowering the voting age are trying to curry favour or be trendy. In the 1968 debate, the word used was “groovy”. No one has ever accused me of being groovy, or even cool, to use the modern term. A serious point was made about consistency—whether certain rights should be granted at 16 or 18. Surely we can all agree that we should protect young people from the things that are bad—going to war or smoking, which will kill people eventually—and give them the opportunity to do something that is good: voting.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who I respect, and indeed am rather fond of, talked about the commercialisation and sexualisation of children. What those of us who want this change are trying to achieve is democratisation for 16 and 17-year-olds. It has been done in many other countries. It currently exists for British citizens in Crown dependencies and will happen next year in Scotland, on the very future of our United Kingdom. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) summed up the views of all of us who want to see this change: there are principled and practical reasons that now all point in the same direction of allowing 16-year-olds to vote.
I have a Bill ready; it is published today. All we want to do now is test the will of the House and demonstrate to the Government that we want the time and the opportunity for the Bill to become an Act, so that 16 and 17-year-olds can vote.
Question put.
Holocaust Memorial Day
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of Holocaust Memorial Day.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for this timely opportunity to debate this important issue on the Floor of the House. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the right hon. Members for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), the hon. Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), and my hon. Friends the Members for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) and for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). All gave their support for this debate, for which I am very grateful. The number of colleagues who put their names to our application for a debate demonstrates the strength of feeling about this issue and a desire to examine proactively what the holocaust means to us as a society today, as well as the strength of personal feeling on this very difficult subject.
There have been Westminster Hall debates every year since 2008 to consider Holocaust memorial day, on 27 January each year. Sunday will mark the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Russian army, which liberated the concentration camp and the death camp. These debates are always well attended, and I look forward to hearing from many Members who will have their personal views on what this means to them. I would like to frame today’s debate in three ways: first, through personal experience and the experiences of my constituents; secondly, by examining why bringing this debate to the Chamber at this time is important; and thirdly, by exploring what we as policy makers do to confine this dark and turbulent collective history to the past.
We all know the story of the holocaust—we know about the working conditions, the gas chambers, murder on an industrial scale and the irony of “Arbeit macht frei”—but to know the facts is to know only the outlines, like reading a blueprint rather than walking around a building. The Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) both commended the fantastic work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, raising awareness in Prime Minister’s questions, and I would like to do the same. It was through the trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” project that I was able to visit the camp with schoolchildren from my constituency in 2011. I went knowing what Auschwitz was, but I left understanding what it means. What struck me most about my visit was that the 11 million who are estimated to have died were like all of us in this room. The lists of names, ages, professions and home towns built a picture of lives and told stories of living, breathing people with hopes and fears, just like our own today. I left feeling harrowed, but uplifted by the thoughtful, emotive responses of the pupils I had visited Auschwitz with. What is so effective about such projects is that the children returned to their schools to share their experiences with so many others.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate with others and thank him for giving way. Does he agree that the wonderful work of the Holocaust Educational Trust in getting across the educational aspect of this issue will ensure both that future generations understand the tragedy of the holocaust—what went on, the atrocities—and that it does not happen again, to any community whatever?
Graham Evans
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I totally, wholeheartedly agree with him. We cannot thank the Holocaust Educational Trust enough for the work it does on behalf of the whole country.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
It must not happen again, but we are not guaranteed that it cannot happen again. If I am called to speak, I will demonstrate that it has happened again—and it will continue to happen—and we have got to try to stop it.
Graham Evans
I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention. Later in my speech I will come to how we all have to remain vigilant.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
I joined the hon. Gentleman on that trip to Auschwitz, and I wonder whether he, too, remembers that final walk back up the railway track, and the profound effect that the visit had on those young people. We hope that it will be a lasting effect, and that they will always remember the graphic details of what happened to those people.
Graham Evans
I remember that time clearly. I remember being at Manchester airport very early in the morning with those 16 and 17-year-olds. On the way out, those teenagers were full of life, but I remember, too, that harrowing moment right at the end of the visit, and the silence as we were trying to light our candles at No. 4 crematorium. The roof of the crematorium had collapsed, as the Nazis had tried to destroy the evidence of the gas chambers when they were retreating. We were trying to pay our tributes by lighting candles, and I remember the silence as we did so. The students were distinctly quieter on the journey home as they reflected on what we had all witnessed. I will always remember that moment that I shared with the hon. Lady; it was an extremely moving occasion.
Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)
I should like to echo the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) in congratulating the Holocaust Educational Trust on the work that it does. I have also been reflecting on the point made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) that such atrocities could indeed continue, but we can reduce the chances of that happening if we educate future generations. That is why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and of others who do similar work, is so important.
Graham Evans
The Holocaust Educational Trust is a fantastic organisation, and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us all of that fact. We cannot speak too often about the trust and the fantastic work that it does. I have three young children, and I have tried to make sure that they are aware of these subjects, although it is not easy to talk to young people about them. The trust does that in a very professional and sympathetic way, however.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I am pleased to be among the MPs who have co-sponsored today’s debate with the hon. Gentleman. The theme of Holocaust memorial day is “Reaching generations”. Does he agree that an important feature of that is the passage of time? The Holocaust Educational Trust does extremely valuable work in schools, but as time passes—the hon. Gentleman mentioned 68 years—it is important to record testimony. As each year passes, there are fewer and fewer living survivors, and if we are to learn the lessons from the holocaust before they fade into the distance, it will be important to record as much testimony as possible so that we can remain as vigilant as possible. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has just issued a warning: as much as we might believe that those atrocities should never happen again, the danger of them happening again has not gone away.
Graham Evans
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, and I agree with him. As people grow old and pass on, it is up to us, our children and our children’s children to ensure that their story is always told and never forgotten. When I was a little lad of 10 in my home town, I remember a Cheshire Regiment soldier who had been part of the liberation of Belsen telling me about the camp. I had had no comprehension of such things as a 10-year-old; I had always thought that we had been the plucky Brits who fought the war and beat the Germans. The idea of the holocaust had never occurred to me. I remember him telling me how he had been affected by coming upon Belsen as a 19-year-old British soldier, and how it had affected him for the rest of his life. Hon. Members might remember Jeremy Isaacs’ award-winning series “The World at War”, which came out in the early 1970s. Programmes such as those stay fresh in the mind because they used survivors from the camps and the genocide. It is important that they are still shown on television and on the internet. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East for making that very good point.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
I should like to add to the tributes being paid to the Holocaust Educational Trust. Its “Lessons from Auschwitz” project was originally funded through a grant from the Treasury, which allowed the programme to be extended to Northern Ireland on one occasion, in which I took part. Is the hon. Gentleman aware, however, that a subsequent decision was made that the money should come from the Department for Education’s budget? That has resulted in the Holocaust Educational Trust having to busk around for money in order to continue to do work in the devolved territories, and the programme has not been available in Northern Ireland. If there is one place in the UK that could benefit in a particularly poignant way from learning the lessons from Auschwitz about prejudice, it is Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should look again at this matter, and give a UK-wide envelope of funding to the Holocaust Educational Trust?
Graham Evans
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He raises an important point relating to his constituency. My understanding is that money is available for students from across the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, to attend Auschwitz. I believe that the Treasury has allocated funds for that exercise.
I have also been privileged to meet survivors and listen to first-hand accounts, but they are harder and harder to find as time takes its toll. As time goes on, it is essential that we work harder than ever to ensure that people remember the holocaust; we cannot allow it to become a remote and distant memory for future generations.
So why should this debate be taking place here in the Chamber today? Those who fail to learn the lessons of history risk repeating them. The holocaust was not the first genocide; nor, sadly, was it the last. That murder by the state on an industrial scale occurred in what was one of the most modern and, arguably, civilised nations in the world at the time. Anti-Semitism, homophobia and prejudice still exist all across the world. Wherever there is unrest, economic difficulty or social imbalance, it is human nature to search for a group to blame. As the global economy falters, those conditions exist across the world, in Europe and even in Great Britain today.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I have been to Cambodia and Rwanda, and what the hon. Gentleman has been saying is particularly worrying. Having seen those countries, and knowing the history of Europe, I cannot say with certainty that such things will not happen again. Today gives us an important opportunity to express our best hope that they will not, and to alert people to the dangers, but does the hon. Gentleman know of any ways in which we could act in a stronger, more robust, manner to lessen the chances of them happening again?
Graham Evans
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is only 15 years since the genocide in Rwanda, in the mid-1990s, when the whole world stood by and allowed it to happen. He is right to say that we need to remain vigilant in relation to Rwanda and other countries.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I am leaving in the next few minutes to go to Hungary, and I shall be speaking in the Hungarian Parliament tomorrow morning with politicians from five other countries about the statements made by the new party, Jobbik, which called in November for there to be lists of Jews rewritten by the Hungarian state, for purposes to be determined. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even today there are extremists who would perpetuate race hate, even among politicians in western European countries?
Graham Evans
I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Gentleman must have been reading my speech, because I was about to come to that exact subject. I wish him well in Hungary; I am sure that he will be a fine representative for the whole House.
When we stop remembering our collective history, because we no longer have first-hand accounts from people who were there, or simply because it shows the unpalatable truth about how we can turn on a minority, we risk making the same mistakes. It is inevitable that they will be repeated. Evil men know that. Adolf Hitler knew it. He frequently referred to the Armenian genocide, which took place between 1915 and 1923, during the Turkish Ottoman empire. One million people were murdered and another million were displaced, but the memory of it had all but disappeared by the 1930s. The world had moved on, and the vigilance against similar events had all but disappeared. History, it appeared, could simply wash the blood away. Adolf Hitler knew that when he went to war against Poland and Russia: he thought that if he could win, he could commit mass murder and genocide throughout Europe—he thought he could get away with it.
My application for this debate came to the Backbench Business Committee in the wake of a surprisingly under-reported outburst by the deputy leader of the Hungarian party Jobbik. During a debate in the Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament, he demanded that a list be drawn up of every Jewish Member of Parliament, and Government Members claimed that their very presence posed a national security risk to the country. Such words should bring a chill to any rational person’s heart. The response by the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, was impassioned. He said:
“as long as I am standing in this place, no one in Hungary can be hurt or discriminated against because of their faith, conviction or ancestry.”
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making a telling case and raising important points. One critical issue is that we cannot let people believe that, with the ending of the war, all these attitudes suddenly went away. There were pogroms in eastern Europe after the second world war. Education is clearly the key to ensuring that future generations never forget what happened.
Graham Evans
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The moment we hear about such statements, it is up to us all—in this House and in similar democracies throughout Europe and indeed the world—to highlight them.
This aggravated anti-Semitic sentiment was not an outburst from a political outsider. This nationalist party received 17% of the vote in the 2010 election and holds 47 seats in a 386-seat Parliament. Some polls suggest that as much as 21% of the population would describe themselves as Jobbik sympathisers. It is estimated that some 600,000 Hungarian Jews died during Nazi occupation. We know—we learned when we visited Auschwitz—that 400,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered there in 1944. Golden Dawn is Europe’s most recently successful far-right party, winning 18 seats.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Don Foster)
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is about to leave. As the Minister with some responsibility for this issue, I say formally that I was delighted to hear about his visit and that he has my full support.
Graham Evans
As I was saying, Golden Dawn is Europe’s most recently successful far-right party, winning 18 seats in the Greek elections last year. It feeds prejudice, using overtly racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric, taking advantage of the crippling economic situation and civil unrest. It is worth taking a moment to consider that conditions there—having to repay a huge economic burden imposed by other European countries—are not dissimilar to those of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.
What about here in our own backyards? We still live in a world of prejudice and violence, where one in five British Jewish students is a victim of anti-Semitism. A recent survey by the Union of Jewish Students highlighted that 20% of Jewish students have experienced—and a further 32% witnessed—anti-Semitism in the past academic year. Some academic institutions still allow groups with aggressive stances towards Judaism to take part in debates on campus, providing a platform from which to spread hateful sentiments inciting prejudice and even violence. We have come to expect liberal and considered views from our academic institutions. Students should not just learn but grow, and if these kinds of attitudes are not tackled head on at schools, colleges and universities, we will forfeit the moral compass for the future.
Just a few weeks ago, in my own constituency no less, a teenager was convicted of sending racially aggravated Twitter messages to a Jewish schoolboy. The individual referred to members of the Jewish faith as “creatures” and expressed his support for eugenics. This is a depressing state of affairs and it shows us that a great deal more must be done right here in Britain to look at how our culture finds a breeding ground for these sorts of beliefs.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one problem is an ideology of holocaust denial that, sadly, exists in many countries in the world and that feeds back through the internet and modern communications, distorting the debate and affecting some young people in this country? In that context, will he join me in condemning remarks made by the President of Egypt who denied the holocaust and said that it was a myth created by the Jews and the Americans? Those remarks were made before he became President of Egypt, but it is important for us in this country not to have double standards or pull our punches, but to criticise vehemently and strongly all those who foster holocaust denial internationally—in whatever position in whatever country, whether it be Hungary or in other parts of the world.
Graham Evans
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point; I agree with him wholeheartedly. I would distinguish between two camps: there is the more sinister type of denial, as exemplified by the comments of the Egyptian Prime Minister, and there is ignorance. I believe we can do something about ignorance, but we also have to take head on those more sinister politicians who want to deny that the holocaust ever happened.
The holocaust was not created by some faceless state machine, but by people from a society not so far away from our own who committed terrible acts against members of their own communities. It is for us to examine our society, both global and national, to address these vicious twists of human nature before we reach a breaking point like that again. When I visited Auschwitz, what struck me was that its architects were doctors, scientists and engineers. Global industries all have their fingerprints on the creation of Auschwitz and murder on an the industrial scale.
So what do we do now? It would be all too easy to hold a one-sided debate, pat ourselves on the backs for vociferously condemning the actions of the Germans in the 1930s and 1940s. We can all agree that the spectre of anti-Semitism, prejudice and bigotry is morally reprehensible, but that carries the risk of creating an apathetic view of the social mechanics that do not just lead to the holocaust but are set in motion before any genocide.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
Having spent several months in Israel in my youth and about eight years here in the British Parliament, I abhor anti-Semitism, racism and “groupism” in all its forms. It seems to me that as democratically elected politicians in a liberal democracy, we have a responsibility to be careful with our own words in identifying groups of people—whether it be on a party political basis or a basis of heritage or some other characteristic. We must be careful with our words so that we do not forge groupism within our society, as it can very quickly turn into something far more insidious.
Graham Evans
I totally agree with my hon. Friend who, as always, makes a hugely valued point. The holocaust deniers sometimes try to detract from British bomber command and the terror raids it carried out to bring the war to a close in 1945. I remember speaking to a bomber pilot who said that if there had been a peace treaty in 1945 and if the Germans had come to negotiate for peace, the bombing would have stopped overnight. They did not want to kill women and children; they wanted to bring the second world war to a close. The moment it did close, the bombing was stopped. I do not think for one moment that if there had been a peace treaty, the gassing of Jews in Auschwitz would have stopped; it would have carried on while so-called peace negotiations were going on.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
In his illustration, I think my hon. Friend was primarily referring to the bombing of Dresden. It is no coincidence at all that the person most responsible for massively exaggerating the admittedly terrible civilian casualties in Dresden was none other than the same David Irving, who was a principal holocaust denier.
Graham Evans
My hon. Friend raises a very good point. The Dresden bombing raid, right at the end of the second world war, was dreadful but the Tokyo fire raid in 1945 was far, far worse. More people were killed in that raid than were killed in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. All bombing of civilians is a terrible thing, but the point I am making is that the Nazis’ “final solution” was hell-bent on ring-fencing a group of people and annihilating them from the face of the earth. The “final solution” was not a decision made on high by a few, but a calculated move riding on a wave of ill will which swept across Europe—a wave which, lest we forget, also encompassed the United Kingdom.
I should like to recognise the good work that is done. The Treasury has allocated £1.8 million for holocaust education funding for the trips to Auschwitz, £250,000 of which is for an education development programme to equip teachers with the skills and resources to address this issue. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has been mentioned several times, and I should also like to mention the Conservative Friends of Israel. I was privileged enough to go on a trip to Yad Vashem, the remarkable tribute to the holocaust.
Beyond first-hand accounts, we need to look at how to communicate and share information effectively. The internet provides a vast sea of information designed to educate and inform. It is a proactive source of opinions, but it also provides an instant platform for uneducated views and malicious misinformation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) alluded to earlier. We must seek to combat holocaust denial and racism wherever we find it.
As Members of Parliament, we have a duty to remain vigilant, to protect the right to live free from prejudice, no matter what creed, colour, faith or ancestry. I urge us all to take the time to look around us, to see where the spectre of prejudice rises. That may be at home, talking to schools, communities and the police. It may be abroad, working with the many all-party parliamentary groups providing us with links across the world and with our counterparts in the EU or in individual states. What we must not do is be passive. This is our future and we must fight for it. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. This House is full of good men, and women; we have to remain vigilant.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As Members will see, a number of people wish to take part in this debate. The wind-ups will start at half-past 4, so please be considerate of others when making your own speeches. I call Fabian Hamilton.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
I should like to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on having secured this timely and important debate. It is essential that we are reminded why we commemorate Holocaust memorial day this coming weekend.
I want to follow the excellent speech that has just been made with some recollections of my own and, if the House will indulge me—I will be as quick as I can—with some very personal stories that I have never before relayed in my nearly 16 years as a Member of Parliament.
I first visited Auschwitz in 1998. I represent the largest Jewish community in Yorkshire, in the city of Leeds. They live mainly in my Leeds North East constituency, where we have five synagogues and some 8,500 Jewish people remaining from the much larger pre-war community. I was persuaded to go, first, because I am myself Jewish and had never been to a concentration camp, but also because so many of my constituents felt that it was right to go that January day. So, at 2 o’clock in the morning, we set off from Leeds to Manchester—we could not fly at that time from Leeds—and then to Krakow. We chartered a plane and all paid our contribution towards the cost, and 24 hours later, we were back home. It was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had.
As I am sure other Members will relay this afternoon, and as the hon. Member for Weaver Vale so clearly and carefully put it in recounting the story of his visit, one cannot but be affected emotionally, and almost physically, by what one sees in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I thought Birkenau, in many ways, was more moving. Auschwitz has become a museum. It is well-preserved and looked after by the Polish authorities. The guides are professional and they give visitors a very clear story, sometimes, quite naturally, with a Polish bias. But on getting to Birkenau, one can see almost unspoilt—if I can put it that way—the horrors of that camp. There is the railway the hon. Gentleman described, that goes from the beginning—from that wall and that gate—right through to the crematorium and the showers: the gas chambers, which were partially destroyed. There are the huts, originally built for horses, which were imported from Germany and, so I understood from our guide, contained up to 1,000 people who were kept captive there. The facilities there were horrifying. The prisoners were treated probably worse than the horses would have been treated. The Nazis destroyed most of those huts, leaving—as other Members who have visited the camp will recall—a sea of chimneys, all in straight lines, where the boilers and fires were, to give some rudimentary heat in the depths of winter.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend’s moving contribution, but in many ways it reflects other moving contributions that I have heard from schoolchildren who have been on visits organised, very effectively, by the Holocaust Educational Trust, which has become an advocate of the importance of learning about the horrors of the holocaust. Is that not a tribute to the work undertaken by the trust, and to its public funding by both Governments? Long may it continue.
Fabian Hamilton
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Other Members have also mentioned the Holocaust Educational Trust. It was founded by my good friend Lord Janner of Braunstone, a former Member of this House, who has done so much to establish it and ensure that its work continues. It is because of the trust that so many young people have an opportunity to visit the camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I, too, have been on one of those visits. When students return, they are very keen to share the information that they have gained. Students at a school in my constituency invited a survivor of the Kindertransport to speak to their peers as part of their project. Given that there will come a time when there are no more people left with first-hand experiences, does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for us to continue to support the Holocaust Educational Trust so that it can continue its work when those survivors are no longer with us?
Fabian Hamilton
I agree wholeheartedly, and in a couple of minutes I shall say something about some of the survivors in my constituency. Sadly, they will not be with us in perhaps 10 or 15 years, and certainly 20 or 30 years. When the children with whom we visited the camps—thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust—are in their 40s and 50s, there will be no survivors left to speak of their first-hand experiences. It is so important for those experiences to be shared down the generations, and for us to continue, enforce and support the work of the trust.
Mike Gapes
I am sure my hon. Friend is aware of an extremely moving film called “Shoah”, made by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg went around the world collecting the testimonies of survivors in many different countries. It was a remarkable piece of work that took a very long time. At least the film’s existence means that those people’s voices and faces are still there for future generations.
Fabian Hamilton
Let me pay my own tribute to Steven Spielberg for his work in preserving those memories. He is a very famous, world-renowned film director and producer who has done so much himself to ensure that those voices continue down the generations on film and in digital media, and it is absolutely essential that they do.
I did not visit Auschwitz-Birkenau again for 12 years, but the Holocaust Educational Trust asked me to go back with a school party just before the 2010 general election. I declined to go on that occasion because I felt that it would be very bad timing from my point of view, politically; not for the children, of course. However, one of my good friends in the House—I hope that he will not mind my mentioning this—is the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), with whom I was serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, and he asked whether he could join any visit that was organised or in which I was involved. I told him that if I was re-elected, I would organise a visit for the two of us and our wives, and that, indeed, happened in October 2010.
The four of us went to Krakow at our own expense, and hired our own guide, a young woman called Kasia. She had been doing the job for about 10 years, and I think that it had burnt her out. Although Polish, she was not Jewish, but just the experience of 10 years of guiding people around had made her into a very nervous person. I believe that she retired from the job subsequently. It can only be done for a limited time because the pain is so great. Even someone with no personal involvement cannot but be absorbed into what happened to those many hundreds of thousands of people who were victims of the Nazi persecution. We had a fascinating time. My wife had never been there before. She is not Jewish, but I am. We saw the photographs at the “reception centre”, which had not been there in 1998, but many hon. Members who have been subsequently will have seen it. We saw the pictures of the families that had been taken from the suitcases and from their belongings, and put on the exhibition boards at the exit to the so-called “reception centre”. My wife looked at them and what she saw were no relatives of mine but people who looked like my relatives—they looked like people from my family’s album—and she broke down in tears. That is a reaction that so many thousands of people, including many of us, will have had.
Just a few months after that visit with the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling, I was asked by the BBC in Leeds to make a documentary. This is important, as it involved the HET and two young people, a young Muslim boy of 17 from Bradford and a young Jewish girl of 17 from Leeds. I was the adviser on the programme, and the BBC producer and interviewer was Liz Green, who runs a daily show on BBC Radio Leeds. This very unusual radio documentary was called “Moon and Star”, after the symbols of the two faiths. What was most fascinating was the reaction of those two young people, who could not believe what they were seeing. Their reactions were almost identical, even though the Jewish girl knew the history perhaps better than the Muslim boy. It was very hard to stop the tears towards the end of that documentary, when we were standing outside the remains of the crematorium and the gas chamber. We came back, and the programme was then edited, broadcast and syndicated. I believe it is available in all schools today, and I was proud to have been involved in it.
To take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), I would like to mention two holocaust survivors. I will then try to finish my remarks in order to let others contribute. The first is a gentleman called Arek Hersh, who at the age of 11 was taken off the streets of Lodz in Poland and to a number of different concentration camps. I met him first in my constituency and subsequently at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which the hon. Member for Weaver Vale has mentioned. A room there was being dedicated to Arek Hersh, who survived five years in concentration camps. Hon. Members who have visited Yad Vashem will recall the recreation of the main square of the ghetto in Lodz. The most moving moment came when Arek, who had been lifted from that square, was standing in the reproduction of the square. I saw a man, by this time in his late 70s, in tears because he felt he was back there, aged 11—it was very moving.
Of course, as the guide said, when children, young people and adults were taken to the concentration camps they had a number tattooed on their wrist—many hon. Members will have seen these. Arek rolled up his sleeve and there was a number. His friend Yitzak, who lives in Jerusalem and who had been there with him, rolled up his sleeve to show the next, consecutive number. The two boys had shared a bunk together for five years until they were liberated from Theresienstadt in 1945. Arek Hersh now goes around Leeds, Yorkshire and the country telling his story—he is one of those survivors. He is now in his early 80s and he is still very lucid. If any hon. Member wishes to get in touch with him, I will give them his number, because he is one of those last survivors who is still able to articulate his experiences very clearly, in his beautiful Yorkshire-Polish accent.
The other person I wish to mention is Iby Knill, who is very interesting. I invited her here, with Mr Speaker’s permission, to talk to Members about two years ago. Unfortunately not many Members attended, so perhaps we did not publicise the talk well enough. She wrote a book called “The woman without a number” because she had not been tattooed. She is Jewish and was originally from Bratislava, although she escaped over the border into Hungary. She was captured as a political prisoner, and her experience is remarkable to listen to. She was in Auschwitz—she was in that camp in Birkenau—and she met some of the most evil representatives of the Nazi regime every single day. She volunteered for a slave labour factory because that was the way to prevent herself being starved to death. She was quite a fit young woman and she was a nurse. She got together with other young women who were in the medical profession and they all survived because they kept together as a group. She said, “If you allowed yourself to be picked off one by one, that was the route to an early death. But if you kept together and kept some solidarity, you generally kept alive—if you were very, very lucky.” She was lucky; she went there fairly late.
Finally, I want to mention members of my family, as I said earlier. I have never relayed this story in public before, although I have told one or two close friends about it. In 1985, my late father, who died 25 years ago next week, rang me up and said, “Fabian, I’d like you to come to Salonica with me this weekend.” I said, “Why, dad?” and he said, “I have just discovered that my aunt, who I thought had died in Belsen during the war, survived.” That was 1985, 40 years after the war. He was 63 and had last seen that part of the family when he was 14 in 1936.
We took the next flight to Salonica, which is where most of his family came from, and were met at the airport by a tall, elegant 93-year-old called Ida Uziel. Uziell is my family’s name, and Hamilton was given to my father during the war when he volunteered for the Special Operations Executive. Ida was very elegant and had survived Belsen with her daughter, Bella, and her granddaughter, who was three at the time. They were all there in the flat in Salonica to greet us and told us first hand their account of their lives in Belsen. It was staggering to hear. What was all the more moving was that they had lost all their original photographs and family mementoes, but my father had duplicates that he had brought along together with the family tree. We sat in Ida’s flat and looked through the different family relationships as we heard this first-hand account of life in Belsen—I had never heard such an account before and I was 30 years old at the time. We heard of the liberation by the Russians, their recapture by the Germans and their re-liberation by the Russians.
One story they told us was that they were, of course, starving. They were lucky as they had gone to the camp late, which was why they survived. A lot of people who were liberated at the time immediately ate whatever food they could—of course, that is the first thing anyone would do—but the family were lucky because they were with a doctor, who told them not to eat any dairy products as their bodies would not be able to absorb the fats and it would be very damaging, if not fatal. Sadly and ironically, people died from eating fats that their bodies could not absorb after years of starvation. I am glad to say that the Uziel family did not, as they took the advice of the doctor and ate bread, light food, vegetables and fruits and gradually allowed their bodies to readjust to the nutrition they had been denied for so long. I shall never forget that time. I am sad to say that Ida probably is no longer with us—she would be in her 100s if she was.
Just four months ago, I went to Paris to see relatives. I had recently met a cousin who I did not know existed until the July before last, when she contacted me. She did not know that she was half-Jewish—her father was Jewish but had never mentioned his background. He had survived the war by ducking and diving, weaving and dodging. I should explain that that part of my family had come from Switzerland to live in Paris in the 1930s. My grandmother lived in Paris throughout the war, but luckily she had a Portuguese passport and was spared persecution. Her brothers were not so lucky; one was killed, but the other two survived and so did her nephew, the father of the woman who contacted me last year.
That man, my father’s first cousin, is still alive and is now 88 years old. My second cousin, his daughter, told me that he had finally managed to obtain the death certificate of our mutual great-grandparents. I did not even know their names before, but they were called Raina and Isaac Sevilla. I have plenty of photographs of them in my parents’ albums. They had come to Paris from Switzerland and taken French citizenship. When the Nazis invaded Paris, and Paris fell, they were asked to register. My grandmother told me that the Nazis were very polite and said, “Please wear this yellow star. We just need to know who you are; we will not harm you in any way.” That was a lie, of course.
One dark night in early 1941, there was a knock on the door and Raina and Isaac Sevilla were arrested and taken to Drancy, the notorious clearing house for the concentration camps. They were taken away, never to be seen again, and we did not know what had happened to them until my cousin Peggy found a death certificate issued in Auschwitz concentration camp, which means that we know that that is where they perished. It was one of the most truly moving moments in my life, and I am now 57 years old.
As a result of the experience of my family, and countless thousands of Jewish families in this country, and all over Europe and the world, I take a passionate interest in more recent genocides—I know that other Members want to talk about them—especially the Kurdish Anfal. Last week, I was fortunate enough to chair part of a conference on the Anfal in Westminster’s Methodist central hall, and in February last year, together with many other hon. Members, I visited Kurdistan’s Administration in northern Iraq. There is huge similarity between what has happened to the Kurdish people in recent years, and what happened in the war to the Jewish people. We have to make sure that we do all we can to prevent that ever happening again. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; we must always be vigilant.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) for securing the debate and, importantly, for ensuring that it was held in the main Chamber. It is important that a topic as significant as the holocaust be debated here, and not in an anteroom to the Commons.
Today, when attention spans are seemingly getting ever shorter, and our media seem to report items fleetingly, it is important that we stop and remember events such as the holocaust and subsequent genocides. I pay tribute to the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, of which I am a trustee, and to the Holocaust Educational Trust for all the work it does in ensuring that at least once a year we pause, reflect, remember and hopefully learn the lessons of history.
I represent one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse constituencies in the country. Most people do not think of Finchley and Golders Green as particularly diverse—it is often thought of as nice, quiet suburbia—but 25% of my electorate is Jewish, 8% Hindu, and 7% Muslim. The borough of Barnet, of which my constituency is part, has the largest percentage of Christians of any London borough, and one of the highest percentages in the country.
The theme of this year’s Holocaust memorial day—“communities together: build a bridge”—resonates, because my constituency and Barnet are blessed with good community relations, but those good relations between faiths and various ethnic groups do not come easily. They take work, not just once a year, but day in, day out. That work is aimed at ensuring that we understand each other’s point of view, as well as our points of difference. Too often, ignorance allows division to fester and breeds contempt, and contempt means that people may all too easily become willing to turn a blind eye when others are singled out and denigrated.
Holocaust memorial day is always an emotional experience for me. As my constituency has a large Jewish population, I have met many residents who survived the holocaust, either having escaped on the Kindertransport or having otherwise fled Nazi persecution. I know of residents who have survived the death camps or lost family in them. I was especially pleased to see that one of my constituents, Freda Wineman, met the Prime Minister this week when he signed the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of remembrance. The personal testimony of survivors is crucial to ensuring that we do not forget.
I mentioned that Holocaust memorial day is emotional, but that is perhaps not for the reason people might expect. I visited Yad Vashem on a trip to Israel, and found that visit emotionally draining, so when I was invited to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, I fully expected the experience to be equally emotional. I give credit and thanks to the Government and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for providing £2.1 million in funding for the maintenance and restoration of Birkenau, to ensure that it does not crumble into history.
When I visited Birkenau, the emotion I felt was not sadness but anger and rage. That took me by surprise. Murder and mayhem are all around us, and often the deaths that we hear of and see are the result of arguments or passion. Newspapers, television and cinema have numbed us to the violence, the killing and the bloodshed, but the reason I was angry is that it struck me that Auschwitz-Birkenau was cold, clinical and utterly efficient. Members may think this an odd comment: in some ways we lampoon the Germans for their efficiency, but on that day I thanked God for German efficiency, because they kept impeccable records. People may try to deny that the holocaust happened, but German efficiency was so good that we can point to the records of how many carriages came in, hour by hour, how many people were on the transports, and even the number of carrots used in the stews that barely fed the inmates.
Fabian Hamilton
Will the hon. Gentleman add to that list of efficient record-keeping the staggering fact that each person who was killed had a death certificate issued, as did my relative?
Mike Freer
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. When people were being killed on an industrial scale, the fact that the murderers took pains to issue death certificates is perverse and astounding, but it means that we have the evidence to point out to holocaust deniers and to say, “This cannot have been made up. Here is the evidence.”
Even during the last days of the war, when one might think that the Germans would be maintaining their resources on the fronts, they did not. They diverted resources from the fronts to maintain the killing machine, to ensure that the final solution was not impaired. That also fuelled my rage.
One of the things that particularly angered me was that Auschwitz-Birkenau murdered 1.3 million people— 1.3 million—yet we are told that no one noticed. So when the train drivers pulled back out of Auschwitz-Birkenau with empty carriages, no one noticed that they went in full and came out empty. When the local traders delivered food and supplies to the guards, did they not notice the people standing around in the freezing cold in the striped uniforms? We are told that no one noticed. That made me angry. No one noticed the thousands who went in but did not come out.
Next to the camp is the Polish town that bears the name Oswiecim, or Auschwitz. Before the war that had a population of about 12,000, of whom 58% were Jewish. The Jewish and non-Jewish population lived side by side harmoniously—Jewish bakers, synagogues, a whole range of shops which showed that there was a vibrant Jewish community living harmoniously alongside the non-Jewish population. The local council, much like my own council in Barnet, had Jewish and non-Jewish councillors working together for the good of the town, yet shortly after the war started, there were no Jews left in Oswiecim, not one, and we are asked to believe that no one noticed.
Words struggle to describe the horror of mass extermination, but words also cannot describe my anger at how people can simply turn a blind eye to the disappeared. Given that I have such a large Jewish population in my constituency, I asked myself whether I would have noticed if I got up one morning, walked down my road in Finchley and saw every other house suddenly empty—not just one or two, but every other house; one in two houses. Would I not have noticed? If the same happened in the local areas of Golders Green and Hampstead Garden Suburb, and every other house was empty, would someone not have noticed? Wouldn’t you have noticed? I believe people did notice, but they chose not to.
I believe fervently that we can bring communities together so that they see the person, not the religion or the colour. If we can achieve that and the theme of building bridges and bringing communities together, so that people see beyond the label, the seeds of division are harder to sow.
Many of us know from our constituency surgeries that when we sit down with people from a variety of faiths and backgrounds we find that they all have the same problems; they are concerned about jobs, education, crime and the future. Their backgrounds are irrelevant. They simply want to get on with their lives and live peacefully. For me, building bridges and bringing communities together is crucial. I spend a lot of my time on interfaith work, because I believe that if we can get beyond labels and get people to see that more unites us than divides us, we will reduce the risk of further genocides of the sort we have seen. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on securing the debate and on the passionate and knowledgeable way in which he spoke. The reason we are having this debate today is that we are approaching Holocaust memorial day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but people might not realise that it is a relatively recent commemoration, and indeed one that was decided by this Parliament. It originated with a private Member’s Bill introduced by Andrew Dismore, who at the time was Member of Parliament for Hendon. The Bill was enthusiastically supported by the whole House and led to the creation of Holocaust memorial day, a day on which the whole community focuses not just on what happened in the holocaust and ensuring that people know about it, but on learning the lessons of what happened. Both are extremely important.
On Monday evening I attended a reception in the House organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust, of which I am a council member. The trust was set up by two parliamentarians—Lord Greville Janner, who was a Member of this House and is now an active Member of the other place, and the late Merlyn Rees—because they wanted to ensure that the knowledge of the holocaust was known to new generations and that its lessons were learned by everybody. At Monday evening’s reception, I heard my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) and The Times journalist Daniel Finkelstein talk about their families’ recollections and experiences in the holocaust. There was also information, in a very striking film, about the memories of holocaust survivors. They all told their powerful stories, in much the same way as we heard the powerful story today from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton). The strongest message that came from those stories was that it was incumbent on future generations to ensure that people do not forget what happened and that they learn the lessons.
I would like to draw hon. Members’ attention to the story of one particular survivor, Ben Helfgott, a very remarkable man. He spends most of his time talking to young people and others and working in the wider community to create good community relations and ensure that people know about the depravity of what happened in the past. He found what I think is an excellent way of communicating his life story and what happened. He was the guest on a very memorable episode of “Desert Island Discs” in which he told with great pathos—at times it was almost unbearable to hear—the story of what happened to him as a young lad and to his family. It was a compelling broadcast. I understand that Kirsty Young, in the middle of interviewing him, had to stop the recording to recover her composure. I commend that broadcast because I think that it tells, in a way that is very different from what we usually hear, what happened and the intensity, pathos and horror of Ben’s experiences. The important thing about Ben’s life is that he spends his time not just talking about what was bad and evil but working for good, and with a positive attitude to the whole of humankind. That is what inspires him.
I want to talk about what is happening now and what the lessons of what happened should be.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
In reference to the Holocaust Educational Trust, will the hon. Lady allow me to put on record my complete endorsement of the words of the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan)? He drew attention to the fact that we have a gap in relation to the Lessons from Auschwitz programme, which does not apply in Northern Ireland. We need to work with the Holocaust Educational Trust to make that programme happen in Northern Ireland. I spoke to Members about this yesterday. I am sure that the hon. Lady agrees that the programme is very important, particularly in Northern Ireland, and that it should be available for people right across the United Kingdom.
Mrs Ellman
I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s comments.
Reference has been made to what is happening in other countries in Europe, with the rise of the blatantly anti-Semitic Jobbik party in Hungary and the Golden Dawn party in Greece, which should give us growing cause for concern. In this country, yes, the situation is different, but there are still things that we should all be concerned about. The Jewish community in this country is a proud community of proud British citizens working hard as members of this society. However, there is unease. I commend the work of the Community Security Trust, which works within the Jewish community and, indeed, the wider community to identify anti-Semitism and prejudice against any other groups. In the first six months of last year alone it recorded 299 anti-Semitic incidents—a lot of incidents and a cause for concern. The trust does not only work with the Jewish community; it is now working with the Muslim community to show them the methods it uses, to ensure that anti-Semitic incidents and deplorable Islamophobic incidents will be recorded in a way that is seen as absolutely reliable by the police, who are then able to act. I commend the Community Security Trust for the work that it does. It is a remarkable institution doing excellent work for the whole community.
There is also the issue of rhetoric—the kind of anti-Semitism that its perpetrators often do not recognise they are carrying out. I say to people who, in arguments about any topic, refer to Jewish power, alleged Jewish influence or Jewish conspiracies, or use images such as Jews as snakes, that they should realise that they are reflecting anti-Semitic rhetoric. They should think about what they say, because when Jewish people hear those terms a little shudder is felt within most of us as we recognise that those are the words and images of the blatant anti-Semitism that was used in such a horrendous way by the Nazis. Some people do this through ignorance and simply do not understand what they are doing; others, I suspect, are not so ignorant. I say to those people: be careful of the words you use and the images you invoke.
I have tried to indicate the role that Members of this House and this House itself have played in trying to address problems of anti-Semitism and to ensure that the holocaust and its lessons are remembered. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who has done excellent work with his all-party group on anti-Semitism. I should also like to recognise the excellent work done by the former Member for Rotherham, Denis MacShane, who has worked unceasingly and tirelessly to expose anti-Semitism in this country and across the whole of Europe. His work should be recognised. Indeed, we are still using the information that he has provided.
We are here today, with the approval of the Backbench Business Committee, to mark this year’s Holocaust memorial day. Many events will take place this week and next week in London and across the country. Those events will involve all communities, not just the Jewish community, because the purpose of Holocaust memorial day is to ensure that the whole community continues to learn about the holocaust and its lessons. We must continue to work together to expose evil and to do right for the future. I hope that this House and its individual Members will continue to play their part in securing that.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Seven Members wish to get in. If they speak for about eight minutes each, everybody will get a fair share of time and the winding-up speeches can start at 4.30 pm.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on securing this very important debate.
It is a great privilege to contribute to this important debate and I am delighted that it has become a permanent fixture in our parliamentary calendar. I hope that it will become a permanent fixture in the Chamber from now on. I think that we can all agree that continuing to reflect on the events of the holocaust, while also paying our respects to those who were murdered and to those families whose lives have been indelibly tarnished as a result, is a process that will never lose its significance. In so many ways, the holocaust stands alone in its sheer horror as a direct warning of the dangers of intolerance and prejudice when coupled with unchecked political power. Numerous events since have, of course, demonstrated that there are still lessons that we can learn today by reflecting on what took place under the murderous Nazi regime.
Marking Holocaust memorial day with a debate in this place should also serve as a reminder of the role that this country played, not just in finally freeing the world from fascist oppression, but in offering sanctuary to close to 90,000 refugees, including thousands of unaccompanied Jewish children and teenagers, fleeing Nazi persecution at a time when we were battling to ensure our own very existence. Offering assistance where it is genuinely needed, and can be given, is surely a guiding principle for any civilized nation and we can be rightly proud of our history in that regard.
I will mark Holocaust memorial day in my constituency tomorrow along with other elected representatives and am mindful of the opportunity it gives us to ensure that our country’s political process remains the beacon of equality and openness that it undoubtedly is. The lingering but persistent racial and anti-Semitic threats at the fringes of our political system should never be far from our minds, and that is something that the all-party inquiry on electoral conduct, of which I am a vice-chairman, is looking at. Maintaining best practice in electoral conduct by preventing racist and anti-Semitic campaigning and literature is a crucial aspect of the fight against intolerance. We in this country could doubtless be doing more to learn from other countries in order to ensure that that is done properly. We will be looking at that in the meetings of this important inquiry.
Holocaust memorial day is also an opportunity to focus on the struggle around the world to maintain freedom of conscience and religion. Vital work is being undertaken by the new all-party group on international religious freedom, led by Baroness Berridge, and on which I am proud to serve as the secretary. We thought that we would start by taking a long, fresh look at article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights, which, as I am sure many present will know, is the key cornerstone that underpins everyone’s right to follow the religion of their choice, to change their religion by choice or, indeed, to have no religion by choice. It is essential to uphold the right to think and believe freely, because without that freedom there would be no free speech.
It is extraordinary, however, how many countries across the world—some actual signatories to the universal declaration of human rights—fail to uphold article 18, either intentionally or because it proves too difficult. We will look at how article 18 still applies in the 21st century and how better we can ensure that it is properly implemented.
Of course, as many Members have said, good education is critical if we are to ensure that the holocaust remains part of our nation’s collective consciousness. I am delighted that the Government are funding the Holocaust Education Trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” project, which will improve awareness of issues facing the country’s Jewish community. The Government have also taken welcome measures such as making it a requirement for police forces to record anti-Semitic attacks. It is a great sadness that such attacks appear to be on the increase again.
However, we must also be vigilant on behalf of all communities. My local Muslim community was deeply upset when the mosque in Acton suffered an arson attack. I was able to help by contacting the local council to ask for security equipment, which was installed very quickly. Luckily, no great damage was done, but the senseless hostility, somewhere out there on the streets, that had led to the attack still caused considerable distress and concern.
Today’s young must be taught about the past so that they do not repeat it, and they must not be allowed to grow up unaware of the horrors that previous generations were forced to witness. History must therefore always have an important place in our education system, and not just lessons about the second world war—it must go further back, too. History shows that persecution of particular groups and religions spread through this country in waves on many occasions, and that the inclination to persecute people because they seem different is never entirely stamped out. It can easily resurface under different guises in different places and in different ways. Better education teaches us to be more aware of it and ready to stamp it out before it takes hold. That is the most important thing that we can still do for those who suffered in the holocaust. By keeping the memory alive, we honour those who died and can hope to safeguard generations still to come.
I finish by acknowledging that my own learning is far from complete in this regard. I have not been to see Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for myself yet. It is a gap in my education that I intend to remedy.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I commanded a British battalion that lived beside Belsen. In fact, just to correct the record, it was my battalion, or parts of it, that liberated Belsen in 1945. When I was living beside Belsen in 1991-92, I was shocked when I visited the camp, because there are just rectangular mounds, about 100 metres square, and there is just a little sign in the heather that says, “Here lie 4,000 bodies”. Four thousand individuals.
I never thought for a moment that I would see something that would be akin to the holocaust, but a few months later I was ordered to take the first British battalion into Bosnia. At the end of October 1992, I watched with my soldiers 10,000 people trying to escape from the genocide that was occurring at a place called Jajce. They went past my camp. I told the soldiers to start counting, and I told them to stop counting at 10,000. I did not see death then. It was not long in coming.
It was particularly awful when the Bosnian Croats, the Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs went against one another. It was described by the United Nations as genocide, and I think one could actually call it a holocaust. On 22 April 1992, I was in the hills trying to stop a battle between the Croats and the Muslims. I had been directed to go there by the ambassador of the United Nations. A Bosnian Muslim commander said to me, “I’m not stopping fighting because people down in that valley are killing women and children.” I said, “I do not believe for a moment that women and children are being killed.” He said, “They are”, and I had a sneaking feeling he was right.
I went there, right the way through the village. It was a linear village about a mile long, and at the far end I deployed my soldiers on either side of the road in an extended line. I said, “Go through the village. Find out if anyone has been killed.” Every house was destroyed. I cannot remember now whether there were crosses on the doors or not, but there was a differentiation between houses. Some were Croat and some were Muslim. The Croat houses survived.
We found bodies—what was left of them. I found one whole family in the cellar: a mother, another woman, three or four babies burned to death, a father, and on the stairs outside, probably a teenage boy. We found what remained of them because they had hopefully been shot—I say hopefully because otherwise they had been burned before they died. It was horrendous. We buried 104 people in a mass grave: women and children, men. About 400 people were murdered in that appalling massacre.
It went on and a few days later I went to a place called Putis, which smelled really bad. There were some bloated pigs, and I then found the remains of what must have been men, although all I found were some boots with stumps of legs sticking out of them. Those men had not only been shot against the wall, they had been burned as well. It got worse. Back in Ahmici, which is where the massacre occurred, I picked up what I thought to be a black ball in the ruins and dropped it. To my horror, it was the head of a child. I have never forgiven myself for that.
A girl was brought to my house. Her name was Melissa Mekis and she told me what genocide is, and how fearful she was. We talk here about 6 million Jews being killed: 3 million men, 2 million women, 1 million babies or children. What we fail to get over is the sheer terror that must have gone through every single person that has faced the holocaust or such situations—the sheer terror of a mother with her baby beside her, going into the gas chamber; the sheer terror of Melissa Mekis.
This is what happened. Melissa Mekis was woken up at about 5 o’clock in the morning by her mother and father and told to dress quickly. She went downstairs and was told to go outside with her mother and father. Then she was made to lie on the ground with her brother, mother and father. In her words—my soldiers were bathing her and we were listening to the story—there was then a great deal of noise, and her mother, father and brother did not get up. She was put into a concentration camp, or a camp, and my present wife, Claire, who was then a delegate to the International Committee of the Red Cross, found her. Claire Podbielski brought her to my house and said, “You have room in this house; you can look after a child.” I said, “You must be joking; I am meant to be the commander of the United Nations forces.” She said, “Can I remind you of what you are meant to be doing? You are meant to be saving lives.” I agreed and so my soldiers looked after Melissa Mekis. They put a little cot between their two beds. Two days later, she did not want to leave them.
In my intervention earlier, I said that genocide continues—that the holocaust continues. It does. I also said we will never guarantee it will not happen again. It has happened again. We have instances of it happening again in recent times. By talking about the holocaust and illustrating those instances, we will hopefully reduce the chance of them happening again. God help mankind. It must not happen again.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
It is a great honour and a privilege to follow my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who made an emotional contribution about his time in Bosnia, which I will refer to in my speech. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) and for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) and other right hon. and hon. Members who helped to secure today’s debate.
On 25 October 2012, I joined students from Nelson and Colne college and Burnley college on a Holocaust Educational Trust one-day visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The day gave them and more than 200 other post-16 students from across the north-west of England a unique opportunity to learn what exactly happened at Auschwitz-Birkenau, to pay respect to those who lost their lives, and to explore the universal lessons of the holocaust and their relevance today.
On the first day, we visited Oswiecim in Poland, the town where the Auschwitz staff camp and concentration camps were located. As my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green reminded us, before the war 58% of the population of Oswiecim was Jewish. We then visited Auschwitz 1 to see the former camp’s barracks and crematoria, and the piles of belongings seized by the Nazis. Finally, we spent time at the main killing centre of Birkenau, where the day concluded with candle lighting and a period of reflection to remember the 6 million Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Roma, Sinti, gay, disabled and black people, and other victims of the Nazis killed during the holocaust. It was my first visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau and was all the more poignant in that it came just days before I joined members of the Royal British Legion in Nelson in my constituency to launch the annual poppy appeal.
Before being elected as an MP, I had the opportunity to visit Dachau concentration camp near Munich, which was the Nazi’s first. The one thing that strikes those who visit Auschwitz-Birkenau—it is the one thing most people comment on—is the sheer scale of the place. It was killing on an industrial scale, and not just of Jews, but of anyone who fell short of the Nazi ideal.
The holocaust may have been 60 years ago, but it is important that we continue to teach the lessons of it to the younger generations in order to fight bigotry and hatred today. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and others who have paid tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust and its fantastic work in the country. It is important to remember, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham reminded us so graphically, that man’s inhumanity to man still knows no bounds.
Before being elected as an MP in June 2009, I had the chance to visit Srebrenica—a much more recent example of genocide in Europe—where, in July 1995, more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in just a 48-hour period. The killing spree took place in front of the eyes of the international community and Dutch UN peacekeepers.
I and a group of others helped out with a range of projects while living with local Bosniak Muslim families. We finished off a newly-built house for a war widow who wanted to return to the area she had grown up in. We refurbished an IT suite at the local secondary school, built a football pitch on a hillside and did other tasks, such as helping to chop firewood for an elderly women too frail to do it herself. While we were working there, we spoke to the widows of some of those murdered and to their children and relatives. We heard the survivors’ testimony and their stories remain with me today.
It was an extremely moving experience which has left a lasting impression. Fourteen years after the horrific violence that took the lives of 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, the work of rebuilding homes, lives and a way of life was still not complete. I am proud of the small contribution I was able to make towards that goal during my time there. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country still tilting uncertainly between its past and its future, and could slip backwards without sustained international attention. Now more than ever, it is vital that the international community does not forget about conflicts that many see as behind us in areas such as Bosnia. We have to keep supporting the country until it is firmly back on the track to lasting stability.
When people in Pendle say they are anti-war or against military interventions overseas—many do—they often forget the huge cost of us not intervening. It was right that we fought the Nazis in the second world war, not just to protect our own borders but to crush a dangerous ideology that led directly to death camps such as Auschwitz and to the holocaust.
I look forward to seeing how the local students who went with me to Auschwitz-Birkenau will communicate their experiences and relate them to things like the current challenges of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the UK. I hope that this will ensure that the holocaust is never forgotten, and that lessons are truly learnt, disseminated and acted on.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) has done the House a service by bringing this topic to the Chamber.
The Holocaust Educational Trust continues to do society a great service by enabling young people from schools up and down the country to have the experience of visiting Auschwitz extermination camp. I went on one of those visits a few years ago. I was a little bit reluctant to go because I had read rather more than was good for me about the holocaust at rather too young an age. I am glad I went, however, because it helped put to rest any doubts I might have had about the wisdom of taking people when they are so young to see such a terrible place. The way in which the trust prepared the young people for their visit in advance, and then debriefed them afterwards so that they could share their experience, ensured that the process was educational and probably life-changing, but not psychologically damaging.
What we have heard today has been evidence of the fact that although the scale of the holocaust against the Jews has not been reached since, the impulses behind it remain and other massacres have had a similar basis for being carried out and have been carried out. When my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) made a brief intervention earlier and talked about the importance of not defining people and damning them by the groups to which they belong, my mind went back to my days in Dynevor grammar school, Swansea, where I had an inspirational teacher by the name of Mr Graham Davies. He once told the class about a short, silent film—I have never been able to track it down—called “Prejudice”. I have never forgotten the theme of that film. It showed a group of schoolchildren in a playground. All of them were hopping around on their right legs and they seemed to get on very well, but at some point another child came into the playground and he hopped around on his left leg. Gradually, the viewer could see the members of the larger group ganging up against the individual who was different, and eventually they attacked and killed him. The film was simply called “Prejudice”. It had a lesson for me then and it has a lesson for us still today.
I want briefly to tell the story of two little girls who were caught up in the holocaust against the Jews. One was my cousin, Chana Broder, who got in touch with me back in late 2007 as a result of something in the press about my decision to resign my life membership of the Oxford union debating society because of its ill-conceived idea of giving a platform to the holocaust denier David Irving and to the leader of the anti-Semitic British National party. As a result of those two individuals being given that platform, I decided that the Oxford union debating society was not an organisation with which I wished to continue to be associated. My cousin Chana read something about it out in Israel, where she has lived for many years since the war, and got in touch with me to say that she was pleased I had done that. I thought about her story and decided to relate it in a previous Holocaust memorial day debate in this House. It bears relating once again, because that debate took place five years ago, at the beginning of 2008, and a lot of people present today were not in the House of Commons then.
The story is quite simple. It is the story of a small family in a village in eastern Poland called Siemiatycze—which we always anglicise and pronounce “Semiatich”—which was occupied initially not by the Germans but by the Russians, because when world war two broke out, less than a fortnight after the Germans had invaded from the west, the Russians invaded from the east, as hon. Members will be aware, and they carved up Poland between them. The Jews of that part of Poland occupied by the Russians were safe for the time being, but after the German invasion of Russia they were in the front line. I remember my late father telling me that the first time he knew that his family had had it was the only time he heard Siemiatycze mentioned in a radio broadcast, when he heard that invading German forces had reached that place.
Of our family—approximately 50 or so people living in that village—only five survived. Three of the five were Chana and her parents—that little family—and all the ones who survived did so only because they were sheltered and protected by Poles, at the risk of their own lives. Chana and her parents used to run a little village store. A family called the Krynskis, who were a very poor Polish farming family, used to come into the store—a convenience store, I suppose we would call it today—in the years before the war. Sometimes my cousins could see that they were rather short of the wherewithal to make the purchases they wanted to make and they would say, “Look, Mr Krynski, Mrs Krynski, take what you need and pay us when you can.” Little did they imagine that that simple act of charity would result in the Krynskis saving their lives when many other doors were closed to them, as they fled from the liquidation of the ghetto that was formed in Siemiatycze, preparatory to the extermination of the Jews. My cousin’s family lived for a year and a half in a bunker under a barn, coming out only late at night when it was safe to do so. The Krynski family gave them the sustenance to survive all that time, until the Russians overran the village of Siemiatycze once again and they were saved. They subsequently went to Canada, and then to Israel.
The sad part of the story is that, when people later tried to persuade Mr Krynski to come to Israel to accept an award for his heroism and that of his family, he decided that it was probably better not to do so, such was the continuing atmosphere of anti-Semitism in Polish society after the war. He felt that it would not be a good thing for him to go back to live there, having been rewarded for saving Jews. I know that Poland has moved a long way from those attitudes today, thank goodness, but that was the situation then.
My second story is of a young girl called Nina Karsov. She is a friend of mine. She and her parents were on a train being taken to an extermination camp. They came from Warsaw. Somehow, they managed to jump from the train. The mother was killed instantly, but the little girl, who was two, lay in the snow for quite some time until her father managed to make his way back to find her. He took her back to Warsaw, where they were separately sheltered, again by gallant Polish families. One day, there was a raid on the quarter of Warsaw in which the father was being hidden. In order not to give away the people who had been sheltering him, he raced across to another building, climbed to the roof and threw himself off so that he could not be forced to disclose the identity of the people who had sheltered him. Nina survived and was brought up by the person she calls her Polish mother. She is today a researcher in the House of Commons, working for me.
Those experiences all sound extraordinary, but they are not. By definition, anybody who fell under the spread of the barbarism of Nazi Germany and survived would have had to go through something like that. Those “ordinary extraordinary” stories affect different people in different ways. I am sure that, subconsciously at least, my knowledge of what happened to my family has motivated me always to take the view that it is folly for peaceful democracies to be weak while vicious dictatorships arm themselves and become strong.
Nina found herself being brought up in post-war Poland under the communists. Despite everything that she had been through, she nevertheless worked closely with dissident intellectuals such as Jacek Kuron. As a result, she was sentenced to three years in jail by the communists for standing out against what communism meant in post-war Poland. I am pleased to say that, as a result of a campaign by Amnesty International, which made her its prisoner of the year in 1968, she was freed after serving two years of her sentence and came to this country.
Those traumas involve large statistics, but they are carried forward through individual stories. The effects of those terrible deeds perpetrated on so many people in that era live on. They have knock-on effects; they affect other people and they affect the way we look at the world. I do not think there is any danger of our forgetting the lessons of those terrible times. Nina’s story is told in a book called “Monuments are Not Loved”. My cousin’s mother wrote a small book as well. It was called “Out of the Depths”, which obviously referred to the bunker under the barn in which they survived for so long in such difficult conditions.
We criticise the ways in which electronic media can be abused, but thank goodness those media can also be used to disseminate the truth. We know the truth about the holocaust; we know that there are lessons to be drawn. We will not all necessarily draw the same lessons, but thanks to debates such as the one we have had today and thanks to the work of such organisations as the Holocaust Educational Trust, people will be able to remember, to draw lessons and to take steps for the future so that we are better prepared should something so terrible ever loom on the horizon again.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
I am pleased to have an opportunity to play a small part in raising awareness of the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust, which do a fantastic job of raising awareness and ensuring that lessons are learned about Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides.
Many Members have spoken in moving terms about their personal experiences. My interest in understanding more about genocide arose through visits to Rwanda. Members may be aware that there is a Conservative social action project, known as “Project Umubano”, in which I participated in 2008, 2009 and last year. Up to 2008, my career had involved running a business in my home town and my overseas visits had been limited to family holidays. I left school at a time when we did not do gap years. I had never been to Africa or to a third world country. When I applied to join the project, I knew very little about Rwanda’s history. I had vague memories of pictures on TV at some time during the ’90s, and I watched pictures of a conflict that, to me at that time, was in a distant country with little relevance to my life.
Before my visit in 2008, I started to read up about what had happened in Rwanda throughout 1994. The more I read, the more places I visited while I was there and the more accounts I heard of how the conflict had affected people, the more shocked I became and the more I struggled to understand how the world had stood by and allowed a genocide to happen.
I was particularly interested to hear the accounts of survivors, via the work of an organisation called “SURF”, which is the Survivors Fund. When, a couple of years later, SURF brought a number of survivors to Bilton school in my constituency, I was keen to go along to add my contribution about what I had seen and to hear more accounts from people who had lived through the atrocities, many of whom had seen their neighbours hacked to death. I was interested in ensuring that the message about genocide got across to the next generation.
That was what encouraged me to take up the invitation, about which many Members have spoken, to visit Auschwitz with the Holocaust Educational Trust, which I did last year. When the invitation arrived on my desk, I was prompted to accept, because I felt by then that I knew more about what had happened in Africa in 1994 than I knew about what had happened on my own continent during the second world war, which had affected so many of my fellow countrymen. Like other Members, I joined a party of students from Rugby high school at Birmingham airport for a flight to Poland. We then made the harrowing visit to the concentration camps.
I was particularly interested in the reactions of the young people I travelled with. In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), I found that these usually chatty, vociferous and noisy youngsters became silent over the day, as they took in the magnitude of what they saw around them. We saw the massive number of people who were crammed into tiny buildings, and came to understand something of the arbitrarily imposed punishments. We walked around the sites of the gas chambers—the buildings having been blown up as the Russian army advanced.
My recollection of my feelings on that day is that I was surprised and almost felt guilty that my visit had less impact on me personally than I thought perhaps it might. I wonder whether that was because of the visits I had made to Rwanda and my awareness of the Rwandan genocide, which was much more recent—only some 15 years earlier. I recall visiting the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, where I saw the mummified bodies of victims whose Achilles heels had been slashed with machetes so they could not run away. As I finished my visit to Auschwitz, I felt that I could not be shocked any more.
That leads me to an issue that Members have raised this afternoon. As we start to lose the generation of people who were survivors of Auschwitz, the challenge for organisations such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is how do we keep those memories alive. It is vital for us, as Members of Parliament, to encourage those organisations to ensure that as many people as possible are made aware of what happened, and that the atrocities I have seen in Rwanda and Auschwitz do not happen again.
I conclude by complimenting my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale on his diligence in arranging this debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this important issue to be debated in the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
May I remind Members that they have about eight or nine minutes each.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) for securing this debate. It was also a pleasure to join him at the Backbench Business Committee as a co-sponsor of it.
I was struck by the description that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) gave of perpetrators in Rwanda hacking victims’ Achilles heels to stop them moving. It is such events, seemingly tiny in the giant scale of these shocking atrocities, that make the point powerfully. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) will clearly never forget the experiences he described. Such descriptions paint a real picture of just how “normal” and “ordinary” these dreadful things are, some of which happened within the last 20 years. That is why debates such as this are so important. Otherwise, we can easily forget; in some cases, it was many years ago.
I have been involved in all of these debates since the last general election, and I am very supportive of the Holocaust Educational Trust. To me, one of the strongest reasons for having such debates is not just that they remind us of the dreadful and shocking things that happened then, but that history keeps repeating itself. The work of the trust and other such bodies is very necessary; otherwise, the awful atrocities that still occur would probably happen even more often. We in this august Chamber must each year remind ourselves, and everyone in the UK who follows these debates, of what happened.
Like some of my colleagues, I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau a few months after the last election. To me, it seemed that I knew it well, because I had seen it in so many Hollywood films. That sounds bizarre, but that is the reality. Of course, I did not know it at all. As I walked around, the things that really struck home, as a number of Members have mentioned, were the mechanics: the orderliness of the functionaries; the fact that they kept expert notes; the fact that they diverted freight trains full of victims, while at the same time fighting a war to the death with the Soviet Union. It was literally insane.
Last night, as I was preparing for the debate, I was reminded of the great writer Primo Levi, whose work I read when I was a young man. As I am sure all Members know, he was an Italian chemist, a Jew, who had been in Auschwitz and who wrote about his experiences, and his general philosophical approach, a few times after the second world war. I was reading a couple of quotations last night to remind me of the books that had had a seminal impact on me when I was only a teenager.
Because he was such a good writer, Primo Levi was able to describe the organisation that was involved in a way that is so simple and yet so horrific. He wrote:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.”
That is the point. It appears that there are a certain number of complete monsters who are the dictators, who lead and who do terrible things, but who can do absolutely nothing other than annihilate people around them. They can do nothing on a grand scale without all those functionaries.
The reason I consider that so important is that I cannot accept, will not accept and never have accepted that we are all so pure and that we would do it differently, given that functionaries could behave in such a shocking way—ordinary, normal people like us and the people listening to our debate. Earlier, a Member mentioned the train driver who said that he did not see anything. That is ludicrous. If a driver sets off with 20 full freight cars behind him and leaves with nothing, he will obviously notice that. However, there is something within humanity that just shuts such things off. I do not know what it is, but I do not believe that that could not occur here. I do not believe that there is something that was just so much worse for people over there. The reason I mention that, and the reason the debate is so important to me, is that I believe that the more we in the Chamber can demonstrate the truth of just how ordinary that shocking behaviour was, the harder it will be for society to park it over there and say that it could not happen here.
Rwanda has been mentioned. I was born and brought up in Mombasa, in Kenya, which is a super country no more than a couple of thousand miles from Rwanda. Some dreadful things happened between the Kikuyu and the Luo only about a year and a half ago. Members may remember hearing the news of the explosion between them. One thing led to another, one group suddenly turned on the other, and bang! About 1,000 people were shot down. Houses were burnt, women and children were killed. I knew those areas really well, and for all I know, many years ago I may have met or walked past either some of the victims or some of the perpetrators.
The overall ugliness of genocide makes us want to turn away, as indeed we do. Even when I was preparing for the debate last night, I thought, “This is so wearying”. It is such a wearying, exhausting issue, because it is so horrid. Primo Levi also said:
“It is neither easy nor agreeable to dredge this abyss of viciousness, and yet I think it must be done, because what could be perpetrated yesterday could be attempted again tomorrow, could overwhelm us and our children. One is tempted to turn away with a grimace and close one’s mind: this is a temptation one must resist.”
That is one of the reasons that I was so determined to join my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale in seeking the debate. It is exactly the same reason that so many hon. Members have been flagging up today.
Dwight Eisenhower, the allied supreme commander, was, in many ways, an interesting soldier and politician—he was almost an anti-politician. He was known for being very unemotional and dry. When he heard about the camps he did not believe it at first, but after being told, he came to realise that they did exist. He told his aides and his chief of staff that he wanted to visit a camp, and not just to see it for his own eyes. He said:
“The things I saw beggar description…The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were…overpowering…I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things”.
That is why today’s debate is so important and why I, like a number of hon. Members, will be attending a memorial commemoration in my constituency on Sunday—I look forward to it. It is taking place in a local synagogue. Only a small number of Eastbourne people are Jewish, but the synagogue and the group are strong. They, the Holocaust Educational Trust and the many other bodies around the UK and the world that keep commemorating this event and keep reminding us must never stop, and we must always support it. We must never turn away because, as my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham and for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) said, if we do so, we simply will never have any chance of preventing those dreadful occurrences from repeating themselves again, again and again. Finally, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and the HET. I always consider it a privilege to speak on this dreadful issue.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
It is a honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) for securing this debate, in which we have heard thought-provoking and thoughtful speeches from a number of hon. Members from across the Chamber.
When I was growing up, we had no education about the holocaust in school. I was fortunate, because I grew up alongside Jewish children, so I could hear at first hand some of the stories about the horrors that their families had gone through before the war, during the war and after the war when they were refugees. That is one of the things that is life-changing for most of us, because when we contemplate that systematic murder of 6 million people just because they were of the Jewish faith, we find that it is almost beyond our consciousness; we cannot imagine how any human being could contemplate doing that. We cannot imagine why a nation would not stop it, but they did not. The fact is that those 6 million people—they were all individuals—lost their lives for no other reason than because the most hateful political regime ever in history sought to exterminate them.
There are some life-changing moments that we all go through. I first visited Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem, some 20 years ago, before the current museum, which is much larger, was in operation. I went as a tourist and I spent a full day there. The museum had already started capturing the testimonies of survivors of the holocaust on film; as we have said in this debate, so many of these people are, sadly, no longer with us and it is important to capture the testimonies so that we remember what happened. The museum had started to put the exhibitions together, and people could see the full horror of what happened to the Jews in Germany, not just during the second world war, but from the rise of Nazism in Germany. We could see how it all came about. We need to learn those lessons, because in many ways the rise of the Nazis started at the end of the first world war with the treaty of Versailles, which imposed such terrible conditions on Germany that it set the economic climate that allowed the Nazis to come to power and exert that power in the way that they did.
I represent a part of the country that, according to the most recent census, has the most concentrated Jewish population. As a result, I have had the opportunity to meet survivors, people who came by the Kindertransport and people whose families have related personal experience of what happened in the death camps and concentration camps. Sadly, they often do not even know where their relatives are.
I have now had the opportunity to go to Yad Vashem five times, and every time I learn more about the horrors of the Holocaust. I would recommend anyone going to see it first hand in Jerusalem, because there is no greater education. I have also had the opportunity of going with the Holocaust Educational Trust to Auschwitz-Birkenau and seeing, together with young people, the horrors of that place. Three things stood out for me. First, visitors walk across what is essentially a parkland. It is very peaceful and almost deathly quiet. The birds are not singing and there are the ponds where the Nazis put the ashes of the people they systematically gassed and then burnt. It is a terrible place.
The second thing is the maps, which show the systematic approach of transporting people from all over Europe to put them in a death camp and murder them. It is then that it comes across that it was not just a few evil people who did those things; there was a systematic approach and thousands of people were involved. Thousands of people were guilty of involvement and millions of people turned their backs and ignored the reality of what was going on.
The third thing that brings home the reality is the collection of belongings behind glass in cabinets: boots, shoes, spectacles and other things that were stolen from the people who came to Auschwitz and never left. It is very important to commemorate the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. They both bring to life the cold, hard reality of what happened.
Next week, there will be two great events in my constituency. The Chief Rabbi is coming to Park high school on one of his last public engagements before he retires and one of the students who came to Auschwitz-Birkenau is giving a lecture to other students at Bentley Wood school on Tuesday. Those things are vital. I hope the Minister will comment on the fact that it is vital to continue holocaust education in our schools and ensure that it is part of the curriculum for ever more.
Other Members mentioned the international aspects of rising anti-Semitism. Hungary, Greece and Egypt have been mentioned, but we should remember that every year marches take place in Latvia and Lithuania to commemorate the Waffen-SS, the exterminators who killed 750,000 Jews not in concentration camps but by wiping them out wherever they went. Today, those marches still commemorate those evil people and celebrate what they did. Such activity is on the rise yet again. On the Piers Morgan show on CNN, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denied the holocaust and said that it never took place. Here is the president of a country who denies the holocaust; we must always be fearful of people who deny the holocaust.
Closer to home, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) mentioned the rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks. One thing she did not mention was that anti-Semitic attacks in London are up by 48% according to the figures from the Community Security Trust. We must be on our guard at all times.
The work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is vital in ensuring that everyone understands the lessons, so that we never allow such a thing to happen again. Words are sometimes worth repeating, and I would repeat that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Unless we remain eternally vigilant, the Nazis and other people could come back and do it all again.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on securing this important debate, the most spellbinding that I have been party to in my short period—two and half years—in the House. We have heard incredibly powerful contributions from Members on both sides of the Chamber. I shall say a few words about each of them in turn, if I may.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) made a moving contribution about his experience, and the experiences of his family and constituents who were holocaust survivors. It must have taken a lot for him to share those experiences, given that they were so close to home.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) talked about the importance of communicating what happened and the need for ongoing vigilance. She cited examples of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, which is, incredibly, still going on today, and the need to continue to guard against it. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) reminded us of the role that this country played in offering refuge to people fleeing the Nazis, and in defeating the Nazi tyranny that led to the many horrors that we have heard about this afternoon. She stressed the importance of education and ensuring that we, as a nation and a society, continue to remember what happened.
The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) spoke incredibly powerfully about his time at Belsen, and about seeing the mounds that were mass graves. He spoke about his period in Bosnia, where he saw thousands of victims and witnessed appalling atrocities. I pay tribute to him for sharing his experiences today. He spoke very movingly and powerfully about what he witnessed.
The hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) spoke about his experiences visiting concentration camps, and about working with the victims and survivors of the horrors in Srebrenica. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) talked about the impact on young people of visiting the scene of Nazi atrocities. He took an important principled stand in resigning his membership of the Oxford Union when it gave the fascist David Irving a platform from which to spread his vile ideology.
The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) spoke about the genocide in Rwanda. It is incredible, really, that after the horrors of the holocaust in Nazi Germany, a genocide on such a scale could be repeated in relatively recent times. He talked movingly about speaking to survivors of the genocide in Rwanda.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) spoke very thoughtfully and thought-provokingly. He said it was essential for this place to guard against the normalisation of the horrors of genocide, and for us to remember that monsters are few. For atrocities to be perpetrated on the scale that they were, the acquiescence of functionaries is required. He also said it could happen again—it could happen here. It is worth reminding ourselves that Nazi Germany, which has been the focus of much of the debate this afternoon, was a sophisticated western civilisation when the Nazis came to power. Who would have thought that a “sophisticated” nation could perpetrate such horrors? Yet it happened. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eastbourne for reminding us that it was not due simply to some monsters over there. It can happen anywhere, and we must guard against the normalisation of the horrors of genocide.
Finally, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) spoke about how he heard at first hand from his friends in the Jewish community with whom he grew up about their parents’ experiences. He spoke about the incomprehensibility of what happened, and I share his view. To me, to all of us in the Chamber and to any decent-minded person, it is utterly incomprehensible that such horrors could be perpetrated. Again, the hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of education to ensure that those horrors are not repeated in the future.
I pay tribute to the 294 Members who have signed the Book of Commitment relating to the holocaust. It is an important statement of intent that almost half the Members of the House have signed that.
It is a triumph for democracy that, for the past six years, the House has hosted this debate, and it is a triumph for decency that Holocaust memorial day continues to attract significant interest since it was first launched 12 years ago this Sunday. Perhaps the most famous line of remembrance comes from Laurence Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen”—“We will remember them.” Those words, captured most famously in the “Ode of Remembrance”, were written in the year that the first world war ended. That was about 25 years before the unspeakable horrors that took place in Nazi Germany, but they remain just as relevant today because today is about remembering the millions who suffered those barbaric deaths—the innocent children who must have followed their parents and grandparents, perhaps naive in their anticipation, but innately sensing that something dreadful was about to happen, and the knowing parents, so many of whom must have endured the unimaginable agony of foreseeing the most horrific fate that awaited them, as first their captors extinguished their hope, then extinguished their dignity and finally extinguished their lives.
But today, and every day since the true scale of the holocaust became apparent, has also been about learning. For if society cannot learn from the wrongs of the past, what hope does it have? That is why I echo the sentiments that we have heard from most Members applauding the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust. The work of that organisation is most worthy, not just because of the vitally important issue at its heart, but because of the extraordinary way in which the message is delivered. The strapline on the trust’s logo states: “Reaching Generations”.
Let us think about those words for a moment: “Reaching Generations”. It sounds aspirational, but the incredible thing about this most awful story is that it has reached generations. The contributions from a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East, and the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who is not in her place, made that point. Ask virtually any child over the age of, say, 10 and many below that age, and they can most likely tell you more than a little about the holocaust. It remains relevant for our children in the same way as it is relevant for us, for our parents and for their parents before them. Was it the lowest ebb known in world history? Very possibly.
But we must not be complacent. Just because society knows what happened before is no reason to believe that it is not capable of repeating those wrongs in the future. We need look no further than the atrocities in Rwanda, Bosnia and Cambodia for proof of that. The painful truth is that we must keep remembering. We must keep learning, too, because the truth is that the dreadful crimes of the late 1930s and the 1940s were not restricted to Nazi concentration camps. Historical evidence suggests that in some areas there was collaboration, and in others there was just abstention.
Some people try to excuse the Nazi soldiers who enacted those awful crimes because they were just following orders. They might apply the same logic to the ordinary citizens who simply accepted it as part of their society, or the other nations outside Germany that simply turned a blind eye because a war was on, a point made by the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). None of them is a valid excuse—an explanation, perhaps, but not an excuse. The moment we start excusing those who contributed to this—arguably the greatest atrocity for which the human race has been responsible—is the moment we lose sight of why we remember.
Even today, global society has not learnt all the lessons it should have learnt from the past. Let us think about three of the groups the Nazis targeted: people targeted because of their ethnicity, because of their disability, and because of their sexuality. Have we solved the problem of discrimination based on ethnicity? Have we ended discrimination based on disability? Have we got rid of discrimination based on sexuality? We have come a long way on all three, but the answer to each is, unfortunately, no.
The great worry is that in some areas discrimination is increasing. A black footballer might now be much less likely to be abused from a football terrace than he was 30 years ago, but incidents of Islamophobia, for example, are on the increase. That is why our job here today is not simply to agree that the monstrous acts that took place in Nazi Germany must never be repeated; we must be vigilant in preventing the circumstances that enable fascist ideology to grow.
There are not many issues that this House agrees on, but reaching consensus on this issue is the easy part. We should not simply pat each other on the back for agreeing on something on which it would be impossible to disagree and then move on to the next business. The hard part is providing the leadership when we go back to our constituencies, our communities, our towns and cities, our friends and neighbours, our colleagues, customers and clients, showing the leadership that proves that society can learn from its mistakes, that it can move on from its troubled past, but that it will always remember.
It is becoming even more important that we remember because the austerity that is currently gripping European nations has given a foothold for fascist extremists to peddle their insidious doctrine. The hon. Member for Harrow East touched on that when he talked about the circumstances that led to the rise of the Nazis in Germany after the treaty of Versailles. We must never make those mistakes again. We must remember to take steps to tackle the circumstances that provide a breeding ground for fascist and Nazi ideology.
Reaching generations is what the Holocaust Educational Trust seeks to do. It is what we should all seek to do. I take my hat off to the many voluntary organisations, community groups and local authorities that are supporting events in their areas to mark Holocaust memorial day. I know that is happening in my home city and constituency of Derby North, and I am sure that the same is true for every Member here today. I urge everyone in the Chamber and beyond to go back to their constituencies, write to those organisations, congratulate them on the work they have done and pledge their support now and for the future. Holocaust memorial day is vital to ensure that we remember and that we learn, and all of us in this place have a vital role to play in supporting that goal.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Don Foster)
Let me begin by adding my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) for securing this debate. Like the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), I am grateful for and welcome the contributions from Members in all parts of the House, which have been wise, insightful, powerful and moving.
My hon. Friends have raised many important issues. We began with the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who set the tone by expressing thanks, gratitude and praise for the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust—a body set up, as he reminded us, by a former Member of this House, Lord Janner. My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) has, like many others, experienced a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and he, like others, described his experiences there and his feelings of anger and rage.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who is a member of the Holocaust Educational Trust, reminded us about another founder of that body, Lord Merlyn Rees, whose memorial lecture was held on Monday; she referred to the powerful testimony of survivors who were there. She went on, very importantly, to express her concerns, as have others, about the rise of the far right and anti-Semitic organisations in countries such as Greece and Hungary. I take this opportunity to repeat my support for the attempts being made in that regard by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) with his forthcoming visit to Hungary.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) reminded us that despite our being a largely tolerant society there is still, sadly, intolerance in our own country that needs to be addressed—a point rightly picked up by the hon. Member for Derby North. My hon. Friend also talked about the situation in other countries and the need to press for greater compliance with article 18 of the UN universal declaration of human rights.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) spoke particularly powerfully of his experience in Bosnia, reminding us, as did others, of genocides that followed the holocaust. His first-hand experience of death and destruction and man’s inhumanity to man in Bosnia is sadly one that I, too, have had, because I was there during the height of the fighting, although not for anything like the same length of time. I will never forget my experiences there, and they influence me in the work that I do today. My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) also talked about Bosnia and the need, even today, to tackle the evils of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) reminded us that the impulses, as he put it, which led to the holocaust sadly remain and have led to more recent genocides. I was particularly impressed by his reminders, through his own personal contacts, of the amazing stories of courage of people who sought to protect Jews from the Nazis.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) spoke of another genocide—that in Rwanda. He also described his experience of visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with a group of students and the impact that it had on those students. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) reminded us that it could happen again.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) talked of his life-changing experience on a visit, this time to the Yad Vashem museum, and the powerful film footage that he saw of survivors. He asked me a question about holocaust education remaining in our educational provision. It is, as he may know, part of the history curriculum at key stage 3. A major curriculum review is under way, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will listen to his views on the matter.
I know that we all share a strong desire to make sure that the flame of remembrance continues to shine strongly in our society. I was delighted that the 294 Members of Parliament who signed the book of commitment included the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Speaker, and you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside reminded us, Holocaust memorial day came about following a Member of Parliament’s visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with the Holocaust Educational Trust. So moved was Andrew Dismore, the former Member for Hendon, that in 1999 he proposed a Bill to introduce a day to learn about and remember the holocaust. Two years later, London hosted the first Holocaust memorial day on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
One of the reasons why I first got into politics was that the British National party set up a recruitment meeting in a primary school directly opposite where I lived. The thought that extremism could still catch fire in our civilized society today, just as it did in an earlier civilized German society, was chilling and I resolved there and then to do what I could to make sure that it did not take hold in my community.
I remember visiting Prague during the Soviet era and visiting the Jewish Museum. I was struck by the starkness of the displays. The rooms were small and had just one black and white photograph on each wall. The images were so powerful that the memory has never left me. I have also been to Yad Vashem in Israel, which is a very different museum in terms of scale and impact. The rows of names of those lost in the holocaust are haunting and leave a lasting impression.
The holocaust is a reminder—the most powerful reminder of all—of the need not just to condemn the atrocities of the past, but to do everything we can as MPs, as people who have influence in our communities, to stop prejudice, hate and racism gaining a foothold.
When we think about these appalling crimes—whether they took place during the holocaust or other modern day mass atrocities—we see that the perpetrators of hate had one thing in common: they all sought to dehumanise their victims because of their race, religion and ethnicity. It was their detached hatred that enabled them to carry out unimaginable atrocities, and yet even in those dark times there was a glimmer of hope. There were individuals whose consciences would not allow them to pass by on the other side. They risked their lives to save Jews. Many of them have been honoured by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations” for their actions.
In 2010 our own country awarded 25 British men and women the holocaust hero award in recognition of their selfless courage and humanity in saving Jews and other persecuted groups during the second world war. Since those initial awards, further acts of bravery have come to light and we will honour them in the coming months.
The tireless work of the Holocaust Educational Trust—rightly praised yesterday by the Prime Minister—and in particular its chief executive officer, Karen Pollock, have been key in ensuring that holocaust education is at the forefront of our efforts to ensure that we learn the lessons of the past. Holocaust education matters so much, because it helps to restore the names, memories and identities of those who suffered—not just 6 million Jews, but more than 1 million Cambodians, 1 million who died in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands who died in Darfur and thousands killed in Bosnia. Holocaust education helps remind us that behind the statistics were real people who lived, loved and laughed, who might have contributed untold wonders to our world, and who never dreamed that their days would cruelly be cut short.
Holocaust education is also about remembering those acts of courage and compassion that took place even in the midst of evil. It is about remembering that when we build a bridge between communities—fittingly, the theme of this year’s Holocaust memorial day—and when we celebrate what we share, we not only cast out the shadows of hate, but strengthen the bonds of our common humanity.
That is why we continue to support Holocaust memorial day and the work of the CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Olivia Marks-Woldman, and her staff. It is not just because it is about the act of remembrance, but because it is about getting out into our local areas and working hard to foster better relationships. This year I am pleased to hear that more than 1,500 activities will take place across the country to mark the day. I, like many others, will be wearing my badge and getting involved.
The support of the current and previous Governments for Holocaust memorial day is not all about building tolerance between our diverse communities. We have also committed £500,000 to the Wiener library to house the UK’s copy of the International Tracing Service archive, which holds the records of the fate of millions of civilian victims of Nazi Germany. We have committed £2.1 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, to be used to fund ongoing restoration work. That will ensure the upkeep of the site for future generations.
As we have heard, we will also provide funds for the continuing “Lessons from Auschwitz” project for sixth-formers and their teachers. We will continue to support the work of the UK’s first envoy for post-holocaust issues, and that of the Anne Frank Trust UK to educate young people to challenge prejudice and discrimination and inspire them to become active and responsible members of their community. We are supporting a third-party reporting facility for anti-Muslim hate crime and an initiative providing support for victims of such crime.
That work is of immense importance. The fact is that we can never be complacent, especially as today we continue to see the growth of anti-Semitism on the continent, the continued scourge of anti-Muslim hatred, and racism rearing its ugly head in football. We can never stand aside when we encounter hatred of any kind, because as Primo Levi once said:
“Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.”
We must always be ready to remind those who say it could never happen in a civilised place like this that the holocaust happened in the cradle of civilisation. It is our duty to ensure that it never happens again.
Graham Evans
The debate has shown the House at its best, and on behalf of the hon. Members who supported the motion, I thank each and every Member who has contributed so thoughtfully and compassionately. Some of the speeches drew on personal experience, some on the first-hand accounts that Members have heard and some on recognition of the darkest parts of the human condition.
I have been pleased to listen to the unifying voice of sombre memorial, the celebration of human spirit and the will to survive. I expected no less from hon. Members. I would particularly like to remark on the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). His experience reminded me of the old Jewish saying, “If you save one life, it’s as if you’ve saved the entire world”.
Vigilance is the only way in which we can protect future generations, both here in the United Kingdom and across the world. It is our duty to keep this specific event in our not-so-distant past in our memories. Unless we do so, we create a vacuum in which prejudice and bigotry can flourish, which is not a future to which I wish to condemn my children.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Worcester Further Education Colleges
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
It is a real privilege to follow such an important and passionate debate. As a historian and as a parliamentarian, I associate myself with the important points that were made in commemoration of the holocaust.
It is a great pleasure to be able to speak on a subject that is dear to my heart and of enormous importance to my constituents. I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to the Minister for staying until the Adjournment to hear it.
In the week when we received job figures showing the lowest number of unemployed people, and young unemployed people, in Worcester since 2008, this matter touches on the skills that young people need to get into work and the opportunities that they have in our colleges. As a county centre for both education and industry, Worcester is fortunate in having a number of excellent educational institutions.
The Minister will be aware of my long-running campaign for fairer funding for our schools. Today, however, I want to focus on our colleges, particularly the two that provide opportunities for thousands of 16 to 18-year-olds in Worcester, the Worcester college of technology and Worcester sixth-form college. Although I appreciate that the debate is focused on further education, and that the college of technology is therefore the prime concern, I hope the House and the Minister will indulge me if I raise issues on behalf of both those important institutions.
There are similarities and differences between the challenges that the two institutions face and the nature of the capital funding that they require, but the illustration of those differences is an important point for the Minister to understand. She will be aware of the deeply lamentable record of the Labour Government on the capital funding of colleges. They presided in this area, as in so many others, over an enormous escalation of hopes and a catastrophic failure to manage and deliver. The sad story of the Learning and Skills Council, and its drive to replace functioning buildings with shiny new ones at enormous expense, is symbolic of much that happened under the previous Administration. Both Worcester colleges were victims of that saga.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and may I add Kidderminster college, where I serve as a governor, to that list of Worcestershire-based colleges? It also had a £40 million promise cruelly yanked away at the last minute after something like £150,000 of important college funds had been invested in feasibility studies.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Do you want to finish your remarks, Mr Garnier?
Mr Walker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, which was intervened on, and I congratulate him on raising the case of his local college that was so cruelly treated by the last Labour Government.
Our sixth-form college in Worcester was promised a building programme that could have cost more than £30 million. It underwent substantial work in planning what it was told would be a complete rebuild, enabling it to expand its capacity and provide new and better facilities. It incurred costs of more than £200,000 in putting together a bid that would have been successful if the Learning and Skills Council had shown a greater degree of financial continence than the Government who presided over it.
With the collapse of the LSC, the school received not a penny. Not only were hopes dashed and promises broken, but ongoing repairs that should have been started were postponed and important maintenance work put off in the hope that a shiny new building would render it unnecessary. Problems that had helped to justify the need for a new building were made greater by the failure of the last Government to deliver on their promise. In short, it was a fiasco. Fortunately, the college of technology was not so far down the line with its plans and incurred fewer costs—only around £114,000. It, too, was encouraged to believe that at some point a magic pot of money would offer scope for new buildings and a move from a split to a unified site.
I am not sure whether the Minister has visited Worcester recently, but if she has she will have noticed that functional though they may be and although they occupy a magnificent site alongside our Norman cathedral in front of the River Severn, the buildings of the college of technology are far from being the most beautiful on the city’s skyline. I and many of my constituents hope that one day what the architect himself described as “functional concrete blocks” might give way to more elegant buildings, better suited to the role of inspiring minds. The college, recognising that a small up-front investment in bringing together disparate sites could reduce running costs and generate ongoing savings, hoped to make that happen, but such hopes were to be bitterly disappointed by the last Labour Government.
Some FE colleges elsewhere in the country received funding to replace nearly new buildings, but during the last term of the Labour Government, Worcester college of technology received no capital grants at all. Its principal, Stuart Laverick, described to me how
“the last Government’s inept management of the capital budget for the sector made the FE estates playing field very uneven.”
I regret that in his statement Mr Laverick, who is not known for being shy or retiring in defence of his establishment, may have understated his case. Our college of technology plays a huge role in providing skills for young people and adults, and in making people ready for work, yet it was left neglected by the last Government as their recession saw youth unemployment soar. Unemployment rose from 500 in December 2008 when the Labour Government announced the disaster of the collapse of their Building Colleges for the Future programme to a peak of 800 in August 2009—a peak to which, I am glad to say, it has never returned under the coalition Government.
I do not want to focus only on the past and the sad failings of the previous Government, but on what we can do, and what the Minister and her colleagues in the Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills and for Education have already done to help and the further steps they can take. There was good news for FE colleges in the autumn statement and the subsequent FE capital strategy, and a new £550 million investment programme has been announced for the FE estate. When rolling out that programme, I hope the Minister will ensure that lessons are learned from past mistakes.
There has been good news for many sixth-form colleges through the building condition improvement fund, which was wisely introduced to help some of those so let down by the collapse of the LSC. Investment received by Worcester sixth-form college under the coalition can truly be described as transformational. Faced with a crumbling exterior, leaky windows, wildly fluctuating temperatures, water leaks that were beginning to cause structural damage, and visible faults that were at risk of undermining the excellent academic work taking place, the management of the college did not sit idle. It put together well formulated plans to re-clad the building and invest in new windows and a new look over the space of two years.
The management discovered that, by using the approximately £1 million per year available from the building condition improvement fund and by planning carefully, they could cure many of the defects left by Labour neglect. The targeted investment of a reasonable amount of capital has enormously improved the energy efficiency of the building, and I am delighted that that means investment in a new heating system is now a viable option—in the city famed for its production of the best boilers in Britain.
The principal of the sixth-form college, Michael Kitcatt, wrote to me recently to set out some of the improvements. He wrote:
“As you know, the building was constructed in the early 1960s around a concrete frame and over the years, cracks had developed around the rendering which was enclosed by the frame. This was causing rainwater to penetrate into the ceilings and walls of the rooms. However, under the LSC’s capital programme in the middle of the last decade, we were encouraged to work on plans involving the building of a totally new College and demolition of the existing building. As a consequence, no money was spent on addressing the issues of the College building…The BCIF funding has been really valuable and means that, by the end of August we will have entirely overclad the building and replaced all the original windows. As explained above, the project has been undertaken for essential structural reasons in order to make the building sound and watertight for the foreseeable future. In addition, of course, the insulation installed and the modern double glazed windows have hugely enhanced our environmental efficiency. However, the project has also transformed the outside of the building aesthetically and we have had many positive comments from students, staff, parents and visitors about how good the outside of the building now looks, some even being along the lines of its looking like a new building.”
Of course, the principal would not be doing his job if he did not ask for more, and I would be failing in my job as his MP if I did not pass on his request. He goes on to say:
“In terms of continuing to address the issues of the building.... we are now working on [a project] to modernise the Science facilities and remove the temporary classrooms from the site. If we are to take this forward, however, we would probably need a funding scheme with more flexibility than BCIF has had so far, for example, the possibility of a two year allocation, giving greater certainty over the funding allocated and removing the need for all spending to take place in a single financial year.”
I can assure the Minister that if she or a colleague could take time to visit the college, they would see the very great need to upgrade its science labs, and the opportunities in doing that and removing the last remaining temporary classrooms on the site to reduce running costs. That would also raise the profile of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, which the Government are doing so much to encourage.
As a member of the Business, Innovations and Skills Committee, I applaud the Government’s focus on STEM subjects and on encouraging rigour in the A-level system. Our sixth-form college has increasing numbers of students taking these vital courses. The Minister will be interested to note that enrolments in science and maths courses have risen from 1,074 in 2009-10, to 1,179 in 2010-11 and 1,239 in 2011-12. They reached a record 1,346 in 2012-13.
The college points out that the existing facilities are too small to accommodate the growth in demand and too outdated to maximise the benefits of the welcome increase in STEM enrolments with a commensurate increase in the student experience. I urge the Minister to give serious consideration to its next bid for funding and to look at ways in which the BCIF programme could be made more flexible to allow greater investment over a longer period.
The college of technology has not been eligible for the BCIF, which was focused on the sixth-form college estate and not the further education sector. The college has, however, received a total of almost £400,000 in capital funding over almost three years of the coalition Government from the renewable grant and the capital works grant. That is in stark contrast to the complete lack of capital in the period from 2005 to 2010. It has been allocated a further £120,000 for the current academic year under renewal grant phase 3, and has bid for funding from the Skills Funding Agency’s enhanced renewal grant.
Regrettably the college’s last high-quality bid for phase 3 of the initiative, which I wrote to support, was not successful. The principal has pointed out that, in his own words,
“the feedback we received in relation to our recent bid suggests that officials are still not effectively challenging inflated projections and unrealistic growth assumptions. The information provided during the bidding process suggested that a relevant focused narrative rather than some spurious unsubstantiated inflated figures would be given more weighting. At Worcester we therefore focused on how what we were proposing was aligned to the Worcestershire LEP and Worcester City’s development plans and supporting economic growth while meeting quality, employability, apprenticeship and NEET agendas as well as hitting space saving and energy saving targets…We were informed that the narrative was strong but we scored only 1s rather than 3s because the narrative was not backed by data to show the impact on learner numbers and success rate figures.”
He pointed out that the criteria on which they were judged and awarded scores of 0 to 3 were not transparent, and it was not always possible to get feedback on what data would be required or what figures would hit the scoring thresholds. More worryingly, he went on to say:
“Worse was to come when we were told we scored a zero on the Disability Discrimination Act compliance question because the Worcester proposal did not add to this agenda because we were already fully compliant. So those who rightly committed their own resource to comply with the law get less points than those who have allowed their estate to remain non DDA compliant.”
I am sure that, as a Minister with responsibility for equalities, she will agree with me that it seems ludicrous for the funding criteria to encourage colleges to actually break the law, and that we should support those colleges that have prioritised supporting their most disadvantaged students.
I have written to the Minister with responsibility for FE colleges, the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), with some more detailed feedback from the college of technology. I will not ask the Minister to address each of its points today, but I ask her to take into account the serious concerns it raised about the last round of ERG funding and ensure that future funding is distributed fairly and transparently. The good news is that the Chancellor announced significantly more capital funding for the FE sector in the autumn statement. I know that as we speak the college of technology is working on a new bid. I am also glad that the Government have brought forward the date for resubmissions for round 3 of the ERG, and I hope that if the college submits a revised bid, it can be given a fair hearing. Such a bid would be particularly beneficial in its impact, as the college has now announced its intention to move its remote Barbourne campus into the city centre and thereby consolidate its estate. Not only does that make sound financial sense, but it will benefit the city centre economy by bringing more students into local shops and restaurants, and bring the many vocational students who study there into closer contact with the working world. I recently opened a high street salon owned and operated by the college of technology, which is providing apprenticeships and genuine work experience in a professional setting to young apprentice hairdressers. I have every confidence that its work-focused approach will benefit many of my constituents. The college’s major role in supporting apprenticeships will make a difference to the employment prospects of young people in the county.
I do not ask the Minister to promise the world, as the last Government did. I thank her for the investment that the coalition Government have already made in colleges in Worcester. I ask her to listen to the concerns that I have raised and look kindly on the bids that these two excellent colleges will be putting forward. I ask her to liaise with her fellow Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education to ensure that we make a little money go a long way and, after the fiascos of the past, invest in reasonable, high quality, skills-focused projects that will make a real difference. I extend an invitation to her, and any relevant Ministers, to visit these two colleges and to see both the excellent work they have already done and their sensible plans for future investment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on securing the debate, on his powerful advocacy of the value of having high quality further education locally for his constituents and on standing up for his college—as he said, that is his job—as his local college principals make the case for the funding they require.
Today, I am deputising for the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who is currently abroad on official business. I will of course attempt to address the points that have been raised. I have to admit, perhaps to the disappointment of the House, that my hon. Friend’s absence may well deprive us of an interesting discussion on the finer points of cricket, as I understand that both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester are such passionate followers of the game. I will not attempt to stand in my ministerial colleague’s shoes on that particular subject as I fear I would not be particularly eloquent—I apologise to the House for that. Instead, I shall turn to the points that my hon. Friend has raised in his speech.
He extended a kind invitation to me and my colleagues at BIS to visit Worcester. I confess that I do not think I have ever visited Worcester, so I was unable to picture the areas he mentioned in his speech. Who knows, there may well be cause at some point for me to visit. If I do not visit the college—it is not in my portfolio—then perhaps there will be a range of post offices undergoing transformation.
On capital investment, as my hon. Friend knows and outlined, for decades, colleges were starved of the funding for capital renewal that both schools and universities enjoyed. It was therefore no surprise that when the Learning and Skills Council offered significant capital grants, the colleges jumped at the opportunity. Bids were encouraged, including bids to grow, with atriums, spas and other such luxuries. Promises were made without the funding being available to match them. Hugely expensive projects with poor cost controls delivered poor value for money in some of the projects that were completed, so the Learning and Skills Council ran out of money. Suddenly building projects were stopped, sometimes after huge expense on plans and with holes in the ground. It was not a happy time, as my hon. Friend eloquently explained—my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) also managed to contribute his experiences to the debate.
It is in that context, as well as the wider catastrophe of the public finances that we were bequeathed, that we are now rebuilding. We have been working hard to ensure that lessons are learned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester urged. Inevitably, one of those lessons is that we should have a firm focus on value for money, the physical infrastructure needs of colleges and the benefits that capital investment can bring to students, employers and the communities they serve. The approach is also coupled with a focus on affordability. This provides the background to how we have moved forward, set priorities for capital investment and given hope and a better sense of certainty to both general FE colleges and sixth-form colleges. I hope he will agree that since 2010, this coalition Government have done everything possible to rectify the disaster that the previous Labour Government left us. Indeed, between May 2010 and November 2012, we made more than £330 million available to the Skills Funding Agency for investment in the general FE college estate, with more than £120 million made available through the Education Funding Agency for investment in the sixth-form college estate, making a total of £450 million over that period.
My hon. Friend raised capital funding issues in relation to two important institutions in his constituency: Worcester technology college—the general FE college serving his constituency—which had issues around its recent unsuccessful bid for capital funding; and Worcester sixth-form college, which had issues relating primarily to the Department for Education’s building condition improvement fund. If I may, I propose to respond on the latter first, as I would like to cover the more substantive issues raised in relation to the technology college in some detail.
On the capital funding available to Worcester sixth-form college, my hon. Friend explained that his local college had made great progress already, with improvements to the cladding and structure of the building, and set out what else it was keen to do, with the science and other facilities. He made a good case for a two-year allocation approach, which would provide greater flexibility in build and delivery options. As I have mentioned, capital funding for maintenance in sixth-form colleges is provided annually by the Department for Education through the Education Funding Agency. However, I understand that the Department is currently undertaking a property data survey of the school estate, which is due to be completed later this year. It will inform wider thinking in that Department on the scope and options for longer-term allocation periods from 2014-15 onwards, which I am sure my hon. Friend will welcome. I am also happy to ensure that I draw the comments he has made about this issue on behalf of his sixth-form college to the attention of my colleagues in the Department for Education, as I am sure they will be interested to hear what has been said, both by him and by the principal of Worcester sixth-form college, who I think was Mr Kitcatt—maybe if he is lucky, he will have a break in the next funding round.
Let me return to Worcester technology college and the allocation of capital funds by the Skills Funding Agency. It might be helpful if I explain the broad approach we took to capital investment in general FE colleges. Ministers set the priorities for capital investment. The Skills Funding Agency then consulted the sector on the detailed criteria for deciding allocations and took the sector’s advice on timing and process issues, to minimise burdens while ensuring a focus on value and impact. The agency then launched the various schemes, publishing the agreed criteria for all to see. The agency then offered advice to colleges, assessed bids and, with input from the sector, undertook moderation to ensure fairness. At the end of the process, the agency confirmed funding decisions to colleges.
Clearly, with all competitive bidding processes there are winners and losers. Of course I recognise and understand the concerns—such as those expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester and the principal of Worcester college of technology—about ensuring that those colleges that most urgently need capital funding support can get it. I also understand their concerns about the assessment process carried out by the Skills Funding Agency before grants were awarded, although I would say that the agency’s approach to capital funding has, by and large, served the general FE college sector well. As I have said, it was based, as such processes inevitably often are, on competitive bidding between colleges against a set of published, sector-endorsed criteria, with sector representatives involved in moderating the assessment of bids in order to ensure fair play.
I understand my hon. Friend’s point about the seemingly bizarre scenario in which points would be awarded for not yet having complied with disability discrimination legislation. I would say, however, that whether the situation involved access issues for students, health and safety issues involving asbestos, or issues relating to the basic structure of a building not being windproof or watertight, if there were a needs-based element to the criteria, issues such as those would be taken into account to some extent to ensure that the money was being spent where it was most needed. I understand my hon. Friend’s point, however; he certainly put it very well.
I am given to understand that Worcester technology college’s bid in the last exercise, announced in the autumn, was assessed as primarily falling short of the required standard in its description of the benefits to students’ education and of the area’s prospects for economic growth that would result from funding being awarded. That was obviously a great disappointment to my hon. Friend and to the college and its students, but I can only conclude that that was a reasonable outcome on the basis of the funding criteria then in place. I am sure, however, that my hon. Friend will want to ensure that his college is well placed to make further bids that will have a more positive outcome. He has certainly made a strong case for his college today, and I am sure that he will continue to advocate powerfully for it.
Cases such as that one, and those that other hon. Members have raised with the Minister on previous occasions, serve to underline the fact that we now need a change of approach in the capital funding of general FE colleges, and such a change was set out in the FE college capital investment strategy published on 6 December 2012. Our shared commitment to working with the further education and skills sector to help it to provide the best possible service to adults and young people is clear, as, indeed, is the £550 million of funding for general FE college capital projects that was announced in the skills investment statement, which was also published on 6 December.
Accordingly, we want all general FE colleges to feel able to help to shape the programmes and processes involved, so that we can most effectively manage and allocate public funds to those capital projects that need them most. My hon. Friend the Minister has already asked the Skills Funding Agency to continue working closely with a sector-led capital reference group to ensure that issues and concerns are known, shared and addressed. He is also keen to ensure that colleges have access to help and advice in developing their plans. I note my hon. Friend’s point about feedback, and it is important that good feedback should be given when bids are unsuccessful, to help plans for future bids to be developed.
On 14 December, the Skills Funding Agency wrote to all 60 colleges that had been unsuccessful in securing funding last time around, to set out the next steps and the options available to them. Today, I want to encourage Worcester college, and all colleges with an interest, to engage constructively with the agency and the capital reference group as we develop and implement our new FE college capital funding programme. It will be a more flexible programme that will include project development support, published time scales and the opportunity for colleges to resubmit applications that fall short of the standards agreed with the sector.
I say to my hon. Friend, and to the college whose interests he has so ably represented today, let us move forward rather than dwelling on the past. I am sure that he is nodding in agreement with that. I understand that, as a first step, Worcester technology college authorities are due to meet representatives of the Skills Funding Agency tomorrow to discuss the options available to them. I sincerely hope and expect that that will be an important first step towards ensuring that the college’s urgent capital funding needs are met before too much longer, and that it succeeds in gaining its fair share of the substantial new investment now on offer from the coalition Government.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Unmanned Air Vehicles
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angus Robertson
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many crashes there have been with the Elbit Systems Hermes 450 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in (a) the UK and (b) Afghanistan;
Mr Robathan
The Hermes 450 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is not flown in the UK nor have there been any crashes in the UK.
Since 2007 there have been 11 Hermes 450 crashes in Afghanistan.
An end-to-end review for army unmanned aerial systems training has recently been conducted which reported at the end of September 2012. As a result, several changes have already been made to unmanned aerial systems training to increase airmanship standards in a number of areas, with further improvements to follow.
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Robathan
The Hermes 450 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is not flown in the UK nor have there been any crashes in the UK.
Since 2007 there have been eight Hermes 450 crashes in Afghanistan.
An end-to-end review for army unmanned aerial systems training has recently been conducted which reported at the end of September 2012. As a result, several changes have already been made to unmanned aerial systems training to increase airmanship standards in a number of areas, with further improvements to follow.
Westminster Hall
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Freedom of Information
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. We may be suffering today from the fact that two progressive causes are being debated at the same time, in a rather curious upstairs- downstairs situation. Upstairs, in the main Chamber, the franchise and the voting age is being debated, and here in Westminster Hall we are considering an important constitutional issue: freedom of information. I am glad that the Minister is here to reply to the debate, as she used to serve on my Committee, and we look forward to hearing from her shortly.
Many of us campaigned for years for freedom of information and against excessive Government secrecy, believing that openness is an aid to better Government, as well as an enhancement of the rights of the citizen. It was a long and hard battle. In John Major’s time, we achieved a code of practice on access to Government information, but the Freedom of Information Act 2000 was the most important step forward and its introduction is very much to the credit of the then Labour Government. So it was rather surprising that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said in his memoirs that he had been a “nincompoop” to introduce it and that it was
“antithetical to sensible Government.”
The Justice Committee repeatedly asked Mr Blair to appear before us to give oral evidence about his dramatic change of view, and we deplored his failure to do so. We did not think that it was entirely justified to use the House’s powers to compel his presence, although that was a possibility, but it seemed very strange that someone with such strong views and who played such a major role in this matter should not be willing to appear before us to explain his views.
However, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who is always extremely co-operative in giving evidence to the Committee, told us that the Freedom of Information Act was Mr Blair’s idea and not his. We are all used to politicians, including Ministers and former Ministers, wanting to claim credit for things, but denying the credit for something as significant as the Freedom of Information Act seems a very strange thing to do.
To complete the chronology, I should mention the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, which was passed under the present Government, because it extended the effect of the Freedom of Information Act to academies, to the Association of Chief Police Officers and all its public functions, to the universities admission body, UCAS, and potentially to a whole range of other bodies, too. So the extension of the role of freedom of information continues.
The Justice Committee and its predecessor Committees have been closely involved from the start of this process. We reported in 2004-05 on progress towards the then imminent implementation of the Freedom of Information Act; in 2005-06, we reported on the first year’s progress; and in 2006-07, we reported on the Labour Government’s plans to change the legislation in a restrictive way, mainly by the use of charges, which we opposed. The fact that the planned changes did not go ahead might have owed something to the transition from the Blair era to that of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown).
In this Session, we carried out post-legislative scrutiny of the 2000 Act, after the Government had made their own post-legislative assessment in 2011. That is a model of its kind; it is the sort of work that needs to be done in post-legislative assessments. It was thorough, well supported by research and a great help to us in the work that we did. I am happy to say that the Government and the Committee have reached a common view on most of the main issues, although there are some significant points of difference.
Our report on freedom of information was issued in July 2012, after seven evidence sessions, and the Government responded to it in November 2012. In their memorandum, the Government reiterated the well known four main objectives of the Freedom of Information Act:
“Openness and transparency: to help open up public authorities which carry out public functions, both proactively…and reactively… Accountability: to make Government more accountable to politicians, journalists and the public; Better decision-making: an improvement in the quality of decision-making…because those drafting policy advice would be aware that they would have to be able to defend their reasoning… Public involvement in decision-making…public participation…and…greater public trust in that process.”
The first two of those things—openness and accountability—have been achieved, to significant extent. The third thing—better decision making—is quite difficult to decide on, not least because many other factors determine the quality of decision making. The fourth thing—public trust—was a pretty unrealistic aim from the start, and I will refer back to it later because it would be hard to say that it has been one of the consequences of the Freedom of Information Act.
I will start with openness and transparency. We drew a distinction between reactive openness in response to requests made under the Act and proactive transparency in the publication of information by public authorities. On openness, we concluded in our report:
“We agree with the Ministry of Justice that the Act has contributed to a culture of greater openness across public authorities, particularly at central Government level which was previously highly secretive… Our evidence shows that the strength of the new culture of openness is, however, variable and depends on both the type of organisation and the approach to freedom of information of the individual public authority.”
On transparency, we made the point that
“proactive publication…cannot substitute for a right to access data because it is impossible for public bodies to anticipate the information that will be required.”
The beauty of the Freedom of Information Act is that, ultimately, the public, not the public authority, decide what information is needed. However, that is not an argument against proactive publication.
The Act encourages proactive publication, and the Government have a transparency agenda driven by the Cabinet Office, which seems to take the transparency demanded by freedom of information provisions a stage further, by encouraging raw data to be released in an open and reusable format. I welcome and encourage that, but we concluded that the relationship between the two initiatives was a bit unclear. We called on the Government to take steps to ensure that the freedom of information regime and the transparency agenda worked together, including by examining initiatives in different Departments before implementation to ensure that they are effective, as well as by assessing the existing initiatives to ensure that they
“offer value for money and do not have unintended consequences.”
On accountability, the consensus of evidence to us was that accountability had certainly been enhanced. Many examples can be produced of ways in which, for instance, spending can be challenged effectively because the information can be obtained. That has not always been a comfortable process, not least for Members of this House and the other place—I will refer to some aspects of that later—but it is a necessary feature of the control of expenditure that it should not be concealed and that the public should be able to find out what taxpayers’ money is being spent on.
One important issue raised with us by the Information Commissioner was the potential for accountability
“to be undermined if the freedom of information regime did not apply to private providers of public services.”
I will come back to that point and how we intend to deal with it later in my remarks.
Then we come to improving the quality of decision making, which can be achieved not least by creating an awareness that there will be subsequent scrutiny of the decision-making process. We enter an interesting area, because part of the background to the publication of our report was a great deal of noise being made by former senior civil servants and Cabinet Secretaries about the threat to the safe space within which policy discussions take place and the possibility that the Act had a chilling effect, both on the decision-making process and on the extent to which that process was properly recorded. These were serious people making quite serious comments, and it created a fear that the Freedom of Information Act might be threatened by a revolt by top civil servants or former top civil servants against the scrutiny under which they had been placed.
We received a lot of interesting evidence on the subject. We took evidence from former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell and from Ministers and former Ministers. A lot of it was anecdotal, and views differed among witnesses about the Act’s impact on high-level decision making. The Constitution Unit, which did research on the issue, thought that the chilling effect was negligible or marginal, and it was difficult to find any real evidence for what was sometimes claimed. The Committee recognised the problem. At paragraph 154 of our report, we said:
“Freedom of Information brings many benefits, but it also entails risks. The ability for officials to provide frank advice to Ministers, the opportunity for Ministers and officials to discuss policy honestly and comprehensively, the requirement for full and accurate records to be kept and the convention of collective Cabinet responsibility, at the heart of our system of Government, might all be threatened if an FOI regime allowed premature or inappropriate disclosure of information. One of the difficulties we have faced in this inquiry is assessing how real those threats are given the safeguards provided under the current FOI legislation and what, if any, amendments are required to ensure the existence of a ‘safe space’ for policy making.”
We accepted that some decisions by the commissioner and the tribunal that information should be disclosed have challenged the extent of the safe space for policy making. We also accepted that case law was perhaps not sufficiently developed for policy makers to be clear enough about what space is safe. We called for clarification of the statement of policy on the use of the ministerial veto under section 53 of the Act. The Government refer to the veto being used in exceptional circumstances, but it seemed that it was being used in some cases not because the circumstances were exceptional, but because it was the only way to protect the safe space. We called for senior officials, if they are concerned about the Act’s effect, to state explicitly that the Act already provides for a safe space and for high-level policy discussion. There are provisions in the Act that do that, and there is the backstop of the Government’s willingness to use the ministerial veto if necessary.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for fairly encapsulating the arguments that we set out in our report. Does he agree that one problem that case law and the tribunals have set for those who want to guard the safe space is determining where that space exists in the process? From a reading of at least some of the judgments, it seems that the public interest test changes according to where a decision or document comes in the policy-making process. That is a problem for civil servants and Minsters alike.
Sir Alan Beith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a valued member of the Committee. It is true that the agreed extent of the safe space varies according to the stage in the process, but that is right and not unreasonable; some parts of the process require confidentiality more than others, at least for a period. One reason why I and the Committee were reluctant to use any other tool to deal with the problem was that we would be in danger of creating whole areas of restriction where they need not exist. The application of common sense and, as I say, the backstop use of the veto provide for a mechanism to deal with the issue that could be more widely understood. We certainly called on the Government, and we are calling on them now, to ensure that the position is fully understood in government and by officials.
The Government said in their response that they
“were minded to review and, as appropriate, revise the policy on the use of the veto…we propose to consider how the veto policy can be adapted both in terms of the process involved in its use and to offer greater clarity and reassurance on its ability to offer appropriate protection in addition to that which it provides in the context of information relating to collective Cabinet responsibility.”
There is always a political price to pay for using the veto. Any Minister who invokes it will be criticised, challenged and questioned, and rightly so. We have seen a number of instances recently, ranging from the devolution discussions to the Prince of Wales’s letters. No Minister can undertake such a course without facing pretty severe challenge—the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) knows about that from his own experience —and that is right, because such things act as a hurdle: politicians will say, “Do I have to do this? I’m going to get a lot of stick for it in the House.” That hurdle is one means by which we ensure that the veto is not lightly used, although it does have a purpose and a potential benefit.
In our report, we made an important point that tends to get overlooked. Frankly, there is much more likelihood of the most confidential and sensitive discussions, and the papers relating to them, being released in major public inquiries, such as the Leveson inquiry or the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, than through the freedom of information process. The ministerial veto does not work for Leveson or Chilcot, and thank goodness, because they dealt with very serious issues, and it is right that an exceptional process was used to probe them. People sometimes attributed to the Act the fact that some things were eventually, and rightly, found out, but in some of the most sensitive cases, that was down to the different processes, against which neither the Act nor ministerial vetoes provide any protection, and nor should they.
Mr Buckland
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the Committee found, using the Australian approach of a block exemption for Cabinet papers might be superficially attractive, but it could, and probably would, as in Australia, give rise to litigation over what is meant by Cabinet papers? Even worse, it could be used as a device to avoid the freedom of information regime by wrongly classifying papers in that category.
Sir Alan Beith
My hon. Friend’s point conjures up the picture of a civil servant armed with a rubber stamp saying “Cabinet Paper”, which can be applied wherever there is a fear that something that they do not want to disclose will be disclosed early. The Committee concluded that a common-sense approach was the way to deal with the issue. All it requires is to be reinforced through clear advice and guidance to civil servants on how the veto backstop and the other provisions of the Act afford them some protection.
In our inquiry, we heard from the Constitution Unit that the Act had not had a significant effect in increasing public participation in decision making, and we saw no great reason to disagree with that finding because other processes that increase participation, such as consultations, fall outside the Act. As I indicated, however, there is little evidence that freedom of information has had a noticeable positive effect on public trust in the Government and other public bodies, and it was always unrealistic to expect anything different. In paragraphs 37 and 38 of the report, we say:
“Evidence of irregularities, deficiencies and errors is always likely to prove more newsworthy than evidence that everything is being done by the book and the public authority is operating well. In these circumstances, the expectation of a substantial increase in public trust…was always going to prove unrealistic… Greater release of data is invariably going to lead to greater criticism of public bodies and individuals, which may sometimes be unfair or partial”,
and I am sure that some hon. Members agree with that. We continue:
“In our view, however this, while regrettable, is a price well worth paying for the benefits greater openness brings to our democracy.”
I speak as someone who, among other things, was criticised in a newspaper article for having a toilet in his constituency office repaired at public expense, so that the staff could use it. I felt like asking the journalist whether he had been asked to contribute to the cost of maintaining the toilets in his newspaper’s offices at his own expense. However, we have to live with these things, and the benefits of expenditure not being concealed outweigh any personal cost that we pay.
Complying with freedom of information requests involves costs, but it can also create savings, which accrue from the disclosure of the inappropriate use of public funds or the fear of such disclosure. Section 12 of the Act provides that public authorities are not required to comply with the duty to publish information if the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit—£600 for central Government and £450 for other public bodies, which translates as 24 and 18 person-hours of work respectively.
We rejected proposals that what we regarded as more subjectively measured activities, such as reading and consideration time, should be included in the time to calculate costs, but we recommended a small reduction in that period. The Government took a different view in their response and said they would make “efforts to reduce burdens” arising from what they call the
“‘industrial’ use of the Act”.
They say that time taken to consider whether information should be released or to redact it before release should count towards the time limit. They say that they will consult on the change and will seek to develop a method of calculation that will be consistent across public authorities.
The Government say that the change will affect a low proportion of requests: 4% of those to central Government and 10% of those to other public authorities, but that is still quite a lot, perhaps more than 1,000 requests. We are concerned about that and particularly about the potential effect on local newspapers. My area has a unitary authority, and if a local newspaper wanted to follow up stories about several different local services—education, highways and social services—it could quickly fall foul of that aggregation. I should be grateful to the Minister if she thought carefully about that.
We examined charging, and we considered that it was not appropriate to go down that road. Any charge designed genuinely to recoup costs would deter genuine requests, and few kinds of charging would deter frivolous requests or, for that matter, what the Government call industrial requests. There are such things—industrial requests from large commercial companies who want to collect a lot of information and could afford to do so if there were charges; or requests from less well funded organisations, including small local newspapers, which are not going through a very profitable period at the moment. Those requests could be made in other ways. If a charging system were introduced, requests from private individuals might well be handed over to media organisations, in pursuit of a legitimate campaign, for example, to find out what was going on in government.
The Government agreed with us about charging, but they have said that they are considering charging people to go to the Information Tribunal. That would be a matter of some concern. I hope that the Minister can say more about it today. It has arisen since we published our report.
We said something about frivolous and vexatious requests. The folklore about the Freedom of Information Act tends to imply that all public authorities are completely weighed down by trivial, frivolous and vexatious requests. In practice, that is not so. A limited number of requests appear frivolous, and vexatious requests can of course be rejected, by following procedures that experienced public authorities use. We were told stories about applications for information about ghost sightings in the town hall and things of that kind, but it is not too difficult for the public authority simply to reply that it has no information at all on the subject. That is not a lengthy process.
Our view, again, was that it would be unwise to transform any aspect of the Act to deal with a problem that is not all that significant or serious:
“It is apparent from witnesses that frivolous requests are a very small problem, but can be frustrating. There is a case for adding frivolous requests to the existing category of vexatious requests which can be refused, but such requests can usually be dealt with relatively easily, making it hard to justify a change in the law.”
We gave considerable consideration to time limits and saw no need for any change to the 20-day response time within which public authorities must respond to freedom of information requests. However, we thought that time limits should be introduced for the public interest extension allowed under section 10 of the Act and that a further 20-day limit should be set in statute, which could be further extended in complex cases. The Government disagreed with us, preferring to rely on the Information Commissioner’s guidance and the code of practice under section 45, to ensure the timely completion of extensions and internal reviews.
We took evidence and made a recommendation on university research. We did not go along with the view of some people in the university world that universities should be exempted from freedom of information legislation. Universities spend a great deal of public money and carry out public functions. All those that are not wholly private in their funding are subject to freedom of information provisions. We think that should remain the case, but we recognise that there is a problem with the premature disclosure of continuing research projects. That has been dealt with in Scotland by different legislation, and we believe that there should be better protection, or pre-publication exemption, under section 22 of the Act, for research carried out by higher education institutions. There should be a dedicated exemption on the lines of the Scottish provisions. We are pleased that the Government have accepted the recommendation, and I should just like clarification of how that will be achieved.
I said that I would mention a significant problem, and it becomes more significant with each new announcement that the Government want to use the private sector as a major provider of public services. The problem is how freedom of information is applied to private organisations, commercial companies or, indeed, voluntary sector bodies that carry out public functions. There was some uncertainty about the interpretation of section 3(2)(b) of the Act, which provides that information held by a private company on behalf of a public authority with which it has a contract is subject to the Act, but other information held by such a company is not. It is quite reasonable that other information should not be covered—the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the commercial activities in the private sector of a commercial company—but there is a genuine and appropriate concern about what happens when such a company does what would otherwise be done by a public authority.
We favoured the use of contractual terms to deal with the issue, as currently happens in many cases. The body that commissions the services, whether a probation or health trust or a Department such as the Ministry of Justice, should ensure that the contracts that it writes will protect the access that it requires to all material relevant to potential freedom of information requests, so that it can respond to any freedom of information bid.
The Government have broadly agreed with that conclusion and have helpfully gone further by suggesting that they will amend the section 45 code of practice to encourage public authorities and contractors to provide information on a voluntary basis, going beyond the minimum covered by a request to an authority. It seems to us that that openness follows the public money, in just the same way as the Public Accounts Committee wants accountability for spending to follow the public pound, and that the best way to achieve that is not to put a commercial organisation in the rather confused position of being partially subject to FOI, but to put it under contractual obligations that, if it carries out a service on behalf of the taxpayer, it is obliged to the body that commissions it to provide the information.
The Committee will take further evidence in a couple of weeks from the Information Commissioner on the work of his office. We may then follow up some of the issues that I have outlined. We welcome his work and have a good relationship with him. It has long been the Committee’s view that the Information Commissioner should be an Officer of Parliament, like the ombudsman, the health ombudsman or the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is the situation in Scotland, with the Scottish Information Commissioner. That would underline the commissioner’s independence. I was struck by the fact that in yesterday’s debate about blacklisting, which relates to another side of the commissioner’s responsibilities—data protection—my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary stressed the fact that the Information Commissioner is an independent regulatory official, running an independent regulatory body, and not a creature of the Government. That, indeed, is how things work in practice. However, it would be much better to underwrite that position, by making the commissioner fully a creature of Parliament rather than, technically, as he is now, part of the governmental system.
When considering the overall impact of the Freedom of Information Act, we need to bear in mind something that kept coming up in different ways during the Committee’s proceedings. Since the Act was conceived and then passed, a significant change has affected the whole freedom of information issue: the explosion of internet use and the new opportunities created by it. That has made access to published information easier; it has allowed published data to be searched in ways that were virtually impossible with manual searching; and it has posed a challenge to the quality and effectiveness of some public sector databases. Kent county council has explained to us that getting its database to the point at which it could effectively be interrogated by the techniques that are now available would be a major and costly task. The internet explosion has also created internet- based mechanisms for making freedom of information applications, along with organisations devoted to assisting people to make such applications. We must keep the matter under constant review.
The Freedom of Information Act set out principles that we believe should apply to Government for all time, but precisely how we apply them and the context in which we do so are things that change, and the Information Commissioner’s Office has a significant role in assisting us with that. Because of its data protection responsibilities, the office happens to have a great deal of knowledge within it about mechanisms that are relevant to data protection and to freedom of information and how information is accessed.
More generally, our view is that the Freedom of Information Act has significantly enhanced our democracy. It is working well and achieving most of its main purposes. Rewriting or restricting it and reducing its scope, effectiveness and accessibility would be far too high a price to pay for the convenience of government.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
It is a pleasure to see you chairing this session, Mr Hollobone. It is also a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who chairs the Justice Committee with great aplomb and ability. He has eloquently summed up the Committee’s work vis-à-vis scrutinising the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and, although there will inevitably be some repetition, I hope that my remarks do not duplicate his too much.
The Act was the product of many years of campaigning, discussion and commitment from various political spheres. When the Act came into force in 2005, it proved, I believe, to be a landmark piece of legislation. I do not think that it would be hyperbole to say that the Act revolutionised how the public were able to engage with public authorities and with local and central government. It presented a radical development in the extent to which the public were able to engage, and I emphasise that because whether the Act has fulfilled that purpose is a matter of some debate.
In December 2011, the Justice Committee, of which I am a member, called for submissions to its inquiry into post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act. Those giving evidence were asked to consider whether the Act worked effectively, what its strengths and weaknesses were, and whether it was operating as intended. As our report sets out, the Committee received 140 pieces of written evidence and recorded oral evidence from 37 witnesses.
If we are to adjudicate on whether the legislation operates effectively, it is necessary to set out the primary motivation for introducing it in the first place. The Ministry of Justice’s memorandum on post-legislative scrutiny of the Act identifies four objectives: increasing openness and transparency, improving accountability, facilitating better decision making, and increasing public involvement in the decision-making process. In its evidence to the inquiry, the constitution unit based in University college London identified another objective—to promote better understanding of the Government’s decision making. The Committee broadly agreed with that delineation.
On the Act’s first objective, that of increasing openness and transparency, before the Act’s provisions came into force in 2005, information on decision making in central and local government and in other public- facing organisations was obtainable only through official documents and leaked information that had made its way into the press. By contrast, the new legislation provided for a statutory right to gain access to information held by public authorities, and placed a duty on the authorities to establish a proactive publication scheme that was subject to the approval of the Information Commissioner. It sought to make public authorities more transparent in a reactive sense, in that anyone would have the right to put questions to such an authority via an FOI request, and by encouraging a more general cultural change through proactively publishing information.
In our report, we quote from the speech made in the Bill’s Second Reading debate by the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). He said, about the Act:
“It will transform the default setting from ‘this should be kept quiet unless’ to ‘this should be published unless’. By doing so, it should raise public confidence in the processes of government, and enhance the quality of decision making by the Government.”—[Official Report, 7 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 714.]
In practice, of course, the proposed publication schemes did not work as the then Government intended. The duty to produce publication schemes in section 19 of the Act is accompanied by extensive guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office on what exactly would constitute a model scheme.
Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman touched on the role of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). We were all present, and we have lived through the development of the Act and are very familiar with it—those of us who were friends of it and those who were not. The now Lord Clark was the initiator of the Bill. The members of the Cabinet, including the right hon. Member for Blackburn, all signed every single word of the pledge. David Clark was then dropped and despatched to the House of Lords, and the right hon. Member for Blackburn has now given us several versions of his position on the matter. I have tried to coax him to say that it was the greatest thing that the Labour party ever did while in office. He has repudiated that. He has adopted it. He has changed his view. And he was the agent who tried to limit the whole Act. So I do not hold him as the flame bearer of that essential part of the Act, and I think that that will be the view of anyone who has had any dealing with the right hon. Member for Blackburn on the question of freedom of information.
Mr Llwyd
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He has been intimately involved in this matter for many years and I defer to his greater knowledge. He will see from other remarks I shall make that although I usually hold the right hon. Member for Blackburn in high esteem, in this instance the hon. Gentleman is, I think, right. It seems, from some of the right hon. Gentleman’s utterances of late, that he is rowing like nobody’s business away from the mother ship on this issue, and I am not too sure why. Many people across the political spectrum have worked hard to get us even to where we are now. I do not attribute that progress to one particular person; it has been a joint effort by all the parties over a long period, and I know that the hon. Gentleman has played a pivotal role in that.
The view of many of those who gave evidence to the inquiry was that most public authorities had failed to make full use of the schemes into which they were supposed to enter. There was also much inconsistency across Departments. One of the principal reasons why so few schemes were successful, according to Dr Ben Worthy of the University college London constitution unit, was that technological advances have made proactive disclosure redundant. He said that
“one of the reasons why publication schemes have not taken off in the way that many had hoped is that it has been superseded by the internet search engine and the fact that people can find a way of asking a question rather than looking for the information.”
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has already touched upon that.
Whereas an authority or organisation may be selective about the data that are released through a publication scheme, modern technology, as we know, has allowed anyone with an internet connection to search for the information themselves. When the Act was drafted, it did not take into account the fast-developing nature of the world wide web.
Roger Gough, the cabinet member for business strategy and support on Kent county council, said that the notion of a publication scheme was “fairly antiquated.” The Information Commissioner’s Office is holding a consultation on the publication schemes, the outcome of which I am sure we all look forward to reading.
But it is not only the internet as a medium that has altered in the years since the Act was first published. Through being used to having information almost literally at the touch of a button, the public now expect more information more rapidly. For that reason, it is doubtful that the Freedom of Information Act has improved public participation in decision making. More often than not, it is those who are already engaged in public life, or those who are acting in a professional capacity, such as journalists and campaigners, who lodge FOI requests. Lord Falconer told the other place that the Act aimed to show citizens
“how government works—and to show them how decisions are taken.”
But as the constitution unit said in its evidence to the Select Committee,
“FOI is used by people already engaged in the political process, rather than bringing new participants into it.”
By contrast, for the vast majority of the UK’s population, and certainly for those under the age of 35, the principal means of obtaining information appears to be via the Google search engine. Here, too, we see why many believe that the Act was doomed to fail in increasing public confidence in public authorities. News stories disseminated online tend to sensationalise information and to focus on the negative aspects of any given story—no surprise there. One is unlikely, for example, to read a long piece online dedicated to congratulating a local council or organisation on its commendable bookkeeping.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Maurice Frankel, representing the Campaign for Freedom of Information, told our Committee that he had witnessed a surge in trust among those who directly seek information from public bodies but that the majority of the population were more likely to read the outcomes of freedom of information searches through the media.
Sir Alan Beith
On a point of order, Mr Hollobone, you will have noticed that the Division bell did not ring audibly in this Chamber, and I wondered if you could look into whether that can be put right. As it happened, it did not matter, because the motion in favour of extending the franchise to vote to age 16 won by about two to one, but I would not have liked to miss the vote.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Thank you, Sir Alan, for that point of order. The Clerk made us aware of the Division, but I will ensure that your comments are relayed to the appropriate authorities.
Mr Llwyd
As I mentioned, the Freedom of Information Act has developed—some might say radically—the extent to which the public are able to engage with the decisions made by public bodies. First, however, they must choose to engage.
Perhaps inevitably, the tendency of the media is to focus on the negative stories coming out of FOI requests; some say, which I believe could be true, that this may have led to a perverse incentive to hide information. The former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Gus O’Donnell, said in his evidence that he had experienced that at first hand:
“I decided to release, since I am not paid by anybody at the minute but I am a Member of the Lords, some hospitality information. I do not think anybody else does that. Surprise, surprise, you get a snidey press story in Private Eye as a result of this.”
The Select Committee, however, was very much of the opinion that the increased and, yes, sometimes unfair criticism of those in public life was a price well worth paying for greater openness.
To what extent has the Act facilitated decision making by public authorities and central Government? Regrettably, many witnesses thought that in trying to avoid the possible embarrassment of disclosure, fewer bodies were inclined to keep detailed records of meetings or to keep a log of policy information. Martin Rosenbaum, representing BBC News, argued that any change in culture brought about by the Freedom of Information Act had been inconsistent, and that the Act has done relatively little to advance transparency on account of the cumbersome nature of the FOI process. He said that
“the Act now enables us to obtain on a very crude level…facts and figures—how much was spent on this, statistics about the performance of public services and so on. The sorts of things that were harder to get previously now tend to be very easy to get, but what it has not produced, and the civil service is certainly very resistant to this, is internal discussion documents, policy discussion, minutes of meetings and so on.”
Witnesses spoke about the “chilling effect”, to which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred, that has led to civil servants being less candid in their advice to Ministers, fewer external organisations being willing to submit information to the Government and fewer meetings being held with formal minutes taken—greatly damaging the official record. As Lord O’Donnell pointed out, that “chilling effect” not only impacts on the engagement of our own generation with decision making, but will make it increasingly difficult for future historians, too, to get an accurate picture of how decisions were made, as so little evidence will remain.
Other witnesses pointed out that that unintended consequence of the Act has the potential to weaken Cabinet collective responsibility, since many key decisions will not be made in Cabinet, where formal minutes are taken, but in safe places, be it on mobile phones or behind closed doors. On the other hand, it is imperative to draw attention to the fact that the Act contains safeguards against that problem—namely, exemptions to the right of access to information in exceptional circumstances, as well as other ministerial vetoes for when information is deemed too sensitive to release.
Sir Alan Beith
It is worth noting that there is, or should be, a countervailing pressure in the mind of any civil servant who might be tempted not to record a reservation that he or she had about a decision or counter-argument. Frankly, if I were a civil servant and thought that the record would not reveal that I had warned the Minister that a policy was fraught with danger, my response would be that that must be minuted so that it could be seen that I had warned that that could happen.
Mr Llwyd
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Not only is that based on sound common sense, I am sure that it often happens in practice. There is a counter-argument, as he rightly says.
The Committee did not conclude that such a chilling effect had come about as a result of the Act. The constitution unit has published research on the subject and suggested that its impact was insignificant, thus agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman. Although the Committee decided against recommending any major change to the Act, we were mindful that Parliament is expected to pass legislation recognising the need for a safe place for high-level policy formation. It is difficult to determine when that space will be needed because, by its very nature, the evidence for when private discussions are used is patchy. Certainly, this right must not be exploited needlessly.
It has become increasingly common for minutes of private meetings and even text messages between Ministers and representatives of external organisations to be seized and published by inquiries into Government decision making. Both the Chilcot and Leveson inquiries were examples of that, and it would be highly regrettable if it led to fewer records being kept. Yet however private or embarrassing evidence may be, it is inexcusable for people to attempt to destroy or alter data to prevent their disclosure. That is why the Committee recommended extending the time limit on charging someone with this offence under section 77 of the Act. The Information Commissioner’s Office has seen evidence of such offences, but because of the inherent difficulties of charging someone within six months of the offence being committed, no one has yet been prosecuted. The Committee has further recommended that a higher fine should be available to the Crown court to reflect the gravity of the crime.
Of equal cause for concern, however, is the inadvertent destruction of records as a result of new methods of storing information. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) acknowledged that when the FOI Act was drafted, the Government
“had no serious conception about the internet, which was in its infancy.”
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield also commented on the associated changes to archive-keeping. He said:
“If you look at the archives that were created before there was even a 50-year rule, in 1958, they are very full. The 30-year rule is still very full indeed. I do fear that historians”
in future
“are going to have a much tougher time for two reasons. One is”
freedom of information,
“but there is also the digital revolution. It ceases to be a paper culture.”
One is put in mind of the BBC domesday project in the 1980s, when children conducted a survey of the UK to mark the 900th anniversary of the Domesday Book. The findings were stored on laserdiscs, which became obsolete within a few years. Although the material was saved after a laborious and costly process, the UK Data Archive faced heavy criticism for failing to preserve the material in an enduring format ab initio. The irony, of course, is that the original Domesday Book is still readable.
The Freedom of Information regime must be viewed in the wider context of information storage and retention. The internet is an exciting place in many respects. It is a vital educational tool, but it is also fast evolving. According to the National Archives, digital records deteriorate faster than paper records. The preservation of records is important for the accountability of officials, not just today, but for posterity. Indeed, many people—I am one —believe that one can educate oneself about the future from an understanding of the past. That is important.
On the whole, the evidence gleaned by the Committee was that the Act is operating fairly well. The costs associated with its administration are greatly outweighed, although not always, by the transparency and better accountability of those who make decisions that affect the public’s daily life. Freedom of information requests may lead indirectly to a reduction of costs because public authorities are now fully aware of the risk of exposure if they misuse funds. Although the Act has succeeded in its primary aim of increasing transparency and accountability, it is less clear whether it has facilitated decision making, and it has not gone far down the road of creating greater confidence in those of us who serve in public office.
In the light of the media’s tendency to sensationalise bad news, it was perhaps unrealistic ever to expect that the Act would contribute to greater public confidence in those in power. Individuals certainly have the tools to engage with decision making as a result of the Act, but those who choose to participate are usually those who have a professional stake in the outcome. The FOI regime offered enhanced democracy, but in the years since it was drafted, the parameters of public debate have shifted greatly, and internet search engines disclose information that the Government would rather keep hidden. The onus must be on Parliament and ourselves as individuals within it to face this brave new world and the challenges that technology inevitably presents.
Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I commend the work of the Committee and the contributions of the Chairman and now the membership; they have cheered me. I should declare an interest: I am co-parliamentary something-or-another for the Campaign for Freedom of Information, which has been a remarkable organisation over the past 25 years, and its guiding light, Mr Maurice Frankel, is an exceptional citizen.
I passionately believe in freedom of information. As a boy, I read Pope, who wrote
“What can we reason, but from what we know”,
and it is true. I always maintain that informed and intelligent citizens should have access to Government information that they, we, citizens and Members of Parliament pay for, so that they can play an engaged and informed part in the development of public policy and the things that affect us.
I will not go through the lengthy debates of many years ago. There are things that I object to, such as the Executive override, which has come into operation and was presented to the House of Commons by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) as though it was a Cadillac, with new bells and shiny things on it. I would like to see some things shifted and changed, but my remarks today will be focused only on something that has come to me through a constituent, a respected Mr Dale, in my local community. The concerns are about commissioning in the national health service and relate to the chapter in the report on contracting out. I wanted to deliver the remarks that would have been made much more eloquently by others on the concerns that I have about contracting out.
Other organisations are obviously affected as well. A bit of a stir has been made by universities, because of the anxiety that some are publicly funded and the information is held in a particular way. Outside organisations can even apply for their own materials of the university, because they are deemed to be in receipt of public funds and are therefore subject to freedom of information. However, I seek to discuss the national health service and the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Under the current NHS reforms, the new commissioning bodies—clinical commissioning groups and the NHS Commissioning Board—will be subject to the FOI Act. However, the private sector contractors with whom contracts are held will not be covered by the Act. The contracts themselves will contain disclosure requirements along the lines of those already found in the standard NHS contract:
“Where the Provider is not a Public Authority, the Provider acknowledges that the Commissioners are subject to the requirements of the FOIA and shall assist and co-operate with each Commissioner to enable the Commissioner to comply with its disclosure obligations under the FOIA. Accordingly the Provider agrees…that this Agreement and any other recorded information held by the Provider on the Commissioners’ behalf for the purposes of this Agreement are subject to the obligations and commitments of the Commissioners under the FOIA”.
Obviously, the term “commissioners” refers to the commissioning bodies.
Those provisions require some unpicking. The requirement that providers co-operate with commissioning bodies to comply with their disclosure requirements under the Act is circular. The commissioning body’s obligations under the Act are merely to disclose information that it holds itself or that the provider holds on its behalf. The real question is what information is held on the commissioning body’s behalf.
The contract itself specifies that various types of information are subject to FOI or have to be published or provided to the commissioning body on request. That includes information about the service specifications, prices and payments, numbers of patients treated, time taken to treat them, performance quality reports against a range of specific indicators, figures on MRSA and clostridium difficile infections, and reports on complaints, equality monitoring and certain other matters. There are also obligations to comply with NHS dataset requirements. In addition, the commissioning body may request any other information that it reasonably requires to monitor the provider’s performance in relation to the agreement. However, if the commissioning body does not consider that it requires particular information to monitor the provider’s performance, the information will not be available under FOI.
Let us suppose there are suspicions about the use of outdated, or potentially substandard, or even contaminated supplies by hospitals. For an NHS hospital, the Act could be used to obtain details of stocks of the product, analysis results, correspondence with suppliers, minutes of meetings at which the problem was discussed, concerns about the issues raised by staff and details of how they were handled, as well as information showing what measures were considered, why particular options were rejected and what was done.
Such information would not be available in relation to independent providers treating national health service patients. A commissioning body may take the view that it does not require that information to monitor the provider’s performance under the contract because it does not believe that there is a real problem, because it does not believe that the information sought by the requester would throw light on it, or because it already feels satisfied, from its knowledge of the provider, that any problem would be properly handled. In that case, it seems unlikely that there would be any contractual obligation on the commissioning body to seek the information or on the provider to produce it. In cases of doubt, we think contractors would be likely to vigorously oppose any attempt to interpret a contractual provision of that kind expansively.
A further problem is that key aspects of the Act cannot apply to contractors. The Information Commissioner’s powers relate only to public authorities. He cannot investigate a contractor’s claim that it does not hold or cannot find the information needed to answer an FOI request. His power to serve information notices, requiring public authorities to supply him with information required for an investigation, does not extend to contractors. He cannot serve a decision or enforcement notice on a contractor, or take action against a contractor that appears to be failing to comply with its contractual obligations to assist with FOI requests.
The offence that applies to a public authority that deliberately destroys, alters or conceals a requested record to prevent its disclosure does not apply to a contractor that does so to prevent the authority disclosing it in response to an FOI request. Once a contract has expired, any contractual disclosure requirement may lapse, so removing the right to information about past events. Even if the contract stipulates that disclosure requirement survives, it could only be enforced by a civil action for breach of contract against the contractor. The prospect of such action being taken for failing to assist in replying to an FOI request is highly implausible.
The FOI Act envisages that the contractors who provide a service on behalf of a public authority, which it is the authority’s function to provide, can be designated as a public authority subject to the Act in its own right. The use of that provision to make contractors directly subject to FOI should now be considered. Failing that, the Act should be reassessed in light of contracting out and amended to ensure that the public’s rights to information about public authority services and functions are fully preserved when they are provided by contractors. There is real value in that, and from the Government’s point of view, too. Confidence in the Health and Social Care Act, for instance, and the commissioning process would be reinforced.
There is a grave suspicion—this is what lies behind the idea about privatisation of services in the national health service—that there will be the opportunity for outside contractors and so on to pick and choose and that they will not be liable to provide to the public the basis on which they can judge whether a contract is appropriate. That is the whole purpose of freedom of information—that we can acquire the information that can give us the ability to make a judgment on the probity and priorities that operate within those who are essentially, if not totally in many instances, funded from the public purse. There is a direct link. They would not be in business without public moneys and contracts coming their way. That is why there is an urgency about making this point and examining this question. I commend it to the Justice Committee. Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for your patience.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. The fears expressed by the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), about the quantity of Members in this debate have been laid to rest by the quality of the contributions. We have had three outstanding contributions by Members who are quite expert on this subject. There has also been, among the three parties represented so far, a large degree of consensus. I hope that I can make the official Opposition a fourth party to that consensus and I hope even more that the Minister will join it when she replies to the debate for the Government. I say that because I agree with what the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd) said. I think that he said that freedom of information was the best thing that the Labour Government did. I had written down that it was “one of the best things” that the Labour Government did. Of course, if we were here to discuss all the good things that the Labour Government did, we would use up the rest of the time, but can we at least agree on that?
I am not surprised that we are still discussing the way in which the Act works 13 years after it was passed. It took five years for it to be introduced, and I think that that was probably right. It has taken eight years, judging by what the Select Committee says in its invaluable report, to bed in, and I think that that is also right and nothing to cause us concern, because, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) said, this is a major change in culture for Government—a major change to the way in which administration takes place in the public sector. It has affected, for the better, decision making, as well as the operation of the Government and the public sector.
Through the stance that the Select Committee has taken in its report but also by—if I can put it this way—flushing out the Government in their response, it has done a great service to advancing the cause of the Act and freedom of information. I find very little to disagree with on the policy issues dealt with in the report, although perhaps there is a slight degree of complacency in relation to some of the practicalities of the way in which the freedom of information system works—I have had some experience of that myself. More needs to be done to ensure that the existing system operates effectively, but before I come to that, let me just review where I think the parties are.
I looked at the manifesto commitments. The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto said that they wished to extend freedom of information legislation
“to private companies delivering monopoly public services such as Network Rail.”
That was on the same page as replacing the House of Lords with a fully elected second Chamber, but we cannot have everything.
The Conservative manifesto made no mention of freedom of information, but in some ways what it did say was more interesting. It talked about
“transforming the way the state goes about its business, using decentralisation, accountability and transparency”.
It says that
“we will bring the operation of government out into the open…we will create a powerful new right to government data, enabling the public to request—and receive—government datasets in an open and standardised format.”
It says, for example:
“We will…require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials”.
All of that resolved itself into one sentence in the coalition agreement:
“We will extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.”
What that throws up is a matter that the Chair of the Select Committee has already referred to—the difference between the voluntary publication of information and the ability of the citizen to request that information. There is general agreement that transparency and the publication of data is not only a good thing in itself, but can assist the process of freedom of information. Clearly, if more information is put into the public realm and if public authorities get into the habit of being transparent about the way they conduct themselves, that is not only complementary; it actively assists and removes some of the bureaucracy from freedom of information. However, the two things should not be confused.
It is interesting that the Liberal Democrat manifesto specifically referred to Network Rail. I had a meeting with the head of transparency for Network Rail—there is one—earlier this week, and they were gently trying to persuade me that, given that it has a proactive policy for being transparent, perhaps it did not also need to be subject to freedom of information. I do not want to put words into their mouth, because they did not go quite that far, but that was the gist of the discussion. Well, I disagree. I think that it is laudable if Network Rail has that aim, but that should not remove from it the burden of having to comply with the Act.
The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 was mentioned. Some of the additions under that Act were simply consequential on other changes. Bringing academies into the same ambit as state schools is controversial, but it does not add much. I am sorry that we have not—
Sir Alan Beith
Of course, the hon. Gentleman would have complained pretty bitterly if we had not taken that action. He should be a little less churlish about the Protection of Freedoms Act, not least because, for example, it brought in the Association of Chief Police Officers, which was carrying out very significant public policing functions while also being a representative body for chief police officers. That extension was an extremely important one. I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman said about Network Rail, which is a very ambiguous body, created originally under the previous Government, but we are only a coalition. We get some of our proposals through, but not all of them.
Mr Slaughter
I hope that, rather than being churlish, I am being balanced in saying that the Government—both parties in the coalition—have taken steps on transparency and that there is an impetus from at least some parts of the coalition to move forward the ambit of the Act. I have never been able to understand why, for example, council housing departments should be subject to it but housing associations should not and why the NHS should be subject to it but Network Rail, which is also a large public sector organisation, should not. We should be resistant to special pleading from organisations.
I addressed a conference of university officials some time ago, and freedom of information was a big concern of theirs—that is, not being subject to it. I will say a little more in a moment about the research, with which I do have some sympathy, but the idea was that universities should not be subject to it because, they were saying, it costs them money and they are relatively small organisations in the great scheme of things. I am not sure that is true, for a start, but the number of requests that an organisation receives probably bears some relation to its size and therefore to its means. I suspect that many of our universities are rather bigger than, say, some small district councils.
We should therefore resist special pleading. Where there are grey areas, we should err on the side of openness rather than exemption. In particular, we should look at the points that the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills made in relation to the increasingly blurred lines between the public and private sectors.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), the shadow Lord Chancellor and my boss, made it very clear in his Labour party conference speech last year that the next Labour Government would extend FOI to
“cover the delivery of public services”,
such as prisons, schools and hospitals, by private companies and the voluntary sector. That must be right. It is right in any event, but the contractual roles that organisations —we know the usual suspects: Capita, Serco and G4S—are taking on not only involve huge additional powers, but often mean that whole areas of Government service, policy and decision making are devolved to them.
[Mr David Amess in the Chair]
I was talking to the Public and Commercial Services Union this week about the fact that it is envisaged that the criminal fines enforcement process—collection—be passed to a private company on a very long contract that delegates not only administrative, operational and decision-making powers, but some powers that until recently were judicial.
Mr Llwyd
What the hon. Gentleman says is right. The transfer of public functions to the private sector may not have been uppermost in people’s minds when the Act was drafted, but it is increasingly becoming an issue. Before we know it, much of the prison estate will be privatised, so, in that regard, it is absolutely crucial that FOI structures are in place.
Mr Slaughter
I am grateful, I agree and I hope that the Minister will address that point directly when she responds.
I shall leave that aside, because we could all discuss for a long time the types and numbers of organisations that we want to add. I would rather talk about the other two issues I mentioned: how the Act is operating and how the ongoing policy issues are being resolved or not resolved. The report deals with those matters well.
I have serious concerns about how the Act operates on a day-to-day basis. I am a prolific but I hope responsible user of the Act, so I can say from experience that the quality of service one gets varies hugely. Some organisations are good: they take matters seriously, provide comprehensive information timeously and obey not only the letter but the spirit of the Act. Many do not.
I shall give one example. It is not an extreme example at all; it is very typical. On 26 October last year, I made a request to my local authority. I was aware that it had delegated to itself, from committee to officers, the ability to sell off property as it became vacant, but it was not reporting it anywhere. Simple questions: how many properties have you sold in the past four years and what is the value of those properties? Every two or three weeks after the 20-day deadline passed, we chased them. Nothing was done. There was no attempt to comply with the Act—“You’ll get it next week.” “We’re very sorry. Don’t you have that yet?” Those were the kinds of faux-amateur ways in which it responded.
I am sure that I would not have the answers now had I not written to the chief executive earlier this week and said that I was going to raise the matter in this debate. The very straightforward answers arrived yesterday. They reveal that over that period, more than 200 properties were sold, at a value of more than £88 million, which, in the past two years, represented more than 10% of the total stock that had become vacant. Those facts and figures are important, not only because of the amount of public money involved, but due to the policy and human implications of disposing of good quality property that could be re-let, when 11,000 people are on the waiting list and many of my constituents are being moved out of London because it is said that there is no affordable accommodation. Those data should and could be available, not in 20 days, but in 20 hours.
That is a mild example. In other cases, I have waited over two years for responses. If a public authority does not wish to respond, it can find myriad ways not to do so. To give another example, we have a proportionately large number of free schools and academies in my constituency and I wanted to see the financial base on which they were funded, the capital grants, the costs they were paying for land and matters of that kind. Two years on, I still do not have that information. The excuses I have been given vary from commercial confidentiality to the notion that it would be embarrassing for those organisations, lest they are not successful, to reveal what their basis for bidding is at the time. They have even been based on tiny semantic points. It was not one of mine, but another request asked what a particular piece of land was sold for, and at the end of the process the response came back after months of delay, “Although contracts have been exchanged, there has not been completion, and therefore it cannot be right to say that this property has been sold.” I thought that was slightly disingenuous given that the people who bought it were building on the land at the time.
I will not take up the House’s time with my private grievances, but I use those examples to show that if a public authority does not wish to follow the Act, it can find myriad ways not to do so, which can range from using unqualified staff and devoting insufficient resources to deliberate obfuscation and devious avoidance. The problem is, as the Committee correctly notes, that there is no immediate penalty and the elaborate process of review is, again, often used to delay rather than bring justice.
I hope I am not quoting out of context, but the Committee says:
“We were pleased to hear relatively few complaints about compliance with the 20 day response time. We believe that the 20 day response time is reasonable and should be maintained.”
I suspect that people are put off and do not go through an additional complaints procedure or use the process of internal review and appeal. I agree with the Committee that it is important that the process of internal review is also prescribed, so that what should be a method of redress is not used for further delay. I have taken cases to the Information Commissioner where that process has had to be gone through, and unfortunately, it can take one or two years—longer in some cases—by which time, saving the most important cases of national interest, the issue will almost certainly be dead. That, of course, is the objective of the defaulting party. I hope that there is more scrutiny, by Government and the Ministry as well as the Select Committee, of the simple procedural operation of the Act and whether its spirit and letter are in turn being obeyed.
The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills mentioned Maurice Frankel and the Campaign for Freedom of Information. I associate myself with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. The campaign is a fantastic organisation, which does more than anyone else to keep us on the straight and narrow. It notes that more than 44% of requests to central Government exceed the 20-day limit. That is poor, even when the correct process is followed. We could do much better.
I shall turn to some of the policy issues. I cannot better what the Committee said on the veto and the alleged chilling effect on policy development. The Chair would not put it in these terms, but the Committee has seen through those objections and does not recommend change. I hope the Government will follow that view. There is a risk, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd acknowledged, that people will try to subvert or get round the Act in many ways, and we have heard examples of using private devices or e-mails to keep things out of the public realm. The last thing that we want to do in response to that—we should acknowledge the problem and try to work out ways of challenging it—is to say, “Well, in that case, we should allow more secrecy, because that is the only way to get that balance right.” Those debates will continue, because the agenda is both moving and changing.
There are other issues, which I had hoped could have been put to rest, that the Government in their response have kept going and even revived. The first is the issue of fees. I appreciate that the Government have resisted that, which is right, and requests to cover their costs. None the less, they have introduced the possibility of fees at tribunal, which may be a slippery slope. Certainly, if a complaint has reached such a level, which is quite a challenge for any applicant to achieve, the issue of fees should be resisted.
The Newspaper Society, in its briefing for today’s debate, as well as the Campaign for Freedom of Information and a number of national newspapers, have tried to draw attention to the worrying fact that ways are being found to limit access by way of cost. Generally speaking, those are occult ways of doing it; it is not a head-on attempt to restrict. When I say occult, I am not referring to the ghosts and zombies in the Cabinet Office or in Leeds city hall. I am talking about ways that are, ironically, not open.
I have a number of questions for the Minister to answer. If the Government are thinking of reducing the number of hours beyond the marginal levels that the Select Committee proposes, what are those proposals and how can they be justified? Are they thinking of introducing the aggregate claim, whereby an individual or an organisation will only be able to put in a certain number of claims before hitting the cash limit? Moreover, in totting up the number of hours on any individual request, will the Government include thinking time? If they do, what is the rationale for that and where is the impact assessment that will show the effect that that will have? Maurice Frankel quotes an estimate that says that just the thinking time clause alone will affect 4% of requests to central Government and 10% of requests to other public bodies. Those are significant figures, but, as Maurice Frankel points out, that is based on the actual time spent and not on the estimated time, which of course could be a lot greater. Any one of those measures, let alone the aggregate of them, would have a significant effect on the number of requests that are refused on the grounds of cost, which is a route that we do not want to go down.
There is a general acceptance, I think, that there has to be a limit on costs. No one in this debate has said that the overall cost of the Act is prohibitive and I do not think that the Government have said that either. None the less, cost is a convenient way to turn down requests without having to justify things more thoroughly. As I have said, I have had every possible reason thrown at me. One very common one is commercial confidentiality, which is often presented in a nonsensical way. Let me give an example. There was a significant and controversial land sale in my constituency between two public sector bodies—part of the BBC estate was being sold to Imperial college. The whole matter was resolved; there were no outstanding issues and no ongoing negotiations. Yet both parties resisted requests on the basis of commercial confidentiality. We need to be more sceptical about some of the excuses that are used. I hope the Government will not be seduced by those arguments, and that we can have some clarity on that.
There is an argument when it comes to research. I do not accept the argument for exemption of universities, but, given what is happening in Scotland, it may well be that the Government are right on this. We want to protect genuine research, but we do not want to allow that to become a catch-all for refusal. We should consider exemptions very carefully. This is an area in which the Government, thus far, do not have a bad record.
The Minister will have heard me say very often, even in the short time that she has been in post, that the Government have a bad record on the citizen’s right to access justice and information. We have cuts in legal aid and the prospect of further cuts, the wholesale change to conditional fee agreements, a review of judicial review, and charges increasingly being introduced for courts and tribunal services. That is a poor record, and a signature of this Government of which they should be ashamed. Let us not add freedom of information to that catalogue. So much has been achieved over the past 15 years with a reasonable degree of consensus. We want to allow the citizen far, far greater access to information, and to change what has been very secretive government in this country, under all parties, into something that is genuinely open. That will be as beneficial to the Government as it will to the citizen, so let us not shy away from it now.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on securing this debate, and I thank all hon. Members who have contributed. I am grateful to the Justice Committee for its thorough work on the post-legislative scrutiny and to all those who contributed to its inquiries. I re-endorse the sentiments that have been made this afternoon in relation to my right hon. Friend’s great aplomb and his ability to chair the Committee.
The Government remain committed to greater transparency—the Freedom of Information Act is a key part of that—and we have been successful in our key aims of increasing openness, transparency and accountability. I agree with hon. Members that it is perhaps less clear how much of our secondary objectives of increasing trust and public participation have been met and that, to some extent, those objectives may not have been realistic ambitions. I agree with the Justice Committee that the Act has been a
“significant enhancement to our democracy.”
It is not perfect, but it is generally working well. For that reason, the Government are not proposing a radical overhaul.
Before turning to the specific issues raised by post-legislative scrutiny, it is important to say that we need to put them in the context of the Government’s wider transparency agenda. Since we came to power, we have published almost 9,000 data sets, covering a wide range of subjects connected to health, education, transport, crime and justice. In June 2012, we published the open data White Paper, “Unleashing the Potential”, which sets out how the transparency agenda can help to provide greater access to and the re-use of raw data. We have set up the Open Data Institute to promote innovation, using the data that the Government publish, and pushed strongly for more transparency internationally, including through the international Open Government Partnership.
I assure my right hon. Friend that the Government’s transparency agenda is no substitute for, and will certainly not diminish, the important work that is being done in relation to the Freedom of Information Act. As we take the transparency agenda forward, we will push for greater openness and accountability, so that people know what is being done in their name and with their taxes.
Proactive publication needs to be complimented by an effective system that allows the public to seek information for themselves about how public authorities do their jobs. That is why the Freedom of Information Act is so important and why we are taking a number of steps, following scrutiny, to strengthen and extend it.
We are reducing from 30 to 20 years the lifespan of some of the exemptions to disclosure in the Act. That reflects and is simultaneous with the changes that we are making gradually to replace the 30-year rule under which public records are released by the National Archives with a 20-year rule. We have made secondary legislation to begin that transition over a 10-year period, and it came into effect on 1 January.
We are introducing enhanced rights to access and reuse data sets under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. A public consultation on a draft code of practice to help public authorities to meet those new obligations concluded on 10 January, and the provisions will be commenced shortly.
We are taking steps to extend the Freedom of Information Act to more organisations that perform public functions and to companies wholly owned by any number of public authorities. We have already extended it to all academies, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.
In our response to post-legislative scrutiny, we made it clear that we intended to conclude consultations with a wide range of other bodies, including more than 200 harbour authorities, awarding bodies, approved regulators under the Legal Services Act 2007 and 2,000 housing associations. Therefore, unless there is good reason for not doing so, we can extend the Act to any public function that they carry out. Our aim will be, where possible, to introduce secondary legislation over the next two years to implement the changes that we decide are warranted.
I am aware of some Members’ concerns about the position under the Act of contractors and other companies that provide public services. The challenge that outsourcing public services poses to transparency is real, and it is one that we have sought to address proportionately. We do not currently propose the formal extension of the Act to providers of outsourced public services. We prefer the Justice Committee’s recommendation that contractual transparency clauses be used and enforced to ensure that freedom of information obligations are met.
We strongly encourage public authorities and contractors alike to go further than the minimum requirements in the Act and voluntarily to provide more information. To that end, we will issue guidance that sets out the circumstances in which we want to see further information released. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd) and the shadow Minister raised powerful concerns about this issue, but I reassure them that if our proposals do not have the desired effect, formal extension of the Act can be considered and is always possible.
We have sought to balance the need for transparency with the need to minimise burdens on business and to encourage active participation by bodies large and small in the provision of public services. Some people might not consider that enough, but it is a light-touch, good approach requiring the co-operation of public authorities and contractors alike. As I said, however, if that approach yields insufficient dividends, we will consider what other steps we need to take to ensure accountability, and that includes formal extension. I hope that provides reassurance.
Let me now turn to the Act’s cost. Despite the many benefits that the Act has brought, we cannot ignore concerns about the burdens that it imposes on public authorities. That is especially important in the current challenging financial climate and at a time when more freedom of information requests than ever are being received. Central Government received 47,000 initial applications in 2011, at a cost of £8.5 million in staff time alone. Local authorities and other public bodies are also affected. We aim to focus our efforts on the disproportionate burdens placed on public authorities by what we call industrial users of the Act.
Mrs Grant
Whether or not I am over-stressing them, these matters will be considered in great detail through consultation, and there will be ample opportunity for others to have an input and become involved.
Our research indicates that a very small number of requests contribute to a relatively large proportion of the cost of freedom of information: 8% of requests to central Government cost more than £500 to answer and make up 32% of total staff costs. The Justice Committee recognised that issue in recommending a small reduction in the cost limit beyond which requests need not be complied with. We believe that would result in only the most minimal reduction in costs, so we will consider whether to go further.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed raised consideration time, and the shadow Minister raised thinking time. We recognise, of course, the practical difficulties in including such tasks, but they are worth considering to find out what might be done.
The introduction of fees for tribunals has also been raised by Members today, and we will certainly consider what we can do to recover the costs associated with the running of tribunals, but we do not think anything that we do will impede access to justice. We will also consider other ways to reduce burdens fairly and proportionately, including addressing where one person or group of people use the Act to make unrelated requests to the same public authority so frequently that it becomes an inappropriate burden.
I assure Members that whatever measures we ultimately decide to take, we will have regard to the need to reduce burdens without an excessive impact on transparency. An example of that is our decision in the post-legislative scrutiny response not to introduce new fees for answering freedom of information requests. To do so would both deter the legitimate use of the Freedom of Information Act and prove expensive for public authorities to administer.
The third key area addressed by post-legislative scrutiny was the protection afforded to highly sensitive information. The Government welcome and share the Committee’s conclusion that it was Parliament’s clear intention that the Act should protect safe space for policy formulation and Cabinet discussion. That issue has rightly been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, and I note his and other hon. Members’ references to the allegation of a possible chilling effect.
We agree with the Committee that the current system of protection in the Freedom of Information Act, including exemptions for the disclosure of information and the availability of the veto, has generally worked well. We share the Committee’s view that new absolute exemptions are not necessary. Although we are committed to transparency, so that any freedom of information regime can operate effectively, it is right that we keep under review the protection given to genuinely sensitive information. Effective government depends on the protection of the principle of collective responsibility and the ability of both Ministers and officials to provide advice freely, frankly and with candour.
We have announced our intention to review and, as appropriate, revise the Government’s published policy on the use of the veto. The policy is designed to assist where use of the veto is considered in respect of information that relates to Cabinet collective responsibility. However, no limitation in the Freedom of Information Act prevents the veto being used for other information. Indeed, the Government have concluded that its use was justified in other contexts on more than one occasion last year. Accordingly, we propose to consider whether the veto policy can be adapted both in terms of the process for its use and to offer greater clarity and reassurance on its ability to be used in appropriate cases that do not involve Cabinet-related information.
Other changes that we will introduce to improve the operation of the Freedom of Information Act will require a combination of primary and secondary legislation.
Sir Richard Shepherd
The whole purpose of the construct of the Act was that the final referee should be the tribunal, and that is what I think the Minister is talking about. The tribunal is now being used in a way contrary to our original understanding, which was that it was to be similar to the Supreme Court or the highest courts of appeal and look at the Government’s case when they refused information. Yet they are refusing information contrary to the tribunal’s judgment, and that is what causes concern to many commentators. As was rightly pointed out, the veto was used in a controversial case last year.
Mrs Grant
I have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend and to his points. The veto has only been used six times in eight years, so it is used sparingly and carefully. The veto is a proportionate measure, which is not being used except to protect sensitive information. We have said simply that we will review and revise it, but absolutely no decisions whatever have been made yet. We will publish any revision that we intend to make later this year.
We do not intend to introduce any new absolute exemptions, but we have listened to the concerns of the research sector and have agreed to introduce a new qualified exemption for pre-publication research information, to provide additional reassurance that such material is adequately protected from inappropriate premature disclosure. We have also listened to the Information Commissioner’s concerns about the time available to bring prosecutions under section 77 of the Act, where people destroy, alter or hide information to frustrate requests. We do not think that that is a widespread problem or practice, but it is unacceptable that anyone guilty of such an offence should be able to evade prosecution because the Information Commissioner has insufficient time to investigate the case.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred to the Information Commissioner reporting to Parliament. At the moment, we do not feel that making the Information Commissioner a parliamentary body is appropriate, because its work does not relate primarily to that of Parliament. My right hon. Friend also expressed concerns that FOI requests and internal reviews perhaps take too long to answer. We will revise the code of practice issued under section 45 of the Act to provide guidance on the time that should be taken to answer requests when the normal 20-day deadline is extended to allow for consideration of the public interest test and internal reviews. We do not believe, however, that the problem is sufficient to justify primary legislation.
The shadow Minister mentioned Network Rail, which is a matter of interest to the Ministry of Justice, the Treasury and the Department for Transport. There is no plan to extend the Act to Network Rail, but the scope of the Act will be kept under review.
The Government published our response to the Committee on 30 November. There is a great deal of work to be done over the coming months to work through the detail of our proposals and to consult where necessary. As that work is in its early stages, it is too soon to provide the further details that the shadow Minister requested this afternoon of the exact changes that we want to make, such as cost-limit and veto policy. However, I reassure him and other right hon. and hon. Members that we do not intend to waste time in taking our plans forward; they will see evidence of that in the coming months.
Sir Alan Beith
One thing that does not need to be tied in heavily with all the other things that the Minister is considering is the provision on university research. How does she hope to take that forward?
Mrs Grant
I am happy to write to my right hon. Friend with the exact detail about how that will be taken forward; he will hear from me shortly.
To conclude, my right hon. Friend Lord McNally said in the other place on 17 January last year that the Freedom of Information Act is
“robust enough to survive rigorous post-legislative scrutiny.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2012; Vol. 734, c. 548.]
The Justice Committee’s measured report on its operation, together with our response, demonstrates the accuracy of his view. As I said at the outset, the Freedom of Information Act has been a success in the accountability that it has brought. It has generally worked well. I believe that it will be further improved and will continue to make a valuable contribution to transparency and accountability.
Sir Alan Beith
I want to respond briefly and thank right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. The effort that we put into the report underlines the fact that Parliament and the Government need to carry out post-legislative scrutiny—and, as I have said, the Government did indeed carry it out for the Act. That is necessary to establish whether the laws that we pass do the job for which we pass them. For years, Parliament hardly ever carried out such scrutiny, but now we do it systematically. It is a good thing, as today’s debate shows, even if the proceedings were distinguished more for their quality than their quantity, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) felicitously put it.
Some important points were raised in the debate. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), my colleague on the Select Committee, made some important points about archiving and archive practice. We shall pursue that matter because the National Archives come under the Ministry of Justice, and therefore the Committee. We shall have further discussions about some of the relevant issues when next we meet representatives of the National Archives.
The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd) has been a doughty fighter for freedom in general and freedom of information in particular, and he raised some interesting points about how the provisions for private contractors can be made to work. All the examples he gave should be covered by freedom of information. The only question is whether the contracting method will work as a way of dealing with them. I am sure that he, as an experienced business man, will recognise certain difficulties: it would seem inappropriate for example, for freedom of information to apply to a company’s deliberations about whether to bid for a contract. That is the company deciding in which direction to take its private sector work. However, once it is engaged on the contract, its quality of service, the disciplinary measures that it uses to maintain that quality, and all such things are freedom of information matters. We should ensure that the contracting arrangement can cover them. If it cannot, we shall have to think again about our approach.
Sir Richard Shepherd
The whole point, though, is of course that it is about the money. For instance, when private contractors bid they would also like to know what their rivals are bidding, and the secrecy behind that process conceals true costs and is not an impetus to competition. That point was made by Tarmac in the original discussions that Rhodri Morgan had long ago in the Justice Committee’s predecessor Committee. Tarmac’s directors were advocating that they wanted their contract details and their costs—in other words, their bidding prices—to be available, because they believed that their competitors were putting in false under-bids that they could not sustain and that would fall on the public purse. That, of course, was their argument, but there are good reasons why that information should be made public.
Sir Alan Beith
We have also seen the implications of all that in areas such as contracting for rail franchises. However, it is a difficult balance to strike: having a healthy private sector, which can also usefully take up Government contracts, and also having a Government mechanism that properly supervises those contracts and ensures that freedom of information requirements are met. We have suggested one approach to strike that balance. We hope that it can be made to work. However, if it does not, then—as the Minister herself conceded—we will have to think again about how we satisfy that fundamental requirement in relation to public services.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) also contributed by way of an intervention, although he is sitting on a Public Bill Committee at the same time. That seems to happen to members of my Committee all the time—the Whips think that members of my Committee are especially valuable members of Public Bill Committees.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, covered some very important points. In particular, he focused on some of the things that the Government have not yet decided. Clearly, as the Minister said, there is a lot of work still to be done. There still seems to be some uncertainty about how committed the Government are to measures that we have indicated may be difficult, but which the Government are interested in in an attempt to deal with what they see as the costs of freedom of information. We will be watching rather carefully this process of discussion that is going on from here, and I hope that the Minister will take very carefully into account all the points that have been made in this debate. On things that have a certain amount of urgency about them—I mention in particular the separate provision to protect university research—I hope that we will not find it necessary to wait for some general further measure in relation to freedom of information if other ways can be found of bringing things forward sooner.
I am most grateful to right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Science, Research and Innovation Capital Investment
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
I am today setting out our plans for spending £600 million as part of our commitment to an industrial strategy for growth.
We have a broad, world-class science and research base in this country and this is clearly demonstrated in the research councils’ impact reports which are being published today. These reports illustrate the benefit to the economy and to society of the funding that we provide for science and research every year.
We identified eight key technologies to invest in, consulting with the research community and the Technology Strategy Board. To support these, the Chancellor announced £600 million of funding, mainly for capital investment, in his autumn statement. We have already announced how £28 million of this capital funding will be used to fund the National Composites Centre and £108 million will support the life science strategy through £38 million for the national biologies industry innovation centre, £20 million for regenerative medicine and £50 million for synthetic biology.
Today I am announcing details of how the remaining funds will be allocated.
£189 million of that funding will support big data. We will allocate a further £25 million to the highly successful National Space Technology Programme.
£45 million will support new facilities and equipment in areas of UK strength in advanced materials, including in high-performance alloys and low-energy electronics. In addition £35 million will create centres of excellence in robotics and autonomous systems in and around universities, innovation centres, science parks and enterprise sites.
£30 million will be allocated to create dedicated research and development facilities to develop and test new grid scale energy storage technologies. £25 million will build the Advanced Measurement Laboratory which will be a state-of-the-art laboratory for cutting-edge measurement research run by the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington.
Finally £65 million will be invested in our excellent research campuses with a further £50 million in transformative equipment and infrastructure to maintain the excellence of our research base.
In addition to this £600 million of capital funds, EPSRC are using existing budgets to make a £350 million investment in a new generation of centres for doctoral training. This is important as without highly skilled individuals in the workforce it will be impossible to bring innovative products and services to market.
I have also launched today a £l million competition funded by the Technology Strategy Board that will accelerate the development of robotics and autonomous systems in the UK.
ANNEX: Table showing breakdown of £600 million autumn statement investment in science and innovation*:
Big data and energy-efficient computing | £189 million |
Synthetic biology | £50 million |
Regenerative medicine | £20 million |
Energy storage | £30 million |
Advanced materials | £45 million |
Robotics and autonomous systems | £35 million |
Research campuses | £65 million |
Transformative equipment and infrastructure | £50 million |
National Composites Centre | £28 million |
Pharmavision | £38 million |
Advanced Metrology Lab | £25 million |
National Space Technology Programme | £25 million |
Total | £600 million |
*Figures in italics are new announcements on 24/1/2013. |
Change of Use: Promoting Regeneration
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
The coalition Government believe that a swift and responsive planning system is vital for delivering sustainable development. We want to promote the use of brownfield land to assist regeneration, and get empty and under-used buildings back into productive use. Using such previously developed land and buildings will help us promote economic growth and still ensure that we safeguard environmentally protected land.
Mary Portas’s review called for the Government to ease the rules surrounding change of use. We agree. We are therefore increasing the scope of permitted development rights in order to facilitate growth.
Commercial to residential
In April 2011, we ran a consultation “Relaxation of planning rules for change of use from commercial to residential” which sought views on introducing permitted development rights for change of use from commercial to residential uses. Following that consultation we included a policy statement within the national planning policy framework to promote change of use.
Complementing this policy change, in the written ministerial statement of 6 September 2012, Official Report, column 34WS, I announced the introduction of permitted development rights to enable change of use from commercial to residential purposes. These new permitted development rights build on the policy set out in the national planning policy framework and will encourage developers to bring underused offices back into effective use as houses for local residents.
The new permitted development rights allow change of use from B1 (a) offices to C3 residential. They will provide badly needed homes for local people and will make a valuable contribution to easing our national housing shortage. By bringing underused offices back into effective use they will also help create jobs in the construction and services industries, and help regenerate our town centres and former commercial areas. These new homes will bring a greater resident population to our high streets, increasing footfall and supporting local shops.
In line with best practice on public policy, there will be a sunset clause, limiting the changes to three years and a review of the benefits from the policy at that point. This will provide Parliament with the opportunity to extend the policy indefinitely should it wish.
We recognise that, as with all permitted development rights, there may be unique local circumstances which should be taken into account. The chief planner is today writing to local planning authorities giving them the opportunity to seek a local exemption where this can be justified on economic grounds.
We will only grant an exemption in exceptional circumstances, where local authorities demonstrate clearly that the introduction of these new permitted development rights in a particular local area will lead to (a) the loss of a nationally significant area of economic activity or (b) substantial adverse economic consequences at the local authority level which are not offset by the positive benefits the new rights would bring.
Once local planning authority requests for exemption have been considered, the regulations for the new permitted development rights will be bought forward.
There will be a tightly drawn prior approval process which will cover significant transport and highway impacts, and development in areas of high flood risk, land contamination and safety hazard zones.
Getting redundant agricultural buildings back into use
As part of the 2011 growth review we undertook to review how change of use is handled in the planning system. We ran a consultation “New opportunities for sustainable development and growth through the reuse of existing buildings” in July 2012.
Following that consultation, I can confirm that in order to help promote rural prosperity and job creation, agricultural buildings will be able to convert to a range of other uses, but excluding residential dwellings. There will be a size restriction and for conversions above a set size a prior approval process will be put in place to guard against unacceptable impacts, such as transport and noise.
Flexibility for business uses
To enhance flexibility in the planning system, which can be vital when a quick response is necessary to support business growth, we will increase the thresholds for permitted development rights for change of use between business/office (B1) and warehouse (B8) classes and from general industry (B2) to B1 and B8 from 235 m2 to 500 m2.
Getting empty town centre buildings back into use
To create opportunities for new and start-up businesses and help retain the viability and vitality of our town centres, we will allow a range of buildings to convert temporarily to a set of alternative uses including shops (Al), financial and professional services (A2), restaurants and cafes (A3) and offices (B1) for up to two years.
We will continue to keep the operation of the use classes system under review to ensure it is as flexible as possible and promotes sustainable development. We are working to amend regulations as soon as possible and will publish a detailed summary of responses to the consultation shortly. A copy of the associated chief planner’s letter has been placed in the Library of the House.
Sporting Legacy
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
I would like to update the House on progress with delivering the Government’s 10-point sports legacy action plan (my statement of 18 September 2012). This plan is a key part of the wider Olympic and Paralympic legacy programme being delivered by Government and its partners.
Since my last report, the December 2012 active people survey has reported that 15.5 million people aged 16 and over are playing sport at least once a week. That is 750,000 more than a year ago and 1.57 million more than when London won the Olympic and Paralympic bid.
Elite Sport
Elite Funding
In December, UK Sport announced £347 million funding to support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes prepare for the Rio 2016 games. This is an overall increase of 11% on the funding available for London 2012 (5% increase to Olympic sports and 43% to Paralympic sports). This record investment of Exchequer and lottery funding will be used to achieve our ambition to become the first host nation to win more medals at the next games.
World Class Facilities
The Olympic park was handed over to the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) on 27 November 2012. Good progress is being made on the transformation of the site.
In preparation for the reopening in July 2013, six of the eight park venues already have new operators in place. The LLDC has approved a deal between iCITY, the preferred bidder for the long-term lease of the press and broadcast centre, and BT, who will become the anchor tenant, using the facility to house its new BT sport channels. The project is expected to generate around 250 jobs as part of iCITY’s plans to turn the buildings into a world leading technology cluster, creating around 4,000 jobs.
An agreement was signed this month between the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and Moirai Capital Investments for the relocation of a shooting enclosure from the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, where it was used during the games, for use by the Paignton Rifle Club within a proposed sports development for Torbay council.
Further information on the relocation of other relocatable structures will be included in my next update.
Major Sports Events
Since the games, the UK has already successfully delivered:
UCI World Track Cycling Cup (Glasgow) | 2012 |
Gymnastics World Cup (Glasgow) | 2012 |
Since my written statement of 18 September, we have won the right to host the following major sports events in the UK:
BWF Premier Super Series Badminton (Birmingham) | 2013 |
FINA Diving World Series (Edinburgh) | 2013 |
Canoe Slalom World Series (Cardiff) | 2013 |
Gymnastics World Cup (Glasgow) | 2013 |
Wheelchair Tennis Masters (London) | 2014-16 |
IPC World Athletics Championships (London) | 2017 |
Community
Places People Play
Sport England has increased the funding for Places People Play by £15 million to £150 million.
Further investments include: another new large scale multi-sports facility, bringing the total to 13; a further 310 community sports facility projects, bringing the total to 1,042 (exceeding the 1,000 target 12 months ahead of schedule); and a further 54 playing fields have been protected and improved, bringing the total to 163.
An additional 16,786 Sport Makers have been recruited, bringing the current total to 38,957.
The Sportivate programme has given 140,555 young people the chance to try new sports, an increase of 41,686 since September.
Youth Sport Strategy (Whole Sport Plans)
Sport England announced their £493 million whole sport plan funding package for national governing bodies which will be used to continue to drive up participation, particularly among young people, and is given on a payment-for-results basis.
They have launched the following strands of the strategy: £40 million Community Sport Activation Fund for community organisations, charities and local authorities; £25 million College Sport Makers scheme, putting sport organisers into colleges; and £6.9 million Get on Track, the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust initiative to help disadvantaged young people develop life skills though sport; £5 million Get Healthy, Get into Sport to improve participation among those currently least active.
One hundred new Satellite Clubs, which bridge the gap between playing sport in school and in local community clubs, have been created, bringing the total to around 450.
Door Step Clubs are working with StreetGames to create sustainable clubs for young people in disadvantaged areas. They are currently in a £0.5 million pilot phase, due to report in March.
Join In
Join In will be receiving additional funding in 2013 to encourage people to participate in local sport and volunteer in their community, and will soon be announcing their plans to build on the success of last year’s 6,000 events.
School Sport
School Games
As of 15 January, 16,028 schools had registered to take part in the Sainsbury’s school games. In November, over 1,500 schools were rewarded with a school games kitemark (70 of which were gold level awards) in recognition of their commitment to increasing school sport and competition. Sheffield will host the next national finals in September 2013.
In November, school games athletes from across the UK competed in the Brazilian school games, winning 24 medals—16 of which were gold.
PE/School Sport
The Department for Education is responsible for school sport policy and is currently working on plans to improve school sport further. DCMS is working closely with the DFE to ensure our plans leave a lasting legacy of the London 2012 games. An announcement is expected in due course.
Disability Sport Legacy
Disability Sport
The number of disabled people playing sport has risen from 1.32 million in 2005-06 to 1.68 million in 2012. The 2012 figure is 65,000 higher than last year.
Paralympic funding was increased by 43%, to a record £70.2 million. In addition, 40 NGBs have detailed plans to make sport a practical choice for disabled people. Each of them will have specific targets to get more disabled people taking part.
In December, Sport England announced grants totalling £10.2 million from its “Inclusive Sport Fund” to 44 disability sport projects. In addition, the £l million “Active Kids for All” initiative was launched, promoting the inclusion of disabled children in PE and sport within mainstream schools by training PE teachers, and the “Battle Back Centre” in Lilleshall was opened to help the recovery of injured service people.
A Paralympic Legacy Advisory Group has been established to help drive Paralympic legacy forward and champion integrated Paralympic/disability-related legacy work across the Government and GLA’s legacy programme.
International Development
Work to bring together the International Inspiration Foundation (IIF) and International Development through Sport (IDS) charities is progressing as planned. The first meeting of the new merged charity is due to take place in February.
An interim evaluation report produced by Ecorys, published in November 2012, gives some very promising indications of the success of international inspiration, which has:
Trained 124,896 individuals as practitioners across 20 countries, including 28,530 young leaders;
Created 180 safe spaces for sport in five countries;
Overall, engaged and reached at least 11 million children and young people.
I will continue to provide quarterly updates to the House on progress with delivery of this plan.
Adoption
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
Today I am launching a new adoption strategy and announcing a package of funding for the adoption system.
“Further Action on Adoption” describes the national crisis in adopter recruitment and puts forward the Government’s proposals for addressing it in the short and long term. Copies of this document have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The number of children approved by the courts for adoption has been rising steeply, with no comparable increase in the number of adopters approved. We have identified some significant structural weaknesses which undermine the effectiveness of the adopter recruitment and approval system. These weaknesses must be addressed swiftly and decisively in the interests of a significant and sustainable increase in the number of adopters. We are therefore proposing to take a new legislative power at the earliest opportunity. This would allow the Secretary of State to require local authorities to seek approved adopters from other organisations.
If necessary, we will use that power to reform the adopter recruitment system. However, we recognise that this is a radical step. If local authorities are able to bring forward alternative proposals that would deliver a similarly radical shift in the system’s capacity, then we will not need to use this power.
We want to see the system reformed for the long term, but we need short-term action too for children in the system now. So today I am announcing that the £150 million early intervention grant top-slice, which the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government confirmed in announcing the local government settlement for 2013-14, will be returned in full to local authorities in the form of the adoption reform grant. This funding will help to secure reform of the adoption system. The adoption reform grant will be in two parts: £100 million of the £150 million will not be ring-fenced and will be available to local authorities to support adoption reform. It will enable local authorities to target funding at the entire adoption process and the specialist support children need. They will retain the discretion to use this funding to address their highest priority needs, such as the major backlog of children waiting for adoption.
The remaining £50 million will be ring-fenced. It will support local authorities to address structural problems with adopter recruitment, particularly the uneconomic fee that local authorities are charged for adopters approved by other authorities which is lower than that charged by voluntary adoption agencies. It will also help in the search for adopters willing and able to take children who are more difficult to place, and so tend to wait longer for new homes.
I have consulted local government to develop the details of this grant to maximise the impact of this funding, so that it reflects the challenges faced by local authorities and has a transformative effect on adoption services. Details of the formulae and allocations will be sent to authorities shortly.
I am also pleased to announce a new £1 million grant to the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies to enable it to pump-prime local voluntary adoption agencies to recruit more adopters. This grant will be available from February 2013 and will make it easier for agencies to take more innovative and collaborative approaches to adopter recruitment. Taken together, these measures should have an immediate impact on the capacity of the system to recruit and approve the adopters so urgently needed.
Adoption can give some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our society a far better chance of successful outcomes as they grow up. We are implementing a broad programme of reform to help ensure that all children for whom it is appropriate are adopted as swiftly as possible. We now need urgently to find more adopters to meet the needs of the growing backlog of children waiting for adoption and we need to provide them with effective support to help them do so. Today’s announcement will support short-term action and longer-term systemic change to help achieve that objective.
Informal Justice and Home Affairs Council
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)
The Informal Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council was held on 17 and 18 January in Dublin. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice and I attended on behalf of the United Kingdom. The following items were discussed.
The first plenary session of the interior day focused on migration for growth. The Commission supported the presidency’s paper noting the legal instruments currently being negotiated and the forthcoming legal migration directive on students and researchers. The UK outlined our successful efforts to reduce net migration while attracting the brightest and best, including in the student sector. A number of member states highlighted the need to ensure effective matching of migrants to jobs, tackling abuse and support for national populations to fill skill shortages.
Next, Greece updated the Council on progress on its action plan on asylum and migration. Greece reiterated the need for European solidarity in this area. The Commission stood ready to assist Greece, but asked that all member states consider how they could contribute. The UK noted the improved border management at the land border with Turkey but also the significance of the task. The UK committed to look at what more could be done and invited others to do the same. The presidency concluded that implementation of the action plan should now be of the highest priority and that the Council would return to the issue.
During lunch Ministers received an update from key agencies on the situation in Syria. Delegations expressed concern and continued to emphasise the importance of protection being provided in the region. On 21 December the UK announced £15 million in new humanitarian funding for the crisis, bringing our total contribution to £68.5 million.
In the plenary session on internal security and growth, Europol noted that citizens were coming into closer proximity with organised crime as the black economy grew. The latter had an impact on competitiveness. Europol would assess this in the next serious and organised crime threat assessment. Europol was, in particular, seeking to bolster its financial intelligence capacity and encouraged member states to do the same. The Commission noted the importance of tackling money laundering and seizing criminal profits and drew attention to: the directive on the confiscation of assets, the 4th money laundering directive, the directive on the protection of financial interests (PIF), and the upcoming anti-corruption package. Member states generally supported the presidency’s analysis of the links between internal security and economic growth.
Next the presidency explained its intention to hold an annual national missing persons day on 4 December. This would be complementary to the international missing children’s day held in May. The presidency said they would write to colleagues to seek views as to whether this should become an EU missing persons day.
The presidency scheduled an additional item to discuss the emerging situation in Algeria following the taking of hostages at the In Amenas gas plant the previous day. The presidency concluded that the security situation in the Sahel/Mali would be discussed at the March JHA Council with a focus on security issues arising for member states.
Next there was an update from Bulgaria on the Bourgas attack in July which killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver. The UK highlighted that if the Bulgarian evidence suggested the military wing of Hizballah was behind the attack, the EU must consider the designation of Hizballah’s military wing under the EU’s common position 931 terrorist asset-freezing regime.
Justice day began with the Commission presenting their package on insolvency which forms part of their “Justice for Growth” programme. They stated that the broadened scope would assist companies across Europe having greater access to a “second chance”. The European Parliamen t supported the proposal and the idea of partial harmonisation of insolvency law. The UK supported the proposals as being the type of measure that would support the functioning of the single market measure and the objective of allowing business a second chance when they fall into difficulty.
The presidency invited the head of the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau to present on Irelands proceeds of crime act and the Criminal Assets Bureau information exchange function. The presentation majored on the importance of civil procedure in asset confiscation.
The Council then discussed three issues relating to data protection: the household exemption, the right to be forgotten, and sanctions. The Commission explained the working of the regulation on all three points and argued that the right to be forgotten was not incompatible with the freedom of expression and that processing for journalistic or historic purposes were specifically allowed. The UK supported a broader household exemption than in the Commission proposal and advocated the use of a risk-based approach. The UK also supported appropriate deletion rights for data subjects, but voiced concern about unachievable expectations in the “right to be forgotten” and felt that the starting point should be the current directive. The UK thought national supervisory authorities should be given greater discretion in deciding sanctions. The UK called for the text to return to Ministers before any mandate with the European Parliament was agreed in Council. Many member states expressed support for the direction of work proposed by the Irish presidency, including a broader household exemption, a more practicable implementation of the right to be forgotten and a simpler and flexible sanctions regime.
Over lunch the presidency highlighted the need to address racism and xenophobia at political level, inviting the fundamental rights agency to present on their latest reports.
New Stations Fund
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
I am pleased to inform the House that Network Rail is launching today the new stations fund, which will help towards the capital cost of opening brand new railway stations in England and Wales.
This fund will provide up to £20 million of additional funding to projects which are ready to be brought quickly into use for the benefit of passengers and the economy.
The Government are committed to improving the railways. Opening new stations can provide a boost to the economy and deliver longer-term benefits through improved access to the rail network and better connectivity for passengers.
Proposed new stations must already be at an advanced stage of development and be supported by the local authority, train operating companies and Network Rail. The £20 million fund will contribute towards the cost of scheme construction but bidders must also have available a portion of funding towards the project themselves.
Applications for funds will be assessed by a cross-industry panel. Because this fund is designed to support station proposals which are already well developed, we expect bids to be received by the end of February 2013 with a recommendation from the panel before the end of March 2013.
Operational Freedoms at Heathrow
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Simon Burns)
Today I am announcing that the Government’s trial of operational freedoms at Heathrow airport will be ending a month earlier than scheduled, on 28 February 2013.
As the availability of the freedoms was staggered during phase 2, the early completion to the trial will be achieved by bringing forward specific tests scheduled for the final month of the trial into February, which will accommodate the space left behind by the early morning arrivals freedom being inoperable during the trial period.
I have sought advice from the UK’s aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is overseeing the trial and has confirmed that the rescheduling of these tests will not affect the quality of the evidence obtained. The revised end date will enable the overall analysis of the trial to begin sooner and support the Government’s objective, as announced in the autumn statement, to bring forward the consultation and final decisions by Ministers on whether an operational freedoms regime of some form should be adopted on a more permanent basis at Heathrow. I will make a further announcement on this in due course.