House of Commons

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

Thursday 17 October 2013

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to help households with their energy bills.

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

6. What steps he is taking to help households with their energy bills.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

18. What steps he is taking to help households with their energy bills.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to group this question with several others.

I am taking many steps to help, which come under three broad categories—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the Secretary of State is seeking to group this question with Questions 6 and 18. I understand the concept of the broad brush, but it can be taken a bit far. We need greater specificity.

[Mr Davey]

As always, I am very grateful for your advice, Mr Speaker, as I am sure the House is, too.

I will start again. I am taking many steps to help households with their energy bills. Those steps come under three broad categories: first, direct help for millions of people, with money off their bills and money to help to pay their bills, through the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments; secondly, energy efficiency, to help people to cut their bills by wasting less energy, through the energy company obligation, the green deal and smart meters; and thirdly, competition. I am intervening to make electricity and gas markets in the UK ever more competitive, so that energy companies cannot exploit people through market power.

[Ian Lucas]

Does the Secretary of State think that SSE’s proposed increase of 8.2% is reasonable?

[Mr Davey]

Of course I am disappointed by energy companies that are putting up their prices. The key thing is competition, and we in this Government have pushed competition hard. The big six were the creation of the last Government, when we saw the number of companies reduced. Under this Government, competition is increasing. I would urge people who are disappointed by increases from their energy company to shop around and switch, because there are some very good deals out there.

[Mrs Glindon]

Last week the Prime Minister said that Labour had definitely “struck a chord” on energy prices and that

“There’s a certain amount you can do freezing prices,”

so will the Minister freeze prices, which will benefit more than 47,000 households in my constituency?

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Lady was obviously not at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, because the Prime Minister called it a con, and he is right. Labour’s energy price freeze is a con. Let me explain to the Opposition why it is a con, because when people see a politician promising something for nothing, they do not believe them. The policy cannot control prices before Labour’s price freeze and it cannot control prices after it, so energy companies are likely to hike prices before and after. Consumers will be worse off as a result of such a measure.

[Ian Lavery]

Energy bills have already risen by £300 and are set to increase by perhaps another £100 this year. In my constituency, more than 36,000 people would benefit if the Government took action to freeze bills this year, which could save up to £120 per household. Why will the Government not stop defending the big six companies and other companies, and get on the side of the consumers and help them out this winter?

[Mr Davey]

We are on the side of the consumer, because we are promoting competition. The hon. Gentleman and his party, through their price freeze, will hurt competition. Let me explain it to him. Whereas we have seen companies entering the market under this Government, a price freeze would hurt small suppliers. If he doubts my word, he should listen to the small suppliers themselves. Nigel Cornwall, of the Energy Suppliers Forum, says that Labour’s policy

“ignores real progress made in increasing competition in the market over recent years”.

Small suppliers do not like Labour’s policy because they know it would hurt consumers.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that nobody suffers more than consumers in rural areas that are off grid? The ECO system was supposed to ensure that 15% of the funding went to upgrade hard-to-reach homes in rural areas, but the evidence on the ground is that the big six are unwilling to assist with supplying new oil-fired liquefied petroleum gas boilers. Given that energy bills are more than 50% higher in off-grid areas, will he raise the issue with the energy companies and ensure that all households can receive help?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting question. Almost all aspects of the energy company obligation are working well, but the rural sub-obligation—the bit he is referring to—is not working so well, and we are looking at how it can be improved.

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

The Opposition want to have their cake and eat it. They say they want to decarbonise the energy market, yet they also say they do not want people to pay for it. Can my right hon. Friend bring some reality and honesty to the argument and tell us how we decarbonise the economy while at the same time trying to keep costs to consumers to a minimum?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Energy Bill and electricity market reform do just that. He may be interested to know that we have today asked the Leader of the Opposition 10 questions about Labour’s policy. If we look at it, we not only find that it is a con that will reduce competition and hurt the small suppliers, but that it will hurt investment, too, which is needed to keep energy security and to decarbonise. Labour’s policy is economically illiterate.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

SSE’s 8.2% average price increase—we should remember that some people have to pay more than that—is unacceptable when the company is boasting on its website about the large dividends it pays out to its shareholders every year. I see competition as the answer. Will my right hon. Friend tell my constituents what concrete steps are being taken to improve competition and when they will be able to have a much wider choice than they have at the moment?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When big energy companies make these high price rises, I would urge all their customers to look at the competition available. There is a lot of choice out there. In fact, there is far more choice than there has been for a long time—possibly ever. The last Government killed choice and reduced competition; under this Government, we have seen a big increase.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

Let me tell the Secretary of State that if Labour is elected, our price freeze will happen, and if companies collude to increase prices beforehand, we will take action. The right hon. Gentleman is the one in government, so if companies try to hike up their prices beyond anything that can be justified before 2015, will he stop them—yes or no?

[Mr Davey]

We will help customers to get the best deals. The right hon. Lady knows that. She knows that on the current market, customers can get much better deals than those offered by the big six. She knows that the number of small suppliers has increased. She knows that in 2011 there were no independent suppliers with more than 50,000 customers. Thanks to our policies, there are now three with more than 100,000 and a further seven companies have entered the market in the last two years. That is the choice; that is the solution: people can cut their bills significantly by changing supplier.

[Caroline Flint]

There you have it, Mr Speaker: every single time, this Government put the energy companies before consumers. According to figures from the House of Commons Library, energy prices are rising three times faster under this Government than under the last Labour Government. Our price freeze will save money for 27 million households and 2.4 million businesses while we reset the market. It is the right hon. Gentleman’s policy that is a con; he says everyone will be put on the cheapest tariff, but is it not a fact that 90% of people will see no benefit from his policy at all?

[Mr Davey]

Millions are seeing benefits from our policy of competition. The right hon. Lady has made a very interesting point today. In response to our charge that Labour’s policy is a con, because energy companies could push up bills beforehand and after, she said that Labour would take action if they do. Does that mean that she is going to introduce full price regulation? Is Labour now promising that, because that is the implication of what she said?

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

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

16. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

For the first time ever, the UK now has a national energy efficiency strategy. This is something no Government have put in place before. Helping to cut energy bills is at the heart of this drive through the green deal, energy company obligation, electricity market reform, smart meter roll-out and support for innovation, research and development. They all demonstrate the Government’s determination to drive unprecedented investment into energy efficiency.

[Alex Cunningham]

I think that just 25 people have benefited from the green deal in my constituency so far, but thousands of people across Stockton-on-Tees could have warmer homes thanks to a tremendous project to externally clad their homes run by the borough council and deliverer partner, Go Warm. This has attracted £20 million of investment and 300 jobs. Sadly, a legal judgment means that BT is the only company that can remove the eyelets that support the wires in the houses that are benefiting from the scheme. This is slowing the programme down because of insufficient resources to do the work in a reasonable time. Will the Minister please intervene, tell BT to get its act together, get the work done more quickly and give my constituents the warmth they deserve?

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Gentleman raises a legitimate point about BT. I will certainly look at this in more detail and would be happy to meet him to discuss it. We want to press ahead. We have an ambitious efficiency programme, which is led by the energy company obligation. We believe that through a combination of the ECO and the green deal, nearly 250,000 people will have seen their homes improve by Christmas.

[Ann McKechin]

Fuel poverty is increasing, but the amount of money spent on energy efficiency programmes directed at the fuel poor has decreased by 50% since 2010. Is it not time that the Minister changed his priorities?

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Lady seems to be confusing the record of the coalition with that of the last Government. During the last Parliament, fuel poverty rose in every single year; under the coalition, it has fallen in every year. [Interruption.] The definition has not been changed yet. It will be changed next year, on a cross-party basis.

We still have a great deal to do, but this Government are rolling up their sleeves and making a difference, unlike the last Government. They had the chance to deal with fuel poverty, but it rose in every single year of the last Parliament.

[Luciana Berger]

The Government forecast that the green deal and the energy company obligation would create 60,000 jobs, but earlier this year the Insulation Industry Forum confirmed that more than 4,000 jobs had been lost during the transition to the ECO. Just the other week, Carillion, a leading green deal provider, was forced to announce a restructuring that is expected to lead to further job losses in the green deal sector. That is a disaster for the workers who are affected, for their families, and for our low-carbon industry. Can the Minister confirm the number of people who have lost their jobs since the scheme was launched, and can he explain why this is happening?

[Gregory Barker]

We are certainly seeing a change in the industry, and we expect to see a structural change. New companies are now entering the market. The growth that we are seeing is not in the big energy companies created by the last Labour Government, but in the small and medium-sized enterprises, the independents and entrepreneurs who are being championed by the coalition. The ECO is helping more than 215,000 households, and we expect it—in combination with other measures—to enable nearly a quarter of a million homes to benefit from insulation, and from a range of new products that were not available before, by the end of the year.

[Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that fuel poverty would be worsened if the cost of the capital required for the billions of pounds of new investment rose because of heightened political risk associated with the United Kingdom? Indeed, is that not exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has achieved? Surely his comments will make fuel poverty worse.

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend, who has huge experience in these matters, is absolutely right. Labour’s policy would scorch investment. According to an analysis by Cornwall Energy, which leads the monthly forum for independent energy companies, Labour’s policy is “wrong”, and

“based on imperfect information, flawed assumptions and emotion, which will cost the consumer dearly. There are at least five significant problems with it.”

Labour’s policy would indeed have an impact on the cost of capital and on investment, and consumers—particularly vulnerable consumers—would be left to pick up the pieces.

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

A report by Anna Walker did a huge amount to improve energy and water efficiency. What are the Government doing to educate people, and to advise them not to heat water beyond what they use and to become more energy and water-efficient?

[Gregory Barker]

Any green deal assessment will feature a number of recommendations. We have found that people are very pleased with their assessments. More than 80,000 people have had a green deal survey, and 81% said that as a result of a survey they had taken action, would be taking action or were currently taking action, while 72% said that they were recommending the green deal to their friends. It is still early days, but the green deal, with its range of measures from handy tips to big structural changes in homes, is the way forward.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I have been contacted by a pensioner constituent whose annual heating bill is £700. He lives in a terraced house in the middle of Kettering with a solid wall that requires external insulation and rendering. He has been in touch with 17 local companies, and has been told that he must pay between £4,000 and £15,000 to get the work done and that the green deal is not available to help with that type of work. Can the Minister please advise?

[Gregory Barker]

That is very puzzling, because the ECO, which is designed to complement the green deal, has exactly that sort of consumer in mind. I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss his constituent and see how we can help.

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

During the passage of the Energy Bill I raised with the Minister the way that the Government’s policy on simplifying tariffs is resulting in some customers paying more. Ofgem’s recommendation of the reintroduction of standing charges is resulting in some customers who are energy-efficient, increasing, rather than lowering, their bills. That cannot be right. Why cannot the Government look into it?

[Gregory Barker]

I am sorry, but I did not catch all of the hon. Gentleman’s question. He raises a serious point, however, and I will be very happy to talk to him in more detail about our tariff plans. This is a Government who are taking real action to simplify tariffs, to get on the side of the consumer and to deliver better value for money after years of inactivity and inaction under the last Labour Government.

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

Because this Government will not stand up to the energy companies, Ministers in other Departments are clearly eyeing up the ECO scheme that funds energy-saving measures as a short-term, although counter-productive, way to reduce bills, but is not the poor running of the ECO scheme by Ministers what has made it so vulnerable? It is too bureaucratic, it is not geographically focused and it does not prioritise the genuinely fuel-poor. What is the Minister going to do to sort it out?

[Gregory Barker]

First, may I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post? I am not sure whether he is the 10th or 11th member of the Labour party I have had opposite me on the Labour Front-Bench, but I hope he has a long stay on the Opposition Front-Bench—a very long stay indeed.

The hon. Gentleman’s criticisms of the ECO are misplaced. I am not saying it is perfect, and as we go forward we will always look to improve the scheme, but, as I said earlier, we anticipate that between 215,000 and 230,000 homes will be helped by the ECO by Christmas this year—that is nearly a quarter of a million families benefiting from warmer homes and cheaper bills. I will be very happy to organise a briefing for the hon. Gentleman, so next time he can, perhaps, come to questions a little better prepped.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

4. What progress he has made on encouraging investment in new nuclear power.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)]

The Government are committed to securing the right conditions for investment in new nuclear power in the UK. This is the first nuclear programme in a generation and it is progressing well, with projects to build new power plants moving forward with EDF, Horizon Nuclear Power and NuGen. Between them, those projects involve plans to develop at least 12 new reactors on five different sites.

[Mr Jones]

My constituents are extremely concerned about future energy prices and continuity of supply. With one fifth of UK generating capacity due to come offline within the next decade, does the Minister agree that we need to bring forward this new nuclear capacity as a matter of extreme urgency?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes, I do. We are living with the legacy of 13 wasted years in which absolutely nothing was done to replace our ageing nuclear stations. Under this coalition Government plans are now progressing, as I said, and we have every prospect of 12 new reactors on five separate sites.

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

The Minister will know that I am not a convert to nuclear power, but I accept that the coalition Government have done a deal that says there will be no nuclear power that has public subsidy—so public subsidy will not be provided. How is the Government’s position reconcilable with an application for derogation from the EU rules on state aid?

[Michael Fallon]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s predecessor set out to this House the circumstances in which support would be offered for the new nuclear technology we are negotiating on with EDF in respect of Hinkley C. When we conclude those negotiations—which I hope we will do very shortly—we will, of course, report the details of the investment contract to the House. I also note that the party of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is now a supporter of nuclear power.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Minister may be aware that when Hinkley Point C comes onstream it will produce as much electricity in a year as every single onshore and offshore wind turbine we currently have. Given that, will he assure the House that there will not be a further 10-year delay in respect of future nuclear stations?

[Michael Fallon]

Nuclear power is a very important part of our energy mix and of our future energy security, which makes it all the more criminal that nothing was done for the long, long period of the Labour Government to replace the nuclear stations that are coming offline in the late 2020s and 2030s.

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

5. What recent assessment he has made of the competitiveness of the UK energy market.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

I keep the competitiveness of the UK energy market under constant review and have acted to make it more competitive. In retail markets, where companies are supplying customers, we have acted by deregulating to increase the number of suppliers and by reforming bills and tariffs. In wholesale markets, where companies are selling power they are generating to suppliers, Ofgem measures and measures in the Energy Bill will boost competition and market access for independent generators across the UK.

[Chi Onwurah]

Npower told my constituent Alan Gowers, a pensioner, that his tariff was ending and his new one would be 50% more expensive. SSE estimated that my spend would go up by 10% and so it tripled my direct debits. I have worked in competition regulation for six years and I can tell the Secretary of State that this is not a competitive market. When a market is not functioning—when it is fuelling a cost of living crisis—do a Government who stand up for people not intervene?

[Mr Davey]

We are intervening, because the market we inherited from the previous Government was not as competitive as it should have been. Before Labour’s previous energy market reforms, there were three generators and 14 suppliers—17 companies—but after those reforms the number went down to six, so Labour reduced competition. Labour is the party of the big six. This coalition Government have acted to make sure that we have competition to take on the big six, so the hon. Lady should speak to her Front Benchers because Labour is the party of non-competitive energy markets—the party of the big six—whereas our coalition Government are taking on the big six.

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

As part of the competition assessment, the Secretary of State could do worse than visit the workers at Ineos at Grangemouth, who supply the energy needs for the whole of Scotland and, indeed, the north of England, and whose jobs are now under threat from a belligerent employer that has walked away from talks with the trade unions and, more seriously, is now demanding taxpayers’ money in order to invest in the company.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question. I hope he will be reassured by the fact that I have spoken personally both to key Unite trade union leaders and to Ineos. We persuaded them to go into ACAS talks. I regret that those talks have broken down, but I urge both parties to resume them and try to resolve this situation without industrial dispute. May I take this opportunity to say that, working with the Scottish Government and industry, we have done everything we can to make sure that if there is a dispute, the fuel will flow through Scotland’s economy?

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

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) gave two of the many examples that hon. Members could give of how the retail energy market is not working in the interests of households or businesses. Ensuring that all power trading is on an open exchange and stopping companies selling power to themselves at secret prices, as we are proposing, will reset the market, encourage other entrants and ensure that people know why they are paying what they are paying. Will the Minister confirm the speculation in The Times at the weekend that his Government will shortly perform a welcome U-turn and adopt our proposal to introduce a pool that will bring clarity, fairness and transparency to the UK retail energy market?

[Mr Davey]

No, we will not, because we have got a much better policy. Working with Ofgem and in the Energy Bill, as the hon. Gentleman ought to know now, we are tackling the real problem in the wholesale market—a problem that the previous Labour Government completely failed to deal with. Interestingly, Labour’s new policy reverses the policy that Labour implemented in government —talk about confused; never have an Opposition been so confused in their policies.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

7. What progress has been made on exploratory drilling in Balcombe, West Sussex.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

The licence holder, Cuadrilla, has drilled a well, including a horizontal section, in accordance with the planning permission granted by West Sussex county council, to explore for oil. Apart from the scrutiny by the planning authority, the proposals were subject to scrutiny by the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and my Department to ensure that the operations are safe and that the environment is protected.

[Nicholas Soames]

My right hon. Friend will know that Balcombe lies in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), who, as a Cabinet Minister, is unable to ask parliamentary questions. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the exploratory drilling at Balcombe was, as he said, subject to the most rigorous monitoring and regulation, that further detailed regulatory approvals would be needed before fracking could take place and that the recovery of these valuable energy resources will not override the need for local residents’ understandable concerns to be heard and registered?

[Mr Davey]

My right hon. Friend will know that I have spoken to our right hon. Friend about that. We have also ensured that the regulatory regime applying not just to west Sussex but across the country is as tough as any regulatory regime anywhere in the world and we keep it under review to ensure that it remains that tough. He might be interested to learn that the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), as Energy Minister, will meet west Sussex MPs next week to discuss the issue.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

8. What proportion of UK energy demand is met by renewable sources.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

In 2012, under the measure used for the 2009 EU renewable energy directive, renewable sources contributed 4.1% of gross final energy consumption. In terms of renewable electricity, however, the share of overall generation has more than doubled in the last three years, from 6% in the second quarter of 2010, when the Labour party left government, to 15.5% in the second quarter of 2013.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I welcome that answer from my right hon. Friend. Alstom in my constituency supplies component parts for turbines used in tidal lagoons, such as those proposed by Tidal Lagoon Power, a consortium of which Alstom is a member. What is my right hon. Friend doing to support such tidal projects, which generate clean electricity and provide critical base load energy?

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend will know that this Government have put much greater emphasis on driving forward the efforts to develop the potential for marine energy around our shoreline. We have created two marine energy parks to do that. Tidal lagoon is a very interesting technology. The project in Swansea is at a pre-planning application stage, so I cannot give a specific answer on that project, but we are interested in working on research and development to drive the technology forward.

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

I do not know whether the Minister is as early a riser as I am, but on “Farming Today” there was a poor farmer who had been encouraged by a £1 million grant to grow willow and miscanthus. There is no market for it, nor great storage for it, so what kind of policy is that? Will the Minister listen to that programme, even if he has to listen to it on iPlayer, and do something about farmers who are trying to contribute to renewable energy?

[Gregory Barker]

A poor farmer with a £1 million grant seems a slight oxymoron, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is making a real point. I will happily look into the programme he mentions, but I regularly meet the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association and a range of stakeholders with an interest in bioenergy. We are making great progress under this Government and picking up the slack left by the last.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is wittering away from a sedentary position and meanwhile the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) is chuntering about the merits of cricket bats. I have not yet had the pleasure of observing the right hon. Gentleman bat, but I feel sure that that delight awaits me in due course.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

If The Times is correct that the nuclear industry will receive twice the wholesale price for electricity, what are the implications for renewable energy, and does that mean that we can continue to grow the sector?

[Gregory Barker]

The thing about this Government’s energy policy is that we want a range of technologies. Energy security will come from diversity, and we are committed to driving forward the nuclear programme in a way that the previous Labour Government did not, but not to the exclusion or detriment of significant investment in a range of other technologies, including, importantly, renewables and energy efficiency.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

What are the Government doing to ensure that the investment in the renewable industry paid for by UK taxpayers and UK energy bill payers results in jobs in the UK, not jobs elsewhere?

[Gregory Barker]

That is a very good question. We are doing a great deal more than the previous Government. The London Array, for example, was a fantastic installation, but it is a shame that 80% of it was constructed and contracted abroad. We now have an industrial strategy. We are working in partnership with the industry to establish, mobilise and grow a supply chain here in the UK. Only if we have a really vibrant UK supply chain is the roll-out of renewables at scale genuinely sustainable.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to promote competition in European energy markets.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)]

The Government strongly support a competitive and better connected energy market across Europe. Increased competition can put downward pressure on energy prices in the long term and help us maintain secure supplies. We are involved in a number of areas to drive competition, including the development of EU-wide market rules, regional infrastructure initiatives and cross-border projects, including more interconnectors.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that expansive answer. Does the Minister agree that, in contrast to Labour’s energy price con, the Government’s focus on more competition through the single market by enhancing the role of energy within that market is right?

[Michael Fallon]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I could not have put it better. I shall be pursuing these issues later this afternoon in Brussels in the Commission.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Why have the Government failed to include interconnection with Europe as part of the capacity payment arrangements that they recently announced as part of the DECC implementation programme?

[Michael Fallon]

We have not ruled that out for the second stage. A number of proposals have been put to us for new interconnectors, and we are looking at each of them.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

As a result of weak competition and ineffective regulation, electricity prices in Britain—according to the Department’s own figures—are the sixth highest in the EU15, the third highest in the G7 and almost 20% above the EU15 and G7 average. The Minister will know that energy bills are the second biggest cost that businesses face, and that ever higher prices cost jobs and deter investment. Why will he not support Labour’s policy to stop unfair price rises by freezing energy bills until January 2017, saving the average business some £1,800, and reform the energy market to reintroduce competition and rebuild trust?

[Michael Fallon]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new responsibilities. I think that the prices she quoted were pre-tax rather than post-tax, but the answer is simple—to bear down on prices, we need more competition. The Labour party left us with the big six. It started with 14 retailers; we ended up with the big six. The answer is more competition, easier switching and ensuring that the most vulnerable people are placed on the lowest possible tariff.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of support for offshore and onshore wind energy.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of government subsidy for onshore wind farms.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)]

Support for onshore and offshore wind projects is provided under the renewables obligation and, from next year, under contracts for difference. Support rates take account of the costs of each technology, and are intended to be sufficient to support delivery of our renewable energy and carbon reduction targets, while minimising costs to consumers.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful for that reply. I hope that the Minister agrees with me that Bournemouth is one of the most attractive and popular seaside resorts in Britain. Whatever one’s views, tourism is important to the town and the area, but many of my constituents are concerned about the visual impact of the proposed offshore wind farm in Poole bay. There are many questions such as how many turbines will be built, the exact locations and how high they will be. I would be grateful for a meeting with the Minister to discuss this important matter.

[Michael Fallon]

I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s strong concerns about the proposal. No application has been made, but let me assure him that the visual impact and acceptability of any installation is one of the factors that would be considered by the planning inspectorate and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in determining any application of this kind.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his reply on the subject of subsidies, but given that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has said that current planning applications give

“insufficient weight . . . to local environmental considerations like landscape, heritage and local amenity”,—[Official Report, 10 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 31W]—

does he agree that the subsidies provided to developers need to take account of the very real local concerns about how these things are blighting the countryside?

[Michael Fallon]

We have reduced the support for onshore wind projects from April this year and the draft strike prices that we have set out are reduced over time up until 2018, but the new planning policy framework makes it clear that local authorities should have policies in place to ensure that any adverse impacts, including visual impacts and cumulative impacts, are addressed satisfactorily. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has made it clear that he intends now to call in more applications at appeal to ensure that the new planning practice guidance is meeting the Government’s intentions.

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

May I advise the Minister that while the incentives are clearly proving sufficient to encourage a number of prominent local Conservatives to apply for wind farms to be built on land in Northumberland, what concerns many of my constituents is whether landscape, which the Minister mentioned, and proximity to residences can be taken properly into account at every stage in the planning process?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes. I want to reassure my right hon. Friend. Planning applications in respect of onshore wind should be approved only if the impacts are acceptable to the local community. The new planning guidance from the Department for Communities and Local Government helps to deliver the balance that we expect, ensuring that proper weight is given to the visual impact, the cumulative impact and any heritage implications for particular sites.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

13. What progress his Department is making towards the UK’s carbon reduction targets.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

The Government are fully committed to meeting the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets set out in the Climate Change Act 2008, and I am pleased to tell the House that the UK is now 25% below 1990 emissions levels and on track to meet our 2020 34% reduction target.

[Andrew George]

Many people query why that is important. The recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fifth assessment report confirms both the nature and the scale of climate change and human contribution to it. Does my right hon. Friend believe that any Government engaged in evidence-based policy making can afford to ignore these trends? What would be the risks and consequences if we attempted to do so?

[Gregory Barker]

This Government are very clear that we will continue to drive forward the decarbonisation of the energy sector and of the wider economy, consistent with meeting our targets in the Climate Change Act, which we are committed to. But we need to make sure that we do that in a way that keeps our industry competitive, does not put a burden on consumers and is consistent with growing prosperity. I think this coalition is absolutely up to that job.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Why, then, did the British Government this week help Germany scupper a very important European agreement on reducing CO₂ emissions from the most polluting vehicles?

[Gregory Barker]

We did not. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think I heard the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) make an allegation of dishonesty. I must ask him to withdraw that word. I think he used a three-letter word which implied direct dishonesty.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I apologise, Mr Speaker, but perhaps the Minister could clarify how Britain voted.

[Mr Speaker]

We cannot continue the debate in that way. Topical questions will continue the exchange, but I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw that word.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I happily withdraw it.

[Mr Speaker]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. All these matters will be aired further, I am sure.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is true that emissions are down both from this country and in Europe, but the contribution of Europe and the United Kingdom to atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing because of imported manufactured goods. What is the Minister going to do about that?

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Gentleman does have a point. Ultimately, we will not defeat dangerous manmade climate change unless there is a global solution. Although we can play our part, the important thing is that we secure a global deal involving all the major economies, particularly China, America and the other fast-growing developing economies, and get everybody on a sustainable economic path. That is why we are putting more and more effort into securing a meaningful, robust global treaty in 2015.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that residents of Northumberland who are off the grid have sufficient support during cold weather this winter.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)]

The Government want everybody to be able to access secure and affordable fuel supplies for heating their homes. This year’s “Buy oil early” campaign was launched on 11 September to encourage consumers to stock up early and join oil-buying groups, where cost savings can be found. I will continue to work through the all-party group and the ministerial roundtable on off-gas grid issues to see what further action is required.

[Guy Opperman]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Our concern should particularly be for vulnerable residents caught out by sudden spring cold snaps. Does he agree that there is scope for a pilot project in Northumberland in which a consortium of oil-buying clubs, parish councils and credit unions could be funded to assist such residents?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes; we very much welcome the development of local initiatives that can help promote a more affordable supply of heating oil to consumers. I look forward to seeing my hon. Friend’s final proposals for a pilot project in Northumberland and will then ask my officials to consider what support might be made available to assist him in taking it forward.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

15. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of proposed EU anti-dumping tariffs applicable to solar PV cells manufactured in China; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

Following a robust intervention from the UK, including a delegation of key industry players that I took to Brussels, the European Commission has negotiated an agreement with Chinese exporters that is a significant improvement on the initial EU position. The agreement should mean that we will not undermine the future of the UK solar PV industry or deprive UK consumers of the benefits of cheaper solar panels.

[Michael Fabricant]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. It is good to hear that he stands up not only to the energy companies, but to the European Commission. Does he not agree that if the European Commission had had its way, its tariffs would have not only been inflationary, but damaged the photovoltaic industry, which does so much good in employing people in this country?

[Gregory Barker]

How typical of my hon. Friend to align himself with an energy source driven by sunshine. I am grateful to him for pointing this out. The UK’s solar sector now has a strong future, thanks to our reforms. It is affordable for consumers, who pay for the subsidy through their bills, and it is now scalable. We are working with the industry to drive down the costs and make this an attractive proposition for consumers up and down the country.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

17. What steps he has taken to reduce fuel poverty this winter.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

This year the green deal and the energy company obligation have already transformed the homes of 216,000 low-income and vulnerable households, cutting bills and keeping people warm. Additionally, this winter our warm home discount scheme will pay out to 2 million households, including over 1 million of the poorest pensioners. The Government have also permanently increased cold weather payments to £25 a week, and all pensioners will receive winter fuel payments.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the Minister for that answer. My constituents want practical help with energy bills, not a rearrangement of the deckchairs at the regulator, Ofgem. Will he confirm what steps the Government are taking to help my most vulnerable constituents keep warm this winter?

[Gregory Barker]

Absolutely. There will be no return to the 1970s under this Government. We will offer practical help to people struggling with energy bills. This winter, as I have said, that means: a warm home discount worth £135 for 2 million households, including 1.1 million pensioners; guaranteed winter fuel payments for all pensioners; and cold weather payments permanently uprated to £25. Of course, we are also rolling out the most ambitious energy efficiency programme to date, which I am sure will be of great help to my hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

Since the last Energy and Climate Change questions we have been busy. The Energy Bill is continuing its progress through Parliament and we hope that it will achieve Royal Assent by the end of the year. That will help deliver the modernised infrastructure and cleaner energy that the country needs to meet our energy security requirements and climate change obligations. The House might be interested to know the latest figures we have on investment: we have seen at least £35 billion invested in increased electricity infrastructure alone since 2010, a 56% year-on-year increase in renewable energy investment and a doubling of renewable electricity generation under this Government. Also, our policies to help the fuel poor are in place for the winter.[Official Report, 1 November 2013, Vol. 569, c. 7MC.]

[Steve McCabe]

Pensioner Val Soames has been in touch to advise me that E.ON has told her that it is scrapping its fixed-rate StayWarm pensioner tariff as a result of Government policy, just in time to increase the bills of thousands of pensioners this winter. When exactly did the Minister last speak to E.ON about this problem, and how is he going to put it right?

[Mr Davey]

I speak to E.ON and other energy suppliers and generators frequently. We are looking at the tariff reforms to make sure that they deliver the competitive markets that Ofgem believes they will. We believe that a large number of people will be really benefited by these reforms.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

T3. The Government are rightly encouraging investment in energy infrastructure by institutional investors through initiatives such as the Treasury’s pensions infrastructure platform. Will the Minister’s Department tell the Treasury how important it is that that investment in infrastructure is low-carbon and compatible with our overall climate change goals, and will he welcome ShareAction’s campaign to encourage institutional investors to invest in truly green energy futures?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend knows that we are a champion of low-carbon energy investment. I strongly welcome ShareAction’s campaign to promote responsible investment by pension funds and fund managers. People who operate these pension funds should think long term, and there is no longer-term problem and challenge for the people they are investing for than climate change.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

During these questions British Gas has announced that from 23 November it will increase its gas prices by 8.4% and its electricity prices by 10.4%. This is the company that, with Centrica, has passed on the highest share of its profits to its shareholders while making the least amount of investment into what we need to ensure our energy security in future. Two years ago the accountancy firm BDO warned that the big six energy companies could be under-reporting their profits and recommended tighter rules, but the Government and Ofgem failed to act. We backed the new rules, and so did a recent Select Committee report, but in their response all the Government could say was, “Government is not in a position to comment.” Why will not the Secretary of State stand up for consumers, support Labour’s price freeze and make the energy companies tell us exactly how much money they are earning?

[Mr Davey]

First, that is extremely disappointing news for British Gas customers. British Gas will need to justify its decision openly and transparently to bill-payers. British Gas was the only energy company not to meet its targets under the previous obligation to make its customers’ homes more energy-efficient. That left more homes cold and its customers paying over the odds. British Gas has form in failing to meet its targets, the last of which was set by Labour. I hope that the right hon. Lady will join me in making sure that British Gas is more transparent about its costs. We are pushing competition, and I urge British Gas customers who are unhappy to change their supplier.

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

T4. I welcome the emphasis on microgeneration, including ground-source and air-source heat pumps, plus deploying solar PV on rooftops and brownfield sites where appropriate, and I recognise its potential, but what is being done to stop deployment of the unwanted large-scale ground-mounted PV farms?

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have an ambitious plan for solar, focused on rooftops, on-site generation and brownfield sites. That is why this summer we toughened up the planning guidance, distributed it to local authorities, and made it absolutely clear that the need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections and the planning concerns of local communities. I want to see our guidance in force, and I will be writing to local planning bosses to make sure that they take it on board.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T2. Under this Government, according to Ofgem’s latest figures, average household fuel bills have increased by £315 a year, while wholesale energy prices have gone up by just £145 a year. That leaves a gap of £170 a year. How much of that is made up by the extra tax taken by the Government from consumers, and how much by higher profits taken by the energy companies?

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the vast majority of the rises in people’s bills have come from wholesale prices, as he said, and network cost rises. He should know that a bill is made up of a host of things: the biggest portion is wholesale and the next biggest is network cost. They are the big cost measures that people are unfortunately experiencing.

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

T7. In my constituency there are two major brick-manufacturing companies. As hon. Members will know, brick making is highly energy-intensive, and I am concerned that, without action, increased energy costs will make their product potentially unaffordable to the construction industry, which is getting on with the essential task of building the homes we desperately need. What is my right hon. Friend doing to address this urgent and pressing issue?

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)]

I will certainly look at my hon. Friend’s specific points about the brick industry. We have an energy-intensive industries support scheme and are already making payments under it. We hope to conclude further payments by the end of this month. I will certainly see what can be done to help the brick-making industry and see whether it can be included in our measures.

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

T5. On the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) about British Gas price rises, will the Secretary of State explain how British Gas has increased its operating profit to nearly £1.6 billion, as announced in June 2013, and yet people around the country will now see their prices rise by 8% and 10%? How can that be fair to this country’s consumers? When will the Government get a grip on this and finally do something about it?

[Mr Davey]

We are doing things about it. Not only are we promoting competition and urging people who are unhappy with suppliers such as British Gas to change and choose others—there are plenty out there, thanks to this and not the hon. Gentleman’s Government—but we are also making sure that the energy companies are more transparent. I urge British Gas to publish and be more transparent about the increased policy costs that it is blaming for these bill rises. We have looked at its initial figures and question whether the policy costs, which it claims are putting up the bill, are the root cause.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

T9. Given the importance that the Minister has placed on converting coal-fired power stations to biomass, including the plans for those in Drax and Eggborough in my constituency, and also in the light of National Grid’s winter outlook report, which states that capacity reserves could be as low as 5%, will he update the House on the progress of those two strategically important projects?

[Michael Fallon]

We recognise the importance of biomass projects such as those in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We included draft strike prices for biomass in the prices we published at the end of June and we expect to confirm them by the end of the year. We hope that between 1 GW and 4 GW of biomass will come onstream.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

T8. The Minister previously promised me that he would discuss cold alarms with the energy suppliers and let me know their response, but he has not. With people choosing between heating and eating, and with prices ridiculously high, will he please now tell me what progress he has made on cold alarms, which will alert vulnerable people and their carers when temperatures become dangerously low and prevent more unnecessary deaths this winter?

[Gregory Barker]

I apologise to the hon. Lady. I am not sure whether she actually wrote to me, which I invited her to do following her question. I will look at the issue again after these questions to see where we are, and I will write to her later today.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that he is continuing to work with industry to agree a long-term strategy for the offshore wind sector that will secure large-scale private investment and create thousands of jobs in my constituency and other coastal constituencies?

[Michael Fallon]

We have an offshore wind industrial strategy, which we published earlier this summer, and I look forward to taking it forward with the Offshore Wind Industry Council, which I co-chair. Offshore wind is part of the energy mix. We have put draft strike prices out for consultation, which has now closed, and we are analysing the responses. We expect to confirm the final strike prices for offshore wind by the end of the year.

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

A missive from Ineos Grangemouth, which supplies 80% of the fuel for Scotland and the north of England and accounts for 10% of the gross national product of Scotland, says that the plant is

“shut and will remain shut”.

I have kept all Ministers informed through the Secretary of State for Scotland, as well as those on the Opposition Front Bench. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change said earlier that he wanted people to get back to ACAS. However, he has also made it clear that supplies will still get through to Scotland by other means. The company has prepared for this and the cold shutdown of the refinery and petrochemical plant has been done deliberately. It must be urged to start up the plant again and to take the knife from the throat of the workers and the gun from the head of the Scottish people.

[Mr Davey]

I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in this matter and is a voice of moderation. He knows that I have worked hard to get the ACAS talks going. They did get going, but unfortunately they broke down. I repeat my request that all sides get around the table and resolve the matter without a dispute. I am pleased that Unite called off the strike. We have been working with the Scottish Government and the industry to ensure that Scotland gets the petrol, diesel and heating oil that it needs.

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

When will the Government publish the Atkins report and their response so that we can begin to unlock the huge potential in Cornwall and the UK for deep geothermal energy?

[Mr Davey]

That is an important report. I cannot give my hon. Friend an exact time, but it will be published relatively shortly.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Given the announcement from British Gas, would the Secretary of State not be best advised, rather than just expressing disappointment and urging transparency, to send out the message that there will come a point when he will intervene on these companies that are jacking up prices? At what point will he intervene?

[Mr Davey]

I have done more than that from the Dispatch Box. I have said to British Gas customers that if they are worried about the prices, they should change supplier. A range of competitors and alternative suppliers are offering much better deals. By the way, those suppliers are there because of the actions of this Government. In 2011, no other independent supplier could compete with British Gas and SSE, and none had more than 50,000 customers. We now have strong, independent suppliers that customers can turn to and I urge them to do so.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

In welcoming the new solar road map, in which the Minister sets out guiding principles for the appropriate siting of solar PV, may I ask what added protection from solar farms the road map gives to green-belt land?

[Gregory Barker]

The road map sets out our industrial strategy. The right place to protect important areas such as the green belt, areas of outstanding natural beauty and grade 1 agricultural land, about which we care passionately, must be the planning process. In particular, we must ensure that local people have a proper say. That is why I am reminding local planning authorities that they have a duty to enforce that.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not know why the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) was not heard with his first question, but I hope that he will be heard this time.

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

A number of times today, the Secretary of State and his Ministers have defended the policy of simplifying tariffs for energy customers, but they have not once addressed the fact that low energy users, who are often people on low incomes, are worse off because of the recommendation from Ofgem to reintroduce standing charges. Will he look at that issue and ask Ofgem to reconsider the policy that it appears to be imposing on the energy suppliers?

[Mr Davey]

We believe, and there is a huge amount of evidence for this, that the Ofgem reforms will lead to more competition, because they will get rid of a lot of the confusion and complexity. The last Government failed to act on the multitude of tariffs, which have got in the way of the consumer’s ability to choose. There may well be a few people who see an increase in tariffs in the short term because of Ofgem’s reforms, but because of the extra competition that will bear down on prices, the majority of people will get a better deal.

Al-Madinah Free School

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

10:33

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education to make a statement on the failings of the Al-Madinah free school revealed in the Ofsted inspection report.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I welcome this opportunity to make a statement on the Al-Madinah free school, and I apologise to the House for the absence of the Secretary of State, who is abroad. We have received the letter that the hon. Gentleman sent to the Secretary of State on 15 October, raising issues relating to that school, and Lord Nash and I will respond to it shortly.

The Al-Madinah free school serves children and young people between the ages of 4 and 16 in the Derby city community, and it has been open for just a year. After a steady start by the school we became aware of potential breaches of the conditions in its funding agreement late this summer, and at the end of July we began a wide-ranging investigation into the financial management and governance of the school. We investigated whether it was delivering on its commitment to be inclusive, and we investigated allegations about the imposition of a dress requirement on female members of staff. Our investigations did indeed find significant and numerous breaches of the conditions in the school’s funding agreement, and our concerns were such that we requested Ofsted to bring forward its planned inspection.

The Ofsted report is published this morning. It found that the school is dysfunctional, and inadequate across every category of inspection: achievement of pupils; quality of teaching; behaviour and safety of pupils; and leadership and management. We were already taking decisive action before we received the Ofsted report. Lord Nash wrote to the chair of the trust on 8 October, following the previous investigations, and set out all the requirements for the trust to take swift and decisive actions to deal with the serious concerns. We have been clear with the trust that failure to do so promptly will result in the school’s funding being terminated. We have also been clear that the trust must address all the breaches identified. We will not let any school, whether a free school, an academy, or a local authority school, languish in failure. The Ofsted report confirms that we are taking the right actions. We are not prepared to allow a school to fail its parents, its children and its community. We said we would take swift action in these cases, and that is exactly what we are doing.

[Tristram Hunt]

Today’s Ofsted report exposes the fact that the Government’s free school programme has become a dangerous free for all, an out-of-control, ideological experiment that has closed a school, leaving 400 children losing an entire week of learning. It is a devastating blow to the Education Secretary’s flagship policy, and reveals that pupils have been failed on every possible measure. Parents will want to know why the Education Secretary has allowed that to happen.

Contrary to what the Minister said, in a pre-registration report in July 2012, Ofsted deemed the school to be failing to meet basic child protection standards, even before it was opened. Why did Ministers not act on those concerns before signing a funding agreement for the school? Why have Ministers allowed a school to be run by large numbers of unqualified staff? Why have Ministers sanctioned “dangerous levels” of safety and behaviour, and why have they allowed children with special educational needs to be left to struggle? In a city where every child needs to be supported and educated to the highest possible level, the Education Secretary has sacrificed learning for ideology. It is not just Al-Madinah school that is dysfunctional; it is the Education Secretary’s free schools policy.

[Mr Laws]

The support of the Labour party for free schools did not last long, did it? I do not know how the hon. Gentleman has the nerve to come to the House. On Sunday he was going around television studios and saying that Labour was shifting its position on free schools. He said:

“We will keep those free schools going”.

Within the same set of Department for Education press cuttings in which he announced he was shifting his position in favour of free schools, we find a headline stating that Labour now plans to rein in free schools. It is complete and utter incoherence from the hon. Gentleman, and he should be ashamed.

Let me respond in detail to every single serious point the hon. Gentleman made—it will not take very long—and go back over what has happened in Al-Madinah school and the scrutiny to which it has been subjected. The school opened in September 2012. It had a pre-registration Ofsted report, as all such schools do—such a report is not sensational. In the report, Ofsted set down a number of requirements that it wanted met before the school opened. In advance of the school opening, the trust went through the requirements with the lead contact in the Department for Education. It produced certificates to show that it had done the safeguarding and first aid training, and a certificate—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State ought to listen to this. The school produced a certificate authorised by the director of planning and transportation at Derby city council saying that the building was fit for occupation. After that, the Department sent an adviser to the school two months after it opened, who saw the good progress that the school was making at that stage.

In July 2013, we became aware of concerns about equalities and management issues at the school and acted immediately on that. We established an Education Funding Agency financial investigation into the school and sent our advisers to it. We asked Ofsted to bring forward its inspection, which has now taken place. Prior to receiving that inspection, the Under-Secretary of State, Lord Nash, wrote to the school setting out precisely the actions that it will take, and making it clear that its funding will not continue unless it addresses those things.

If the shadow Secretary of State is so supportive of free schools, why does he not have the responsibility to put the failure of the school into context? Seventy-five per cent. of the free schools that have opened have been rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. That is a higher proportion than the proportion of local authority schools. We did not hear that from the hon. Gentleman.

On complacency, which I believe is the allegation the hon. Gentleman makes, may I remind him of the record of the Labour Government whom he defends? At the end of their period in office, 8% of schools in this country —more than 1,500—were rated as inadequate, many had been so for years, with no action. By focusing on one school in which the Government are taking action, the hon. Gentleman is failing schools in this country, including ones that failed under the Labour Government, when little action was taken.

People listening to these exchanges and to the hon. Gentleman, and reflecting on what he said on Sunday and how he has stood on his head today, will see nothing other than total and utter opportunism and shambles from Labour’s education policy.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The leaked Ofsted report states that

“the governors have failed the parents of this community who have placed their trust in them.”

Will Ministers intervene to replace the current board of governors with an interim executive board? Looking to the future, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that the training available to the governors of free schools properly equips them for that important role?

[Mr Laws]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman—the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education—that Lord Nash and I are taking decisive action to ensure that the school improves its leadership and governance. The hon. Gentleman will understand why I cannot go into all the details of that, although the clear requirements are set out in the letter Lord Nash wrote to the school on 8 October, which has been published.

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

The leaked report has rung an alarm bell. Will the right hon. Gentleman learn the lessons from it, because what begins as a good idea—having unqualified and sometimes untrained teachers in an establishment—can, in some cases, be very dangerous and damaging? May we have an explicit word from him this morning to say that, in this country, no establishment and no school—this should not even happen in home schooling—should treat girls in a subservient way and differently from boys?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman, the former Chair of the Select Committee, is absolutely right: different treatment for boys and girls is unacceptable. We have made that absolutely clear and required the school to change those practices immediately, for both pupils and teaching staff. He is a reasonable man and will know that it is sensible and responsible to draw the right conclusions from one school, and balance them against the success of many free schools. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) wanted to praise and associate himself with that success on Sunday and withdrew his support by Tuesday.

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

I declare an interest as chair of governors of St James’ Church of England primary school in Bermondsey and as a trustee of Bacon’s college in Rotherhithe. Having seen the report that states clearly four findings of inadequacy, nine significant failings and only three strengths, will the Minister tell us the timetable for Al-Madinah school, if it is to continue, to be found good, satisfactory or excellent? What is the process for new schools on how soon inspections can happen? What is the trigger for parents and concerned parties in any school to start a process of additional inspection, and what is the speed at which that can be done?

[Mr Laws]

I assure my right hon. Friend that we are following a two-pronged strategy to deal with these concerns. The Minister with responsibility for free schools, Lord Nash, set out clearly, in a letter on 8 October to the chair of governors, a series of actions that are expected to be taken by the free school in swift order—within this calendar month. We will report back to the House and others on those actions, including the issues identified by Ofsted, to ensure that they have been taken and dealt with. In addition, given the highly critical nature of the report, Ofsted will follow up to ensure improvements are rapid. We will consider, very swiftly indeed, whether the governing body and the existing leadership have the capacity to make those improvements.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that the majority of children who attend the school are of the Muslim faith: this is a faith school that is also a free school. Earlier this year, on 15 March, the Secretary of State opened the first Hindu free school that is a faith school in my constituency, which I applaud and welcome. Will he confirm that nothing he has said today will affect the Government’s policy if a faith school wishes to be a free school?

[Mr Laws]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will still allow faith schools to be free schools. We must not lose sight of the fact that some of the best schools are faith schools. That includes Muslim schools—both free and non-free schools—some of which have secured impressive levels of attainment and progress.

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

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the mess that the previous Government made of education, but he may not be aware that the chair of the education trust and chair of governors at Al-Madinah free school is a member of, and fundraiser for, the Labour party and recently stood as a candidate in the Derby city council elections. Does the Minister think the mess the school is in could have anything to do with a local leadership that seems to come directly from the national Labour party?

[Mr Laws]

What I can compare favourably is the swift action that this Government take when we find a school that is failing. That contrasts with the previous Labour Government, who had more than 1,500 schools categorised as inadequate. I do not remember any occasion where the same scrutiny was given to those schools.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Surely this situation demonstrates the need for those working with children to be properly trained and qualified. Will the Minister change course, follow our lead and require all teachers to be qualified?

[Mr Laws]

We want to ensure that teachers in schools have good qualifications and the capacity to teach. The hon. Lady will know, however, that there are plenty of teachers who may not have formal qualifications but who still do a superb job. We are ensuring, through the Ofsted inspection process, that every single teacher has the capability to teach. All classes are assessed for quality, and that is the right way to ensure a backstop of high standards.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

There are 170 free schools across the country and plans for more, including one serving my constituency. Will the Minister assure me that, notwithstanding this isolated case, the Government’s plans for these schools will go ahead so that they can continue raising standards?

[Mr Laws]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The speed with which the shadow Secretary of State has stood on his head regarding Labour policy on free schools will unnerve many free schools across the country and undermine the confidence of the many free schools that are doing a fantastic and innovative job. I just draw attention to the fact that the proportion of free schools that are outstanding and good is higher than in the rest of the school population, even though many of them have only been in existence for two years.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The Minister reports that his Department had concerns about this school. Which other free schools does his Department have concerns about?

[Mr Laws]

I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about the concerns we identified in July and August. We acted swiftly on those, and we would act swiftly on any other concerns.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Is it not right that the Government should take action, whether a free school or a Government-run school is having problems, and is it not wrong to leap on one single instance of a problem, because it is being tackled, and blame the other 169 schools, too?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. When we consider how to intervene in failing schools, we need to consider the challenge of intervening just as swiftly as we are in this school in the hundreds of other schools across the country that are performing inadequately. The hard reality is that under the last Government and some previous Governments, too many inadequate schools across the country were able to sustain inadequate performance for long periods. The challenge is to ensure that the focus on this school is also on all those other maintained schools, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central seems far less attracted to focusing on.

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

The local authority in this case has neither the power nor the capacity to help, so who will help the school to improve and take the action the Minister is requiring it to take?

[Mr Laws]

We certainly will take action. The local authority concerned should reflect on some of the schools that it is responsible for in the area, many of which are not good or outstanding. It should focus on doing its job; we will do ours.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

Is the Minister as surprised as I am that, interestingly, whereas the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), who has been vociferous in the national and local press about this school, because he is totally against free schools, wants it brought within the remit of the local authority, the chairman of governors, who wanted to be a Labour councillor, was quite happy with it? Labour’s policy is all over the place. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was at odds with the shadow Secretary of State, but clearly he is not.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, the question was too long; secondly, the Minister has absolutely no responsibility for the attendance or stance of absent or present Members. Perhaps we can deal holistically with the issue, rather than with the minutiae.

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Lady has succeeded rather well in highlighting the fact that anybody trying to understand what Labour’s policy on free schools this week would be rather confused.

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

The Minister spoke about the safeguards in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but his comments were unconvincing given that it has happened and children are suffering as a result. Will he now acknowledge that the Secretary of State in Whitehall cannot possibly provide the level of scrutiny, oversight or support that schools need and which the local community, through the local authority, is much better placed to provide?

[Mr Laws]

The very fact that we are having this urgent question about one particular school that has performed very badly shows the degree of scrutiny there is on free schools. The challenge is to ensure that every other failing school across the country has the same level of scrutiny.

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

The failing of any school is regrettable, be it a free school or non-free school, but does the Minister accept that we need to see it in the context of the success of the policy? Can he reassure me that strong action will be taken and that the model that has worked successfully elsewhere will also be used in this case?

[Mr Laws]

I can give precisely that assurance. I can assure my hon. Friend that those of us on the Government Benches will not ignore and run down the achievements of the vast majority of free schools, which have done an absolutely fantastic job in the last two years.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

The Minister says he wants to ensure that teachers are qualified and supervised, but last year his Department announced that teachers in free schools and academies did not need to be qualified to be appointed and never did. As a result, Al-Madinah school appointed virtually all its teachers on an unqualified basis. Does he think that is any cause for reflection on the announcement he made last year about unqualified teachers being acceptable?

[Mr Laws]

The governing body and the school leadership have a clear responsibility to recruit teachers who are fit to do the job, and if they are failing to do that, we will act against them.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I salute the Government’s swift action on this matter. Does the Minister agree that it also reinforces the argument that we need strong and effective leadership in schools, especially through school governance?

[Mr Laws]

I certainly do. If Members, particularly on the Opposition Benches, reflect more carefully on this issue, they will see that one of the lessons is that the speed with which we have acted on the concerns expressed should be reflected in the speed with which we see action in all schools that are weak.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

Will the Minister ensure that one sector of these children—children with special learning difficulties—is looked after more than others? They are the ones who suffer most in any school that this happens to. Will he ensure through his office that those children get adequate cover while this period of uncertainty continues?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to put the spotlight on the young people in the school, whose concerns need to be top of our list of priorities. We will ensure that those with special needs—indeed, all the pupils—are properly catered for through this period, which is one reason why Lord Nash has acted so swiftly to ensure that the school resolves the outstanding problems.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The free school revolution has triggered a renaissance of educational hope and lit a thousand candles around the country, with people investing and taking an interest in new education. May I welcome the speed with which those on the Front Bench have acted on this school, but also urge the Minister and the team not in any way to allow the intellectual and political gymnastics of Opposition Front Benchers—who have opposed progressive reforms in education for years and have now seized on one case of failure—to slow down these important reforms, which are giving hope to millions?

[Mr Laws]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are not impressed or distracted by the gymnastics we have seen over the last week or by the desperate attempt by the shadow Education Secretary to resolve his differences with his own Schools Minister, who has a totally different view about free schools. We will remain focused on improving this school—and, indeed, all schools across the country that need improvement.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this urgent question demonstrates the Opposition’s political dogma on education? They are using one failing free school to criticise all free schools. Given that the comprehensive school that I attended is now sadly in special measures, does he not think it is telling that the Labour party is not asking questions—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I must have told the hon. Gentleman over three and a half years a score of times—I now tell him for the 21st time—that questions must be about the policy of the Government, not the Opposition; nor is this an occasion for general dilation by Members on their own educational experiences. The urgent question is narrowly focused on a particular school; it is with that, and that alone, that we are concerned. I hope my point has now finally registered with the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I thank the shadow Education Secretary for asking this urgent question on such an important issue. We should be focusing on this particular school, not making party political points, although, interestingly, more Government Members are interested in this subject than Opposition Members. Can the Minister confirm that, if necessary, he has the power to close the school down if it cannot be reformed?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I can certainly confirm to him that we have powers to take action against the school, as Lord Nash has already made very clear in his letter.

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

Parents will have pressed for the Al-Madinah free school to be established because they felt that the school would provide a suitable education for their children. I am reassured by the actions already taken, but will the Minister also ensure that pre-applications are thoroughly scrutinised?

[Mr Laws]

I will certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. We scrutinise free school applications very carefully and reject many of them for a variety of different reasons. We will continue to scrutinise them very closely.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

The OECD report published last week places Britain near the bottom of the international literacy and numeracy league tables. Does that not make the case for continued innovation in education? Will the Minister ensure that this poor example does not undermine the excellent and innovative free schools programme?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point about the educational challenges for this country and about the need to focus on educational failure from wherever it comes. It speaks volumes about the Labour party that it should choose to have an urgent question on this one individual school while across the country there are hundreds of other schools facing similar challenges in which it seems to have no equivalent interest.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, despite the failings of this particular school, free schools, university technical schools and the pupil premium are transforming education in our country and that we should not use the failure of one school to become the enemy of choice for parents who want to set up their own schools?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), will publish information showing the progress made across the country in last year’s exam results—progress that, thanks to our reforms and to Ofqual, we can be assured is real progress and not simply inflated progress.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What is actually happening for the children at this school to make sure that we look after them?

[Mr Laws]

What is happening is that Lord Nash is taking decisive action to address, one by one, all the deficiencies identified in the Ofsted report. He has already received detailed responses and assurances on many points from the free school, and we will make sure that we get assurances on all those issues. We will then make a judgment about whether the people running the school are fit to continue running it in the future.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that actions taken in respect of Al-Madinah school demonstrate that this Government are tough on low standards wherever they occur—whether it be in free schools, local authority schools or academy schools?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is right. If we reflect on some of the schools that were able to languish in failure for many years under the last Labour Government without decisive action being taken, we will find that our actions in this case compare very favourably indeed.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I welcome the action taken in respect of this school and the fact that the majority of the 170 free schools are outperforming local authority schools. Does the Minister agree that one bad apple does not spoil the barrel, and has he learned anything about Labour’s policy on free schools?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is interesting that the shadow Secretary of State who speaks for the Opposition on these matters has not concluded that the Labour party’s last academies programme was deficient because some of those academies have failed. There is a basic lack of logic in Labour’s position and an ideological resistance to innovation in the school system.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Whether it be at the Al-Madinah school or any other school, most of my constituents would take the view that it is completely inappropriate for any school uniform policy to include a requirement for schoolgirls to wear the full-face Islamic veil. Is that the policy of Her Majesty’s Government, or is it up to each school to decide?

[Mr Laws]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we do not want these impositions on children or on staff—and we have made that clear to this school.

Business of the House

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

11:04

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

May I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to give us the business for next week?

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 21 October—A general debate on the future of the BBC, followed by a debate on a motion relating to the state of natural capital in England and Wales. The subjects of both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 22 October—Second Reading of the Immigration Bill, followed by a debate on a reasoned opinion relating to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Wednesday 23 October—Opposition Day [8th allotted day]. There will be a debate on dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, followed by a debate on air passenger duty. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Thursday 24 October—A debate on a motion relating to the Financial Conduct Authority’s redress scheme for the mis-selling of interest rate swap derivatives, followed by a general debate on aviation strategy. The subjects of both debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 25 October—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 28 October will include the following:

Monday 28 October—Second Reading of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 29 October—Remaining stages of the Pensions Bill, followed by a motion to approve a European document relating to reform of Eurojust and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Wednesday 30 October—Opposition Day [9th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion; subject to be announced.

Thursday 31 October—Remaining stages of the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill.

Friday 1 November—Private Members’ Bills.

I should also like to inform the House that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that the autumn statement will be made on Wednesday 4 December, and that the business in Westminster Hall on 24 October will be a debate on planning, housing supply and the countryside.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I also send my best wishes to the Leader of the House as he recuperates from his minor operation.

Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who yesterday won the election to become Deputy Speaker. I hope that she will not mind my saying that it is unusual to see a Scottish Tory being elected. I am sure that I speak for many Labour Members when I say that it has certainly been an experience to be on the receiving end of the vote-gathering techniques of the Conservative party. We enjoyed welcoming all the candidates to a parliamentary Labour party hustings, and I am pleased to say that we managed to resist the temptation to set them a bushtucker trial.

Last week, I asked where the Offender Rehabilitation Bill (Lords) had disappeared to. I note that it is still missing. Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm my suspicion that the Government are deliberately holding up the Bill so that they can privatise the probation service before they bring the Bill back to the House of Commons?

When the Government announced new plans for the funding of social care, they claimed that no elderly person would be forced to sell his or her home to pay for it. At the Tory party conference, the Health Secretary was at it again, promising

“for those who need residential care…We’ll stop them ever having to sell the home they have worked hard for all their life to pay for the cost of it.”

However, during the debate on the Care Bill in the other place, those grand ministerial claims have been exposed as empty PR posturing, and the truth has finally emerged: older people will be helped only if they have less than £23,000 in the bank. Given the huge disparity between the Health Secretary’s claims and the modest reality, will the Deputy Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement to be made?

It is a rare treat to face the Deputy Leader across the Dispatch Box. I often wonder what he is thinking when he is sitting next to the Leader of the House on Thursday mornings. I suppose that we are going to find out today. I am sure the Deputy Leader is aware, however, that for 39 of the 40 months for which the Government have been in power, prices have risen faster than wages. Labour’s promise to freeze energy bills until 2017 would be of real benefit to those who are struggling. What is the Government’s policy? The Tories want to scrap energy efficiency measures for the poorest in order to reduce bills, but the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that that would put prices up. What does the Deputy Leader think? We have heard only this morning that British Gas is going to increase its prices by nearly 10%. Is the Deputy Leader proud that the Government are arguing among themselves while the cost of living squeeze just gets worse? Would it not be easier to freeze energy bills?

Yesterday the Prime Minister could not clear up the confusion over his own policy on marriage tax breaks, which will benefit only one third of couples. The Deputy Prime Minister has made his opposition clear. So when this policy eventually comes to the House, will the Deputy Leader of the House and his party be voting against it, or will this just be another example of the Liberal Democrats saying one thing and doing another?

The Deputy Leader of the House will remember that before the last election he signed the National Union of Students pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees. I am sure he also remembers that just months after the election he was voting to treble them. I noted this week with interest that the Deputy Prime Minister has made another Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees: he has promised not to increase them to £16,000 a year. Will the Deputy Leader be signing up to that one, too, or has he learned his lesson? I am sure nothing will worry the hundreds of thousands of young people considering going to university more than another promise from the Liberal Democrats on tuition fees.

I understand that the Deputy Leader is heavily involved in his local save St Helier hospital campaign. In fact, he is so involved that the phone number and address on the campaign website is that of his own constituency office. To clear up any confusion, can the Deputy Leader of the House confirm that he is actually a part of the Government who are closing the hospital? Is there not a pattern of behaviour here: the Deputy Leader is campaigning against himself on St Helier, the Deputy Prime Minister is campaigning against himself on library closures forced by Government cuts in Sheffield, and now they are ready to sign up to a new pledge on tuition fees? The more they protest, the more we see right through them: you can’t trust the Liberal Democrats.

[Tom Brake]

May I start by thanking the shadow Leader of the House for her kind words, which I will pass on to the Leader of the House, who is recovering well? I am grateful to her for those remarks. I also echo her comments about the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who not only is a Scottish Tory who got elected, but who did so under the single transferable vote, which is clearly very welcome, too.

On the issue of the funding of social care, I am sure the hon. Lady will be aware that no decision has been taken on that, and the consultation is still open and if Members want to make a submission, they have until 25 October to do so.

We have just had a full hour of Department of Energy and Climate Change questions, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did a very good job of explaining why Labour’s policy of freezing energy prices is a con. In case the hon. Lady was not here to hear that, it is because prices will go up both before and after the freeze, and the Leader of the Opposition has indicated that if things changed globally during the freeze, he would not be in a position to hold prices down. That is why we do not support Labour’s position, but what the Government have done is maintain winter fuel payments, worth £300, cold weather payments of £25, and the warm home discount, which is worth £135. Indeed, more generally in relation to cost of living issues, under this Government 25 million basic rate taxpayers will be £700 better off next year, and 3 million people have been taken out of income tax entirely.

The hon. Lady mentioned the save St Helier hospital campaign. I thank her for promoting that and, of course, I am fully behind that campaign. It seems as though she is chiding me for running a campaign in support of my local hospital, something I will make sure Labour-inclined voters are aware of, but the important thing about the save St Helier campaign is that the review that has taken place was not conducted by politicians, but the proposals came from a team of clinicians and, on that team, St Helier hospital was under-represented, which is why we are campaigning against this. I am very pleased to be able to conclude my remarks on the subject of save St Helier hospital, because that is a campaign I intend to win.

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

Last week, the all-party group on excellence in the built environment, which I chair, published its report on the Government’s green deal for the domestic residential market. I was delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who is responsible for planning, attended the launch. May we have a debate on this issue, so that the Government can bring us all up to date on the progress they are making on the green deal and how better insulation in homes will help to reduce the number of families and individuals living in fuel poverty?

[Tom Brake]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was able to be here for Energy questions earlier, but energy efficiency and the green deal came up then. Let me detail some of the specific things that the Government have done. In October 2012, the Department of Energy and Climate Change offered English local authorities the opportunity to bid for funding to reduce the extent of fuel poverty, and £31 million is now going into 60 projects involving just under 170 local authorities. Of course, we have the Warm Front scheme—it was closed in January for new applications but we are still processing others and measures are being taken on the back of that. In response to the shadow Leader of the House, I also set out the measures we are taking to support people who are in fuel poverty or are struggling to pay their bills with a range of initiatives, including the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the debate next Wednesday on the fate of the Arctic Sunrise crew, who are still being held captive in Murmansk. It is nearly a month since the Russian authorities hijacked the boat and unlawfully detained and arrested the crew, including six Britons, three of whom are from Devon. They have now been charged with the ludicrous charge of piracy. May we have an urgent statement from a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister on what the British Government are doing to secure their release?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, which raises a significant issue. Indeed, the Prime Minister responded to it yesterday in Prime Minister’s questions, because one of his constituents is also affected. The British Government have rightly made representations, and I want to see those people released as soon as possible.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Following its recent survey of businesses, the Hull and Humber chamber of commerce stated that

“the economic recovery in the Humber region is gathering pace”.

Constituencies such as mine contain a large proportion of low-income and middle-income households, and we need to ensure that they are the first to benefit from the recovery. Will the Deputy Leader of the House find time for a debate when these issues may be fully aired?

[Tom Brake]

Clearly, we want to ensure that those on low incomes and middle incomes benefit first from the recovery, and that is exactly what is happening in the tax measures we are introducing. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is detecting good news economically in his constituency. Some 1.4 million more people are in work today in the private sector than there were at the time of the general election. On a whole number of indicators things are moving in the right direction. There should be no room for complacency, but we are beginning to see very positive indicators in the economy generally.

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

May we have an urgent debate on the ever-increasing cost of in-work benefits, given that it would appear that the taxpayer is having to subsidise employees of companies that are earning millions of pounds in profits? It is not about time that they paid decent wages and cut the welfare bill?

[Tom Brake]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that where employers are in a position to pay the living wage, they should do so, but that should not be at the expense of jobs. So he makes a valid point, but how employers address that is a decision for them.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

There is a great deal of concern about the protection of vulnerable children, so may we have a debate on how child protection services in Somerset, which were adjudged to be outstanding just five years ago, were last year judged to be inadequate, with Ofsted saying this year that there has been no improvement? Does it not show an astonishing failure of political leadership and management that Somerset county council, which does not face overwhelming demands on its social services, is now considered to be among the 17 worst local authorities in the country at protecting our children?

[Tom Brake]

May I say what a pleasure it is to respond to a question from my hon. Friend, who did such a good job as Deputy Leader of the House before me? The Government take any failure to deliver adequate children’s social care services very seriously. I recognise the challenges that local authorities can face in delivering strong child protection services, but it is right that Ofsted should identify weaknesses clearly and set out the areas where improvement is needed. I can assure him that Ministers are acting robustly to ensure that failure is turned around quickly and sustainably. In Somerset, that process has happened. Department for Education officials have met senior representatives from Somerset council and Ministers intend to issue the council with a notice to improve. Clearly, my hon. Friend’s strong concerns are now on the record, too.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

The earnings limit for carers allowance was last increased in April 2010. Carers in my Bridgend constituency tell me that if they work more than 16 hours on the national minimum wage, they will lose their carers allowance. Carers are critical to our economy; they provide a vital service and support to vulnerable people. Is it not wrong that they should be punished in this way? May we have a debate on how we can support carers and ensure that changes to the benefit system do not leave them worse off?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question, because it gives me an opportunity to reinforce her point about the excellent work that carers do, which is acknowledged on both sides of the House. She has raised a specific issue about the earnings limit and I will ensure that her concerns are passed on to Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions.

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

May we have a debate on the effect that decisions taken by one Government agency have on other Government Departments and on the public purse? Training for Travel in my constituency, which provides training for the travel industry, was days away from transferring its training providing business to another provider when the Skills Funding Agency told it that it was cancelling its training contract. The result is that that company is likely to fold, resulting in hundreds of thousands of pounds having to be paid out by other Government Departments in statutory redundancy and the like.

[Tom Brake]

The issue my hon. Friend raises is quite complex and I have a significantly complex reply that I could give him, but in the circumstances I think it would be better for me to ensure that he is written to. He might also want to raise the matter in Business, Innovation and Skills questions next week, if that is appropriate.

[Mr Speaker]

That is immensely considerate of the Deputy Leader of the House and we thank him for that.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May we have a debate or a statement about the regulations governing major retail developments in local areas? Late last night, I was contacted by residents on Melton road who were complaining bitterly about Sainsbury’s, which is trying to put up a huge store on the junction of Melton road and Troon way. The work goes on throughout the night. We are trying to make Leicester into the city of culture; Sainsbury’s is trying to make Leicester into the city of roadworks.

[Tom Brake]

There might be an opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman to raise the subject at Communities and Local Government questions on Monday and we will have a debate on Thursday on planning, housing supply and the countryside, and he might be able to raise the issue as part of the planning aspect.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

May we have a debate on restoring public trust in the police? Is it not the case that David Shaw, the chief constable of West Mercia police, should take immediate and appropriate action against the officer implicated in lying against my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)?

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and I am sure that he will have heard the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister state their position. The behaviour was unacceptable and action would be appropriate, but clearly that is something for the Crown Prosecution Service and others to consider, rather than Ministers.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Has the Deputy Leader of the House seen this week’s article in The Economist, which referred to towns such as Hartlepool, Hull, Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton as “rustbelt Britain” and urged the Government to ignore and abandon them? May we have a debate on the issue so that we can reject that ridiculous notion and highlight the promise and potential of my area, or would such a debate merely confirm that the Government have already abandoned areas such as Hartlepool?

[Tom Brake]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that this is a matter on which there is agreement. No one wants to abandon any towns or cities, and that is why the Government have invested as heavily as we have in the regional growth fund to ensure that jobs in the private sector are there. We want to work constructively with him on that issue.

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

May we have a debate on the factors that lead to business investment and job creation? Honeytop Speciality Foods in my constituency has already exported naan bread to India. It is creating 200 extra jobs this month, and it has turned Dunstable into the crumpet capital of the United Kingdom. But it gets even better. I have now learned of an extra £22 million investment to produce the fastest burger bun plant in the whole of Europe. Is it not critical that we have this type of investment across the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Tom Brake]

I am aware that the hon. Gentleman raised the same issue last week. He will remember that the Leader of the House promised to go and sample a crumpet if he was in his constituency. Last night I was at a planning meeting at my local authority to support strong local opposition to the opening of a fast-food restaurant, so it would be hypocritical of me to offer to come and eat a burger with the hon. Gentleman. However, he has put on record the fact that substantial, welcome investment is going into his constituency, which I am sure will create lots of jobs, building on what the Government have already achieved—the 1.4 million jobs that we have helped to create in the private sector.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

The prison population is approaching record highs and the numbers of prison staff are approaching record lows, and that is causing prison staff up and down the country to have great health and safety concerns. The situation has been described as a powder keg. May we have a debate on how we approach safety and health for prison staff before we as politicians suffer greatly as a result of a tragic incident that is waiting to happen in the Prison Service?

[Tom Brake]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on drawing attention to that. Clearly, we all want our prisons to be safe environments both for prison staff and for prisoners. He has made a specific request about staffing levels and the impact on health and safety, and I will ensure that a written response is sent to him.

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

Far too often, constituents of mine end up in destitution when their claim for employment and support allowance ends. Whereas they qualify for jobseeker’s allowance or income support, such a claim is not put in place. Will the Government introduce a motion to authorise the Department of Work and Pensions to institute automatically a claim in appropriate circumstances while the legislative environment is resolved?

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He said something on which we can achieve consensus, which is that no one should be left destitute. If there is an appropriate way of ensuring the transition to which he referred, I am sure that DWP will seek to find it.

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

May I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to take time this week to read the article that I published in The House magazine this week about how we treat the people who work in this Parliament of ours? Most of our constituents and certainly mine in Huddersfield believe that this place should be a beacon of good treatment of people at work. Zero-hours contracts, no contracts and short-term contracts dominate this House now and it is about time we put our shop right. Let us lead; let us be a beacon. Let us treat our staff well.

[Tom Brake]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was able to speak in the Opposition day debate on that very subject yesterday. If he did, he will have heard the Minister’s response. I agree with him that we should be an exemplar in terms of how we treat people who work in this place. I will endeavour in the next few hours to track down a copy of The House magazine so that I can read his article.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Over the past five years QinetiQ in Boscombe Down in my constituency has doubled the number of new graduate trainees and apprentices that it employs. It has also set up the 5% campaign to challenge other companies to aim for 5% of their work force being drawn from apprentices and new graduate trainees. Will the Deputy Leader of the House make time for a statement on how the Government can encourage this worthwhile campaign?

[Tom Brake]

My hon. Friend has rightly drawn attention to the importance of employers taking on graduates and apprentices. He will be aware that we have created a million extra apprenticeships, which is beginning to have a real effect. I am sure that in the contacts that both he and I have with employers, they underline how much added value apprentices bring to their company. So he has helped publicise this today, and I am sure that all Members will want to do so in the contacts that they have with employers.

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

The Deputy Leader of the House said that he was in the Chamber for Energy questions. He will have heard me tell the House that Grangemouth oil refinery and chemicals is shut down until further notice. It is not only the first time that there has been a full, cold shutdown of that plant, which represents 10% of the Scottish economy, in the 21 years that I have represented the town, but it is the first time since I first worked there as a student in 1967. The replies from the Energy Minister were all about securing supply and everyone getting supplies. May we have a statement from the Business Secretary and a debate in the Chamber about the fact that planning clearly went into this so that the company, which is owned by one man and two others but mainly by one man, who may be the equivalent of a Russian oligarch and may have been involved in collusion with this Government to store up supplies so that he could take on the work force and break them because he wants to take £50 million out of the terms and conditions of employment of the people on that site, so we need a debate on collusion—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman probably should seek an Adjournment debate on the matter in order fully to give vent to his multiple concerns on the issue. Business questions is an occasion when a brief request for a debate is made.

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) has put on record his concerns for a second time. I will not repeat some of the language that he used, but clearly from the Government’s perspective we would encourage the employers and the unions to work together to ensure that the matter is resolved. If he feels as strongly about the issue as he clearly does, there will be an opportunity for him to raise it again next Thursday during questions to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

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

The editor of The Guardian recently boasted online that he was “taking precautions” to prevent UK security services from having access to the files of vital national security information that he had sent outwith the remit of the UK courts to The New York Times. Security sources are still trying to decrypt these files, which The Independent described as “highly detailed” and a “threat to national security”. May we have a statement to reassure the House that The Guardian will be asked for a decryption key and if none is forthcoming, action will be taken?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman has been successful in securing a debate on Tuesday next week, when I am sure he will get a much more detailed response to his concerns than I am able to give him. Clearly, he is right that intelligence leaks are causing serious damage to the UK’s national security. The Government have a duty to protect national security and should make it clear to media organisations that publishing highly classified material damages our ability to protect this country. Journalists are not in a position to make national security assessments on what should or should not be published. As he will be aware, however, it is a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether a crime has been committed and what action should be taken as a result. As I said, he will have an opportunity on Tuesday to raise these matters in detail.

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

In view of what we have just heard and what was said by the Prime Minister yesterday, by the Home Secretary before the Home Affairs Committee and by the head of MI5, is the Deputy Leader of the House aware that many of us believe that what is happening at present are threats and smears against The Guardian for publishing details, which is not in any way a threat to the security of our country, but information which the public have a right to know? As the Liberal Democrats are supposed to be ardent defenders of our civil liberties, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will bear it in mind that it would be useful to have an overall debate on intelligence and security matters and not just leave it to the Committee which meets in private session.

[Tom Brake]

I will not restate what I have said, but the Government clearly have a duty to protect our national security. If a newspaper—whichever one—is in the business of publishing information that damages our national security or circulating information that has the potential to do so, the Government are required to respond. If that newspaper publishes information on certain matters that have no relevance to national security, clearly we want them to be able to do so.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

In the next few days we will hear an announcement on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, which is obviously vital to UK plc. The Government will no doubt make a statement to that effect, which will be welcome, but may we have a debate in the Chamber to consider it more closely, because of the importance to skills and inward investment and what it will mean for UK plc over the next 100 years?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman is right to expect a statement on the matter very soon, and it would be appropriate for him to take that opportunity to make his point and to listen to the responses to all the other questions that will be asked.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the Government’s support for traditional music, as this year Wingates brass band is celebrating its 140th anniversary? On 26 October it will hold a concert at which two new specially written pieces will be introduced, as well as the launch of “From Bible Class to World Class”, a book about its history. Will the Deputy Leader of the House join me in congratulating Wingates brass band on that fantastic achievement?

[Tom Brake]

I join the hon. Lady in congratulating that musical ensemble. I am afraid that my briefing pack, although extensive, did not run to traditional music, but she has put the matter on the record and I am sure that in future all Members will want to know more about that important subject.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

The Commission on Human Medicines has today recommended that schools should be permitted to keep an asthma inhaler for general use for when children who do not have recourse to their own inhaler suffer an attack, which Members will be shocked to learn is currently against the regulations. May we please have a debate on support for children in our schools who suffer from chronic conditions such as asthma?

[Tom Brake]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on campaigning on the matter. The Government are grateful to the Commission on Human Medicines for its recommendation and intend to act on it. We will consult on changing the regulations to allow schools, if they so wish, to hold a spare asthma inhaler for emergencies and to develop appropriate protocols for their staff to ensure its safe and proper use. She will have opportunities on Monday, during Communities and Local Government questions, and on Tuesday, during Health questions, to raise the matter of schools and health.

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

We already know that accident and emergency departments in the north-east are to receive no extra funding this winter, but this week we learnt that the South Tees clinical commissioning group’s per-head funding is to be cut significantly, alongside other north-east CCGs. Following that, Monitor indicated that it will be investigating South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for a persistent failure to meet targets on waiting times, and on clostridium difficile and for a rise in never events. May we have a debate in the House in Government time about NHS funding for the north-east?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I do not have the specific figures about north-east funding in front of me, but he will be aware that the Government have committed an extra £12.7 billion to the NHS, in contrast with Opposition Front Benchers, who I think described that proposal as “irresponsible”. The level of funding going into the NHS is very significant. On A and E and NHS waiting times, average waiting times remain low and stable. The number of patients who have been waiting longer than 52 weeks is 352—clearly that is 352 too many—but that compares with a total of 18,458 at the end of May 2010, when his party left power.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Ellen, a year 11 student from my part of Somerset, wrote to me about the cancellation of her GCSE maths exam in November, having heard about it not through her school nor through Parliament but through the Sunday papers. May we have a debate to consider the method of communicating such changes, which Ellen says causes confusion, distress, upset and anger, and to see whether it would be preferable and more sensible for changes to apply only to students who started studying for their exams last month rather than making dramatic changes for those like Ellen who, since 2009, had planned her work with her teachers for an exam next month?

[Tom Brake]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was able to be in the Chamber on Monday when the Minister for Schools made a statement about standards; she may find that pertinent to the issue. She has raised a specific point about which I will ensure that the Department for Education writes to her.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My constituents continue to suffer from cold calling by claims management companies. Will the Deputy Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Justice to make a statement to this House on the performance of his Department in regulating those companies, including looking at whether to transfer that responsibility to the Financial Conduct Authority?

[Tom Brake]

I am sure that every Member in the Chamber has sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point. These calls are persistent and an irritant, and we need to ensure that, as far as possible, the matter is addressed. He asked for the Secretary of State for Justice to respond to the issue. I will make sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of his concerns and writes to him about the matter.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on local authorities’ winter highways maintenance preparedness?

[Tom Brake]

I am sure that we are all hoping our local authorities will be getting in the appropriate levels of salt and sand to ensure that we have, as far as possible, an accident-free winter. The hon. Gentleman will be interested to hear that the Department for Transport continues to liaise with local and national partners to improve winter resilience so that this country enters the forthcoming winter season well prepared. A national strategic salt reserve of no less than 425,000 tonnes is going to be brought to bear on this issue. If he wanted to raise specific issues about local authorities, he could do so on Monday at Communities and Local Government questions.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 589, which deals with lower taxes for lower earners?

[That this House welcomes the Government taking 2.2 million people out of income tax so far by increasing the personal allowance threshold; further welcomes the Government raising the income tax threshold even further to £10,000 in 2015; notes that the Government is committed to helping the low paid with the cost of living by lowering taxes so that they can keep more of their own money; further notes that the National Insurance threshold remains at £7,748; and therefore urges the Government to examine the possibilities of increasing the threshold for National Insurance in the long term to help low earners with the cost of living.]

My right hon. Friend mentioned earlier the fact that our Conservative Chancellor has cut taxes for 20 million lower earners in our country. May we have a debate on whether we can help lower earners still further by raising the threshold for national insurance?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is a doughty campaigner on many issues and has had great success with some of them. I am pleased that the issues he mentions are very much on the Government’s agenda. Once we have hit the threshold to allow people to earn £10,000 before they pay any income tax, the Liberal Democrats would like to push the matter further, and the Government as a whole might like to do so as well. He raises the specific issue of national insurance contributions, and I am sure that he would support the Government’s initiative to reduce those in relation to employers. I can assure him that I have just read his early-day motion, and fantastic it is too.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Deputy Leader of the House is demonstrating that he could be Leader of the House by filling in for him today. Could this be extended so that other deputies could take over for a day? Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could take over for a day; may I suggest 1 April?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. It was all going so well until the last phrase. In fact, I misheard it so I will just stick with the first part. I think it is entirely appropriate for deputies to take over on the occasions when they are required to do so. I was rather expecting my shadow, the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), to take over for today as well; I am not quite sure what happened there.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Today is international credit union day and the Bishop of Stafford is opening in a Stafford department store a branch of the Staffordshire credit union, with which I have an account. Could we have a debate on how credit unions can provide viable and excellent competition against payday lenders and other forms of credit on the high street?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Perhaps I should declare an interest as a member of the Croydon, Sutton and Merton credit union. Clearly, there is real potential for credit unions to enter the market and provide people with loans at low rates of interest and to make a sustainable contribution. I am sure that Members of all parties are interested in the subject of credit unions, so the hon. Gentleman may want to consider making representations to the Backbench Business Committee through an all-party delegation.

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

Data published yesterday show that my Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency is one of the top three in the country for falling unemployment, with particularly encouraging falls of more than 40% year on year for both long-term unemployment and 18 to 24-year-old claimants. Could we have a debate on job creation, in order to explore not just that positive news, but how we can accelerate growth and ensure that it is spread around the country?

[Tom Brake]

I would welcome such a debate. I am pleased for the hon. Gentleman and his constituents that there has been a significant drop in unemployment in his constituency, which is something that is being replicated to a greater or lesser extent around the whole country. Employment is up, unemployment is down and youth unemployment is slightly down. Clearly, there are still many issues that we need to address and the debate suggested by the hon. Gentleman might give the Government the opportunity to focus on youth unemployment, on which we could make even more progress.

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

For some time I have been in correspondence with the Foreign Office on the unacceptable and illegal discrimination faced by UK and other foreign national lecturers in Italy. Despite repeated attempts to get the European Commission to act and intervene, no action has been taken and the Commission is now looking to close the file. Could we therefore have an important debate on this clear and systemic breach by Italy of the free movement of workers within the European Union, and its discrimination against them, and the failings of the European Commission to act on it?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman is right. This is a serious issue and it is the Government’s view that the discrimination faced by UK and foreign national lecturers in Italy is not only unacceptable, but illegal. We have been pressing the Italian authorities to find a solution and the hon. Gentleman may be aware that the Minister for Universities and Science met the Italian Education Minister on 5 October and raised the problems faced by foreign lecturers working in Italy. He received assurances that the Italians are actively looking into a solution over the next year.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

May we have a debate on what I think is the case that someone from my constituency of Beckenham who happens to be a Scotsman and wants to go to university in Scotland has to pay tuition fees, whereas someone who lives in Scotland who happens to be an Englishman does not and someone who comes from France, Germany, Italy or Spain does not, either? It seems extraordinary.

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman is right. He will be aware that higher education is a devolved matter for Scotland and that under EU law member states cannot discriminate on grounds of nationality against people from other member states in the conditions of access to vocational training, which includes higher education. Where certain residency and nationality conditions are met, EU nationals and their family members will qualify for home fee status and will therefore be treated the same with regard to tuition fees as UK nationals who also satisfy the residency conditions.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), I welcome the drop in unemployment in my constituency of Mid Derbyshire. I visited the local A4e last week, which is very successful at getting more than 100 long-term unemployed people a month into employment, but I was told that its biggest problem related to those with mental illness. May we have a debate on how we can further help people with mental illness who are long-term unemployed?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Lady is right that organisations that are seeking to address long-term unemployment are coming across people with substantial challenges such as mental health issues and drug or alcohol addiction. The Government are committed to assisting them through various work programmes. She has made a pertinent point that requires a written response. She may be interested to know that I am meeting Rethink Mental Illness later today to talk about the sorts of issues that she has raised.

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

A few months ago, the Secretary of State for Health rightly made a statement to announce the suspension of the Safe and Sustainable review into children’s heart surgery after the Independent Reconfiguration Panel found that it had been flawed and biased. It seems that the same thing may be happening again. May we have another statement on the composition of the clinical reference group because three of its four members established a position in 2010 on what should happen? One of them, Anne Keatley-Clarke, the chief executive of the Children’s Heart Federation, has behaved in a thoroughly unprofessional manner. The Independent Reconfiguration Panel described her charity’s role as

“a source of unhelpful divisiveness”.

May we have a statement so that we can discover why a supposedly neutral body is being set up in such a biased way?

[Tom Brake]

I am afraid that I cannot guarantee my hon. Friend a statement, but I can offer him the opportunity to raise the matter at Health questions on Tuesday. He has made serious allegations about the composition of the clinical reference group and it would be appropriate for the Secretary of State for Health to respond.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Principled employment agencies throughout the United Kingdom are suffering and some are closing because of the practices of unprincipled employment agencies, which exploit staff by underpaying them and incorporating expenses into their remuneration, thereby undercutting the principled agencies that pay people properly. May we have a debate on how the rules could be changed to stop that unfair practice?

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to that issue, of which I was not aware. I am sure that she will pursue the matter at Business, Innovation and Skills questions next Thursday. It might be possible for me to secure a response for her in the interim.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

As the Deputy Leader of the House knows, the Government are planning to introduce a hybrid Bill into the House before the end of the year on the vexed subject of High Speed 2. It will be accompanied by an environmental statement that contains more than 50,000 pages of information. On the day on which it is laid, the Government’s consultation period will commence. It is rumoured that it will be only eight weeks long and will take place over the Christmas period. Will he grant a debate on the efficiency and effectiveness of the consultation periods that are being allowed by the Government, to ensure in particular that my constituents and other people who will be affected along the line have a decent time to reply to what will be one of the largest environmental statements in history?

[Tom Brake]

Again, I am not in a position to guarantee such a debate. However, my right hon. Friend will be aware that the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill will be debated in this place on Thursday 31 October and she may have an opportunity to raise those issues during that debate. She will also be aware that there have been many legal challenges to what the Government are doing on this issue, but that overwhelmingly the Government have been successful in overturning them.

[Andrew Bridgen]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

There will be no points of order now because we have a statement.

Afghanistan

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

11:53

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the Government’s progress in Afghanistan.

First, may I welcome the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) to his new role? I very much look forward to his contribution to the important area in which we both now work.

Secondly, I pay tribute to Lance Corporal James Brynin of 14 Signal Regiment, who was tragically killed in action in Afghanistan on 15 October after coming under enemy fire during an operation in Nahri Sarraj. My thoughts are with his family and loved ones as they come to terms with their terrible loss. Four hundred and forty-five members of the UK armed forces have died on operations in Afghanistan since 2001. Their bravery and commitment to our nation’s security will never be forgotten.

Our objective in Afghanistan has not changed since the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament in July. We are protecting the UK by ensuring that Afghanistan is not used as a base for terrorism against our country and our allies. We are helping the Afghan Government in three main ways: to increase the capability of Afghanistan’s national security force; to make progress towards a sustainable political settlement; and to build a viable state that helps meet the needs of the Afghan people. Progress has been made on all three fronts. This summer, through the fiercest months of the Taliban fighting season, Afghan national security forces led the security response to the insurgency threat for the first time. That followed President Karzai’s milestone announcement in June that the ANSF has assumed lead responsibility for security throughout the country.

The ANSF has now reached its temporary surge strength target of 352,000 army, police and air force personnel, and today leads 93% of all operations across Afghanistan. Those numbers are having an effect on the battlefield. Despite an increase in violence levels and high-profile attacks in June, the ANSF responded effectively to the majority of security incidents, and launched several proactive operations to disrupt planned attacks in Kabul and elsewhere. That resulted in just one high-profile attack taking place in the capital since July, and an overall reduction in violence levels throughout July and August. Crucially, the ANSF is succeeding in keeping the insurgency out of the protected communities, and the majority of violence is now taking place away from populated areas.

There have been several successful operations in recent months, which were notable not only for their size but for their complexity and degree of co-ordination. For example, the ANSF launched Operation Seamough at the end of July—a combined clearance, security and international aid mission to secure the main supply routes south of Kabul. That operation involved more than 1,300 Afghan security personnel, working alongside other arms of the Afghan Government, as well as humanitarian organisations. In line with the clear progress of the Afghan national security forces, the UK and our international security assistance force partners are continuing the process of draw-down and redeployment. Today we have four UK bases in central Helmand as well as Camp Bastion—down from 137 UK bases at the height of the conflict. On 9 August the military headquarters of the UK’s Task Force Helmand moved from Lashkar Gah to Camp Bastion, symbolising the changing UK military profile in central Helmand. We have also reduced the total number of UK armed forces personnel in theatre from 7,900 in May, to currently around 6,800. By the end of the year we will have reduced that even further to 5,200 personnel, notwithstanding occasional fluctuations due to temporary surges into theatre.

We must not forget the challenges that still remain, and throughout all this the insurgency has remained a determined and resilient enemy. However, as we approach the final year of the ISAF campaign, we can be optimistic about Afghanistan’s future. Encouragingly, recent Afghan polls show that 90% of Afghans feel that security in their area is fair to good, and 80% of Afghans say they feel safe travelling outside their area during the day. Such perceptions in the minds of ordinary Afghans will ultimately determine the country’s fate. The ANSF is an essential component in achieving that, and in building a secure and viable Afghan state that can provide long-term security and governance for its people.

Progress has also been made in securing a sustainable political settlement for Afghanistan ahead of presidential and provincial elections in 2014. Afghans want and deserve the right to decide the future of their country, and we are committed to helping them achieve that. A constitutional, peaceful transfer of power from President Karzai to his successor will be a significant milestone for the Afghan people, yet we cannot underestimate the challenge of holding those elections. We are working hard to support the Afghan authorities to make them as credible, inclusive and transparent as possible, and we very much welcome the fact that two vital pieces of electoral reform were passed by the Afghan Parliament and signed by President Karzai in late July. That was an historic moment and the first time that Afghanistan has had laws of that kind debated and voted on by Parliament, rather than adopted by decree.

DFID has given £12 million to support the Independent Electoral Commission. The IEC has recruited and trained more than 5,600 officials for voter registration, including almost 2,000 women, as well as encouraged people to vote through public service announcements on TV and radio. So far, it has helped to ensure that more than 2 million Afghans have registered to vote—as of mid-October—of whom around 31% are women. Efforts to encourage women to participate in the electoral process will increase in the coming months. DFID’s programme to support women’s political participation will build the political capacity of female political candidates through training and mentoring. That is part of a wider DFID programme to strengthen political governance in Afghanistan and has been fast-tracked so that our support for women’s political participation is embedded long before the elections. Ahead of the election, the Afghan Government must continue to meet the needs of their people. DFID is taking an active role in supporting the lives of ordinary Afghans, be it to improve their livelihoods or exercise their rights.

Our support for the HALO Trust in removing landmines and unexploded ordnance from land in Herat province in western Afghanistan continues to deliver excellent results. Reporting from the HALO Trust and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shows that, thanks to UK aid, more than 20,000 families, many of whom are internally displaced people, have benefitted from the return of land to productive use in the Jebrail township in Herat. Hazara refugees returning from Iran also benefit. Between April and June this year, HALO cleared more than 1.6 million square metres of land in Herat province and disposed safely of two anti-personnel mines, 10 anti-tank mines, 63 unexploded ordnances and 1,609 small arms ammunitions. The UK has committed to making the whole of Herat province free from mines and unexploded ordnance by 2018.

Elsewhere, UK support for the Afghan Government’s comprehensive agriculture and rural development facility continues to help farmers in four provinces across Afghanistan to improve their livelihoods by increasing the value of agricultural crops and building better links to markets for their products. In Helmand, UK support for technical and vocational education and training has helped more than 15,000 graduates to secure employment, already exceeding the programme’s 2014 target. DFID is looking at how best to strengthen the programme further to ensure that graduates get the best out of their training.

We believe that DFID’s support for Afghan civil society through the Tawanmandi programme is having a lasting impact. One of Tawanmandi’s core partners, the Community Centre for the Disabled, has successfully worked to improve the welfare of disabled people. As a result of its efforts, the Government of Afghanistan have passed legislation to enshrine the rights and active participation of disabled people in society. The second call for Tawanmandi grant proposals has recently closed, and we look forward in the near future to being able to extend our support to more Afghan organisations, including those supporting women and youth groups.

We are determined to support women in Afghanistan, who continue to face severe challenges in their daily lives, including the regular threat of violence. We are already providing support for girls’ education and women’s empowerment in addition to working with the Government of Afghanistan to ensure they uphold their responsibilities and commitments to protect women. Earlier this year, I said I wanted to go further and make tackling violence against women a strategic priority for DFID’s work in Afghanistan. My officials have consulted experts, non-governmental organisations and Afghan women to ensure that our implementation reflects their needs. I will announce our revised approach in due course.

In July, DFID and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials took part in a senior officials meeting in Kabul, where donors reaffirmed their aid commitments of more than $16 billion until 2015. However, the international community also delivered a clear message that existing levels of aid will be at risk if the Afghan Government fail to take forward their reform commitments. As well as ensuring credible and inclusive elections, we are particularly keen to see progress on tackling corruption, upholding women’s rights and managing the economy. Failure to deliver those reforms could jeopardise the stability of Afghanistan. During the recent World Bank annual meetings in Washington, I met Finance Minister Zakhilwal and reiterated the importance of Afghanistan continuing to make credible progress on agreed reforms, including the International Monetary Fund programme.

Finally, the UK Government look forward to co-chairing with the Afghan Government the 2014 ministerial meeting to assess further progress against the Tokyo mutual accountability framework. We expect that that will take place three to six months after the formation of the next Afghan Government. Working together, the Afghan Government and their international partners have a unique chance to set the conditions for political, security and economic transition. We must continue to focus on that over the coming months, and I commend this statement to the House.

12:04

[Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for advance sight of it. I also thank her for her warm wishes. I look forward to shadowing her, supporting her where possible and scrutinising when necessary, in particular when the Government seek to forge a domestic and global consensus on the post-2015 agenda for international development.

We meet amidst myriad security challenges, and while countless countries and communities seek UK support. For all the conflicts and the contest for resources, our commitment to Afghanistan must remain a constant beyond the 2014 military draw-down. Our safety at home is in part dependent on the security and stability of that country.

We reflect on the fact that Afghanistan cannot become a forgotten conflict in the knowledge that British men and women are risking their all for our security. That was brought home to us with the news of the death of Lance Corporal James Brynin of the 14th Signal Regiment. His family and friends, and all those lost, are in the thoughts of all of us and in the prayers of many of us.

The Opposition support the Department for International Development’s work in Afghanistan and we recognise that progress has been made. More children are attending school, access to health care is improving, the economy is growing and, for the first time, Parliament-approved elections are forthcoming. Progress, however, is not irreversible. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and most fragile countries in the world, progress on the millennium development goals is slow, violence and corruption persist and, while the courage of many individuals in the Afghan security force is not in doubt, the resilience and capacity of that force remains uncertain.

I would like to ask the Secretary of State questions about four areas. I start by asking whether she agrees with the recommendation of the Select Committee on International Development that

“the UK Government reconsider DFID’s focus on creating a ‘viable state’, giving greater emphasis to the provision of services and alleviating poverty”.

It would appear that the two are symbiotic and that, should the alleviation of poverty be sustainable and services locally responsive, credible Afghan institutions and a viable Afghan state are prerequisites.

The enabling of such a state, however, is, as the Secretary of State herself alluded to, dependent on a reflective and genuine political settlement. These issues will come to the fore at next year’s Tokyo review conference, but the Secretary of State said that existing levels of aid will be “at risk” if the Afghan Government fail to take forward their reform commitments. Will she say which specific reforms she is referring to, and give an assessment of current progress and what is required to preserve current levels of aid? More immediately, what has been the impact of the arrest of senior Pakistan Taliban leader, Latif Mehsud, on establishing a post-2014 security agreement?

A political settlement is vital outside as well as inside the country. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what discussions have taken place with the Government of Prime Minister Sharif regarding NATO convoy routes, transportation of British equipment from Afghanistan through Pakistan, and Pakistan’s support in the run-up to Presidential elections?

It was a shared belief of the international community that female advancement was vital to delivering a secure society across Afghanistan. It was concerning, therefore, that the International Development Committee recently stated that “the situation for women” had “deteriorated in some respects”. The Secretary of State rightly talked about wider research and work. I invite her to update the House on progress on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 relating to the role of women in conflict, and on whether members of the Afghan civil service and military are being educated in the terms of that resolution.

We on the Opposition Benches are committed to effective delivery of aid. We know that that means that expertise on the ground is essential; but it is also compulsory in Whitehall. I pay tribute to the many civilian staff whose integrity and ingenuity is so central to our nation’s proud development record. Reports of high staff turnover and loss of capacity in DFID, however, are a worry. Can the Secretary of State say, therefore, how the numbers of individuals working on Afghanistan in her Department have changed since 2010? Specifically, how many staff have Afghan linguistic skills?

Finally, this is the UK’s fourth military campaign in Afghanistan. We have no intention of there ever being a fifth. In a conflict that has never had a purely military solution, the success of the DFID mission will be increasingly crucial in building the lasting stability that our armed forces have fought so tenaciously to secure.

[Justine Greening]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those comments and questions. He is quite right that our Afghanistan programme needs to take a balanced approach. Alongside our work on livelihoods, it needs to focus on basic service provision. In fact, as he will know, much of the work done through the Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund has focused very much on that—on schools and health. Particularly in places such as Helmand, the UK has played a leading role in the provincial reconstruction team to ensure that those things happen on the ground.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the challenges and risks around donors’ support for Afghanistan going forward. What the donors want, including the UK, is for people to stick to what was agreed in Tokyo and the mutual accountability framework. It is very important that we see the progress that ultimately can only be made by the Afghan Government, particularly by passing the necessary laws through Parliament. The law on the elimination of violence against women, for example, which has passed through Parliament, must now be seen to be implemented. We also need to see action taken to bear down on corruption and a successful outcome to the appeal process in relation to the Kabul bank corruption. We want to see the Afghan Government continue to make significant progress in several areas, alongside the work that donors are doing on their behalf.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the post-2014 security agreement and was right to point out that the bilateral security agreement under discussion between the US, predominantly, and Afghanistan is yet to be finalised. Ultimately, that is a matter for the US Government, but clearly we are committed to playing our role in a NATO-led process after 2014, and as he will be aware, to date, we have been very clear that that will focus on our work with the Afghan national army officer academy. In addition, alongside that support, we will provide security and support for any UK personnel involved.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly flagged up the massively important relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of course he will know that the UK has played a key role in brokering the so-called trilateral talks, which have seen the UK bring together Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the World Bank meetings at the weekend, I met both Ishaq Dar, the Pakistan Finance Minister, and Minister Zakhilwal, the Afghanistan Finance Minister, both of whom made it clear that they saw as key the need to grow economic links, in particular, between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I was encouraged by their enthusiasm to work together and follow up those initial discussions between their respective Governments with meetings over the coming months. As I told them, the UK stands ready to play its role in helping that relationship to grow and become a positive one.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly flagged up the challenge of ensuring that we do not lose the gains we have seen on women and girls. This is a massively important point. I have elevated the issue of violence against women and girls to a strategic priority for my team to ensure that it never gets lost within the work that we do. It is worth bearing in mind the context. For a start, life expectancy in Afghanistan is 49, while 87% of women can expect to suffer violence during their lives. Under the Taliban, they faced the worst prospects of any women in the world. We are quite right, therefore, to focus on this issue, and Parliament is right to send out a message that we believe this matters massively. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank colleagues from across the House for enabling us to speak with one voice on this agenda over the past 12 months. I spend a lot of time talking with women in Afghanistan—I had a chance to meet parliamentarians there—and I know that it makes a difference to them. I can assure him, therefore, that this will remain a priority, and over the coming weeks I will set out how we will up our game.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman talked about staff in Afghanistan with linguistic skills. Obviously, the UK Government work closely, including on development, with many locally employed staff, which helps to ensure that we have the right skills in place. We recognise that it is an incredibly dangerous and challenging place for anyone to work in, which is why we have been clear that we want to be responsible and help those people in danger after working for the UK Government. That is why we have been clear about a repatriation package where we think those risks are significant.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is an important statement, but I remind the House that there are two debates to follow under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, the first of which is especially heavily subscribed, so I must appeal to colleagues to ask single, short supplementary questions, without preamble, and to the Secretary of State for her customarily pithy replies.

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

What does my right hon. Friend regard as the greatest strategic threat to the longer-term success of our mission in Afghanistan?

[Mr Speaker]

A master class from the Chairman of the Defence Committee.

[Justine Greening]

Ultimately, it will be having successful elections that can deliver a leadership in Afghanistan able to create a state that can keep itself secure. Without security, all our development work, including that on women and girls, will be undermined. Ultimately, what matters is having strong leadership in Afghanistan, which we hope to get following the 2014 elections.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with the secret Ministry of Defence document, published in response to a freedom of information request, advising the Government to conceal the news of deaths in Afghanistan and elsewhere in order to make future deaths more palatable? I do not know whether she has visited the facilities at Brize Norton, but it is clear that there are no facilities there to express grief, as there were on previous bases. Is it not right that the public understand the full effect of the grief of the relatives—a wound of grief that will never heal—rather than have a Government who try to conceal the true cost of war?

[Justine Greening]

I do not believe that there has been any such attempt. The UK has played a major part in the international security assistance force campaign and has played a correspondingly high price through the tragic loss and injury of UK servicemen and women. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence is committed to ensuring that their memory will live on and that they can be commemorated appropriately.

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

Next Tuesday, at a slightly earlier time than normal—3.15 pm— 120 soldiers from 1st Mechanised Brigade, returning from Afghanistan, will arrive at the north door of Westminster Hall, where right hon. and hon. Members will have the option to thank them for all they have done. Does my right hon. Friend agree that their legacy—the legacy of the 445 people who have died and the others who have been injured—will be a relatively stable and peaceful Afghanistan, and that the legacy of her work and that of other Departments will be to continue that good work?

[Justine Greening]

Yes, I absolutely pay tribute to the work of those soldiers; they have put their lives on the line, and many have lost their lives, in order to create a more stable Afghanistan that can be part of how this country remains secure in the future. The contribution they have made to our nation is incalculable, and we should recognise that, honour it and never forget it.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Afghan security forces cannot be sustained financially by the Afghan Government, certainly not in the short to medium term. What discussions have the UK Government had with their counterparts in the USA about post-2014 funding for the Afghan security forces?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that under the Tokyo mutual accountability framework and the summit that saw it emerge, donor countries committed to giving, on average, about $4 billion of annual support up to 2017. As I pointed out to the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), that is a contract between ourselves and the Afghan Government that needs them to deliver on the part of the framework relating to progress that only they can make. There is, however, a commitment and will to ensure that funding is in place for the Afghan national security force. I should also say, briefly, that we are working to help the Afghan Government to increase their tax base, so that they do not need to rely so much on the donor community. In fact, tax receipts have risen from $200 million several years ago to more than $2 billion, in part thanks to DFID’s work with the tax revenue authority to help it do a better job.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the loss of British servicemen’s lives in Afghanistan is more than double what it was in Iraq, which was only 179—I say “only”!—and that the cost of operations in Afghanistan has so far been double what it was in Iraq? Given that we established the Chilcot inquiry to look into lessons learned from Iraq, what consideration are the Government giving to having a similar inquiry, once we have withdrawn, into what lessons can be learned from this long and bitter campaign?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Obviously we have yet to go through the draw-down process, between now and the end of next year. His point about the lessons we can learn from this conflict and the UK military role in it is well made and will certainly be considered at the highest level in Government.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s commitment to dealing with violence against women is extremely welcome. One thing we have found in this country is that it is helpful for women who want to report violence to have women to whom they can report it. Only 1% of the Afghanistan police force is female. What can the UK Government do to improve on that?

[Justine Greening]

We can continue our work with civil society, other donors and women’s groups across Afghanistan to encourage and help women to become part of the national police force. We can also continue DFID’s work as part of the Tawanmandi programme, which has seen legal aid centres established in several districts, as well as mobile legal aid centres, so that the availability of justice for women goes well beyond having women in the national police to having a justice system that they can rely on. Clearly that is a huge challenge, and I do not underestimate how far we are in Afghanistan from having the kind of justice system that people rely on and need here in the UK.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Can the Secretary of State reassure the House about the future, after 2014, of the vital work that her Department is doing for Afghan women and girls, including through the girls education challenge fund, the grants to War Child, Save the Children and Afghanaid, and the work with the Independent Election Commission, which is improving the visibility of women in the electoral process in that country?

[Justine Greening]

Yes, I can. I think of the women and girls agenda very much in terms of ensuring that women and girls have a voice and are participating in communities and national societies at all levels, and ensuring that they have a choice over how they run they lives and have control over their lives and their bodies. They should not have to live in fear of violence. DFID will continue to work across those areas and play what I would like to be a major role in the Afghan donor community to ensure that we push this agenda.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me associate myself with the remarks about Lance Corporal James Brynin, who makes me think of Corby’s own Victoria Cross hero, Lance Corporal James Ashworth, and the Ashworth family’s worry about the future of our troops in Afghanistan after 2014. Given that they will be operating under a NATO mandate, can the Secretary of State tell us who will be responsible for their safety after 2014?

[Justine Greening]

There is a NATO command structure in place, but perhaps I should take this opportunity to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the draw-down will take place in a co-ordinated and agreed fashion within ISAF. We will ensure that our troops continue to have in place not only the security to keep them safe and secure, but the logistics needed to do their job effectively.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

On the draw-down of Her Majesty’s armed forces, may I encourage my right hon. Friend to discuss with the Defence Secretary returning as much kit and equipment as is practicable and practical back to the UK and, in particular, hosting it at RAF Cosford and MOD Donnington in my constituency, where there is lots of space?

[Justine Greening]

I am sure that the Secretary of State for Defence will have heard that kind offer. The redeployment of equipment is driven by operational requirements predominantly and, then, an assessment of what is value for money. I can assure my hon. Friend that the first desire is to see equipment redeployed or, if not, sold, or otherwise gifted or destroyed.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

May I ask the Secretary of State how the repatriation of kit is going? Is the timing on schedule or are there any major problems? Given the choice of what we leave behind, I hope we are also being sensible and making the right choices, with a view to minimising the risk of kit perhaps being used against us in, heaven forbid, any future conflict.

[Justine Greening]

Perhaps I can take this opportunity to welcome my hon. Friend back to the House. It is great to see him in his place. To answer his point about progress on redeployment, we have got about a third of the way through so far, in terms of equipment such as motor vehicles and major equipment, but also some of the smaller matériel that we need to bring back from Afghanistan. We are on track to bring back all the equipment we want to between now and the end of 2014. As I have said, we will take a close look at value for money as we take those decisions.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

In the summer of 2008, 16 Air Assault Brigade transported a massive power station turbine through hostile and difficult terrain to the Kajaki dam. Five years later, may we have an update on the Kajaki dam mission?

[Justine Greening]

That is a specific project that for some reason is not in my briefing, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman and give him an update on progress.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we must do all we can ahead of next year’s important provisional and presidential elections to support the election commission to register voters, particularly women?

[Justine Greening]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We are working in three areas: combating fraud, which we know was a feature of previous elections, registration and ensuring that women go out and vote. We are working hand in hand with the United Nations Development Programme on the latter.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

May I thank the Secretary of State for paying tribute to Lance Corporal James Brynin, who was from Shoreham in my constituency? He was bravely serving his country on his second tour of Afghanistan and was helping to defend civilians and ISAF personnel when he came under attack. He was described by his family as having the “heart of a lion” and by his commanding officer as

“immensely popular and an outstanding soldier in every respect.”

Lance Corporal Brynin was fighting for the safety of people in Afghanistan. When I visited Tajikistan a while ago, I taught in a school of Afghan refugees, who spoke well of their education in Afghanistan—they spoke excellent English—and the support for their schools, but had been driven out of their country by threats of kidnap and non-military violence from the Taliban and others. What is being done to stem the flow of people out of their country, so that we can look after them safely in their own country, where they belong?

[Justine Greening]

At the heart of all this is the work we have done to staff up and help to improve the Afghan national security force, which includes not only the army and the police but latterly the air force as well. As I said in my statement, they are now conducting 93% of operations and 90% of their own training. The draw-down takes place against the backdrop of our continuing work to ensure that they can play the role that my hon. Friend describes in the coming years. That role is vital, because as I said earlier, without security Afghanistan will not develop in the way that the people there and we want it to.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

In my experience of being on operations in Bosnia and working with aid workers, it was crucial that they were able to work in a secure environment. After December 2014, it will be much more difficult. May I ask for my right hon. Friend’s assurance that as much effort as possible is made in DFID to ensure the security of the large number of our aid workers left in Afghanistan when British soldiers are largely withdrawn?

[Justine Greening]

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is a constant preoccupation of mine, not just in Afghanistan but in all our country programmes where DFID staff are working. As we have seen in a different place, with the kidnap and, luckily, the subsequent release of Red Crescent workers in Syria recently, we often carry out work in dangerous places. We should never forget that when we put in the resources to keep our staff safe, and I can assure my hon. Friend that that is uppermost in our minds.

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

The UK has been given the task of taking a lead in reducing the narcotics trade and the growing of poppies in Afghanistan, which is essential if the country is to become a viable state subject to the rule of law. What ongoing role will the UK have and how do we intend to transfer the responsibility to Afghan agencies?

[Justine Greening]

The principal route for DFID, aside from our strengthening of institutions in the security and policing spheres, has been the focus on livelihoods, particularly in the agricultural sector. The reality is that we simply must give Afghan farmers an alternative to cultivating poppies. That has clearly been a real challenge. We have seen some significant progress, but the challenge remains, which is why DFID’s livelihoods work will continue.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State mention the HALO Trust which, along with MAG, is helping to de-mine large areas all over the world. When the Select Committee went to Afghanistan, I noticed that women were employed to de-mine areas, which helps to raise their status in the country. I hope that we will be able to continue to fund that in the future and the wonderful ICRC-funded hospital—everyone who works there is at least a single amputee if not a double amputee, providing fantastic role models for disabled people.

[Justine Greening]

I am very grateful for that question. As I have said, we want to allow HALO to continue the important work it does and clear Herat province of mines by 2018. I can assure my hon. Friend her that this work on health, and particularly improving the access of pregnant women to health facilities, will continue to be one of our key priorities.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Following my right hon. Friend’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), how effective does she think the comprehensive agriculture and rural development facility really is?

[Justine Greening]

I think it has been effective, and the main challenges in getting it to work effectively have been to do security, which has fluctuated from month to month. We face a constant challenge in being able to work in the communities in Afghanistan. It is a challenge that we meet, and I am proud of DFID’s work, particularly with respect to livelihoods. As I have said, we will continue that work.

Backbench Business

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

Defence Reforms

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Relevant Documents: Oral evidence taken before the Defence Committee on 5 December 2012, on Future Army 2020, HC 803-i, Session 2012-13, and on 10 July 2013, HC 576-i; uncorrected oral evidence taken before the Defence Committee on 8 October 2013, on Future Army 2020, HC 576-ii; written evidence to the Defence Committee, on Future Army 2020, reported to the House on 24 April, 9 July and 8 October 2013, and published on the internet.]

12:32

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes concerns about the Government’s defence reforms in relation to whether its proposals for the reserve forces will deliver either the anticipated cost savings or defence capability; and urges the Government to delay the disbandment of regular units until it is established that the Army Reserve plan is viable and cost-effective.

Let me first express my gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. Many of us on both sides of the House believe this to be an important topic for discussion.

I suggest that Government plans to replace 20,000 regulars with 30,000 reservists are on the rocks. Territorial Army numbers are at a low ebb; reserve recruitment targets are being missed; costs are rising; and there are delays and disorganisation. The plans will produce neither the anticipated cost-savings nor the capability envisaged. The time has come to say “Halt”—to halt the axing of the regular battalions and units until we are sure that the reservist plans are both viable and cost-effective. We run the risk of wasting taxpayers’ money on the back of false economies and unrealistic expectations.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Were we not promised by the previous Secretary of State that the cuts to the regular forces would happen only if it were clear that we could increase the reserves? Yet that is not going to happen, so what happened to the original promise?

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the original plan, which was to allow the build-up of the reserves before we axed regular battalions because it was deemed that deployability was terribly important. Exchanges took place on the Floor of the House in 2011 between the then Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), which clearly confirm that the plan was to get the balance right—to build up the reservists before winding down the regulars.

My first questions, then, to the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, who is replying to the debate, are: why and when did the plan change? To make this debate as productive as possible, I would be delighted to take interventions from my right hon. Friend if he wishes to answer the questions we pose as the debate proceeds. I think that the questions why and when the plan changed are wholly legitimate ones, because the plan has changed and the House should be in no doubt whatever about that. Just two years ago, the plan was to say, “We will not wind down the regular troops until we know that the reservists are up to strength”. That plan has changed.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the plan also changed in respect of the original strategic defence and security review. It initially planned for a reduction of 7,000 troops, but it suddenly increased to 13,000 and if recent press reports are to be believed, it might be even higher.

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. A number of changes to the plan have occurred, but to my knowledge, at no time have we had any explanation from the Dispatch Box of why the plans have changed, of the cost implications or indeed of when they changed.

The entire Army reforms depend on the successful recruitment of reserves. Let us examine that for a moment, and let us remember that without such recruitment up to 30,000, the Army reform plans fall apart. What do we know about recruitment so far? We know that TA numbers have been falling, not rising, since 2009 and are now at their lowest ebb since 2007. We know today that new reservist recruitment targets are being missed. The front page of The Daily Telegraph, under the heading “Reforms have left the Army in chaos” refers to documents clearly showing that reservist recruitment targets both for this and next year are being missed—and not just by a small margin, but by a massive margin—thus bringing the whole plan into doubt. Various reasons are put forward, including criticism of the Ministry of Defence for closing down local recruitment offices, and there is talk about privatisation and Capita, but I think that is somewhat overplayed. What we know is that there has been a lack of communication in the IT systems in the MOD as between Capita and Atlas. There are all sorts of reasons, but the bottom line is that key reserve recruitment targets are being missed.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The issue of recruitment targets within the reserve forces and the TA cannot be helped when it can take several months to get from someone signing up to join to turning up for their first night’s training. That is too long for people to be delayed along their way.

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend, who has experience of these matters, makes a valid point. [Interruption.] Yes, he is my hon. and gallant Friend.

Other reasons include the draw-down in Afghanistan, which is perhaps not encouraging reservists to sign up, and the fact that employers are reluctant to let key employees go. There is a host of reasons, but as I say, the bottom line is that the key reserve recruitment targets are being missed. Another key concern is that costs may be rising faster than anticipated, yet the Government have not presented to Parliament a fully costed plan, despite numerous requests for them to do so.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

On that point, would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on an observation in the current issue of the Army Reserve Quarterly to the effect that it is all to do with

“rebalancing Her Majesty’s Forces in light of the country’s needs and resources in the years ahead”?

[Mr Baron]

I would need further clarification of the comment, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there is real concern about the plan among both the regular and the TA/reservist units in the Army, not just at the front end but in the highest echelons.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. Before he deals further with the question of cost, may I as a layman suggest to him that, if the reservists cannot make up their membership in time for the disbandment of the regular battalions, there is bound to be a gap in capability?

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall be dealing with the capability gap—very briefly, if my hon. Friend will forgive me—because I think that it is an important issue, but may I test the patience of the House and stick to the cost issue for the time being? There is a real risk that, if costs rise faster than anticipated, we shall create false economies that will bring the whole project into doubt. That is terribly important, and we are right to ask questions about it on behalf of the taxpayer.

The Government have not come here to present a fully costed plan, but the pieces of the jigsaw that we can see do not reveal a rosy picture. We know from the Green Paper—and the Independent Commission to Review the United Kingdom’s Reserve Forces has confirmed this—that it costs more to train a reservist than to train a regular. We know that those who leave the regular forces to join the reserves will be given a £5,000 bounty, payable over four years. We have some questions about the reservist award, which is the difference between reservists’ pay and what they earn in civilian life. We are told that the potential cost has been accounted for, but the assumptions have not been made clear. We also know that, because employers are reluctant to let key employees go for extended periods, the Government have come up with an incentive for prospective employers amounting to £500 per reservist per month. Those are all added costs, but we still do not know what the fully costed plan is.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend referred to the Independent Commission to Review the United Kingdom’s Reserve Forces. I serve on the commission, and I do not accept his statistic. Broadly speaking, the cost of a reservist is about a fifth of the cost of his regular counterpart. In America, it is about a quarter, and my guess is that following the changes that we are making, it will be something between a quarter and a fifth.

[Mr Baron]

I must say to my hon. Friend, with the greatest respect, that he has confused training with deployment. There is no argument in the House about the fact that reservists will be cheaper; the question is, how much cheaper will they be? When costs are rising, do we enter the terrain of false economies—which brings into doubt the whole question of value for money and whether the plan should have been instigated in the first place? I was talking about training. There has been a dispute about whether it costs more to train a regular, but my hon. Friend should know from the Green Paper that it costs more to train a reservist.

However, this is not just about the bits of the jigsaw that we have seen. We know that there are hidden costs further down the line. According to a recent report by the charity Combat Stress, reservists are twice as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as regular troops. We may be storing up a ticking time bomb for ourselves. The necessary support structures for reservists are not in place, and I should be interested to know whether there are any proposals in that regard.

May I ask the Minister how much of the £1.8 billion—spread over 10 years—has been set aside for the Government’s plans? We are told that that money has been set aside and all is well, but there are various reports that some of it has already been eaten into. Has any of it been spent, and if so, how much?

While I am on the subject of costs, may I question the Minister about the impact assessment, which attempts to take an overall view of the costs? Again, we are dealing with assumptions and projected usage rates, and not all the figures are on the table, but I think we can all agree that the assessment is very dependent on projected usage rates. The way in which the reserve forces are used will depend on assumptions about future costs.

Artificially low rates can create false economies. The central case in the document seems to be based on an assumption of 3,000 annual deployments. I must ask the Minister whether that projection is realistic, given the original rationale of the reserve reforms. We are meant to be replacing 20,000 regular troops with 30,000 reservists. If the central projected use is 3,000, something is not adding up on the terrain. We need to examine the facts very carefully, because, again, we may be creating false economies and the taxpayer may be presented with a much larger bill than was originally envisaged.

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

As my hon. Friend knows, I strongly support those who are concerned about a capability gap, but I am slightly worried about some of the figures that he has given. For example, the figure relating to the higher cost of training a reservist is correct on a per-day basis, but it is not correct overall. What worries me is that, if Members give incorrect figures, the Government will very quickly knock them back. Let us stick to the main thrust, which is our fear that there will not be enough soldiers to fight in any future deployments that may take place.

[Mr Baron]

I am indeed very worried about the possibility that we shall not have enough troops to deploy. I refer my hon. Friend to the Green Paper, which states that it costs more to train a reservist than to train a regular. However, he has made a valid point about the manpower gap, which I think is a central issue of concern. Will 30,000 reservists be enough, even if they can be recruited? According to figures from the Ministry of Defence, the present TA mobilisation rate is 40%. In other words, for every 100 TA soldiers on paper, 40 are deemed to be deployable at any one time. That suggests that if we are plugging a gap left by 20,000 regulars, we shall need 50,000 reservists, not 30,000.

In response to a letter sent to him a while ago by 25 Conservative Members, the Secretary of State suggested a mobilisation rate of 80%. He said:

“The total strength target for the Army Reserve in 2020 is 38,000, in order to deliver 30,000 trained reservists.

May I ask the Minister what research, what study, what evidence justifies the claim that the MOD’s budgets will double the mobilisation rate? It is one thing to recruit 30,000 reservists, but doubling the mobilisation rate as well would require an extremely large investment. Many of us would be interested to know what evidence supports the claim that the £1.8 billion that has been put aside will achieve both those objectives. It is a very, very tall order.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) raised the issue of the capability gap, and he was right to do so, because there is a fear that the Government plans risk creating such a gap. The Army reforms were put together before the strategic defence and security review, and since then a string of events have changed the international strategic dynamic. The nature of conflict is changing. Previously, it was thought of very much in binary terms—there would be one bloc against another bloc—but more fluid geopolitical forces are now at play, both state and non-state. War is becoming more asymmetrical, and we need well trained, agile, regular forces at high readiness if we are to meet the challenges that lie ahead. There is no disguising among the military their frustration about the fact that they could not have been more supportive to the French in Mali. The penny may have dropped on that side of the channel, but it has not yet dropped on this side.

I must ask the Minister whether 40 days’ training is really enough. Let us be absolutely clear about this: the Government’s plans represent a step-change in our approach. We are proposing to deploy whole units of reservists into the field. We have got to ask serious questions about this. Some would say, “Well, it happens in the US with the National Guard,” but it is, perhaps, not fully appreciated that the US National Guard has its own bases and its own equipment and training programmes. They take it very seriously in the US; they throw a lot of money at it, and even then the National Guard units are not infantry units. That is the interesting thing: the National Guard units are not infantry units, despite the investment the US puts into it.

[Mr Brazier]

My last visit to a National Guard infantry unit was in Kabul about a year and a half ago. It was doing an excellent security job, and it also had detached platoons along the Pakistani border. Some 60% of the American infantry is in the National Guard and 40% is in its regular army.

[Mr Baron]

All I would say to my hon. Friend is that there is a general view that the National Guard is very much focused on supporting roles, and the Americans treat their National Guard very differently from what I think is being proposed here. For example, I do not know of there being any details about separate training programmes, operational programmes or equipment programmes in the Government’s plans, which we have yet to see. All we are asking is to see those plans, because £1.8 billion may sound like a lot of money but it is spread over 10 years, and we must consider the scale of what we are asking—not just raising 30,000 reservists, or, to be more accurate, adding another 12,000 or 13,000 reservists, but doubling the mobilisation rate. That is a very big ask indeed.

What research has been undertaken to ensure that the money earmarked is sufficient to bring reservist units up to the same standard as regulars upon deployment? That is especially important given that it appears that human rights legislation will require equal training and equipment. That has not been raised much in the debate thus far, but human rights legislation is a concern in the sense that it is going to say, “Any troops put into the field, reservist or regular, have to have equal training and equipment.” I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that.

There is a concern that these plans are having a distorting effect on the ground. I come back to the fact that well-recruited battalions are being axed, including my own battalion, the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, yet more poorly recruited, and therefore more expensive, battalions are being saved. Such a policy reinforces failure. Can the Minister justify the decision for 2RRF to replace on the list one of the more poorly recruited battalions when it was not on the original list of five battalions to be scrapped? We know, because we have seen it in writing from the MOD, that five battalions were originally due to be axed as they had poor recruitment figures. One of those was replaced. They had to go looking for another battalion and they fell upon 2RRF, which happened to be the best-recruited battalion in the British Army. Many fusiliers and their families in swathes of constituencies across the north and the midlands of England would like an answer to that question.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Both 2RRF and the 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers are very close to my heart, my dad having been a member of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers before and during the second world war. I wonder what the MOD wants out of our defence forces. One of the battalions to be axed, 2RRF, is referred to as “Daring in all”, and it is said:

“Where ever the Fusiliers have deployed to they have proved capable of meeting every challenge with courage, determination and a will to win.”

That is on the Army website.

[Mr Baron]

That goes without saying. I sympathise with what the hon. Gentleman says. We have still not yet had a straightforward answer to a straightforward question: 2RRF was not in the original five; those five were chosen because of their poor recruitment and retention figures; one was removed and they had to go looking for another battalion to take its place; and they just happened to fall upon the best-recruited battalion in the British Army, and one with a very proud recruiting history. We recruit from across the major cities of Lancashire, Warwickshire and Northumberland—Newcastle, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester—as well as from London, yet we were told we were having trouble with our recruitment, and that is simply not the case.

No wonder ex-military chiefs are critical. Many are pointing out that strategic thought has been abandoned at a time when many other countries, not necessarily friendly to the west, are increasing their defence budgets. They are asking all politicians to think again.

There comes a stage with any struggling project when common sense and evidence dictate a revaluation and I believe we have reached that point now. There is no doubt—let us be clear about this—that reservists are cheaper than regulars, but rising costs threaten the anticipated cost savings and raise the very real prospect of false economies, and that is before we consider the issue of capability gaps, yet the Government seem determined to plough on with this misguided plan and play down concerns.

That is evidenced today by this important debate having been downgraded, I believe, to a one-line Whip. That does not surprise me, but, all the same, I think it speaks volumes about the Government’s approach. This is a very important issue and the debate has been very well-subscribed to, yet we drop it down to a one-line Whip at a time when the Government have still not produced fully costed plans and there are very real concerns about whether 30,000 reservists can plug a gap left by 20,000 regulars.

I intend to test the will of the House on this motion. The time has come to say “Halt”—halt to the axing of the regular battalions until we know that the reservist plan is both viable and cost-effective; otherwise the taxpayer could bear the brunt of many false economies to come.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I remind Members that there is a six-minute limit?

12:57

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this debate. It is the second such debate he has secured, and in the first debate we won the vote but the Government did not take a blind bit of notice. I hope they will do so today.

Like the hon. Gentleman, I had the pleasure the other day of helping to hand in a petition to No. 10 Downing street, when I met, and talked to, many of the ex-fusiliers. There is no doubt that they feel very strongly about what has happened to their regiment and battalions.

I appreciate that periodical reorganisations are necessary and that cuts sometimes might be required to ensure efficiency, but let us be clear: that is not what is happening here. This is a financial, not a strategic, change.

The Government say these cuts will not affect our military capability, but they clearly will. We are losing whole battalions—20,000 troops are to be axed. The Government know this will damage our military capability, creating gaps that will cost us both financially and strategically. That is why they keep insisting that their plans for reservists will fill this gap. That may or may not be the case. I am not a military expert and do not wish to discuss whether or not 30,000 reservists are a substitute for 20,000 regulars. I do, however, have experience of industry and, as a result, I am highly sceptical of the Government’s plans.

I fear that the Government are being highly optimistic in relying on 30,000 reservists. To be in the Territorial Army is admirable and I respect all reservists, but it is admirable because it is a serious time commitment—and, more than that, they can sometimes put themselves in harm’s way. In today’s economic climate, it is not easy for people to request time off from their employer, let alone take large amounts of time off. If companies are tightening their belts, employees feel it is important to be present, hard working and seen to be valuable to the company. Especially given today’s high living standards and bills, no one wants to risk losing their job. Many employers will also be very reluctant to make the extra demands of their employers. We must remember that being a reservist does not mean taking hours off; it can mean taking weeks off. There will be a real fear that being a reservist can jeopardise someone’s career. That is not to say that people will not volunteer to be reservists, but when push comes to shove reservists will put their employment first.

I understand that there are to be incentives for employers to take on reservists, but, again, I fear that when work is demanding and a deadline is looming employers would rather have their employee at work and will put pressure on reservists accordingly. Furthermore, I understand that the Territorial Army’s current mobilisation rate stands at 40%, so only 40 of every 100 soldiers are deemed fit for deployment. Given that figure, we have to bear in mind that we are going to need to recruit about 50,000 reservists, rather than 30,000. The TA has had a net loss in officers and soldiers since 2009; TA numbers are now at their lowest level since 2007. I also understand from recent reports that the reserves recruitment drive, which ought now to be in full swing, is falling well short of its targets for both this year and next. I will leave others to discuss the strategic considerations and the cost of the plans, which is considerable and escalating. I simply call on the Government to delay the axing of the 20,000 regulars until it is beyond doubt that the reserves plan is viable and cost-effective. Let us wait to see what the reservists plans look like before making such significant cuts.

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, because it gives me the opportunity to highlight the sad disbandment of the 72 Engineers Regiment, which has its headquarters in my constituency. Although it is to be amalgamated into other regiments, the 72 Engineers Regiment has a long history of residency in my constituency and has the freedom of the borough. Many people in the borough are deeply saddened to see the demise of the regiment.

[Mr Cunningham]

I am sure that most of the House would agree with my hon. Friend.

We need to ensure that we do not cause unnecessary costs to the taxpayer and that we do not damage our military capability. Finally, I urge the Government to consider abandoning the plan to disband the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers altogether. It is an excellent battalion with a proud history—the Warwickshire county regiment is part of that history—particularly during the second world war, and it has an outstanding track record of recruitment. I urge the Government to reconsider disbanding it while keeping more poorly recruited, and therefore more expensive, battalions.

13:02

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I welcome this debate and I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing it. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

I understand my hon. and gallant Friend’s loyal defence of his fine former regiment. As the 100th anniversary of the start of the first world war is almost upon us, it is time to remember six Lancashire and Warwickshire Fusiliers who won Victoria Crosses in that war. Sir John French made the famous remark that without the Territorial units available at the very beginning of the fighting we would have lost in France before the war had really begun.

The reality is that we have a good plan that is being unevenly implemented. America’s land forces are almost exactly split 50:50 between regulars and volunteer reserves. Canada has 44% regulars and Australia has 36% regulars; in all countries there are more reserve infantry than regulars. Uniquely, Britain has a target that is much less ambitious. It is broadly the case that a reservist costs a fifth of the price of a regular. All of us who are keen on defence would like more resources to be allocated to defence. Indeed, more than 20 years ago, I stepped down from my post in government as a Cabinet Parliamentary Private Secretary over that issue. However, the reality is that we have to work within these very difficult economic times, and the alternative to 30,000 reservists is not 20,000 regulars, but somewhere between 6,000 and 7,500, and that would be if we got rid of all the specialist medics, cyber-people and so on whom the Regular Army does not have.

I therefore strongly support this plan; I have seen the work of American and Australian reservists, and I am proud that 20% of the British division that captured southern Iraq was made up of reservists. However, I am concerned about some of the details of how the plan is being implemented. From the beginning, Ministers and the Chief of the General Staff have made a strong commitment to it. Ministers have secured the support of every employers’ organisation in the country. The CGS, starting with his own pitch to employers in his excellent article in the Financial Times, immediately spotted the governance issue by appointing, for the first time since the second world war, a TA two-star—a major-general—to play a pivotal role in it. The problems largely lie within the recruiting group. At a time when the proposition has improved immeasurably as a result of changes the Army Board is making, it is deeply depressing that this department is failing to deliver.

I have before me the monthly recruiting statistics for one unit—I will not disclose which, for obvious reasons. In the 12 months before the first push on TA recruiting in autumn 2011, the unit had enlisted between three and 12 people a month. The figures after that push are: 15 for November 2011, 21 for December 2011 and 19 for January 2012. Then, for a reason not understood by anyone, the recruiting group introduced its new system for medicals and common selection, without any market testing and without talking to units, and within three or four months the figures had dropped to one or two a month. That muddle was sorted—it had nothing to do with Capita. Second time around, the arrangements with Capita—I do not blame Capita—were introduced without any market testing or discussion with units. I am sure we have all dealt with cases of soldiers who have waited six or nine months with their documents repeatedly lost in the system.

Time is extremely short, so I want to suggest three things that the Government need to do turn this around. The units I talk to tell me again and again that there is more interest in joining the reserves and that the figures for the two groups that are not under control of the recruiting group—officer applicants and ex-regulars—are both improving. So, first, we need to get more of the control over the enlistment process back with the units again.

[Mr Baron]

May I suggest that this is a clear example of where the plan is driven by costs, rather than by strategic design? The cost for Capita to take on the recruitment was derived in large part by scaling down, if not selling up completely, local recruitment offices. So to start opening those offices, although a sensible proposition, would require additional cost if we are going to reverse that recruitment loss.

[Mr Brazier]

My hon. and gallant Friend makes an interesting point. That is not what I am arguing for, although I would strongly argue that it is ridiculous that the offices we still retain are open 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday instead of, for example, 9 am to 9 pm Tuesday to Thursday, which would allow the people there to do both jobs rather than only regulars. I am calling for more emphasis on the units. A temporary measure has been adopted in that area, which I suggest should be more permanent—it need not be expensive.

The second major change we need is to have a senior reservist officer in the recruiting group who is tasked with talking to units and who has real power in the way in which decisions in that area are made. We have done it at Land Command at the senior level, where two highly effective successive deputy commanders at Land in that position have worked well, and the improvements in the proposition have stemmed in no small part from that. The same needs to be done in the recruiting group.

The third change we need is on a relatively small scale, as seven or eight changes among the 400-odd decisions that had to be made to the location of the reserves are not right. Seven or eight really well-recruited sub-units have been wrongly selected for disbandment, including the best-recruited squadron in the yeomanry, which is going down to troop level, the best-recruited battery in the TA gunners and three or four well-recruited infantry sub-units.

I believe that this plan is achievable and it is moving us in the direction of the allies we fight alongside. It is a good plan; it just needs an improvement in implementation.

13:10

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

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who made an earnest plea. I also thank the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for all he has done to secure the debate today and the debate last year. He deserves our support for what he said today.

This is an important debate, because, as yet, the Government have not made a good enough case for their plans to reform the country’s armed forces completely by 2020. Furthermore, we know that, of the three services, the Army will be most affected by the Government’s proposed changes. I confess that a particular concern for me from a local perspective is the plan to disband 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

A year ago, on 18 October, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has mentioned, the House debated the proposed disbandment of that battalion. The vote was won, but we know that it was not binding and the Defence Reform Bill is before Parliament with the disbandment proposals intact. All the while, the Army is working to implement its restructuring by 2018.

Colleagues speaking in support of this motion cannot yet see any evidence that supports the Government’s decision to give reservists a bigger role in defending the country. To complete the transformation of the Army, the Government must meet their target of recruiting 30,000 new reservists by 2018. However, the Assistant Chief of the General Staff told the Defence Committee in July of this year that achieving the 6,000 target for this year is “looking tough”. Even if recruitment improves, there are concerns from many quarters about how employers will react when their staff, serving as reservists, have to be deployed for up to 12 months at a time every five years. There is also concern that the compensation of £500 a month to cover each reservist is too low to cover employers’ costs.

Moreover, can Future Force meet the same capability levels as the Army today? With less time for training and with a voluntary role, these soldiers cannot be expected to be comparable with full-time, fully trained and battle-ready Army personnel.

[Mr Brazier]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. On the question about being battle-ready and so on, under the American system the regular troops are used to seize ground and the reserve troops, who can bring extra expertise—they include policemen, farmers, business men and so on—are used to hold ground. They are often more successful than regular troops at building links with the local community.

[Mrs Glindon]

The point at issue is the transformation to reservists.

So far, the Government have not been able to instil in either Members of this House or the people of this country any confidence in their cost-cutting proposals, because they have not laid the figures on the table. Instead, they have launched headlong into reform, announcing redundancies and undermining the morale of our forces on active service. I remind the Minister that the military covenant states that our military deserve our support, respect and fair treatment, and they should have that at all times.

As for the question of the depletion of our Regular Army, earlier this year I had the honour, along with the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), of taking to Downing street a 10,000-strong petition, which was co-ordinated by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and signed by the people of the north-east, asking the Government not to disband the 2nd Battalion. On Tuesday this week, hundreds of fusiliers marched through Whitehall in support of a national petition to save their battalion that was presented at 10 Downing street. It was an emotional afternoon, charged with the pride of a regiment that has the best recruitment record in the land, yet tinged with sadness and dismay that that proud tradition could soon be consigned to history.

After the march, I was honoured to bring four veterans from the north-east on their first visit to Parliament. I am pleased to say that while I showed them around this great place, every member of staff and every MP we encountered treated them with the utmost courtesy and respect. Those veterans—Jim, Terry, Jim the Stick and Mac—fear for the future of their battalion and the opportunities for young people in the north-east to follow them into a full-time Army career.

None of us wants to see the battalion or any other unit disbanded in haste and without our being sure that the Government’s plan is cost-effective and wholly workable. This House, our armed forces and the people of the country have a right to see evidence from the Government that they can make the savings and maintain the level of defence that they claim the reforms will deliver.

If the Government are serious about defence reform, they must acknowledge the relevance of the motion and act in accordance with it. I support the motion and urge all other Members in Westminster today to do so, too.

13:15

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

The first responsibility of any Government is the defence of the realm. I put that point to the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House and warned him that on his watch the size of the British Army will fall to the level it was at the time of the battle of Waterloo.

I have considerable sympathy with the points that are being made about saving 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. As a member of the Select Committee on Defence, I will not venture too far in that direction, but I will say that I have placed on record my reservations and concerns about where the replacement of regulars of reservists will get to. I pointed out in an intervention on my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) the fact that the current issue of Army Reserve Quarterly states:

“These changes are not in isolation: they are part of rebalancing Her Majesty’s Forces in light of the country’s needs and resources in the years ahead following the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty.”

It goes on to say:

“The changes being made are modernising the Army to face an unpredictable future, transforming the Army to one that is affordable, wholly integrated, designed to be adaptable, and ready to meet the challenges of the future.”

My fear is that we might perhaps have a generational challenge in the leadership of our major political parties. I am of an age that I can remember the aftermath of the second world war and other conflicts, so I feel that reducing the size of Her Majesty’s armed forces to even lower numbers than present is not in the national interest. Today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph, a paper that I follow—

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Avidly.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for providing a word I was struggling to find; it was not my original thought, but it will do.

The Daily Telegraph reports today:

“Controversial plans to restructure the Army are ‘failing’ because cuts to the defence budget are putting off potential new soldiers…according to a leaked document”,

and:

“The memo, which is understood to have had wide distribution within the Ministry of Defence, says that ‘disappointing’ recruitment to the new Army Reserve means that targets for a larger part-time force will not be reached.”

It goes on to quote that document, saying that

“the Army faces ‘increased risk to its structure and operational capability’”.

The full-time Army has been cut from 102,000 to about 82,000 and five battalions will be axed. As someone who would desperately like to see 3rd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment reinstated, I well understand why people are anxious about battalion cuts. The cuts are supposed to be offset by a major expansion in the part-time reserve force, which is expected to grow from 19,000 to 30,000.

[Mr Brazier]

Just while my hon. Friend is mentioning the distinguished Royal Anglian Regiment, one should also say that the Territorials have produced a number of distinguished Members of Parliament, including Sir Winston Churchill and the hon. Member for Raleigh, a former member of the Royal Anglians.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Or indeed, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I welcome a fellow Essex MP to the debate, and in a few minutes I will also be delighted to welcome from Essex the new Deputy Speaker. It is good to see an Essex girl doing so well.

The Daily Telegraph says that the 10-page report dated 6 August and marked “Restricted” claims that the Army is currently recruiting barely half the number of new reservists needed to hit the target. It says:

“The Army is currently failing to attract and recruit sufficient Army Reserve personnel. Reserve info numbers in Quarter 1 are disappointing. If this continues the Army will miss its challenging inflow targets both this year and next.”

That would have consequences for the full-time Army. The report continues:

“Only 376 recruits joined the Reserve between April and June, missing a target of 1,432. That puts the Army on course to recruit only 50% of the overall 2013-14 target”.

The defence of the realm should be based on the defence needs of the nation; it should not be resources led. I get the distinct impression that it is being resources led. I pay tribute to our service personnel and their families. I suggest to my colleagues, friends and chums on the Government Front Bench that, should windfall funds materialise from the disposal of MOD assets, which they could well do, the money should be used primarily to modernise our Army married housing. The modernisation programme is currently on hold because it is claimed that the country cannot afford it, but as heard in Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday, the economy is improving. So if there is an MOD windfall, I suggest that the money goes on improving our housing.

I should like to end on an upbeat subject and advise the House that on Wednesday 6 November at 7.30 in the atrium of Portcullis House the Colchester military wives choir will be making a return visit. Everyone is welcome to come along and hear them.

13:22

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this debate. It is an honour and a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell). We reside on the same corridor upstairs, and exchange pleasantries on a daily basis.

I should also declare an interest as a member of the Backbench Business Committee, because I was part of the decision-making process for securing the debate today. I am rounding the circle. because I declared the same interest in the Committee.

I have previously alluded to my sadness and that of my constituents at the disbandment of the 72 Royal Engineers TA Regiment. It was a real pleasure to attend an event here yesterday afternoon, mostly about the Royal Engineers, at which members of the 72 Regiment were present. We saw the great work that the Royal Engineers do across the country and in far-flung fields. It is particularly disappointing that, as part of the review, in which we hoped to see an expansion of the TA, the headquarters of the regiment was removed from my constituency. As I said earlier, they have the freedom of the borough, and we will see their passing with great regret.

I referred in an intervention to the impending demise of the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which recruits mainly from the north-west. I am concerned that if we disband the 2nd Battalion, that will leave one full-time regular battalion within that regiment. Using the Government’s own defence review criteria, single-battalion regiments are automatically subject to review, so that would place in jeopardy the last remaining 1st Battalion of full-time regular soldiers within the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The regiment is close to my heart. It was my dad’s regiment; he was a regular soldier, serving in Palestine and north Africa. He was captured in the early days of the second world war before becoming a prisoner of war for a number of years. I wonder why we are seeing the potential demise of such a regiment, which dates back almost 330 years.

I really wonder what more we want from our service personnel than what the Fusiliers already provide. According to the Army website,

“The First Fusiliers epitomise the modern British soldier … The Second Fusiliers are a superb, operationally hardened, light role infantry battalion.”

They are supported by the 5 RRF, a TA battalion, which has stations at Alnwick, Ashington, Newcastle, Tynemouth, Washington, Bishop Auckland and Doncaster—mainly a north-east regiment of the territorial reserve force. We have grave concerns about the future of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers per se.

Comparisons between the capability of our TA reserve forces and front-line regular forces and that of the American services are almost meaningless. Given the size of the American regular capability and the resources available to it, to compare them with our regular forces, who I believe are much better troops on the ground even though they are obviously many fewer in numbers, is meaningless. I would ask Government Members not to make such comparisons because they demean this debate.

I welcome the debate and ask the Government to think again about the proposals. There could be hidden cost implications down the line, and we worry about our real defence capability come 2020.

13:27

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), and I thank him and his colleagues on the Backbench Business Committee for taking note of the submission made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), me and other hon. Members from across the House at last week’s meeting, and for granting this debate today.

This matter is one of enormous importance to my constituents in Bury, and I want to explain briefly why that is. The motion refers to the disbandment of regular Army units. As we have already heard, one of the units to be disbanded is the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Bury has long been a productive recruiting ground for the Fusiliers—originally the Lancashire Fusiliers raised in 1688, who had their barracks in the town of Bury, as I know you are well aware, Mr Deputy Speaker. Following a previous reorganisation of the regular Army units, back on 23 April 1968, the Lancashire Fusiliers joined the Royal Northumbrian Fusiliers, the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers and the Royal Fusiliers to form part of the new Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

The people of Bury are extremely proud of the town’s links with the Fusiliers. The town is home to the Fusiliers museum, which has recently moved from the site of the old barracks to a new venue right in the heart of the town. This was visited by the Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), when he was shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Just a few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the current Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport also visited the museum.

Earlier this year, in the summer, the Bury parish church played host to the funeral of Drummer Lee Rigby—a Fusilier—who was so brutally murdered here in London. The church is the garrison church of the Fusiliers. Each year on the Sunday nearest 25 April Bury commemorates the terrible losses sustained by the Fusiliers at Gallipoli in 1915. The Fusiliers were awarded six Victoria Crosses for the bravery that they displayed at that landing, and famously they are remembered as having won six VCs before breakfast.

We must never lose sight of the reason why the Government have had to make these difficult decisions. It is right that the defence budget must be balanced; no one disputes that. It is nevertheless prudent constantly to review the plans that the Government have put in place and monitor them to ensure that they are on track and that they will deliver the planned savings. My constituents are understandably angry and disappointed that the 2nd Battalion is being disbanded at a time when there is so much uncertainty in the world. On Tuesday this week I was honoured to meet the hundreds of former Fusiliers and their families who marched down Whitehall to hear the speeches in Old Palace Yard. This was the second such march, following the one we had last year. It is just one indication of the strength of feeling not just in Bury, but in all the towns from which the Fusiliers recruit right across the country.

The 2nd Battalion is one of the best—if not the best—recruited battalions in the British Army. My constituents ask why Scottish battalions, which are much more poorly manned, are being retained when the 2nd Battalion is being disbanded. They wonder whether the answer has anything to do with the impending referendum on independence for Scotland.

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I be the first hon. Member of this House to welcome you to your new position, to congratulate you on your election as Deputy Speaker, and to wish you well in your new role in the House?

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Nuttall]

Certainly.

[Mr Francois]

We on the Government Benches have noted, Madam Speaker, that you have achieved what the military would call an initial operating capability. We wish you the very best and we are sure that you will succeed.

[Mr Nuttall]

rose—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Nuttall]

Certainly.

[Mr Jones]

May I, from the Opposition Benches, welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? I see that you are getting clear guidance from your fellow Deputy Speaker. From my experience of the right hon. Member for Chorley (Mr Hoyle), I would not listen too closely to him on every occasion, as he has a mischievous sense of humour.

[Mr Nuttall]

My constituents in Bury are concerned that not enough reservists will be recruited to fill the massive hole that will be left by the disbandment of the 2nd Battalion. The original plan was to keep the Regular Army battalions in place until it was clear that the plan to replace them with reservists was viable. It surely makes sense to be absolutely certain that the reservists recruitment plans are on track before the regular units are disbanded. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay that the plan to recruit more reservists is behind schedule, but we should not have to rely on leaks published in The Daily Telegraph. What are the facts? Exactly how many reservists should have been recruited by now? Exactly how many have been recruited? They are not a cheap option. We need to know the facts. I urge the House to vote for the motion.

13:34

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to see you in your place. I support the comments of my colleagues.

I commend my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for his persistence in raising these questions. As has been said, the Government plan to more than double the size of the TA to 38,000. That figure has not been used yet, but as I understand it, that is the target figure, of which 30,000 will be potentially on call. At the same time the number of regulars will be reduced by 20,000. The motion

“notes concerns”

about whether these reforms

“will deliver either the anticipated cost savings or defence capability”.

My sympathies are with the members of the Government Front-Bench team, whom I know reasonably well after three years here. I know that none of them wishes to be in this position.

During my nine years in the Army, I worked alongside many reservists. They were capable, professional and dedicated. Their magnificent contribution to many recent operations from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya leaves us in no doubt of their valour or significance. However, reservists have other priorities in their lives, and that is even more pertinent in today’s tough and competitive world. For these reasons and others, their numbers must be kept to a sensible and manageable proportion of the whole. No military commander I have spoken to, serving or retired, agrees that the increase in the proportion of reservists to regulars is correct. Today’s conflicts require well trained, professional, regular troops to hit the ground running, so if we are to cut our armed services, the proportion of regulars to reservists must be higher, not lower.

Twenty thousand fully trained and experienced regulars are leaving the Army, creating what I and many other campaigners and commentators would consider a yawning capability gap. The Government argue that they inherited a multibillion pound hole in the defence budget, which was unsustainable. Although I accept that premise, I do not agree with the conclusion that we should cut the armed services to the extent that we are planning, and certainly not before plan B has proved sustainable.

To me, this is all about priorities. We are happy to strike a moral pose and devote many billions of pounds to overseas aid, much of which is unaccountable, while starving of cash the very organisations that defend our country. I have no problem with giving money to overseas aid, but it should be better targeted, and I think that a statutory target is incorrect. Furthermore, projects such as HS2, which is very controversial, will cost billions of pounds, and, dare I say it, there is the old elephant in the room, the EU. Charity starts at home, especially in austere times.

It is a sobering thought that at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland we had nearly 30,500 troops serving there. In my day it took about six men to put one man in the field. Working on that basis, if—God forbids it ever happens again—Northern Ireland flares up, we would be pushed to meet that commitment, let alone retake the Falklands if Argentina were ever in a position to launch an attack.

Ministers tell us that this reduction is

“to make best use of the resources available”

and to

“harness better the talents of the country”.

It sounds good, but does it deliver? According to a leaked document from the MOD, it does not. I would be grateful if Ministers would confirm what percentage of GDP is spent on our armed forces. I am told that it is now below 2%, the minimum that our membership of NATO demands. In my day, it was above 5% —money that was needed not only to maintain our commitment to NATO, but for the defence of our dependants and of course to safeguard the realm, which is the most solemn duty of this House.

Yet today more redundancies loom and more reliance will be placed on reservists, who are not rallying to the MOD’s bugle call to the extent that we were led to expect. Those who do respond will receive 40 training days a year. Will that be enough to give a reservist confidence when his or her boots hit the ground? Will the already overstretched training facilities be able to cope with the increase in demand? Will the new arrangements be to the reservist’s detriment? As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay has said, the statistics show that reservists are 50% more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than their regular counterparts.

I question whether the £1.8 billion investment over the next 10 years will be adequate. The Government’s target is a total Army Reserve strength of 38,000 by 2020, but it is reckoned that this will give us 30,000 trained reservists. I question whether that will be achievable, and certainly the statistics we have heard today indicate that it probably will not be.

As a humble Back Bencher, I urge the Government to stop dismembering our armed services before it is too late and at least ensure that plan B is in place and working.

13:41

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

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I would like to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who sadly is no longer in the Chamber. Like him, I think that the whole plan for the Army Reserve is a good one. I know a great many serving reservists in my constituency who are excited and enthused about their role in a fully manned, 30,000-strong force that will ensure that they and others in future can make their contribution to the British Army. I note with interest that the south-west has been given an important role to play in this expansion, with the equivalent of 940 new posts being created for the region. However, like my hon. Friend, I have some concerns about the proposals as they stand.

[Mr Baron]

What is in no doubt is that one has great respect for the TA and, in many respects, wants the reserve plan to work. What one is arguing here is that, given the shortfalls in recruitment and the rising costs, surely it would be wise and prudent to stop the axing of the regular battalions until we know that the reserve plan is viable and cost-effective, because we in this House must not forget that defence is the first priority of Government.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I have certainly never forgotten my personal responsibility or the fact that the defence of our nation is, collectively, our first responsibility in this Chamber, and I do not think for one moment that the Ministers on the Front Bench have forgotten their responsibilities either. We have not yet had an opportunity to hear the Minister respond to the debate or explain the current situation with regard to reservist recruitment. I have some concerns about recruitment, which is why I am speaking in this debate.

The Green Paper published in July contained some proposals that concern me. One, in particular, is for the reconfiguration of D company of 6th Battalion The Rifles. I believe that the proposal, as it stands, will frustrate the delivery of the Army Reserve plan in Cornwall, particularly the aim of maximising its local potential now and in years to come. D company is an important part of 6 Rifles. It is currently based and headquartered in Truro and Plymouth, which allows riflemen from across Cornwall to play a full role in the life of the regiment. The Green Paper proposes a reconfiguration that would see the majority of the company, including its headquarters, based in Plymouth by 2016 and one platoon housed at a new facility in Barnstable.

The move from Truro would cause real problems for serving riflemen living in west and central Cornwall and impact on future recruitment from those areas. Cornwall, as Members will know, is a large and rural county, and it can take a considerable time to travel to Plymouth. A rifleman taking the train from Falmouth in my constituency to an evening training session in Plymouth would face a four-hour round trip. Those travelling further west would face even longer journey times. Is it reasonable or, with a view to future recruitment, wise to add such an inconvenience to the many other sacrifices required of our reservists?

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

I agree wholeheartedly. My constituency will see the closure of Coltman house, a well served TA centre in Burton. When we are trying to encourage more people to join the TA, it makes absolutely no sense to make it more difficult for them to do so.

[Sarah Newton]

I definitely agree with the principle of my hon. Friend’s point.

As well as creating a tangible difficulty for Cornish riflemen, the proposed move from Truro will inflict a blow to local military identity. The link between Cornwall and The Rifles dates back to 1782, when the 32nd Regiment of Foot, a predecessor unit, was designated as Cornwall’s county regiment. That designation has lasted through the centuries and the reorganisations of recent years and, until now, has been physical as well as theoretical, with members of the regiment serving within Cornwall. The end of 231 years of The Rifles’s boots on Cornish soil will weaken the link between county and regiment.

I know that the Ministry of Defence recognises that such links not only are a matter of sentiment and heritage, but have a real impact on local recruitment. The case against reconfiguration therefore rests on the threat to recruitment, but the argument cited in its favour is that the move from Truro will save money. When considering this, it is important to remember that Truro’s TA centre, which is currently home to D company, would stay open if The Rifles move. The centre currently also supports local Army cadets and provides a base for the Royal Army medical field hospital and a squadron of the Royal Logistic Corp. The Green Paper would not alter those arrangements. If the move goes ahead, Truro TA centre will remain open as a facility but support fewer reserve units. It is difficult to see how that could lead to significant financial savings. Indeed, the proposed establishment of a new platoon-sized facility at Barnstable looks likely to incur costs that would not have to be met if Truro were retained as a Rifles base.

The reconfiguration does not need to be completely abandoned in order for its adverse impact to be mitigated. It is generally accepted that it makes sense for the company headquarters to move to Plymouth, as the nearest large urban area, but only while one platoon remains in Truro to enable continued service from central and west Cornish residents. I understand that that was the expected scenario following the talks with local commanders in advance of the Green Paper, so the loss of all Rifles units came as a dreadful shock. Given Cornwall’s population of 530,000, which is expected to grow at a fast rate in the coming decades, it seems likely that a Truro-based platoon would be readily able to recruit sufficient reservists to man it. It is currently a well manned unit.

In conclusion, my concerns about the reorganisation are very local. I support and welcome the strategy for the Army Reserve, which I think is widely supported by reservists in my constituency, but over 100 people have contacted me to express their consternation about the proposed move, including many serving riflemen in my constituency. During his time at the Ministry of Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan) listened closely to those concerns, met me and agreed in writing to look again at the proposed move. He had also been planning to visit Truro to help him to understand further the impact that the move would have. I hope that his successor as Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), will be able to continue that close consideration of that local concern. I hope that will lead to the proposed reconfiguration being reviewed. Such a review is simply essential if Cornish residents are to serve in The Rifles in the manner in which they have proudly done for centuries and if Cornwall is to continue to contribute to the British Army to the extent envisioned in the Army Reserve plan.

13:49

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

May I wholeheartedly join in the warm welcome that has been extended to you today, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is delightful to see you in the Chair.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). I echo what she and other speakers have said about the size of the task that is facing Ministers with the £35 billion black hole they inherited, the need to put our armed forces on a sound financial and strategic footing—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clappison]

I have only just started, but of course I will.

[Mr Jones]

I think we have had black holes of £38 billion and £36 billion, and now we have £35 billion. Can the hon. Gentleman explain that, because the Government are clearly reluctant to do so?

[Mr Clappison]

The figure comes from someone who knows more about this than me; it is contained in the National Audit Office report of 2010. I have only six minutes to speak. I will happily debate the black hole in the accounts and the whole of the debt that the previous Government left to this Government, but that is not really why I want to take part in the debate. I wanted to do so to pay tribute to our Ministers. We have an excellent Minister who has served in the armed forces and we are lucky to have him serving in this Department.

The longer this debate has gone on, the more it has become clear to me that something is going wrong with the implementation of the Government’s plan. I speak on these matters as a layman. I do not have any gallant service of my own, but as a Conservative I take an interest in our armed forces and the strength of our defence. I am not remotely qualified to judge the merits of the plan, nor the size of the Army, although I have some sympathy with what the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) said about the size of our armed forces. Least of all am I qualified to judge the relative capabilities and costs of reservists as against regular soldiers. However, there is clearly common ground emerging that something is going wrong with the recruitment of reservists. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who has played a distinguished role in this regard, described it as “uneven”. Perhaps the Minister can put me right, but it seems that initial reports are not uniformly optimistic about the recruitment of reserves to take the place of our regular forces.

Let me put to the Minister the case that has already been put in a very distinguished way by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). If there is a problem with the recruitment of reservists, and those reservists are needed to make up for the capability lost through the loss of the five regular battalions, surely the Government should look again at the question of disbanding those battalions.

[Mr Gray]

rose—

[Mr Clappison]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who is much more distinguished in these matters than I am.

[Mr Gray]

I am not even slightly distinguished. I very much agree with my hon. Friend about the risk of there being a capability gap. Does he agree that, while the MOD may well hope that the TA recruitment figures will improve, there must arrive a point at which it will become obvious that that is not going to occur? We might therefore want to hear from the Minister a date or a time at which the MOD might be ready to admit that the bold plan in “Future Army 2020” has not worked and will think again about regular units.

[Mr Clappison]

I hope that the Minister has heard my hon. Friend. If I may, I would put it even more strongly. My hon. Friend mentioned hope. I would say to the Minister that, if there is even an element of doubt about the recruitment of reservists, the Government should put these plans on hold and look again at the whole question of disbanding the regular battalions. In saying that, let me make it absolutely clear that I mean no disrespect at all to the excellent individuals who serve in our Territorial Army and to whom we owe the deepest debt of gratitude, not least for the way in which they have performed in Afghanistan.

This is simply a question of whether the implementation of the plans as they stand will give us the capability that we require. I very much hope that it will not be part of the Government’s thinking or policy to say, “Here we have a plan which should meet our capability needs, and will also save us costs, but even if it doesn’t meet our capability needs we will go ahead with it none the less.” That is not a position in which a Conservative-led Government should find themselves, and I am sure that they will not under the watchful custodianship of my right hon. Friend the Minister.

Let me say a few words about our Navy, which is also encompassed by the defence reforms. The previous Government’s strategic defence review in the late 1990s concluded that Britain required a fleet of 32 surface ships, destroyers and frigates, in order to fulfil its capability needs. Now we have a fleet of 19 surface ships in the form of frigates and destroyers. I know that these ships have greater capability than ever before, but I would be surprised if they had acquired a capability proportionate to the loss of numbers that has been experienced since the defence review in the late 1990s. Even as an amateur strategist, I can understand that, as the noble Lord West, a former Sea Lord, has helpfully pointed out, a ship can only be in one place at one time. I doubt that there are fewer threats in the world today than there were in the late 1990s and that the world has become a much safer place since the turn of the last century. While other nations are responding to the world as it is by increasing the number and capability of their surface fleet, we are seeing a diminution in ours.

The hon. Member for Colchester mentioned Waterloo. Helpfully, next Monday is Trafalgar day, which used to be celebrated nationally and is still celebrated in our Navy. I was interested to find out how many warships the British Navy had at the time of the battle of Trafalgar, and my rather amateur research unearthed a figure of 950 warships in 1805, so we may not have had a very big Army, as the hon. Gentleman said, but we certainly had a very good Navy.

[Richard Drax]

Bearing in mind that 85% of our trade comes by sea, would it not be foolish if we did not have the Royal Navy to protect, not least, our trade routes? My hon. Friend may recall that one man tried to cut us off before, not too long ago.

[Mr Clappison]

My hon. Friend is right. Who knows what we may be called on to deal with through our Royal Navy? At the time of the Falklands conflict we had 60 frigates and destroyers. Recently our Navy played a very important role in the conflict in Libya. Four of the ships that we used in that conflict have since been decommissioned or are on their way to being decommissioned. Let me put this into further context by saying that, on the eve of the second world war, a conflict that tells us all we need to know about the need for military preparedness, Britain had 272 surface warships and the largest Navy in the world.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

On ships of the past, the cannonballs only went so far; today, the force multipliers on ships are enormous. The situation is not comparable. We have fewer forces and fewer castles. Things have moved on in our capabilities, and that is what we need to focus on.

[Mr Clappison]

I hope that the ships have very great capabilities because we have only 19 of them. I think that my hon. Friend will know from his military expertise that it is said in the Navy that three ships are needed for every one that is deployed, so at any time we can deploy six ships. Let us hope that they are indeed mightily powerful. As I said, other nations are not taking the same view as us and are increasing the size of their navies. I am pretty sure that some of those navies will have very good capabilities as well.

Although our surface fleet may now be on the rather modest side, happily we are not short of commanding officers, because in our Navy we have 40 admirals and 260 captains. That is a ratio of just over two admirals per surface warship. If one takes into account our submarine force and HMS Illustrious, which is due to be decommissioned next year, we will have one and a half admirals per vessel in our Navy. At least we can see that all possibilities will be well and truly covered. As for the 260 captains, one is tempted to guess that, although in the past the dream of a captain may have been to command a ship, today his dream may be to set foot on one.

We do not have to look far back in time to find occasions when we have needed our Navy at short notice, and who knows when we may need it again? It is an excellent branch of our armed forces, as is the case with all our armed forces. Whatever we say about the size and capabilities of our armed forces, we know the quality of the people who are involved in them. They are excellent individuals who never hesitate to serve their country and put their lives at risk, and we are very lucky to have each and every one of them.

I say to the Minister that it is a credit to the Government that they have made it such an explicit priority to give our forces the equipment they deserve. However, on the reserves, as a straightforward, ordinary Conservative Back Bencher, I think that the Government need to think again.

13:59

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

It is a pleasure to be the first Liberal Democrat Member to welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to wish you well. Of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) welcomed you when you were waiting in the wings and I am sure he shares my view that your eye should never stray far from the Liberal Democrat Benches.

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers has a huge, historic association with my constituency. The regimental headquarters of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was in Alnwick and its museum is still there. The regiment also has a major Fusilier Territorial Army centre and the benefit of very good recruitment areas, which is why it is such a well-recruited battalion. The north-east, Lancashire, the midlands and London could hardly be better places for recruitment.

The defence plans, which have been widely discussed today, involve a significant and risky reduction in regular numbers and are dependent on a massive increase in reservists on a scale unprecedented in modern times. Two things follow from that. First, we need to make sure that we achieve regular recruitment at the necessary level, organised in a regimental structure that supports efficiency of operation. Secondly, we need to make sure that we do not take out regular strength until we can be sure that we have the reservists to replace it.

That brings me directly to the mistake that I think has been made, namely the disbandment of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. On Tuesday, hundreds of Fusilier veterans marched on Whitehall—it was a truly magnificent sight—after we had presented a petition to Downing street.

[Bob Stewart]

Based on the logic that we should keep regulars until we have reservists to take their place, we should mention in the same breath the other three regiments that are being lost, including mine, the Mercian Regiment.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The same logic can indeed be applied, but the sheer strength of feeling with regard to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is significant, as is the number of Members who are taking part in this debate because of their concern about the future of the 2nd Battalion and of the regiment in general.

I do not want to spend too long on why the mistake was made, but it is clear that in the case of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers the decision to stand down was based not on efficiency, but on the cap badge argument, which preserved Scottish battalions that did not recruit as well as the Fusiliers. Interestingly, the cap badge argument did not count for much when, a few years earlier, we lost the King’s Own Scottish Borderers—the other regiment that had its regimental headquarters in my constituency—and they were merged with the Royal Scots to become one battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. In effect, the two regiments associated with our area have sustained losses.

Since the decision was made—Ministers may claim it was right, but I think it was wrong—the facts have changed, and when the facts change, Governments have to look at things again. It has become clear how difficult it will be to meet the TA recruitment target. I do not know many people—indeed, anyone—who are confident that we will achieve the targets in the given time scale. It is therefore likely—in fact, I am certain—that there will be a capability gap.

[Mr Brazier]

The reason we are not meeting the targets is not that there is a shortage of people willing to enlist. As I explained in my speech, we have had two big surges, but both were wrecked because the Department in charge of recruiting and enlistment has set up systems that are simply not volunteer-reservist friendly.

[Sir Alan Beith]

My hon. Friend, who has worked diligently on strengthening the TA and its role in our military structure, makes an important point. I am not sure whether that is the whole answer or argument. If we are deterring potential recruits as a result of slow processes, that should be put right. Many years ago my hon. Friend was my Conservative opponent and he became aware during that time of the significance of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in my area.

As well as the slowness of TA recruitment, TA centres are being closed. Alnwick in my constituency is keeping a good and strong TA centre of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The TA centre in Berwick was reassigned some time ago to the Royal Logistics Corps, which no longer needs it. I think we should have kept it and that it should be reassigned back to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

If we give up on rural areas and create a situation whereby it is too far for people from rural areas to attend training nights, we will cut off a significant source of recruitment. There are many loyal people in rural areas who want to serve and many ex-regulars return to rural areas. At the very least, we need to devise ways in which the training structure can accommodate people who live 30, 40 or 50 miles away from a training centre, if we are not simply to write off a whole area of recruitment.

I do not want to take up much more time. It is clear from today’s discussion that a lot of people, for various reasons, have serious concerns about our ability to meet the TA targets. I therefore suggest to Ministers that the contingency plan they should have to hand and keep in preparedness is the retention of at least one of the regular battalions, and the obvious choice is the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

14:05

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

It is a pleasure to speak in your first debate in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I speak as a former Territorial Army soldier, first in the Honourable Artillery Company and then in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. I served for about 12 years in total. A great-great uncle of mine lost his life as a member of the 25th Battalion the Royal Fusiliers during the German east African campaign of the first world war.

My understanding of the objective that the Government have set for the reserve forces and the Army Reserve in particular is that they need to capture 0.15% of the working-age population. I do not think that that target is beyond us, because many of our closest allies, such as America, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland, all manage to achieve significantly better than that. If our neighbouring countries and closest allies can achieve that, we should have faith in the volunteer ethic in British society. It is also important to remember that we will still have a larger proportion of regular forces in our total military than many of our closest allies.

[Mr Gray]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Andrew Selous]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who, like me, is a former HAC soldier.

[Mr Gray]

I am most grateful to my Honourable Artillery Company colleague. It is the oldest and, of course, greatest regiment, regular or territorial, in the British Army.

[Mr Ellwood]

Division!

[Mr Gray]

No dissent from other Members, please.

I agree with the optimism and hope of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that we can recruit a first-class reserve army to play the role called for by Army 2020. However, does he agree that the statistics so far are extremely disappointing to say the least? Does he think we will reach a point during the next year or two when it will become obvious that we will not be able to achieve the Army 2020 targets and we will have to think again?

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point. I have one or two positive suggestions on how we might be able to improve recruitment, based on what has worked in the past. I also have every confidence that our colleagues on the Front Bench want and need this to work. They are not stupid and I am sure they will make the necessary adjustments, if needed.

At present there are 19,000 people in the Army Reserve and the Government want 30,000, an increase of 11,000. To put that in round terms, that will be fewer than 20 recruits per parliamentary constituency, although I do appreciate the point that has been made about the fact that the Army Reserve is becoming slightly more regional than local.

Employers will play an essential role in this process. It is really important that the National Employer Advisory Board and Support for Britain’s Reservists & Employers do their job well and properly. I also want chambers of commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the CBI and the Institute of Directors—all the employers’ groups—to get behind the need to recruit and retain more reserves.

When I first joined the Honourable Artillery Company as a young man, I was working in the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, which had a reserve forces association. Many young underwriters and brokers joined the reserve forces. There was significant employer buy-in. We could talk about our weekend’s training when we got back on Monday morning. It was a normal and natural thing to do. There is no reason why clusters of employers could not copy that model.

[Jack Lopresti]

My hon. Friend is talking about a large organisation. Small and medium-sized enterprises and small towns and villages cannot be compared with Lloyd’s of London.

[Andrew Selous]

I accept that, but there is no reason why the chamber of commerce in my hon. Friend’s constituency or the Federation of Small Businesses could not do the same thing. I would like to see stalls on the high streets, in the market towns and at the village fairs in his constituency. We should literally be setting out our stall to get young men and women to join the reserve forces. Groups of employers could do the same thing.

To highlight one employer, Carillion is doing an excellent job of encouraging its staff to join the reserve forces because it is a two-way trade. Not only does the country get the reserve forces that it needs, but employers get back a capable, determined and well-trained employee who will be of even more benefit to their work force. It is important to recognise that this is not just about employers doing the decent thing; there are sound business reasons for employers to get behind the reserves. The Government also provide assistance to meet mobilisation costs.

It is important to recognise the contribution that the Territorial Army, as it used to be called, has made to recent campaigns. Up to 10% of our forces in Afghanistan have come from the Territorial Army. Indeed, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) mentioned the figure of 14% for Iraq in our debate on 23 April.

We need a simple and straightforward recruiting system. My memory of joining the Territorial Army in 1980 is that it was a quick and easy process. Captain Simon Lalor, who is now a major-general, was the recruiting officer of the Honourable Artillery Company. I had friends in the company and I went in to see him. The process was very quick and I was doing my recruit basic training before I knew it. There was not a long delay, but I am sure that the necessary security checks were undertaken then, as they must be now. If we were able to do it quickly, simply and easily then, I am sure that we can do so now. That is important because if a young man or woman who is bursting with energy and commitment wants to join the TA, we have to act quickly to capture that enthusiasm or we may lose them.

I return to the point that I made about the need for community engagement. It is important that businesses, civic leaders, Members of Parliament, mayors, county council and unitary council chairs and so on get behind this effort, support the reserve forces and encourage people to join their local unit. I think that an extra 11,000 reserves is possible. I have heard about the difficulties with the current recruitment process that have been outlined, but I still believe that recruiting 11,000 reserves is possible.

[Mr Brazier]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. The central difference between the recruitment processes in this country and other English-speaking countries is that reservists here have very little say over the way in which it is designed, organised and implemented.

[Andrew Selous]

I defer to no one in this House more than my hon. Friend for their knowledge of and commitment to the reserves. He has advised the House well and loyally over the past few years. There are two Defence Ministers on the Front Bench and I am sure that they will have heard his comments. I know that they want to get the process right and that they will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that we achieve the target.

We need community buy-in. We need employers and civic leaders to be out there supporting our reserves. We need an extra 11,000 reserves. We have done it in the past. In 1990, we had 70,000 people in the Territorial Army. Surely it is possible for us to get to a figure of 30,000. I refuse to believe that we cannot do that if we have the right enthusiasm, motivation and recruiting systems.

14:14

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in your new position, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I will talk about why the regimental system is so emotive for so many people in this House. I was in the Army, but I really wanted to join the Royal Air Force because my father was an RAF officer. However, he rather ruined it for me when I discovered that I was colour blind. I said, “Dad, that means I can’t fly and I can’t join the RAF.” He said, “That’s right son.” I said, “What about the Navy, dad?” He said, “Starboard and port are red and green. You’ve got to be able to see those.” So I said, “What about the Army?” He said, “Son, the Army will have anyone.”

When I got to Sandhurst, I discovered that the Army was not just the Army, but that I had to go in for a regiment. I did not really understand that. I lived in Cheshire and went to school in Essex—I was an Essex boy. I ended up being interviewed for the Cheshire Regiment. It was weird. I did not really understand what the regimental system was until I got to the regiment in Bahrain on 25 July 1969. When I arrived, I was suddenly taken into this very proud organisation. I discovered that the Cheshires had real ethos and spirit.

I was taught regimental history very rapidly. I was taught that the colours were the heart of the regiment and that they were carried by subalterns. Everybody in the Chamber will remember the story of the two young officers who were given the colours in 1879 to cross the River Buffalo in South Africa and died saving the colours. Essentially, the colours were the regiment. That gave great character to each regiment.

I did not understand how much that tradition mattered until I went to Londonderry later that year. When I lost a third of my platoon, I saw why regiments were so important. My men went back into the regimental system and said, “We’ve got to do the right thing.” Twelve years later, I saw that pride in action again when I lost six men at Ballykelly on 6 December 1982. When I buried six of my soldiers, four of their mothers put their arms around me and said, “We understand how you feel.” That was amazing. That is why the regimental system is so important to Government and Opposition Members. The regiment is a family and it acts like that. It gives the Army huge strength in adversity. That is why it is so important and why we must preserve it.

On Monday, I hosted a visit to this place for 15 soldiers and officers from my old regiment. I reminisced fondly about my time in the regiment. They tolerated an old man’s yearnings. However, when I looked at them, I could see that they were not with me. They had a different view. They were not the Cheshires that I had been in; they were another lot. Since 1 September 2007, they had been in 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment and they were no longer the Cheshires. They had a new regimental identity that had been bonded in battle on two severe tours in Afghanistan. I realised that the way that I looked at things was all over and that a new generation was coming. I do not like it, but I have to accept it. Fundamentally, there are some things that we must accept.

I do not want 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers or any other regiment to go. I do not think that the reserves are getting the recruitment that is needed. Old regiments do not die; they fade away, just as those that made them go to their makers. Those of us who have served and have seen our comrades in action have great difficulty in accepting change—I do not like it, and I will fight tooth and nail to keep the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and the other battalions. Sometimes, however, we will have to accept that we cannot do that. That is why people such as me, and other hon. and gallant Members from across the House, are fighting so hard for their local battalions and regiments.

I have 16 seconds left, so let me say this: please do not confuse regiments and battalions. A regiment consists of many battalions, and many of those battalions are from previous regiments. My time is up. Think of previous battalions.

14:20

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) who has given distinguished service. I never rose higher than a most diffident and incompetent trooper in the Honourable Artillery Company, so I speak with some diffidence in this debate. I may be an amateur in military strategy, but I know a bit about parliamentary procedure, and I am concerned about the way that debates on our armed services are effectively being downgraded. The House is on a one-line Whip, and we are debating a motion that we have not heard a lot about. The motion

“urges the Government to delay the disbandment of regular units until it is established that the Army Reserve plan is viable and cost-effective.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who is sitting next to me, will press the motion to a vote, so it will—I presume—be passed by the House. It is incumbent on the Government to listen to the House if it expresses an opinion in such terms.

[Mr Ellwood]

On that point, I stress that this is a serious motion, but the House needs to reflect on how we pay tribute to our armed forces. I do not believe that a half-day debate on a Thursday is the way to do that. We previously had four debates a year on the issue. I hope that the powers that be will listen—I hope my hon. Friend will agree—and that we can return to that and do justice to what our armed forces are doing for this country.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. When I arrived in the House we had an annual Navy debate, which was the only debate in which Mr Bonner Pink—a great man who represented Portsmouth—spoke in the course of an entire year, so important was it. We greatly respect my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, but we would like the Secretary of State to be present on these occasions and in these most important debates.

We are, of course, sympathetic to Defence Ministers, and we know the intolerable pressure they have been put under. I will not get into a debate about the £35 billion black hole, just in case the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) intervenes on me, but as we know, the money has to come from nowhere—or rather, from somewhere—and difficult decisions must be made. I hope that was not a Freudian slip, Madam Deputy Speaker, and by the way, welcome to the Chair. Thank you for calling me; you are doing wonderfully well so far.

We all know the pressure that those on the Front Benches are under, but that does not absolve them from answering the central question in this debate. We can argue about the relative costs of reservists compared with regular forces, but we cannot deny that the previous Secretary of State made a pledge to the Chair of the Defence Committee that we would not reduce the Regular Army unless we were sure we could recruit these reservists. That is the nub of this debate, and we must not get lost in the detail. We must keep our eyes firmly focused on the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has played a distinguished part in this debate, and his independent commission concluded:

“Our Reserve Forces are in Decline.”

Why are they in decline? The commission concluded:

“We have failed to modernise Reservist Roles.”

We must ask my hon. Friend, and the Minister, whether we can increase the burdens we place on reservists when we are still modernising their role. The 2013 MOD White Paper “Reserves in the Future Force 2020: Valuable and Valued” was produced in response.

[Mr Brazier]

The central point was that for the past few years reserves have been used exclusively as a part-time personnel service with no command opportunities for officers whatever. That has now changed, and as a result we have a decent proposition.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We all hope that that is true and will happen, but the fact is that we are still faced with what appears to be a crisis in recruitment. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay has ensured that two national papers gave enormous prominence to this subject this very day. There is a leaked report in The Daily Telegraph—perhaps the Minister will not want to comment on that—but we do not need a leaked report to know that the recruiting drive is in trouble. According to The Daily Telegraph

“only 50 per cent of the overall 2013-14 target of 6,383”

has been met. Clearly, something is going wrong.

Why have we closed recruiting services and placed the emphasis on Capita? I have some experience of dealing with Capita from the Public Accounts Committee. Is that really the right, hands-on way to recruit our Territorial Army and reserve forces? The Army is reducing the Regular Army by 19,500 personnel, and working to increase the Army reserve to 30,000 from a current trained strength of 19,000. That is fair enough. It has been said in the debate that we need to recruit 20 people per constituency, so why are we not doing so? We must get a grip on the issue and understand from the Minister exactly what is happening on the ground. Why are we cutting people who have done their jobs well and who would like to continue in the Regular Army in the hope of promotion and a career? Why are we cutting them and recruiting reservists when we are still not meeting our quotas?

Many colleagues, as well as other commentators, have been just as suspicious of the MOD’s ability to recruit and train so many recruits in such a short time span, and the more the debate continues, the more some of us worry about that. How many regulars will sign up as reservists? They entered as career soldiers and many may feel betrayed at being forcibly deprived of their jobs. Will they be keen to join as reservists? What preparations have the Government made for the loss of those skills and experience? The redundancy notices that the soldiers have received are real and can be held in their hands; the reservists who are meant to replace those soldiers are merely theoretical.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay pointed out that the plans are “flawed” and present a “high risk”. A think-tank suggests that current defence policy is

“merely a mechanism to slash defence spending.”

I do not accuse Ministers of that, but they must reply to the charge. Is the policy a mechanism to reduce defence spending, or does it hold up? Even the Liberal Democrats, our coalition partners, have expressed concern that the changes envisaged

“have not been adequately thought through and could pose risks.”

In conclusion, I believe history has shown that a standing Army adds tremendous value to Great Britain. During the first and second world wars, it was immensely easier to mobilise the male population, because we could add them to pre-existing units. It was both easier and wiser to add another battalion—or two or three—to an existing regiment, than to imagine an entire reserve force almost ex nihilo. These regiments have long and proud histories that have come under sustained attack over the past half century.

[Richard Drax]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I cannot. I will keep going for the last few seconds of my time.

Obviously, not every regiment can last for ever, but tradition is a priceless, incorporeal thing that takes centuries to build and yet can be destroyed in an instant. We must again remember Admiral Cunningham, who was criticised for the heavy losses his Navy ships suffered when they were exposed to German air assault as he protected the Army. He said:

“It takes three years to build a ship, but it takes three centuries to build a tradition.”

The tradition of our Regular Army is a real thing that we still have in this country. The reforms seek to replace that with a continental-style citizen army, and to do so stealthily without properly saying so. It may take only 40 days of a year to train a reservist, but we may lose centuries of tradition if the reforms are implemented in the wrong way.

14:29

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker, as other hon. Members have done. I hope that my voting for you will not in any way affect the frequency with which I am able to catch your eye, although I live in hope. I hope hon. Members join me in welcoming the new the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has responsibility for veterans. I am pleased to see her in her place.

I am grateful for the debate. I should declare that I am proud member of the TA, which is soon to be called the reserves. I congratulate the Government on hosting the next NATO summit next year. The debate is on defence reforms and is about the capabilities to meet future threats and commitments. I wish to focus my remarks on one aspect of defence capability, the significance of which is not, in my view, fully appreciated by the House, namely the utilisation of our Queen Elizabeth class carriers.

We tend to obsess about platforms, ships and aircraft, but not what they are expected to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) fell into that. The 24 lb guns used in the battle of Trafalgar are different from the assets we have today.

[Mr Clappison]

My hon. Friend knows far more about these matters than I do, but may I gently draw his attention to the fact that we will not have the splendid Queen Elizabeth carriers until 2020? In the meantime, our only helicopter carrier is being taken for what is called recycling next year.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I did not want to focus on legacy issues and procurement—all hon. Members are well aware of them, and there are questions to be answered on both sides of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

And the carriers must be protected by frigates.

[Mr Ellwood]

It depends which frigates we are talking about. It will be rare for us to participate in a conflict without an international flotilla, so we need to think about frigates other than our own. I want to focus on Britain’s military capability, which goes far beyond providing the senior service with a replacement for the Invincible class and thinking of carriers in terms of the battle of Medway and so forth.

We either need carriers or we do not. If we need the capability, we need a minimum of two carriers to guarantee that one is permanently operational. Let us bear in mind what happened in the operation in Libya. Halfway through the operation, the Charles de Gaulle had to head back to France for a refit. Previously, 40% of air operations had come from it. Let us also bear in mind our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, which highlight the need for a new and adaptable, but arm’s length, doctrine of intervention, with the flexibility for upstream engagement and stabilisation, including humanitarian tasks, based on a much lighter footprint. The carriers could become the centrepiece of British expeditionary capability.

The Queen Elizabeth class carriers provide an opportunity to facilitate a step-change in long-range manoeuvrable technology and capability, and allow us to recalibrate our joint-service approach to littoral, expeditionary and inland conflict prevention and upstream engagement. In a wider context, strategic carriers allow us to extend and embolden Britain’s diplomatic soft power and hard power in a manner not seen for a generation, for the reason my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere has given. In my view, we are not reaching the carriers’ potential.

[Mr Brazier]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that there is no way we can fund that objective, which I strongly support, if we have an all-regular Army?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will come to funding in a second.

In my view, the full potential of the carriers needs to be exploited. For example, we are not considering having unmanned aerial systems on board, but that will become the norm in future. Drone systems like the ScanEagle, the Fire Scout and the X47-B are already available and exist on other carriers, yet we do not have a programme to consider them, even though our ships will be around for the next 40 years. On capability, it is worth noting that two thirds of airborne operations conducted over Afghanistan by the Americans took place from aircraft carriers based in the Indian ocean. We need to recognise that those are versatile bits of kit.

Rotary systems have been mentioned. The Apache played a pivotal and interesting but new role in Libya, with the use of Hellfire missiles, extending the range at which we can use our force capability. Hellfire has a range of 8 km, the Storm Shadow 500 km, and Brimstone 12 km. I stress these points because two thirds of the world population lives within 250 miles of the coastline. That is where future conflict will take place. If we do not want to put boots on the ground, it is aircraft carriers that will allow us to conduct and expedite such operations.

Continuing to operate two carriers will send a powerful message to potential adversaries, both state and non-state, but also to our allies, such as the US, allowing us in turn to employ greater leverage on their decision making. It will also save millions of pounds because we would not have to create forward bases or undertake long-range operations. In the operations in Libya, Tornados had to be refuelled five times—three times on the way there and two on the way back, putting massive strain on the airframes. Operating two carriers will give us greater flexibility compared with running just one. With one carrier, operations are likely to be carrier-strike only—there would be little expeditionary capability.

Hon. Members have spoken passionately about retaining the soldiers who live in their constituencies. My question is this: what are the soldiers expected to do? Huge work needs to be done on expeditionary capability, upstream engagement and stabilisation. We could win the war quickly, but lose the peace because we do not have such stabilisation. Aircraft carriers can play an important role in that. Two aircraft carriers could have a tailored expeditionary capability that we have never had.

Other nations are watching us with interest. The Americans have the Wasp class carriers, which are 44,000 tonnes, and the Nimitz class carriers, which, because of sequestration, are likely to be removed. They are looking at the 65,000 tonne class with interest, and also saw what we did with the Apache. They may want to follow suit. We do not talk this up. Building a third aircraft carrier is not even being considered because of the embarrassment and the legacy problems of the past.

I believe that the additional annualised cost of a carrier, which has been mentioned—about £65 million a year—is a small price to pay for the diplomatic signal and military statement of intent it would send to potential adversaries, state and non-state alike. It would significantly reduce the operational cost of war fighting, conflict prevention and peacekeeping roles. It would also elevate Britain’s ranking as Europe’s senior military power, justifying our permanent membership of the UN Security Council. I hope that hon. Members on both sides the House support my call for operating two aircraft carriers.

14:37

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. The great challenge speaking before the two Front Benchers is that just about everything that can be said has been said. I shall try not to let that stop me.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) on his speech and his two-carrier Royal United Services Institute policy, which I am working my way through. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on his tenacious campaign. He has fought with great integrity and spoke today with great clarity.

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

I regret that an investigation being carried out by the Intelligence and Security Committee has prevented my taking part in the debate. My hon. Friend has referred to the two-carrier solution. Does he agree that the only reason we can consider that solution is the Government’s wise decision to have the short take-off and vertical landing joint strike fighter on the carriers? Otherwise, there was no way we could operate two carriers.

[Christopher Pincher]

In that, as in most cases, the Government are very wise.

I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate. I shall ask three brief questions. The first question, to the House, is this: do we need to restructure our armed forces? We had not had a review for many years. Given the military deficit that the Labour Government left the current one, if Labour were still in power—heaven forefend—it would have had to have one.

The second question is whether we need to rebalance the armed forces in favour of the reserves. Broadly speaking, that is the right thing to do. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay because in this post-cold war asymmetrical world he referred to, it is not appropriate to have an overwhelming number of regular forces. It is more appropriate to have a flexible reserve-based force. Our allies are doing that. In 1990, our Territorial Army was more than twice the size than the proposed Reserve Army, so I do not think that having approximately 30,000 reservists out of a total of 120,000 in our armed forces is inappropriate.

There have been many reforms and there has been opposition to them. There was opposition to “Options for Change” a generation ago, and to the Keith Speed reforms in 1980. There was opposition to the changes in 1959, and I am sure there was opposition to Edward Cardwell’s reforms in 1872. The question is not so much whether reform is wrong, but whether the Ministry of Defence has got this reform right. Broadly speaking, I think it has. The question we are asking ourselves is can we recruit enough people into the reserve to match the draw-down of our regular forces at a time of falling joblessness and increased career alternatives for young people? The answer is yes, if we get it right.

[Bob Stewart]

The regiments will have gone by 2015, and on any optimistic assumption the reservist plan will not be complete until 2018. There is a three-year gap.

[Christopher Pincher]

Gap planning is the trial and tribulation of any organisation. Businesses all around the country have to deal with gap planning, particularly when people who are in the reserves need to go on deployment or training. The issue for many such firms—I used to be involved in an organisation that had a lot of reservists going on deployment—is not so much planning for 40 days away, because that is something that can, to a greater or lesser extent, be planned for; the challenge is ensuring that there is somebody to step temporarily into the reservist’s role, that the handover is done effectively, the person is able to discharge their other responsibilities while stepping into that role, and, when the reservist returns, that the handover back is smooth. Making sure that those sorts of challenges are dealt with is one way for companies big and small to be confident about recruiting and retaining reservists. That is particularly important for firms whose bread and butter is deploying their resources at their clients’ sites. They have to consider what their clients might think of their staff leaving and coming back for periods of time.

The key message for the Minister, who is knowledgeable about these matters and is committed to our armed forces, is to ensure that big and small businesses recognise the advantages of having reservists on their books. Most firms put great store in training and skill capability. They need to know that the MOD, the Army, the Air Force and the Navy will train the reservists on their books, giving them the skills that their firms want, need and can use. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said in a very good speech, it is incumbent on the MOD to work with the Federation of Small Businesses, the CBI and local chambers of commerce to ensure that businesses know the value of the training that reservists will receive, so they are more likely to want to recruit and retain them. If we do that, we can move further and faster towards the objective the Minister hopes to achieve, and this change in the deployment of our resources will be successful.

14:44

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing the debate, which has been excellent. There have been 16 speakers. I have done a quick tally and I think we have had 10 blue on blue attacks and two yellow on blue attacks so far. It has been good to recognise the importance of our armed forces and the unique role that reservists play. I have seen our reservists in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think everyone in the House would like to thank them for their contribution to the defence of our country. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

My hon. Friends the Members for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the hon. Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) raised the issue of the fusiliers. The Minister needs to answer why the Government have decided to axe the fusiliers in spite of the their good recruitment record.

The current situation needs to be put into context and I know that some hon. Members have short memories. It is important to recognise that, at the time of the strategic defence and security review, the Prime Minister said:

“Our ground forces will continue to have a vital operational role, so we will retain a large, well-equipped Army, numbering around 95,500 by 2015—7,000 fewer than today.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 799.]

We all know the reduction was increased to 13,000 and that compulsory redundancies have taken place. There is concern among many that the increase in the reserve is not for operational purposes, but to fill the gap.

We have heard that the reason for the gap is the previous Labour Government’s black hole in the finances—the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) tried to support that notion. We have heard about a £35 billion black hole, a £36 billion black hole and a £38 billion black hole. The fact is that a 2006 National Audit Office report said that the gap in the defence budget, if it continued in line with inflation, would be £6 billion and would only go up to £36 billion if there were flat growth over a 10-year period. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), will learn to listen in time. The Government have used that to hide behind their reason for making cuts to defence spending.

[Mr Ellwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will not give way. Unfortunately, I do not have much time.

It is time for the Government to be honest with our servicemen and servicewomen and say why they are making these cuts. The real reason is that in the SDSR, the Government reduced the defence budget by 9% and have made some silly mistakes since.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth East spoke eloquently about the need for the carriers, but he was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary who not only recommended changing the “cats and traps”, which wasted £74 million, but wanted to mothball one of those carriers.

[Mr Ellwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry, but I do not have much time.

There is clearly a recruitment crisis, but as is often the case, the Government are implementing a policy without thinking it through. That might be okay with things such as the green deal, but it is not acceptable when the defence of our country is at stake. From the recruitment figures, it is clear that there is a crisis. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) mentioned the drop in recruitment in one unit. I have got to say, having spoken to people, mistakes have been made, and I do not believe it is all Capita’s fault; the decision, which rests with Ministers, to take Army recruiters out of centres has been a mistake, and as has been recognised, they will have to backfill them. That needs addressing.

Another issue clearly needs addressing. Whether we like it or not, the general impression created by the Government is that the armed forces are not open for business. They can spend as much time and money as they like on glossy adverts, but if they are handing out P45s, giving the impression that people are not required in our armed forces, it is not surprising that people are not joining the regulars or the reserves.

There are some concerns over the leak in The Daily Telegraph this morning, one of which relates to mental health. Next week, we will table amendments to the Defence Reform Bill raising issues that need to be addressed as part of the long-term mental health care of reservists. To be fair to the Government, however, they have carried on and improved some of the things we did on mental health care for regulars.

When he was Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), rightly committed to getting the balance right. He said he would not reduce the level of the regulars until the reforms to the reservists had been carried out, which I think was a sensible, well intentioned proposition and the right approach, but now that things are going wrong, why are the Government steaming ahead? This is a serious issue. It is not just that the policy is failing. It is not good enough to say that this is not about the wider issue of finance and support for our armed forces. Unless Ministers change tack now, in the not-too-distant future, the defence capability of this country could be at dire risk.

14:51

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

As this is a debate on the armed forces, I wish to endorse the tribute paid earlier by the Secretary of State for International Development to Lance Corporal James Brynin of the Intelligence Corps, serving with 14th Signal Regiment, who was tragically killed in action in Afghanistan on 15 October. He died in the service of his country, defending our freedoms, and I suspect I speak for the whole House when I say that our thoughts are with his family and loved ones as they come to terms with their grievous loss.

On a less sombre note, I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), who mentioned Trafalgar, that according to the Naval Historical Branch, a Jean Francois served at Trafalgar, although I am relieved to say it was in the Royal Navy.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Which side?

[Mr Francois]

In the Royal Navy. That’s our side, Bob.

I also say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) that I have not read his paper on carriers, which I think was published by the Royal United Services Institute, but having heard his speech today, I promise him that I will.

I am glad to have the opportunity to respond for the Government in this important debate, and I would like to remind the House why we are making these changes. On 3 July, we published the White Paper, “Reserves in the Future Force 2020: Valuable and Valued”, setting out our vision for the reserve forces and the detail of how we would make reserve service more attractive. It also confirmed our intention to change the name of the Territorial Army to the Army Reserve to better reflect their future role.

With this new approach, the UK is not breaking entirely new ground. In fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who arguably knows more about the reserves than the rest of the House put together, pointed out, it will bring us into line with our principal allies and partners, who currently rely more heavily on reserves than we do. Currently, reserves represent about 17% of our total armed forces, and that is scheduled to rise to 25% under our proposals. This compares to 36% in Australia, 51% in Canada—that is the figure I have—and 55% in the US.

Since the original Haldane reforms in the last century, the reserves have always made an essential contribution to national security. In world war two, eight of the 13 infantry divisions that went out in the British expeditionary force were from the Territorial Army. That shows the scale of the contribution it has made historically.

[Richard Drax]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Francois]

I will take my hon. Friend’s intervention, but I am told that I must finish by 3 pm, so his might have to be the only one.

[Richard Drax]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Although the reserves were bigger in those days, more resources were put into them. The big question is whether we will have sufficient resources to put into an increasing number of reserves. My fear is that we will not and that the regulars will suffer as a consequence.

[Mr Francois]

I understand my hon. Friend’s question. I believe that we will—we are devoting £1.8 billion to our programme of reserve expansion, which is a significant amount, given all the challenges in the budget.

Reservists have made a significant contribution to recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, with in excess of 25,000 mobilised for tours on Operations Telic and Herrick. Just as we were told earlier that the United States National Guard takes its responsibilities seriously and is taken seriously, I would respectfully suggest that our 25,000 men and women who served in those theatres were taking their responsibilities pretty seriously as well. Between them, those reservists have gained more than 70 gallantry awards in those campaigns. I would also humbly remind the House that 24 reservists made the ultimate sacrifice in combat during those operations.

We are establishing greater links with the national health service to enhance our medical units. Many of the lessons learned in combat, including at Camp Bastion—for instance, in treating haemorrhaging and bleeding—have now been fed back into the NHS. We are also setting up a new cyber-reserve unit—although I can scotch the rumour this afternoon that it has anything to do with attacking 38 Degrees. It is true that reserves can in some cases be more expensive than regular forces when deployed on operations, but they are significantly cheaper when held as a contingency.

[Sarah Newton]

I appreciate that my right hon. Friend sat and listened through the whole debate, but may I ask for confirmation that he will carefully consider the points I made about reservists being able to serve in the Army in Cornwall?

[Mr Francois]

Yes, I understand that my predecessor gave my hon. Friend a commitment that he would look at that issue closely. I will honour that commitment and look at it too. I cannot prejudice the outcome, but I promise my hon. Friend that I will look at it.

Central to the White Paper was the improved offer to reserves, which includes, among other things, investing an additional £240 million in improved training for reservists, including more overseas training, and investing an additional £200 million over the next 10 years for improved equipment. The reserves have already received the same new-style uniform as their regular colleagues, while Bowman radio equipment is being issued, along with new vehicles and personal fighting equipment. We will also pair Army reserve units with regular units to enable the sustained delivery of high-quality training and the development of fully integrated capabilities, as well as the sharing of knowledge, skills and experience.

Much has been said about support from employers, which is vital—we recognise that. Only recently I launched the corporate covenant, which all the major employer organisations have signed up to, including the Business Services Association, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Confederation of British Industry. In addition, individual companies such as Barclays, BAE Systems, National Express and General Dynamics have joined the covenant, one of the key points of which is endorsing the release of reserves. I am attending an event tonight, where I confidently anticipate more firms will sign up. Employers tell me there are benefits to having reservists on their payroll. They are highly motivated and trained personnel who can take their military leadership skills back into the workplace.

[Mr Baron]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Francois]

I am afraid I really do not have time.

For some employers, there will be directly transferrable qualifications, skills and experience between reserve service and civilian employment, which can be very valuable. To come to the heart of this matter, I believe that as parliamentarians we should get behind the reserves and the Army to support them in their endeavours. It is true that there have been some administrative issues in the process—it is too bureaucratic, as some of my hon. Friends have pointed out. However, we are working with our recruiting partner, Capita, and the senior Army leadership to actively address those issues.

[Mr Baron]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Francois]

I believe we can work through those issues, simplify the system and meet the objective. We should remember that the key target is 30,000 trained to phase two by 2018. We start with around 19,000 or so trained. That is not a cold start: we are two thirds of the way there, and we need to achieve the other third over four years. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) summed it up brilliantly: we need, on average, an additional 20 reservists from each parliamentary constituency across the country in order to do that. I believe we certainly can do that. As the Chief of the General Staff reminded us at a successful reception in Parliament for the Royal Engineers reserves only yesterday, that is a challenging proposition, but a workable one. I agree with CGS: we can do this; let us get on with it.

15:00

[Mr Baron]

I would like to add my warm welcome to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in your new post.

I am afraid that I listened to my right hon. Friend the Minister, but found that key questions remained unanswered. In fact, I do not think he answered one of the questions I put to him. In a debate of this nature and importance, it is a shame that he is not willing to take an intervention from the Member who sponsored it. The bottom line is that questions such as “When did the plan change from back in 2011?” and “How much of the £1.8 billion has already been spent?”, questions about the impact assessment, about the costs involved in doubling the mobilisation rate and so on and so forth have not been answered in detail—all we have had is a sense of direction.

No one doubts for one moment the courage and service of past reservists or indeed of future reservists. One is not critical of that—

[Mr Francois]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Baron]

I will give way to the Minister if he will answer this question: does he accept that recruitment targets are being missed to the extent that has been reported in The Daily Telegraph today? If he gives me a straight answer to that, I will take his question.

[Mr Francois]

I do not normally comment on leaked documents, and I am not about to start now. What I will say to my hon. Friend on the point of costs—in fairness, I had only about seven minutes—is that he knows that he wrote to the Secretary of State about this in detail and he knows that the Secretary of State replied to him in detail and rebutted every point that he made. For the benefit of the House, I will ensure that a copy of that letter is placed in the Library this afternoon.

[Mr Baron]

I am pleased that the Minister is going to do that because all the points made by the Secretary of State have, in turn, themselves been rebutted; many of them were based on false assumptions.

Given how little time is left, let me clarify this. One is not saying “Scrap the reservist plans”. In many respects, one wants them to work. What one is saying is that there comes a point in any project whereby if extra costs keep being thrown into a plan—because it is failing or because recruitment targets cannot be met or because costs are rising and TA numbers are at a low ebb or because of disorganisation—there comes a point when one has to ask “Is this project creating false economies, therefore costing the taxpayer dear?” The motion says simply that we should “delay” the axing of the regular battalions until we know that the reservist plan is both “viable and cost-effective”; otherwise, because of false economies and unrealistic expectations, the taxpayer could pay dearly. That is not unreasonable, but I am afraid that my right hon. Friend has failed to answer that central point in the motion. I thus have no hesitation whatever in pressing the motion and calling for a Division.

Question put.

15:03

Division 104

Ayes: 92

---

Labour: 72
Conservative: 17
Liberal Democrat: 2

Noes: 0

---

Resolved,

That this House notes concerns about the Government’s defence reforms in relation to whether its proposals for the reserve forces will deliver either the anticipated cost savings or defence capability; and urges the Government to delay the disbandment of regular units until it is established that the Army Reserve plan is viable and cost-effective.

Deaf Children and Young People

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

15:17

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the importance of services for deaf children and young people and acknowledges the wide attainment gap; further recognises that communications support for deaf children and their parents is vital for social development and educational progress; acknowledges that the Government has stated there is an expectation that funding for vulnerable learners is protected, but is concerned about recent evidence uncovered by the National Deaf Children’s Society which shows that in 2013-14 over a third of local authorities plan to cut education services for deaf children; urges the Government to take steps to hold local authorities to account and support parents in doing so, including by asking Ofsted to inspect these vital services, improving access to communication support including sign language, and strengthening the Children and Families Bill currently before Parliament; and further urges the Government to deliver and implement reform of special educational needs.

It is a particular pleasure to be launching this debate under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, having nominated you for the post. I know that you will conduct it with the usual good humour and common sense that is your characteristic, and I will do my best to respond in a similar fashion to any strictures you may impose on me.

I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to launch this debate. I am grateful to 79 Members of the House who supported the call for us to debate this important subject, and to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to it. I have to declare an interest, in that I am a vice-president of the National Deaf Children’s Society and of Action on Hearing Loss, and I chair the all-party group on deafness. I can also declare a personal interest, as I have a deaf daughter. She is now grown up, but she was six when I was elected to the House, so throughout my time here, and for some time before, issues relating to deaf adults and deaf children have been of paramount concern to me.

I requested today’s debate because I am concerned that support for deaf children is being cut at a time when they need more, not less, support. Having campaigned on these issues for such a long time, I remain frustrated that this country does not support deaf people as well as I believe it should and as well as some other countries do. Ten years ago, I produced a report for the Council of Europe on sign languages. I secured support from the Parliamentary Assembly for legal recognition of sign languages across Europe; sadly, the Committee of Ministers never acted on it.

I still feel that we need to ensure that deaf children get the help they need, particularly in terms of communication support. More than 50,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Government to act on the issue and many MPs have signed the motion and shown support for the debate. There is considerable strength of interest in and support for the subject. The debate is being closely watched by deaf people and their families across the country and is being actively monitored in the Twittersphere by those who are most directly affected.

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

The right hon. Gentleman and I knew Jack Ashley, who then became Lord Ashley, very well and we remember his campaigning fervour and what a wonderful person he was. He was an exemplar—they said that a deaf person could not cope in this Chamber, but he showed that he could. I wanted to get his name on the record today, because we both worked with him and admired him greatly.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I absolutely acknowledge that. Jack Ashley was the honorary president of the all-party group and, having at first been sceptical about setting up a discrete group for deaf people, he actively supported it once it was created. That is a key part of this debate. I accept that all kinds of children have special educational needs and have no doubt that the Minister will allude to Government policy on special educational needs, but I hope that he will also accept that deaf children have specific needs that need to be articulated expressly in policy and not just swept up in general issues of special needs and disability.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Before the right hon. Gentleman moves away from the subject of sign language, is he aware of the problems faced by people such as my constituent Rachel Goswell? She has a profoundly deaf son, Jesse, and the only way of communicating with him will be to learn sign language herself. There is no support locally for parents to learn sign language. Does he agree that that and the training of educationalists at a local level cannot be left to a postcode lottery? There must be national guidelines so that everyone in England gets the same level of support.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention, because my speech will make that point powerfully. There has been some progress from the previous and present Governments, but there has not yet been enough. That is a powerful point that I hope the Minister and other Ministers will take on board.

It is estimated that there are 45,000 deaf children in the UK, but no one actually knows how many there are. There is no systematic collection of statistics or data on deaf children, and that is a problem in itself. As we increasingly mainstream deaf children, they become less visible and can also be socially isolated, particularly if they are the only deaf child in the school. There is evidence that they might be bullied, they might suffer depression and not all of them thrive. I am not against mainstreaming in principle, but I believe that some profoundly and severely deaf children will make better progress in a school resourced properly and dedicated to their needs. Schools such as Heathlands in St Albans and Frank Barnes, which serves London, offer impressive education for deaf children but such schools are not found everywhere in the country.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and commend him for securing this important debate. I am pleased to say that in Warwickshire there have been no reductions in services for deaf children, but there are great difficulties in finding qualified teachers to fill vacant posts. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one issue we need to resolve is how to ensure that we train the next generation of specialist teachers for deaf children?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I absolutely do. The Government could take a number of measures that would help to lead to a market and a demand that would ensure that such teachers were trained and resourced. That is a problem. Too often, children are being taught by people who are inadequately qualified in such specialist teaching, not because the local authority does not want to employ qualified teachers but because they are not available.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who is being very generous in giving way. Does he agree that the forthcoming Bill, which envisages a nought-to-25 process, will be more inclusive for families and administratively less cumbersome and burdensome? That can only be a good thing.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I am sure that the Minister will make clear the initiatives that the Government have taken, many of which I commend; they are helpful. I am not here to criticise the Government for what they are doing, but I think that more could be done, and I hope that we can press the Government to consider what that might be.

Ninety per cent. of deaf children are born to hearing parents who, when they are confronted, as I was, with the knowledge that their child is profoundly deaf, often have no knowledge of, or contact with, the deaf community. I pay tribute to the National Deaf Children’s Society, which provides excellent support for people when that happens to them.

Eighty per cent. of deaf children are now being educated in mainstream schools, which is different from the time when my daughter was educated, and they may be the only deaf child in that school. The question that has to be asked is how well deaf children are achieving. Government figures suggest that only 37% of deaf children achieved five good GCSEs last year. That is a dismally low, indeed a shameful, figure because it compares with 69% for hearing children. Let us be clear that deafness is not in itself a learning disability. There is no reason why the majority of deaf children should not achieve the same as other children, provided that they get the right specialist support.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Not only is the difference in achievement between children with hearing problems and their peers shocking but it is getting worse. That figure of 37% was down from 40% the year before. So things are going in the wrong direction. The right hon. Gentleman may also be aware that it is estimated that 80% of teachers of deaf children are over 50. So we shall have a serious recruitment problem if we do not do something about this quickly.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is right. I have been shown local authority adverts for teachers of deaf children that did not require full capacity in sign language. In some circumstances, the sign language of the children is better than that of the teacher, and that cannot be satisfactory.

Things are getting worse in many areas. The NDCS has carried out a survey that shows that 29% of local authorities are cutting services for deaf children and a further 25% have identified that there is a risk of cuts. Of course we are living in a time of spending restraint, but that should not impact on people who have such real need and are so vulnerable. The Government have made it clear that they want to maintain support for vulnerable learners, but if it is not happening we have to ask the Government what more they can do to ensure that cuts do not happen and that standards are maintained. We have to work out what can be done to maintain support for deaf children, and we should have aspirations to do a lot better.

One suggestion is that Ofsted should be required to inspect services for deaf children. When we consider how much scrutiny mainstream teachers in schools are subject to by Ofsted, many people tell me that they are surprised that teachers of the deaf and specialist support services are subject to virtually no such oversight. That sends a signal that deaf education is less important than mainstream.

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the reason the Government do not want to examine these issues is that the poor standard of teachers for the deaf would be exposed and there would rightly be a public scandal?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is a problem of government, I suppose. I would like to believe that Governments in the end will say, “We need data and if the data show that we are not up to the mark, even if we cannot solve the problem overnight, we will at least embark on a strategy to do something about it.” So it is not a good excuse not to inspect services. I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government would consider giving Ofsted a specific responsibility.

Ofsted did a report on communication last year, looking at three local authorities that had established best practice. That was interesting, but it did not tell us much about the other 149 authorities that it had not studied. So we do not know and we need to know. If there is a recognition that people are going to be scrutinised, that gets the Government off the hook to some extent because it means that the authorities must respond to that scrutiny. Every tier of government that has a responsibility must accept its share of responsibility. I hope the Government will consider that as a practical suggestion.

Communication support is at the heart of what deaf children and their families need. I know that from personal experience. I have very poor sign language. I did go on a course but I found it very difficult. It is a language and I had difficulty keeping up with it. I try where I can. I notice that every time I am in the company of deaf people—which, because of my interest, I very often am—the transformation of that relationship by the sheer appearance of an interpreter is phenomenal. Therefore I understand absolutely why communication support is so valuable. As one blind person said to me, “I would prefer to be blind than deaf because being blind cuts me off from things, but being deaf would cut me off from people and I would find that far worse.” That is what people need to understand—the social isolation resulting from the lack of communication support.

I tabled a private Member’s Bill which notionally has its Second Reading next Friday. It identifies the areas of communication support that the deaf community is looking for, and it identifies the need to ensure that we can develop sign language support for them. The point has been made that many families are paying thousands of pounds of their own money for sign language education—if they can find the teachers—so that they can communicate with their children. I do not believe that that is acceptable.

When I undertook a report for the Council of Europe, I discovered that the policies in Scandinavia meant that interpreters were readily available and that in most Scandinavian countries as soon as a child was diagnosed as deaf, free tuition in sign language was offered to the child and their family. I commend that as a practice that should be available to people in this country.

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

The reason that is so important, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, is that any form of communication in early years is critical to the life outcomes of children later in their life. Does he therefore agree that this is something that the Government should be looking at very hard indeed?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

Indeed. The number of deaf children has diminished in recent years and in some ways that is a good thing. We have rubella vaccination and other measures, but deafness will not be eliminated. Congenital deafness or unexplained deafness in newborn children happens, and diseases such as meningitis can lead to deafness in infancy, so there will always be some deaf people in our community and they need to be adequately supported.

Although cochlear implants have made an impressive contribution, they are not a cure. There is evidence now of children who were given cochlear implants 15 years ago not coping brilliantly in the mainstream, as people had hoped. They are still deaf; they just have a very sophisticated hearing aid. We went through a generation assuming that we had solved the problem. We have not. We have made a contribution to alleviating it, which is not the same thing.

I commend the previous Government and the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who in response to a Prime Minister’s question, found resources within the Department for Education to set up a pilot project called I-Sign which ran in Devon and Merseyside to provide support to deaf parents and children, and led to the creation of more sign language interpreters and a very much stronger support network in those two areas. That pilot was a success and the present Prime Minister has acknowledged that fact, but the scheme has not yet been rolled out nationally. When he responds, I am sure the Minister will report that the Government have taken it forward, which I welcome, but I would love to believe that we will get to a point where that is the national standard.

The step change in sign language that we need could be driven by technical innovations. The Minister responsible for communications in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been actively engaged with the telecommunications industry to try to develop video relay services. BT and, this week Sky, announced that sign language-using customers wishing to communicate with Sky or with BT can do so using a video relay service. Most deaf people I know who talk about video relay services say, “I don’t want a video relay service to talk to BT. I want a video relay service to talk to my mum, my boss or other people.” That system is established right across America, and it is hugely successful. I hope that we can find a way to achieve that, because it would make a huge contribution to communication. It would also lead to a rapid expansion in the provision of sign language interpreters, because they would have a reliable source of income. I commend the Government for what they have done so far but urge them to come up with a definitive solution that will make the difference.

Our attitudes towards sign language communication and spoken language communication are quite different. The Department for Work and Pensions gave sign language legal recognition, or definition, 10 years ago, which was hailed as a breakthrough, but it is not recognised across government, so that is another challenge for the Government. They recognise Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic, which receive huge resources, yet British sign language, which is an indigenous, created language—indeed, sign language itself was invented in Scotland—is not supported. For some people it is their only language. I know of no Welsh or Gaelic speakers—I do not know that there are any Cornish speakers—who do not also speak English, but there are sign language users who do not communicate in English. We do not support them in the same way we support people who use minority spoken languages. Baroness Howe of Idlicote has tabled an amendment to the Children and Families Bill to try to bring such support forward, so the issue might come back to this House.

I know that the Minister has done some extremely good work and have heard many people in the industry commend him strongly for it. However, like everybody else, he is a cog in a machine that cannot always deliver everything we want as fast as we want it and across the piece. I hope that he will tell us what the Government are doing. I do not expect him to say, “Yes, of course we will adopt all those things,” but we do want champions in the Government who are prepared to drive them forward and who recognise that it is simply not right to leave out a whole section of the community who have real and identifiable needs for which there are practical solutions, not all of which cost a huge amount of money, but which could transform their life attainment. They could also provide economic benefits, because the vast majority of deaf people either cannot get a job or, when they get into the jobs market, get one well below their skills and standards, so they are inevitably a drain on the community. They also suffer a much higher proportion of mental illness. Supporting them will have an economic benefit as well as improving the quality of their lives.

I have spent 30 years campaigning in this House. In many ways I feel frustrated at how little we have achieved. I acknowledge the steps that have been taken, but when I remember what I saw in Finland and Sweden and compare it with what I see in this country, it seems a real shame that the United Kingdom cannot do more to transform the lives of deaf people in our country.

We had been pioneers in this regard. Donaldson’s school in Edinburgh led the way in developing sign language. The ironic twist—this is my final point—is that when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet came from America to find out how to set up a school to teach deaf children in Boston, the Donaldson’s institute said that it was not prepared to share its teaching mechanism with him. In despair, he found that there was a seminary in Paris teaching deaf children. He ended up taking a squad of teachers from Paris to America, which is why American deaf people use a sign language based on French sign language, rather than British sign language. We invented sign language, but we have not always led the way in innovating and establishing it.

I challenge this Government, and any Government who come after them, to say, “We will no longer leave deaf people behind. We can transform their lives.” The resources are not great and the mechanisms are clearly understood, so let us just do it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are short of time this afternoon, as Members will be aware. The debate has to finish by 5 o’clock. I will not impose a time limit at this stage but will wait to see how we proceed. I ask Members not to make long speeches. Hopefully they will be about eight minutes long, but 10 minutes is the maximum, including interventions. I hope that everybody will be able to participate in this important debate.

15:39

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

I have quite a lot to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will try to bear in mind the time constraints.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on bringing this debate to the Chamber. I declare a personal interest, because my three siblings—my younger brother, Brian, and my two younger sisters, Clare and Delia—are profoundly deaf. Equality is a word that we often bandy about in this House, but deaf people in the United Kingdom have never had equality in education. Progress has been made thanks to deafness campaigners such as my parents, Bridget and Charles McCann—the self-same parents the right hon. Gentleman mentioned who suddenly had a deaf child and did not get any access to services to support them. However, the fight goes on. The motion highlights the fact that we still have much work to do, with the fear and danger that local authorities might cut back on services for deaf children and young people. The National Deaf Children’s Society has evidence to suggest that education services for deaf people might be cut. We should not be talking about cuts; if we genuinely seek to bring about equality for deaf people, services must be increased.

Colleagues will have noticed my Scottish accent and the fact that I represent a seat in Scotland that some people have difficulty in pronouncing, particularly the last part. I entered this debate also to flag up the fact that Scotland is a year behind the cuts and austerity measures that have been brought in for local government, although I do not mention that in a party political sense. The Prime Minister agreed with the First Minister, Alex Salmond, that Scotland would retain its budget in 2010, so we are a year behind the curve. There is already speculation in Scotland about local government services being cut, and I suspect that services to deaf children and young people are in danger. That is the relevance of my participation in this debate.

I will not be ungenerous in suggesting that we have not made some progress in the past 40 years. Let me tell the House about my experience with my brothers and sisters. I remember the grey bus arriving in front of our house in East Kilbride. On the bus were children with every disability one could think of—physical disabilities, physical and mental disabilities, or deaf-blindness. The amalgamation of challenges presented by those children with disabilities led to two things. First, it dumbed down education. At the school my brother and sisters went to, the education was carried out at the lowest common denominator instead of challenging the kids to do the best they could.

Secondly, there was the stigma. As you can imagine, children can be cruel. As the elder brother, I ended up with a few second prizes in the pugilism stakes. If your brother’s and sisters’ honour is criticised in some way, or they are taunted by other children, then you step in and defend them. Yes, children can be cruel, but we should remember that adults—the educationists of the time—created the system that enabled them to be so.

The inequality of 40 years ago was palpable. Profoundly deaf children were not allowed to sign. The right hon. Member for Gordon talked about British sign language. We made up our own sign language in the house, because there was no formal language to communicate in. Believe it or not, my brother was forced to sit with his hands behind his back in the classroom, unable to communicate, despite the fact that he was profoundly deaf. Forty years ago, deaf children had no access to the curriculum that I had as a hearing child. That meant that their ability to learn was stifled. Bright young deaf children were consigned to the dustbin on the day and hour they first entered their primary school.

I am glad that my brother and sisters have done very well in their adult lives, mainly because of my parents’ refusal to take no for an answer. They refused to take on board what the educationists of the time said was good for such children. The perceived wisdom of the day was that people listened to the educationists. Hearing parents who did not know about deafness would take the word of the people who were professional and allegedly knew more than they did. The less vigorous parents, who were not prepared to campaign like my parents, took the educationalists’ word and ultimately their children suffered and did not get anywhere near the aspirations achieved by my brother and sisters. However, they have fallen foul of many of the problems mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, including mental health issues and the inability to get employment. I often wonder what my brother and sisters could have achieved—even though they have achieved a lot—had they had access to the same education opportunities as me.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Thomasson Memorial school, an excellent primary school for deaf children and children with hearing difficulties, is located in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that parents and children should be able to choose whether to attend a specialist school for children with disabilities or a mainstream school? The needs of the child should be paramount in any educationalist’s decision about the best education for them.

[Mr McCann]

I agree. Choice is important and I will discuss it later. If parents want their child to attend a hearing school, they must be supported in that choice. Moreover, if parents want their child to attend a specialist school, they should not just be lumped in a classroom with a bunch of other children, because that will drag them down.

Time is of the essence. I will cut a couple of pages of what I was going to say; the right hon. Member for Gordon has already mentioned the statistics on deaf people, so I need not rehearse them again. We should recognise that there are many shades between hearing and deafness: some have lost a little hearing while others lose it a little later in life, and on the other side of the spectrum are those who are profoundly death. With the greatest respect to the tribute paid to Jack Ashley earlier, we should remember that he became deaf and was not born deaf, and that there is a world of difference for people who have never heard the spoken word.

The key issue is British sign language, the officially recognised language for the deaf. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, it is diverse and colourful and as finessed as any other language in the world. In fact, Members may be interested to know that every person’s sign name is unique. I could not possibly show the House some of the signs that have been made for my relatives over the years, because they cannot be recorded in Hansard, but they would make Members chuckle.

In the world of education, the gatekeepers—the educationalists—know better, or so they think. Members may be surprised or even shocked to learn that teachers of the deaf are expected to have only BSL level 3 as a qualification. However, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, the fact that there is such a dearth of talent in this field means that some get jobs as teachers of the deaf and are labelled as such even though they have skills only at BSL level 2. It should be an aspiration, and I hope the Minister will address that issue in his response. We should raise the standards for teachers of the deaf and ensure that the right quality of individual is teaching our deaf children. I have thought about the best way to describe the situation. It is like asking someone who has just failed their driving test to become a driving instructor: they know a little, but they are not competent and should not be allowed to drive on their own.

That is a practical example by way of analogy, but I have another one. My brother Brian has five deaf children who all go to school. His eldest daughter, Monika, is 12 years old and has more advanced communication skills than her teachers. They have BSL level 2 and she is way above that at level 7 or 8, perhaps even higher. As she progresses through high school she will meet challenges and become a frustrated child unable to fulfil her potential, because her teachers are not able to communicate with her properly.

In primary education and at high school, the quality of the teacher must rise with the child. The teacher must always be ahead of the child and have far advanced communication skills so that the child does not feel frustrated. When they sign something to the teacher in British sign language, the teacher must understand what the problem is and how to communicate with them. Sadly, the children in my family have become frustrated on many occasions because they are bright, sparky kids who have not always had the opportunity to be educated properly.

The NDCS has uncovered some circumstantial evidence, but local authorities are reluctant to disclose information about deaf education. A hypothesis for that might be that they do not want the figures to be revealed. Outrageously, Ofsted does not inspect services for the deaf routinely, as the right hon. Member for Gordon said. Local authorities are damaging the life chances of young deaf people across the United Kingdom. This debate has provided the opportunity to expose that argument to a wider audience, not only in this House, but across the country.

If there are to be further cuts to local government services, there is a danger that deafness will once again take a back seat and that those who are already vulnerable will be affected. My father once described deafness as a Cinderella disability because nobody can see it. When a child is physically disabled, we do not shirk the responsibility of meeting the costs of the support that they need to participate in the education system. Why is there such a dearth of ambition and support for deaf children? Local government cannot be allowed to attack this Cinderella disability because it thinks that it can get away with it. We must stop paying lip service to equality of opportunity for every child and start providing it.

15:51

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I support what the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) has said in this debate and, as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness, I thank him for his dedicated work as its chair.

I am proud to have a deaf-aware nursery in my constituency, which is based at the New Life church in Congleton. It has been running for 25 years and caters for able children, as well as for children with needs, such as those with deafness or autism, and it will soon have a child with Down’s syndrome. For the past five years, it has been managed by Margaret Sanders, a special educational needs co-ordinator with a passion for inclusion who has worked hard to ensure that the nursery goes the extra mile to provide support for deaf children in an extra special way. However, such early-years provision should not only be available when one inspirational individual is backed by committed community support, such as that provided by New Life. The nursery also works closely with specialist organisations such as the teachers of the deaf.

Justine Heathcote, the mother of a profoundly deaf three-year-old girl who attends the nursery, has shared some of her experiences with me. Her daughter was diagnosed as deaf just after birth. It was a traumatic time for the family. Justine says generously that her family have received excellent support and care from the nursery and the local authority. Crucially, that included her daughter being given a teacher of the deaf immediately. I ask the Minister to do all that he can to ensure that that always happens. A family must be given the appropriate support straight away, either at birth or on diagnosis. I have heard that in some cases it takes 10 years from when hearing starts to deteriorate before a clear diagnosis is made.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend welcome the measures in the Children and Families Bill, as I do, to create care plans for people that go from nought to 24 years of age?

[Fiona Bruce]

I very much welcome that, because it is crucial that families can plan ahead from the earliest possible moment of childhood.

I was greatly encouraged to hear from Justine that her daughter got such excellent support, but I am aware that that is not universally available across the country. I ask the Minister to make an assessment of the varying standard of support across the country. One small example, which is important for Justine’s family, concerns her daughter’s hearing aids, which require four batteries a day. When they run out, Justine has a one-hour round trip to a hospital to collect them, yet in a neighbouring area, rechargeable batteries for hearing aids are available.

Another difficulty for some families concerns getting a statement of educational needs for their child. One highly experienced teacher of the deaf, Liz Gwynn, has spent many years liaising with local authorities. She told me—quite bluntly—that the reason for the delay or lack of statement is often that,

“local authorities don’t want to commit to the financial implications of a Statement.”

That cannot be right.

The one-to-one support provided by a teacher of the deaf in my council of Cheshire East is greatly appreciated, but it amounts to only one hour a week. Ideally, every deaf child and their family needs much more support and time. A teacher of the deaf plays a critical role in a child’s development because they advise on whether the child is accessing the curriculum properly and adequately, on that child’s language development and how they are hearing through hearing aids or cochlear implants, and on whether they need a radio aid to help them. Such teachers can act as an intermediary between the child or family and the school, in addition to helping set targets for development and providing strategies and ideas for accessing lessons. All hon. Members will agree that that cannot be done in one hour a week.

In Cheshire East there is a ratio of one teacher of the deaf to every 45 children—a phenomenal challenge for those teachers. I struggle to see how a teacher of the deaf can support that number of children and their families, let alone even more, yet I understand that in some parts of the country there is even less support for deaf children.

The availability of care for deaf children and young people should not be a postcode lottery. The National Deaf Children’s Society reports that some families with a deaf child are fighting that issue by moving to a different area, which is surely unacceptable. There are examples of good practice and expertise across the country, and better sharing of support across local authorities and support networks would be beneficial. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell the House whether there are any plans to share best practice across authorities and promote a more collaborative approach.

The exemplary nursery in my constituency, to which I referred, aims to maximise the individual potential of each child, but it is placed in a dilemma. When a child who has received that much-needed support—designed to raise their attainment levels in the early years to those of their non-deaf peers—moves to primary school, they are assessed. If they are assessed to be above a certain level, any one-to-one support that the child previously received, or which they may need in future, is withdrawn, and they begin primary school without it. What should the nursery do? Should it support the child to develop to the maximum level possible and risk that one-to-one support being withdrawn when they go to primary school? Withdrawal of such support would undoubtedly result in the child falling back and not continuing to flourish to the same degree that they need and for which the nursery has given them a head start. If we believe that every child should have the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential, surely that must be the case for the more vulnerable children in our society.

If a parent wants their child to go to a mainstream school in later years, it is crucial for support to be established at the start and to continue throughout the child’s early years. Liz Gwynn explains:

“In a big class with a ratio of 15 pupils to one staff member, or even thirty to one, it is very easy for a deaf child to be overlooked, especially if they aren’t a behavioural issue. They can appear to be understanding, but when questioned often haven’t a clue and get by by copying what others are doing.”

Such a situation can result in low self-esteem and lack of confidence. That is the “stolen future” that the National Deaf Children’s Society is raising awareness of, and I commend its work with local groups and parents around the country. I encourage the Minister to support those groups and ensure that all families have access to them. Will he review the assessment procedure for deaf children and young people, not just when they enter school, but when they move to another educational establishment for the first time, so as to determine appropriate individual provision for that child or young person? Sign language is critical, yet 81% of parents with deaf children never learn how to fully communicate with their child through that.

Justine, to whom I have referred, says she managed to get funding for level 1, but was unable to get funding for level 2, which she took at her own expense of £400. Level 3, at £1,000, is simply too expensive for the family. Will the Minister consider what duties can be placed on local authorities to provide sign language support for families?

As we have heard, deafness itself is not a learning disability, but we can do so much more to ensure that the attainment of deaf children and young people does not continue to fall worryingly behind that of their non-deaf peers.

16:00

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I begin by apologising for the fact that I am seeking permission to leave before the end of the debate because I must attend an annual prize-giving in Baverstock school in my constituency tonight. May I take this opportunity, in my first outing in my new role, to pay tribute to the work of my predecessors, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy)?

I thank the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) for the work he has done over his years in the House for deaf children, and for securing this debate. I also thank the hon. Members who have supported him. I found his speech informative and illuminating. I was interested in his points about the use of technology and support for sign language.

This is a Backbench Business Committee debate. Consequently, I intend to be brief. I acknowledge the large number of people who signed the e-petition calling for the protection of specialist deaf services, and that 79 Members pledged support for a debate on the subject. I do not regard myself as an expert on the matter and see the debate as the start of a learning exercise. I have already learned a lot simply by listening to the right hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce).

When looking at the National Deaf Children’s Society material, I was struck by its point that, although deafness is not a learning disability, deaf children underachieve throughout their education. As has been mentioned, as many as 80% of deaf children are in mainstream schools where they might be the only deaf child in attendance, which suggests that we should perhaps look again at the balance between mainstream and specialist schooling. It also suggests that we need to recognise the important role of specialist speech and language services, whether the specialist works directly with the child or assists the school or parents.

I note that an amendment designed to maintain speech and language therapy as special educational provision is proposed to the Children and Families Bill in the other place. It would be good to know that the Government are giving the proposal favourable consideration.

I am a realist on the economic situation and the amount of money we have to spend on any service, so I recognise that there is no magic fund on which the Minister can call, but we need to focus on the available money and how it is spent. Local authorities are not obliged to passport to schools money for specialist education support service. It occurs to me that this is an area where decisions should be taken in conjunction with parents. It is not enough for a local authority to say, “We’ve given the money to the schools and we’re washing our hands of it.” There may be some circumstances where schools are the right people to hold the budget, but there may be others where the local authority, or some other partnership, should play a key part. This is one area where we should not be too quick to diminish the role of local education authorities, and where the case for partnership and collaboration rather than competition between schools is well made. Like others, I have noticed that so far 29% of local authorities have indicated an intention to cut specialist education services. The vast majority of local councils already do not have any specialist social care services for deaf children. This must be extremely worrying for parents of deaf children.

I hope the Minister is minded to look at the National Deaf Children’s Society’s proposals, particularly that Ofsted should inspect specialist education services for deaf children, that local authorities should be required to publish details of how much is spent on SEN provision and what services are actually available. We must have the data, otherwise we will never comprehend the scope of the issue and the best way to proceed. I would welcome improvements to the code of practice to make it easier for parents to hold local authorities to account. Parents have a tough enough job as it is. Our role should be to try to make it easier for them

I conclude by once again congratulating those who secured the debate and have taken part. I hope that this is an area where the Minister and I can find common ground, put the party politics aside and work together in the interests of deaf children and their parents.

16:07

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on securing the debate and for his contribution, over so many years, to this area of work. I have raised issues about the education of deaf children on many occasions, but this is the first time that I have spoken in a debate concentrated solely on this topic. This is a good opportunity to reinforce the many points raised by the National Deaf Children’s Society.

I continue to be saddened that deaf children experience an attainment gap, which is reflected so strongly in GCSE results. About a month ago, I had the pleasure of meeting at party conference a deaf young person called Adam, who was introduced to me by the NDCS. Adam is an extremely bright, confident and articulate deaf young man, and was quickly in charge of the whole meeting. He explained to me clearly that he would not be where he is today without the help of the specialist support services he had received to date. Even with deaf young people such as Adam, we can see the risks of what happens when support does not match their needs and is cut. Adam told me that the support he received in maths was variable because of staff turnover, and that the extra support had been reduced to just once a week. This meant that he was now struggling to pick up some of the complex new words and vocabulary being used and that he was no longer thriving but coping in maths.

Across the country there is too much wasted potential when it comes to deaf children, because too many are not getting the support they need. I share the concerns that the Department’s funding protection for vulnerable learners is not always being carried through locally. I also support the NDCS’s call for Ofsted to play a greater role in inspecting specialist support services for deaf children.

I hear really positive reports of my local services. Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole operate a long-standing joint arrangement through which specialist support is provided to children with hearing or vision impairment. Dorset is the lead authority, and the outcomes for deaf children locally have generally been good and the feedback from parents and the young people themselves about the work of the service is excellent. I am told that there are no plans to reduce the funding available for specialist provision, which sounds good, but there are concerns about the future. I was contacted by a specialist teacher who told me:

“At the present time we are not a traded service, this means that we can provide support, training, advice and teaching (depending on the child’s level of need) to any school in Dorset where there is a pupil attending the school who has a hearing impairment that requires them to wear a hearing aid, who has a cochlear implant or similar hearing device. The school does not have to pay for this directly, which means we can respond to the level of need appropriately. We of course have a set of protocols to follow to ensure that the time given to each individual is proportionate. However, often the pupils with a high level of need (those with a severe to profound hearing loss) have a great deal of support in school which along with appropriate direction and guidance from our service enables them to make good progress. It is more often (in my experience) those pupils with a mild to moderate hearing loss who are not entitled to additional support in school who find it more difficult to progress and overcome the barriers to their learning. At the present time our service is able to support these pupils also, enabling many of them to ‘narrow the gap’ and achieve age-related expectations. However, one of the fears for our service in Dorset is that due to financial constraints we may have to become a ‘traded service’ this would mean that schools may have to buy us in on an hourly rate.”

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

The hon. Lady has hit the nail on the head. In this very important area—it is the same with speech therapy—people are reluctant to address some of these needs and concerns because of the lack of money available.

[Annette Brooke]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I am flagging up fears about the future, not about what is happening now. If each school had to buy in the service, it would be more difficult to spread it over a larger number of pupils. I think we would still have excellent support in Dorset for those with a statement of educational need or an education health care plan, but many of those with not such severe conditions are not achieving their potential in speech, language and literacy skills. It is important, therefore, not only to consider what is happening now, but to look at what might happen in the future and to ensure that we maintain support for hearing impaired children.

Like other speakers, I want to emphasise the need for good, specialist communication support workers and teachers. It has been many years, but I remember being struck by the fact that many communication support workers—I still call them teaching assistants—had only level 2 qualifications in sign language. It must be difficult for somebody with just a level 2 qualification—an important qualification in its own right—to communicate the technical language of science and maths. I am really concerned about that.

In conclusion, we all want every child to achieve their full potential, and many improvements have been made for children with hearing impairments over the years, but there is more to be done, and we must protect what we are doing well at the moment.

16:14

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who has made another thoughtful contribution.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on his leadership. He concluded his remarks with some self-deprecation and self-criticism for the lack of progress over 30 years. That is an indictment of Governments on both sides, not of his role, which has been an honourable one during his time in the House. Indeed, he has again demonstrated that today by securing this debate. We are all grateful to him for the opportunity to contribute. Let me also express appreciation for the National Deaf Children’s Society briefing and for constituents who have contacted me about this debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), the shadow Minister, on his first speech in his new role. He showed a clear interest in the subject and a determination to help the Minister, who is highly regarded and comes with great credentials. He has already done a good job in other areas; no less will be expected of him in this one. We are keen to hear what he has to say in concluding, because I am here to seek reassurances from him on the matters that colleagues on both sides of the House have raised.

Many colleagues are aware that I wear two hearing aids. I have a little understanding of what hearing loss is about. I spend most of my time in the Chamber during Prime Minister’s questions standing near the Speaker’s Chair, because I find the loop system better there. However, using the loop, I miss lots of the witticisms that other colleagues contribute—I know that they are sometimes better than some of the speeches, although fortunately not in this debate—and the whispers, and sometimes people think I am being rude because I do not respond. Hearing aids are great—I thank the audiologists at the Royal London hospital—but they are not perfect.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) and the right hon. Member for Gordon mentioned relatives and their personal experience. My experience—I suffered industrial injury in the London fire brigade, which caused damage to my hearing—is trivial compared with that of children who were born with hearing loss or born deaf. Given the powerful speeches that we have heard so far, and given the personal experience of those two families in particular, I cannot imagine how much more difficult it is for those children to come to terms with their predicament. I will come back to that point later, I hope briefly.

I am keen to hear what the Minister has to say, because we are seeking reassurances today. The two most disturbing stats I have read in the NDCS briefing, which have been mentioned by other hon. Members, concern exam passes and parental communication. As colleagues have said—including my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow and the right hon. Member for Gordon, who have personal family experience—we are not talking about kids who have not got ability, yet only 37% of deaf children achieve five GCSEs, which was down last year from 40% in 2011. That is an indictment of the education system and of all of us for allowing it to happen. The NDCS briefing also said:

“Research suggests that 40% of deaf children experience mental health problems compared to 25% of other children.”

That is a shocking statistic, but it is in no shape or form surprising, given what those children have to go through.

The other point from the NDCS briefing that I found shocking was that 81% of parents with deaf children never learn how to communicate fully with their child, which is mostly down to costs. The briefing says that it costs several hundred pounds to learn to sign—I learnt to sign the alphabet when I was young, but it is quite a long way from that to messaging by letter—but the right hon. Member for Gordon said that it now costs thousands of pounds. That is a real deterrent to ordinary families.

In my borough of Tower Hamlets, I have met children with hearing impairments and deaf children, along with their teachers, in a variety of schools. I commend all that they do in Tower Hamlets. It is clear from the NDCS briefing that it performs a little better than many local authorities. However, the NDCS report asks for three things—they have already been mentioned, so I will not labour them, because many colleagues still want to speak and obviously the Minister’s speech is important to us all. The first of the three recommendations is to

“Ask Ofsted to inspect specialist education services for deaf children.”

That does not happen, so it is key recommendation No. 1. The second is to improve the offer made by local councils by providing accurate data. If we are not measuring what is happening and do not have a proper understanding, how can we identify the nature of the problem and then put in place the remedies, which might be obvious in many instances? I should be most interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that. The third recommendation is that

“deaf children get the basic support they need”,

which several colleagues have mentioned.

I should have mentioned my appreciation for the House authorities and the technicians for what they do in the House through the loop service, which is of great assistance to all who use hearing aids. I am very pleased about this debate being called and I would like to congratulate the right hon. Member for Gordon again on securing and leading it. I have enjoyed the speeches so far and I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to implement recommendations and policies to improve the situation for children and young people who are in this predicament.

16:20

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who, by talking about his own personal experiences of hearing loss, brings an extra dimension to the debate. We have encountered that time and again when contributions deal with local examples as well as national issues.

I believe it is important to focus on children and young people with the disability of hearing loss. As vice-chair of the all-party group on speech and language difficulties, I know that there are wider issues relating to the development of those services, but it is important to remember that we are talking today about a particular cohort—a cohort about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) spoke so powerfully in his opening speech. I pay warm tribute to him for securing this debate. I was happy to support it as part of his bid to the Backbench Business Committee.

As has been rightly said, deafness is not a learning disability, but it can be a real barrier to learning for the thousands of children and young people who live with it every day. Let us not forget the families of those young people who are and should be involved in the planning of services.

What I thought was particularly interesting in the helpful briefing from the National Deaf Children’s Society was the issue of working out the numbers of children and young people with hearing loss. The estimate is over 45,000, but if we look at the official figures, the position becomes very confusing, to say the least. The school census records 16,000 children formally identified as having a hearing loss special educational need. The way that is categorised, however, can vary from school to school, so the figure is not reliable. There clearly needs to be far greater co-ordination of these numbers.

Some of the NDCS suggestions are worthy of consideration by the Minister—for example, whether schools and local authorities should be requested to record in the school census whether the child has a disability as well as a formally identified special educational need; and whether there is a better way of capturing whether a child has a sensory impairment by looking at the child’s unique health identifier or extending that to education and social care as well. That chimes very well with the education, health and care plan approach that is central to the welcome Children and Families Bill, currently proceeding in the other place. The Minister and I have enjoyed many debates in Committee on that and other issues, including on the strength and quality of the local offer that will form the heart of accountability for parents and children and young people with special educational needs. Clearly, more needs to be done properly to identify the need in the first place.

Let us look at a positive example of a local authority that is doing much to address some of the issues identified today. I refer to my own local authority of Swindon, which has two special resource provisions for primary and for secondary education. One commissioned body providing services is based at Red Oaks primary school, while the secondary provision is based at the Ridgeway school. I know that school very well from my days as a governor, and from my many visits to the special resource provision for hearing-impaired pupils. I pay warm tribute to the staff, pupils and parents who are involved in those two facilities, and also to the outreach work done by both facilities in the wider educational community in the borough. The budget in Swindon for special provision and outreach services is just over £900,000, which is spent on interventions that allow young people with hearing loss to integrate properly with others, and to have the opportunities that children who have hearing take for granted.

Over the last year, the local authority has been working with Isambard secondary and Red Oaks primary schools to plan for better British sign language provision at secondary level. With the help of the National Deaf Children’s Society—which provided a consultant for the local authority—and funds from the local schools forum, the steering group is now training two cohorts of school staff on a BSL level 1 course.

British sign language is proving very popular and successful in my area. It is being used not only by children with hearing difficulties, but by their peers who have hearing. What a great way of not just educating young people with hearing about the challenges faced by young people with hearing loss, but increasing the confidence of the latter and helping to ensure that they are, and are seen to be, equally valued by their peers. We hear a great deal about second languages. I am a Welshman, and Welsh is my second language: it was very much part of my upbringing. Why should BSL not be a second language for children with hearing?

The hearing support team in Swindon have an impressive and useful set of web-based support tools, which are being used regularly by schools and families in the area and are helping to improve educational outcomes. In the last year, £15,000 of additional funds have been provided for BSL training courses which are available not only to staff, but to family members and members of the wider community. What an excellent example of extending the reach of BSL.

[Mr McCann]

The concept of BSL as a second language is indeed a noble idea, but does the hon. Gentleman concede that we might as well ask for cars to run on water, given that deaf children—and profoundly deaf children in particular—are not being given the proper education in the classroom that is available to their hearing counterparts?

[Mr Buckland]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am trying to make the point that there are good local examples of integration which enables children and young people with hearing loss to gain access to the mainstream rather than being isolated. I think that the widespread use of BSL is a very good way of ensuring that they are valued, that their confidence increases, and that they become very much part of the mainstream. However, it does not stop there.

We have heard a little about radio and video-aided systems. The borough of Swindon is providing £20,000 for an extra 20 such systems, which will improve curriculum access from pre-school to key stage 4. I am particularly impressed by the work of a local partnership, the children and young people’s hearing services group. It contains not only professionals from education, health and social services but members of the voluntary sector, and it is led by parents. When organisations are led by parents and service users, services, rather than being developed in a way that is remote from users, are much more focused on the needs of users and their families. Moreover, keeping provision local is good for local authorities, for which out-of-borough provision can be significantly more costly. That is a good local example of money being spent wisely, in a way that helps to integrate services and maximises the advantages for young people with hearing loss.

There is much that I could say about the progress of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Minister and I continue to engage in a dialogue about the need to ensure that, when necessary, parents and families of young people with hearing loss and other special needs have a clear point of redress rather than ending up in a convoluted, labyrinthine system of appeal. I know that he is listening very carefully to those observations, and I hope that when the Bill comes back to this place both the Bill and the code of practice, which has already been improved from its original draft, will be truly a fresh start and a new dawn for children with hearing loss.

16:30

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I will be very brief so that the other Members trying to speak and the Minister replying to the debate can contribute.

First, I want to put on record my—and, I am sure, everybody else’s—thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for choosing the subject of today’s debate. This emphasises the importance of having a BBC that can enable a motion such as this to take place and I hope the House will approve of it. Under the old system it might have taken months and months of lobbying to get any debate in Government time on this kind of issue, apart from the lottery of trying to get an Adjournment debate.

I thank the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) for what he said, and I am sorry I missed the first few minutes of his contribution. I also want to put on record my thanks to the campaign group Disability Action in Islington for the work it does for deaf people and people with disabilities across the borough. It often campaigns on getting signers for sign language, and it can be very expensive to get someone in to do signed translation. That is an area that needs to be looked at. I do not have an easy answer, but it is a complication.

Other Members have mentioned the excellent campaign briefing from NDCS, which works for children with profound deafness and hearing issues. My constituent Jon Barnes works for that campaign and he has been extremely helpful in highlighting these issues.

The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised the problem of identifying children with hearing issues, and other Members talked about deaf children not being picked up in school by the teachers, with their parents either being unaware of the issue or not wanting to draw attention to it. Such children can gradually fall ever further behind their cohort group in school and eventually become educational under-achievers, and all sorts of other things follow from that. Ofsted inspections could look carefully at what is done in all schools to identify children with hearing difficulties. I know it sounds odd that we are even saying that, but it is actually perfectly possible for a child in a class of 30 children to be forgotten or ignored because they might be able to copy what others do where written answers are involved and have some minor level of hearing that enables them just about to cope. We need to ensure that all children are properly tested on their hearing abilities from the very beginning, and the Ofsted inspection could help to do that.

The figure that 75% of deaf children are not statemented is an interesting one, and the figure that 40% of those who suffer from profound deafness as children end up with mental health problems highlights how important it is to have the identification at a very early stage.

I know local authorities are up against it at the present time. I have just come from a meeting with the new leader of my local authority, Richard Watts, and he was explaining the horrendous problems it is facing in funding our current services. Islington is doing its very best to ensure that all children get a very good education, but in these circumstances it is very easy to see how in some local authorities the needs of a relatively small group of children will be forgotten or ignored, or the money will simply be spent on something else for which somebody is able to shout louder and push harder for the funding. Therefore, inspection and the protection and ring-fencing of the funds available for children with profound deafness are very important indeed.

The last point I wish to make is that if we ignore and do not provide sufficient support for children who suffer from this condition, their health will suffer and they will become increasingly dependent and less able to contribute to wider society. As a result, we all suffer, because we will spend money on children who ought to be able to achieve a great deal in school and on adults who ought to be able to achieve a great deal in life, but they end up unemployed and dependent when they could be making an enormous positive contribution to society. It is very wasteful not to identify the needs in the first place and to use all the available technology to improve communication and help people. Sign language and its teaching are very important vehicles for that.

We need to ensure that there is an acceptance that deafness is something that people can cope with if they have adequate support. If they are just ignored and forgotten as children, they end up having a much less fulfilling and less useful life than they could otherwise have. So I just hope that this motion is agreed, that the Government accept that it is important and that, in return, local authorities fulfil their basic obligation to ensure that every child gets the best possible education and the best possible treatment to deal with whatever condition they happen to be suffering from at the time they enter school.

16:35

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the thoughtful contribution of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). It is always a great pleasure to follow him, not least because he is my MP for four days a week. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on securing it and on all the work he has done throughout his time as chair of the all-party group on deafness.

Earlier this year, I hosted a visit to Westminster by the National Deaf Children’s Society listening bus. Children from the Frank Barnes school for deaf children and others had the opportunity to meet a number of MPs to talk about their experiences of growing up deaf and the difference that extra specialist help has made to them. By all accounts, colleagues who attended were inspired by what they heard. As a former chair of governors at the school, I know that it has been a steadfast supporter of the NDCS’s “Stolen Futures” campaign, which has prompted today’s debate. I still have contact with the school, and I know that the teaching staff passionately believe that we should have high expectations of deaf children’s social, emotional and academic development, and that effective communication, praise, celebration of success, and quality teaching and learning enables children to reach their full potential. We have heard that message from a number of hon. Members today, and it is different from the one that deaf children were receiving some decades ago.

Ofsted has repeatedly identified Frank Barnes school as being outstanding, and I know that the head teacher, Karen Simpson, who is with us in the Gallery today, and her staff work tirelessly to ensure that deaf pupils receive the specialist support they need. We all know that local councils need to target funding at the most vulnerable children who require the most support, including deaf children. Correctly, local authorities have a statutory duty to identify children’s special educational needs and to provide the services to meet them. However, the NDCS’s report reveals that many deaf children—perhaps the majority of them—are not statemented. Not only is that a matter of regret, but it should cause grave concern to Members of this House because it means that the educational potential of those children is simply not being realised in the way it should.

The Government have, of course, taken action. They ensure that local authorities can retain funding for specialist education support services for deaf children as part of the high needs block. However, that does not prevent local authorities from reducing funding overall for those services and, as we now know from the NDCS report, many of them appear either to be doing that or threatening to do it. My own county council in Lincolnshire takes a much more satisfactory line. We are protecting and even increasing funding for services for deaf children, and I have to say that it is very disappointing that other local authorities are not demonstrating the same wisdom.

Any cuts take place in a context in which too many deaf children are already underachieving, as the House has heard, and are simply not getting the support they need. I know that many colleagues will agree with me that the Minister needs to send a strong signal to all local authorities that the money that is intended for special educational needs should be used for those needs.

One solution to the general problem might well be to see what more could be done on a regional basis, particularly given the current economic climate. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that. Deafness is a low-incidence disability and the complex needs of deaf children are not something that many local authorities, particularly smaller authorities, appear able to address on their own. The available research, to which the NDCS has drawn attention, is pretty damning. Many local authorities employ two or fewer visiting teachers of the deaf, and it is impossible to see how such small teams can provide the specialist support needed by all the deaf children and their families in those areas. We are, of course, as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) mentioned, too often talking about families who cannot or who are not in a position to fight the system. Sometimes they come to us to do it for them, but they are often disadvantaged families and we should be doing everything we can to help their equally disadvantaged children.

I have spoken about Frank Barnes, which is one of the few schools in the country that provides a bilingual approach to teaching where deaf children learn sign language and English together. That is critical, because, as I pointed out in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon, all the research in this area tells us that communication in the early years, however it is achieved, is critical for life outcomes. Schools such as Frank Barnes therefore have an important role to play as centres of excellence and more should perhaps be done both to support them and to use the resources which they offer to other schools in their areas. Specialist schools across the country have the scope to innovate in teaching, but that is too often not the case in mainstream education, where there is so much focus on inclusion—inclusion that can too often, for deaf children, become exclusionary.

For my part, I think the Government could considerably improve provision by encouraging local authorities to work together to commission services on a regional basis and to work with centres of excellence such as Frank Barnes. Some authorities have perhaps already recognised that, but others have yet to do so, presumably because they lack the necessary expertise in dealing with the education of deaf children to realise that it is necessary. I want to hear from the Minister the Government’s views on whether any steps can be taken to encourage the regional commissioning of services for low-incidence special needs, and for deafness in particular.

The House has already heard something about the inspection regime and the recommendations of the NDCS. Teachers of the deaf play an important role in supporting deaf children and their families and I know that the Department for Education recognises that. Many parents, teachers and other professionals—I now add my voice to theirs—are concerned by the anomaly that schools are inspected by Ofsted but education services are not.

We must ask ourselves why, in 2013, a parent of a deaf child at a school such as Frank Barnes can be confident that their child is getting a good education because the school has been inspected, but a parent of a deaf child in a nearby mainstream school cannot? The Government must look at that anomaly and fix it, and I hope to hear from the Minister that the Government are considering requiring Ofsted to inspect all educational services for deaf children.

At the same time, schools also need more guidance on progression trajectories for deaf children and how they differ between mainstream and specialist schools. In the past, special schools for the deaf have requested comparative data reports, similar to reports that were previously produced under the performance and assessment—PANDA—system to support the benchmarking of pupil attainment and other measures. There is currently no way of comparing the performances of SEN schools, as the direct comparison of data has apparently stopped, and that cannot help special schools to make progress.

Ofsted says, as I understand it, that it is unable to provide the data because of the challenges of categorising pupils who are deaf or those with special educational needs, but it fails to suggest how, without reliable data, professionals can assess how well deaf children are doing or how, for that matter, local authorities can properly commission services.

Without proper data on deafness, as on all special needs, local authorities cannot plan ahead and cannot know what they have to commission for the future. The point has, I know, been stressed by the Department for Education in the draft special educational needs code of practice, recently published for consultation, but more can be done. For example, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) said, the school census captures only about two thirds of deaf children, as they are only identified if they have been formally assessed as having a special educational need. I hope that the Department will wish to look into whether that can be improved by looking at what data are required from schools in the census.

Those who know more about these things than I do also tell me that part of the problem with getting accurate data is that even now there are no agreed definitions to help identify which children are deaf. I have to say to the Minister that that is not an acceptable state of affairs. The Government must work, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon said, with professional bodies to agree on suitable definitions to enable data to be collected more effectively.

In the time available, let me come to specialist teaching. I have already noted that the high needs block within the dedicated schools grant for local authorities will include funding for specialist support services, including peripatetic teachers of the deaf, and that is no doubt to be welcomed. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) noted in an intervention, around 80% of teachers of the deaf are now over the age of 50. This is at a time when the number of training departments appears to be reducing. The Minister and the Department therefore need to think now about succession planning for teachers of the deaf, because action must be taken to maintain specialism funding and to give more support for, for example, specialist masters degrees, including funding for schools to provide cover while teachers study.

Let me end by saying that, although there is still much to be done, the future is much rosier than it once looked. Lengthy battles like the one I had to fight to keep Frank Barnes open because the previous Government had formulated the law so that special schools closed, look as though they are now history. Good local authorities, like mine in Lincolnshire, understand much better the issues that surround deaf education and the need to deploy appropriate resources.

This debate and the NDCS report reveal, however, that although things are perhaps rosier, they are simply not perfect. So the Government need to act, and to act now. It is worth doing so not merely because deaf children are children just like any others—entitled to the best education and the best start in life that we can give them—but because the costs to other services in the long term are much reduced by good early intervention that improves life chances. Helping deaf children to learn and communicate makes their lives much easier; it means that they are more likely to find employment; it means that they are less likely to develop mental health problems due to feelings of alienation from a society of which they are, after all, part. The case made by the NDCS in its report, as reflected in the motion before the House, is unanswerable. It is one that I respectfully suggest that the Minister must listen to.

16:47

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on securing this important and well-informed debate. I take this opportunity, as others have done, to thank him for his dedication and commitment as founder and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness and for his assiduous campaigning for the recognition of British sign language. I know from attending and speaking at the Signature conference that he chaired last year how his inspiring work and unstinting efforts have led to a growing recognition of the support required to help deaf children and young people achieve their potential.

I would also like to recognise the tireless work that the National Deaf Children’s Society does to support deaf children and their families. It manages to balance working with my Department on projects such as I-Sign with powerful campaigning to hold Government both local and national to account. The 51,000 signatures received in support of holding this debate are testament to this campaigning, and to the importance of getting support for special educational needs right.

A whole number of pertinent points and issues have been raised by hon. Members from all parties about attainment, funding, access, support, data, inspection and the wider special educational need reforms. In the short time that I have, I will do my best to address as many of those points as possible, but where I fail to do so, I will endeavour to write to hon. Members to make sure that they have a full response to the questions and points that they have raised.

The Government are clear that the most important service for all children and young people is high-quality teaching. That is why we have ensured that funding is protected, maintaining the amount per pupil at the same cash level this year as last year. In this context, a number of hon. Members rightly raised concerns about the attainment gap between deaf children and their peers. That is a key indicator of whether deaf children are receiving high-quality teaching.

Although we must see further progress in this area, we should recognise the enormous progress that has been made so far. In 2011-12, 71% of deaf children achieved five or more A* to C grades at GCSE compared with just 43% in 2007-08. For non-SEN pupils, the figures are 90% and 75% respectively. Over that period, deaf pupils progressed at approximately twice the rate of their peers, closing the attainment gap significantly—a testament to the pupils themselves, as well as to the work of sensory support services across the country. Improvements in teaching practice and technological advances mean that deaf children are now far more likely to achieve their potential than five years ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly raised concerns about the slight decline in good GCSE passes over the past year. We must, of course, be alert to that, but it is important to note that progress in those subjects has also increased markedly over the past four years: 37% of deaf pupils now achieve that standard, compared to 28% in 2007-08. However, that is still not good enough. Clearly, we all want to see progress continue. We are committed to improving the training that teachers and school leaders receive to help them identify where pupils with hearing loss face barriers to learning and to offer appropriate support, an issued raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and by the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), who speaks with such authority, based on his own personal experiences.

The National Scholarship Fund provides funding of up to £3,500 for teachers’ postgraduate qualifications and training, including specialist training for teachers of the deaf. Funding of £2,000 is available to support teaching assistants and support staff to improve their skills in SEN. Some 600 teachers have achieved or are working towards a qualification related to SEN and a further 500 have applied for the current funding round. We have also worked with the NDCS to update and increase schools’ access to information on deaf-friendly teaching and on specific issues such as managing the transition to secondary school and teaching phonics for pupils with a hearing impairment. As we reform the SEN system we will work with the National Sensory Impairment Partnership—NatSIP—to provide advice and information to schools on effective support for deaf pupils.

As well as taking steps to improve the quality of education, we are taking significant steps to secure access to it for deaf children and others with disabilities and SEN. Under the Equalities Act 2010, schools and other education providers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people to alleviate any substantial disadvantage they experience because of their disability, and they must not discriminate against them. If, after those adjustments have been made, children and young people need special educational provision or specialist services, the duties that schools, local authorities and others have in relation to special educational needs come into play. The Children and Families Bill, which includes our reforms to this area, is currently being debated in the other place. I shall say more about those changes a little later.

The NDCS is concerned that, as things stand, services for deaf children risk being undermined by cuts. We have heard some examples of that this afternoon. I want to reassure the House that we have ensured that all local authorities have as much funding for SEN in 2013-14 as they had in 2012-13. The NDCS acknowledges that the Government have protected funding for vulnerable learners. Local authorities decide what SEN services to provide for children and young people, including services for deaf children, and how much to spend on them, from the funding that we supply.

The services that local authorities typically provide, either directly or by commissioning other providers, include services for visual, hearing and physical impairment; specific learning difficulties; speech, language and communication; profound and severe learning difficulties; and autism. Local authorities are reporting that they are spending no less on their SEN services this year than they spent last year. Through their local funding formula, they also include in delegated schools budgets a clear amount of funding intended to meet the needs of pupils with additional needs, including those with SEN or disabilities. Special schools and other schools with special units often use their budgets to develop particular specialist services, including those for pupils with hearing impairments. I have seen that for myself in Springfield special school in Crewe in my constituency. Where necessary, schools receive extra top-up funding from their local authority for the additional support costs of pupils with the greatest needs.

We are committed to ensuring that the needs of children with SEN are met. We have been clear with local authorities—I re-emphasis the point now—that they should prioritise vital front-line services for vulnerable children. However, we should not forget that the current financial climate, as Members have acknowledged today, means that everyone in Government, both local and national, has to make tough decisions to ensure that the limited resources are spent most effectively.

We know that it can be challenging for local authorities to provide services for young people whose needs are less common, so we are encouraging them to work together on such provision. I heard the point my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) made about regional commissioning, and I will certainly look at that as part of the work we are doing and the reforms we are undertaking. Where services have to be changed, that should be done with a careful assessment of the impact on families, and those assessments should involve the families.

With regard to specialist support, local authorities support parents of deaf children to communicate with them through teachers of the deaf and sensory support services. The Department for Education is working with voluntary and community groups to enable local areas to benchmark the support they provide to deaf children and to access tools and information on the most effective approaches. That includes the £1.1 million we have given to NatSIP to carry out a benchmarking exercise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others mentioned the importance of early support. I hope that they will be pleased to hear that we have also funded the development of an early support guide for parents of deaf children and the I-Sign project to develop a family sign language programme. We are continuing to fund the I-Sign consortium to build on the learning from that project and improve the availability of sign language support for parents and families.

As the NDCS has set out, most deaf children attend mainstream schools, some with additional specialist units offering support on site. Assessments on how well those schools perform will be made as part of Ofsted’s school inspection regime. The new Ofsted inspection frameworks, introduced in September 2012, place a clear emphasis on meeting the needs of disabled pupils and pupils with SEN and considering the quality of teaching and the progress made by those pupils.

I know that the NDCS and Members are calling for an alternative approach in which Ofsted would inspect the local authority services that work with schools to support deaf pupils, and there is some initial appeal in that, but the same argument could be made for pupils with autism, speech and language needs or dyslexia. However, I understand that this is part of a wider question about the inspection of the reformed SEN system, and I expect it to continue to be discussed as the Children and Families Bill progresses.

Aside from the role that Ofsted could play, I want to stress that the SEN reforms will preserve and enhance legal protections for families who want to challenge councils through their involvement in determining local provisions. The two deaf young people who are directly advising my Department on our SEN reforms have made it clear that they want to see reforms which provide legal protections; establish a better system for identifying need and commissioning services across education, health and social care; ensure that the services provided match local needs as accurately as possible; and ensure that families do not have to battle to get those services. That is what our reforms are intended to do.

I want to leave a few moments for my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon to close the debate. It is clear that this has been a thoughtful, sincere and passionate debate that has provided us all with an opportunity not only to celebrate excellence where it exists, including in Swindon, but to challenge and question what more could be done to ensure that deaf children and young people get the right support at the right time so that they can flourish and thrive. I will take away the many excellent points and suggestions made by hon. Members, particularly my right hon. Friend, and consider them carefully as our reforms move closer towards implementation. The Government’s message is clear: we share his ambition and desire to give deaf children the best possible start in life and will continue to work with him in that shared endeavour.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If I am to put the Question before the motion lapses, I need to do so at 4.59 pm.

16:58

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his constructive and courteous response and for undertaking to follow up on those points in detail. I thank all Members who have contributed to this well-informed debate. The Minister has responded to the point about Ofsted, but there is a worry that although SEN might be maintained, switches could take place that disadvantage deaf people. We want there to be special attention to ensure that deaf children are not disadvantaged. I take the point about other categories, but I think that we are entitled at least to ask for a process by which that can be done.

On the regional issue, which was also a good point, I note that in Sweden schools for the deaf are provided in every region and parents have the right to choose whether they send their children to a special school or a mainstream one. I believe that is something we should address.

We have had a very good debate. The Minister is very engaged in the subject and we look forward to working with him. I also thank the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) for his constructive comments. This is something that we can do together, and with real commitment we can improve the quality of life for all deaf children.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House recognises the importance of services for deaf children and young people and acknowledges the wide attainment gap; further recognises that communications support for deaf children and their parents is vital for social development and educational progress; acknowledges that the Government has stated there is an expectation that funding for vulnerable learners is protected, but is concerned about recent evidence uncovered by the National Deaf Children’s Society which shows that in 2013-14 over a third of local authorities plan to cut education services for deaf children; urges the Government to take steps to hold local authorities to account and support parents in doing so, including by asking Ofsted to inspect these vital services, improving access to communication support including sign language, and strengthening the Children and Families Bill currently before Parliament; and further urges the Government to deliver and implement reform of special educational needs.

Daniel Pelka

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(John Penrose.)

17:00

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Let me say, Mr Speaker, how graced we are by your again being in the Chair for our debate.

This is a very important debate. I hope that one or two other Members who have an interest, apart from the Minister, to whom I spoke two weeks ago, will find it beneficial. I labelled it “The Lessons of Daniel Pelka in Coventry”, which happens to be my own constituency. It is a horrid shock to MPs who have never had anything like this happen in their constituency before but have to get to grips with it as part of the job. As so much is taking place at the moment around the discussion groups, this debate is a unique opportunity for us, as a small group in the House, to see what might be done and what might be improved. One thing is for sure: there has been report after report, study after study, and still we get these dreadful incidents from time to time, all too frequently.

Some people say to me, “It will always happen—don’t worry about it. It’s bound to happen and you can’t stop it.” I find that repugnant. I cannot believe that Daniel Pelka, whose home was visited 27 times following domestic violence incidents, who turned up at school getting thinner and thinner, who was showing bruises and was clearly being maltreated in every other respect, needed to die. I cannot accept it; it seems ludicrous to me. We have to find a much better way of dealing with the situation in an improved way, step by step; I am not saying that it can all be put right at once. I want to put forward four points for consideration, if not action.

I very much thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who is a great expert in this area, and has done a tremendous amount and mounted campaign after campaign on it, for suggesting that my focus in terms of the Coventry report—she had read before I did, typically—should be on the fact that nobody spoke to the child. The poor child was going to school starving, being beaten up, and in the end clubbed and killed, and nobody tried to speak to him. One of the answers given is that he was Polish. Well, there are Polish-speaking people we could draw on, as we saw the other night in Wembley—although they are not exactly the experts that we would want for that.

The first thing we have to do is to make it very clear that in any one of these cases where there is a failure to speak to the child, consequences should follow. Nobody wants witch hunts or people being sacked, but they clearly cannot follow the basic instructions for getting into a dialogue with the child, who admittedly may be too young.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Robinson]

I am delighted to do so.

[Ann Coffey]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important debate. We all want to see life made better for some of our most abused children. A few weeks ago I visited an organisation called Triangle in Brighton, which is strongly committed to helping children who have been harmed and abused to communicate their experiences, and I saw the extraordinary work that it does using drawings. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is very important that that kind of expertise is made available throughout the United Kingdom so that we can better help children to communicate their experiences and intervene in their lives before they are abused and killed?

[Mr Robinson]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, it might have been plagiarism—I hope that is not an inappropriate word—but that was another idea I was going to take from her. We should have not one huge centre but various centres in which creative means of communicating with difficult children are imaginatively developed and explored. The day before Daniel Pelka died, a teacher was found in another school in Coventry—there are loads of them—to talk to him. She happened to be Polish and was able to speak the language, but that is not good enough. It is pathetic that things got to that stage.

I agree with my hon. Friend, so let us make that our No.1 point: children must be talked to and we should develop a whole area of useful specialisations, as opposed to a load of paper that gets churned out continually. Children could tell us what their parents look like by using diagrams. We might start to learn something and it could tell quite a story.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the need to talk to the child. The situation was even worse in this case, because I gather that they relied on another child in the family to communicate with him, which obviously is not appropriate.

There is a big issue of social workers being fobbed off at the door. When social workers are dealing with communities that are not naturally fluent in English, we need to make sure that they have people alongside them who can communicate in the relevant language so that they are not fobbed off by communication difficulties, let alone by all the problems involved in crossing the threshold and finding out exactly what is going on. This is a real problem for some of the incoming communities, particularly those from eastern Europe.

[Mr Robinson]

Yes, that is a problem. Let us think creatively and commonsensically about how we can deal with it. It will not be enough to train a whole load of interpreters to become experts in Polish, arts and crafts and other languages and grammars. We need the same sort of practical thinking as inventive mothers who work part time and know how to do things with their kids.

I do not want to be unkind to the Minister, because he inherited the situation and was gracious and courteous enough to agree to meet me on the afternoon the case review was published, but at that meeting he said, “I think we’re going to make a big difference now,” and produced a 74-page document full of all sorts of jargon. The Minister should not worry, because I will say something else to qualify my comments in a moment. The document was statutory guidance, which is an oxymoron—it is either statutory or it is guidance; it cannot be both. The Minister said, “Well, Geoffrey, if you think that’s feeble, it was 700 pages when I got it.” Think of all the time, effort, pen-pushing and talking that is going on, and yet we cannot find a means of getting through to a young kid because he speaks a different language. It does not make any sense at all.

Secondly—I owe a good deal to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport for this point, too—the lines of responsibility have to be much clearer. Who is responsible? I thank the well meaning and extremely professional National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and half a dozen other agencies, as well as probably a dozen people from other constituencies who have been, or fear they will be, affected by this issue, for their response to tonight’s debate. The first recommendation in the NSPCC’s briefing paper is:

“Front-line agencies must see and listen to the child”.

That is sensible and we all agree with it, but it then states in a green box:

“All notifications of domestic abuse should be sent to a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)”.

What sort of line of communication is that? What it amounts to is a mishmash. We see that more and more.

It is not that the agencies are not talking to each other. They probably are not as good at communicating with each other as they should be and improvement is necessary, but the problem is that we do not know who is responsible. The NSPCC says that a lead is needed. It is not a lead that is needed, but somebody who is responsible for the case and who knows that he is responsible for it. I am sorry, I should have said “he or she”, because the only person who had the guts to put a foot in the door and leave it there was a female youth community officer, who did a fantastic job and found out that the abuse was going on.

MASH just about sums up what is wrong. What we need is clearer lines of communication.

[Tim Loughton]

I am loth to intervene again in case the hon. Gentleman does not get on to his other points, but I must say that the MASH is the way to go. It allows all the different agencies to communicate with each other better because they sit next to each other in the same room. In a relatively short period of time, all the relevant people can come together and swap information. Importantly, somebody then picks up the ball and acts on what has been said. That is the responsible person to whom the hon. Gentleman rightly refers. It is happening more effectively in MASHs than it has done before. That is why most London authorities and most other authorities in the country are going that way. It is the way to go.

[Mr Robinson]

I am delighted to hear that and I wish the hon. Gentleman well with it. I hope that it works. However, a MASH can work only if at the end of all the talking—I accept that that has to happen, because there is no other way of getting everybody to know what they need to know—there is a clear line of responsibility. Somebody has to write the minutes, somebody has to say what will be done and there must be a clearly identifiable responsible person or group of people who are charged with carrying it through. Otherwise, it will not happen.

The MASH is a committee and committees do not do anything. It serves the useful purpose of bringing people together so that they can talk and exchange the information that they need to know about. What is missing from the system is a clear way of saying at the end of the meeting what the conclusions and recommendations are. Those must be very short. A person or group of people—a lead, or whatever you want to call them—must then be responsible for carrying out those recommendations.

That was certainly what was missing in Coventry. There was meeting after meeting. Everybody was grouped together and the information was being exchanged. However, when the dreadful news broke, I asked who was actually responsible. The reply was that we were all responsible. If we are all responsible, no one is. We must not be afraid of allocating responsibilities and ensuring that they are carried out. If they are not, retraining is always a good option. People do not have to be sacked. We are not like that on this side of the House. However, people in the country cannot accept that the head of the department, Colin Green, resigned a few days or weeks before the report came out and was appointed to exactly the same position elsewhere. That was wrong. What sort of confidence does that provide?

That point reminds me of another Adjournment debate that I secured about a distinguished surgeon at Walsgrave who was almost sacked because he had reported somebody else. It turned out that the chief executive of the hospital was not up to the job—there were a whole series of these cases—and all six neighbouring MPs served by that hospital called for his resignation. He was sacked—well, that was what it was called, but within six months he was back in charge at Birmingham Heartlands hospital. It is unbelievable what such a network of controls can do.

My next point will, I am sure, again be contentious for the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and others who are a bit on the side of the establishment, because it concerns the compositions of serious case reviews. Each area has its own chairman—that is all it has, actually—and lay members. When it comes to the inquiry, the chairman or chairwoman brings in a rapporteur, a writer of the report, and both she and he know each other—I am not suggesting that is wrong; it could sometimes be very helpful—and have written many of these reports in the past, either together or separately. Already in my book that does not seem quite right. It is not independent, and the essence of the serious case review is that it must be seen to be independent.

My last point—I have left plenty of time for the Minister—concerns Ann Lucas, whom I begged to carry out an independent report. “Why should I be the only one to put Coventry through that when nobody else has ever done it?”—she did not say that, but that was what I felt she felt. That would have meant a completely new board, fresh blood, with people who did not know the situation in Coventry or the chair of the Coventry group, and who had a completely dispassionate view.

I do not think anybody would agree any longer with the police investigating the police. Why should the civil servants who had administered the case in question be those who were the team supporting the independent chair—she was independent—and the so-called appointed independent rapporteur, or reporter? He wrote the report and one could see he is a professional. Every perfect piece of civil service-ese was in it; it could not be faulted. However, out of that comes nothing so far, and so Ann Lucas wrote to me and asked whether I would relay this message to the House tonight. She is an outstanding council leader who has been in the job about six months. She was distraught to find that she had inherited this case, and she went along with a traditional conventional review. She said that

“we need a national debate around safeguarding issues—

that is obvious—

“with the setting up of a Commons Select Committee to take evidence from all concerned. From politicians, from front-line workers, from all agencies, social workers, the police, health agencies—including GPs, hospitals, health visitors and schools. And very importantly, from experts working with Domestic Violence”,

in which she is an expert.

I do not know whether that is a runner, but I am clear that I do not see it ever working—I have not left the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham time to add his comprehensive view. We need a more forensic direct attack. For example, there were four or five points at which Daniel Pelka could have been saved. That is clear. We need a mechanism so that when such a point is reached—I guess the people doing it did not know—or anything like that, the man at the top should be informed. We need a mechanism to intervene and bring things to a head, and in a way it is about management. I hope those points will have helped the Minister in his reply.

17:19

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) on securing this important, timely and serious debate. The tragic case of Daniel Pelka is a stark reminder to us that we can and must do more to ensure the safety and well-being of our children. It was helpful to meet the hon. Gentleman recently to discuss the findings of the serious case review in Coventry and its implications. I welcome the opportunity to set out the steps that are being taken to ensure that we fully understand what went wrong and why, and ensure that any individual and collective failures are identified and addressed.

National accountability for child protection rests squarely with the Department for Education, working closely with other Departments. However, all of us have a part to play in keeping our children safe. In March 2013, we published revised statutory guidance—“Working Together to Safeguard Children”. I was pleased the hon. Gentleman mentioned the scything of the original document from 700 pages to just over 70, which was quite a feat in anybody’s language. The guidance clearly states that anyone concerned about a child’s welfare should bring it to the attention of the relevant authorities.

It is also clear that the focus of our attention must be on the needs of individual children rather than on the interests of adults. The serious case review by the Coventry safeguarding children board showed that, although many professionals were concerned about Daniel, they did not speak to him or focus efficiently on either his experiences or his needs. Our statutory guidance is clear that, if someone is concerned about the safety of a child, they should refer them to the local authority children’s social care and ensure that they take into account the wishes and feelings of the child. That is abundantly clear and should happen in every case but, too often, Daniel was not at the heart of the assessment process. His needs were completely overshadowed by the perceived needs of his mother and her welfare.

I was pleased that the SCR was published swiftly and without redaction—my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has argued for that practice for a long time. It is important that reports are published in full so that the lessons are transparent and can be learned. The report highlights a number of basic practice failures, across a range of agencies, to share information, keep accurate records, use those records appropriately, and carry out robust assessments of Daniel’s needs adequately. As the hon. Gentleman has said, there were numerous opportunities to intervene and examples of concerned professionals who wanted to do the right thing, but no decisive intervention was made.

The purpose of any serious case review is not only to provide a retrospective description of what happened in the case; nor is it simply to apportion blame to individuals. An SCR should provide a sound analysis of why the incident happened and identify the issues on which agencies need to act individually and collectively to improve services for children. The SCR in Daniel’s case begins that process, but I believe that Coventry needs to deepen the analysis to address why failings occurred.

[Mr Robinson]

I intervene on the Minister to pay him a compliment. There were five or six occasions when intervention should have happened, and he has asked in his letter why it did not. There is not a word on that in the SCR, so I hope he gets some satisfactory answers.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Without that type of analysis, we cannot be confident that the lessons have been learned. We need to be able to distinguish between errors of practice and errors of judgment, and identify where there are systemic weaknesses. That is why I have asked for that further work.

As he knows, on 16 September, I wrote to Amy Weir, the independent chair of the Coventry safeguarding children board—I should emphasise her independence and the fact that the writer of the serious case review is appointed independently from the local authority—to set out my concerns about the serious case review. I was clear that, unless we get to the bottom of why things happened, we will be unable to put the right solutions in place. I have asked her to provide a time scale for carrying out a deeper analysis of that appalling case; why basic information was not recorded properly both between and within agencies; why information needed to protect Daniel was not shared between the relevant agencies; why four separate assessments by children’s social care fail to identify the risk to Daniel; and what oversight there was of those decisions. I have also requested details of the actions that have already been taken to respond to the report’s findings, including the support and training put in place for professionals involved in the case and more widely

I met Ms Weir yesterday and she was able to provide me with an update on the work that is taking place in response to the report’s recommendations. I was very clear with her, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members that I will continue to pay close attention to the evidence emerging from Coventry. The lessons identified by the deeper analysis will be made publicly available, which should give to the people of Coventry the confidence that the right actions have been taken in response to Daniel’s death and ensure that everyone with a role in safeguarding children has the opportunity to reflect on their own practice.

We will also consider whether the lessons from the analysis have national implications, something touched on by the hon. Gentleman. The Government remain focused on driving through our programme of reform of the child protection system, building on recommendations from a wide range of reports and inquiries, including the Munro review, the Education Committee report and Lord Carlile’s report into the Edlington case. I remind the hon. Gentleman, in response to the point he made towards the end of his contribution, that there has been a recent inquiry by the Select Committee into child protection, which is being reopened to consider what progress has been made, and he might want to make his views known to it. The lessons from Daniel Pelka’s tragic death, and those of Keanu Williams and Hamzah Khan, will add to that body of evidence. The Government are requiring the publication of serious case reviews for the very reason that it enables national lessons to be learned. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is helping to collate the analysis at a single point, so that social workers and other front-line practitioners can understand how they can benefit from it.

We want a child protection system where all children at risk of abuse or neglect are identified early, have timely and proportionate assessments of their individual needs, and receive the right services at the right time. That is why we are fundamentally reforming the system to put the needs of individual children at its heart. We want a system that fits the needs of children and not the other way around. We have strengthened the framework underpinning child protection by publishing the revised “Working Together to Safeguard Children” statutory guidance. It is clear that the needs of individual children, whatever their age, are paramount. That puts the needs of children back at the heart of assessment processes by removing the requirement to have separate initial and core assessments.

Good practice is out there. We have had a discussion about the merits of multi-agency safeguarding hubs. I have had the opportunity to visit some myself, and they are doing fantastic work in their co-location with different agencies. They are sitting in the same room talking to each other, rather than communicating via computer or at a greater distance. That helps to bring about joint responsibility. It is not a panacea, but it is one way of working more closely together to provide a better service.

We want social workers who are able to confidently identify, assess, decide and act on individual cases where children are at risk of abuse or neglect. We want social workers who have a commitment to self-improvement and are not afraid to challenge one another. We want managers who provide appropriate and timely support and supervision to their staff. That is why we are seeking a step change in the quality of the contribution that those entering the profession can make. The Frontline programme is providing an innovative route into the profession for top graduates, and the Step Up to Social Work programme is doing the same thing for high-calibre career changers. We are introducing reforms to support better local and national leadership, which in turn should help to create a more confident profession. The newly appointed first ever chief social worker for children and families, Isabelle Trowler, will provide leadership for the profession and help to drive improvement in front-line practice.

We want to see stronger leadership, accountability and learning in the system, and less variability in local authority safeguarding performance. From next month, Ofsted will be using a reformed inspection framework that will bring child protection services for looked-after children and care leavers, and local authority fostering and adoption services, into a single inspection. We are setting up an innovative arrangement in Doncaster to run social care services independently from the council. It is this kind of innovative approach that is needed to bring about a fundamental shift in the quality of our child protection services.

I am enormously grateful for the support and concern that the hon. Gentleman has given to this issue today. He knows as well as I the challenge we still face to prevent such tragedies. I take the deaths of Daniel Pelka, Keanu Williams and Hamzah Khan as stark reminders of the work we still have to do. As I said at the time of the publication of the serious case review, this is as important as anything the Government do.

17:30

House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)).